JH Capital was a company founded by the Baeksan Faction, which had controlled Noryangjin Fish Market in the '90s, and a huge organization with several hundred members on its own roster.
Their main business could be divided broadly into three.
Predatory loan-sharking, running illegal gambling, and property speculation.
They did not shy away from filthier work like drugs or human trafficking either, but the revenue stream that held up the organization's foundations was by far these three businesses.
The reason they had approached Chae Geon-uk lately was precisely the third of them, the property business.
Having bought information on the Guryong-dong redevelopment and made a tidy profit off it, they grew greedier. Rather than paying a high price for information every time, they decided to swallow the source whole.
The lobby of the JH Capital building.
The revolving door turned and a man came into the lobby.
A black cap, a black mask, a black jacket. A man dressed in black from head to foot.
A heavily built guard who had been reading a magazine at the lobby desk rose from his seat and blocked the man's path.
"What is your business here?"
Under the black cap, Go Tae-min's eyes curved into narrow lines.
"I'm here with a delivery."
"A delivery? At this hour? I haven't been notified of anything."
The guard looked Go Tae-min over with eyes full of suspicion.
It was past 2 a.m.
The guard was not enough of an idiot to take the word of a pitch-black intruder with only his eyes showing at face value.
"Who is it addressed to? I'll need to verify, so would you mind taking the mask off first."
The guard asked while moving his hand toward the emergency bell under the desk.
Go Tae-min laughed with a short hiss of air behind the mask.
"6th floor. It's for Managing Director Jo."
"For the Managing Director?"
"Yes. He's ordered a whole lot. Ever heard of a funeral set?"
The guard's brow narrowed.
Just as, on an ominous premonition, he put strength into his finger to press the emergency bell.
SHHK—
A short whoosh of cut air.
Bright red blood spurted out of the throat of the guard who had been reaching for the bell.
"Guh, kahuck......"
Having opened the guard's throat and put him to sleep, Go Tae-min pressed the elevator call button as casually as if he were at home.
"Who the hell is that!"
"Emergency! Emergency in the lobby!"
A moment later the security room door banged open and gang members came pouring out.
All of them were in black suits, but what they held in their hands was not briefcases: they were keenly honed sashimi knives.
Go Tae-min tipped his head and took the knife in a slanted grip.
"This lunatic!"
Six gang members charged him in total.
Go Tae-min's body slipped between them like a ghost.
SHHK!
With a single pass of the blade he opened the throat of the man in front, then cut down the chests and flanks of the ones following without a moment's delay.
Exactly six swings.
A moment later, six corpses were sprawled across the lobby floor.
Go Tae-min shook the dripping knife off lightly, then stepped into the open elevator.
Through the closing gap in the doors, a clamorous emergency bell rang out through the whole building.
"Ah, the noise. Anyone watching would think they'd thrown me a grand welcome ceremony."
Go Tae-min raised the corner of his mouth at an angle and murmured.
***
At the sudden intruder, JH Capital went into chaos.
"What's with this punk!"
"The lobby's breached! Everybody out!"
"Where did this bastard come from!"
The moment a blood-soaked Go Tae-min appeared, the gang members who poured out into the corridor drew their sashimi knives, every one of them.
To these men, killing was routine. There was no such thing as hesitation about putting someone under and burying them.
Five or six men leveled their blades at Go Tae-min at once.
But......
'Too slow.'
Their attacks never once reached him.
He moved at his leisure along the trajectories of the red lines and swung his knife.
Gangsters' bladework, full of nothing but shallow killing intent and entirely without depth. To Go Tae-min it was no different from standing still.
As a result, a mere 10 minutes after entering the building.
Go Tae-min was able to come face to face with JH Capital's CEO and the boss of the Baeksan Faction, Baek Jong-hyeok.
Seated at the head of the room as he received Go Tae-min, Baek Jong-hyeok spoke slowly.
"Which is it? A grudge, or business?"
Go Tae-min let the dripping knife hang loose.
"Business with private feeling mixed into it. Your underlings touched something very expensive."
At that Baek Jong-hyeok wore a blank expression for a moment, then burst into an empty, rolling laugh.
"Ha ha, feelings in business...... that's some filthily unprofitable trading we've done."
He stopped laughing and gazed into the intruder's eyes.
The man in front of him was no thug rolling about in the shadows the way they were.
He was a being who operated somewhere far deeper, in the abyss.
It was because he was a monster like that that he had been able to kill dozens of men without a flicker and come this far.
"Tsk...... which is exactly why a man should look at where he'll lie down before he stretches out."
Baek Jong-hyeok murmured it bitterly.
He had a rough feel for where this man had come from too.
Managing Director Jo had apparently broken a taboo he should never have touched, without knowing his own place.
Baek Jong-hyeok put his last cigarette in his mouth.
Go Tae-min's blade swept level.
A moment later.
The clamorous emergency bell died away, and the whole JH Capital building sank into a heavy silence.
***
In the middle of Seoul, several hundred people died over the course of a single night.
But not a single line about the catastrophe was reported anywhere, on television or on the internet.
The reason was simple.
Chae Geon-uk had moved fast and drawn in the Taeseong Faction, the Baeksan Faction's rival organization.
The condition was handing over the Noryangjin interests the Baeksan Faction had held, along with JH Capital's assets. In return, they took on the cleanup and the disposal at the site.
To the Taeseong Faction it was an offer they could not refuse.
They mobilized dozens of vans to carry the bodies away discreetly, and the bloodstains in the JH Capital building were wiped away without a trace over a single night.
Word that all of the processing was finished arrived just before sunrise.
'That's one weight off, at least.'
Chae Geon-uk, who had been refreshing the news tab of a portal site all night, let out a breath of relief.
Go Tae-min had gotten blood on his hands in his place.
If the man had taken even the smallest wound, or had ended up in a courtroom dock he could never come back from, Chae Geon-uk would never have forgiven himself for the rest of his life.
'That was a long night.'
Chae Geon-uk leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes.
As the tension let go, only then did it feel as though the strength were draining out of his whole body.
Honestly, he hadn't expected Go Tae-min to move quite that willingly.
Normally the junior behaved as he pleased, as though nothing touched him.
But the moment he learned the man's family was in danger, he had taken up a blade and gone out without hesitation.
This debt......
A day to repay it would come someday.
'Right, time for a rest...... huh?'
Chae Geon-uk's hand, lifting his heavy body to go home, faltered. A new email notification had arrived on the monitor just before it went dark.
The sender was Nova Arena's Korean Branch. A place that had no business contacting him at present.
Chae Geon-uk's brow narrowed.
'What is this.'
Strength went into the fingertips holding the mouse.
The email's subject line was short and plain, but its contents were by no means light.
[Notice of Veil Legion visit and inspection schedule]
Notification that the Korean branch would be visiting in person.
No reason was written, but the timing was the worst possible.
'Why? My paperwork should have been perfect.'
It was a Legion thrown together in a hurry for Go Tae-min, but on paper he could claim with confidence that he had left no gap anywhere.
But the Korean branch moving in person meant they had caught a scent of something.
'This is no time to be sitting around.'
If the fact that he had founded a Legion fraudulently were discovered, everything was finished.
Pro License suspension. And permanent revocation of the right to found a Legion.
That would mean snapping the wings of a Go Tae-min who had only just taken up a blade.
"Hey, hey! Go Tae-min, get up!"
Chae Geon-uk shook Go Tae-min awake where he was sleeping in the lounge.
"......Mm, what is it, hyung."
"The Nova Arena people are coming. The email just arrived."
"Let them come, I suppose......"
"This isn't just coming! An inspection team moving in person means something's gone wrong."
Chae Geon-uk explained the situation while suppressing his burning insides.
But Go Tae-min answered without concern, in a voice still half asleep.
"If they strip the license I'll just dig out a new one. I started out anonymous from the beginning anyway. What's the rush?"
"That was only possible while no physical data was stored. You're completely bound into the system now. Don't you remember unlocking the Waldstein Series with your fingerprint when it was delivered?"
"......Ah."
"The moment your physical data was registered on Nova's servers, your account became one of a kind. Get thrown out of here and you'll never set foot in the Arena again."
Go Tae-min stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment, then scratched his head as if it were a nuisance.
"Ah, I don't know. If it comes to it I'll just dig out a new body. In the spirit of being born again."
"Stop joking around and get up! There's no time for a comedy routine right now."
Under Chae Geon-uk's blue-steel pressure, Go Tae-min had no choice but to get up, grumbling.
After that Chae Geon-uk moved busily.
First he called in the other four Pro License holders who had existed on paper only.
So-called B-grade mercenaries whom Chae Geon-uk normally managed and threw a bit of pocket money to.
He pushed draft membership contracts at them with a generous layer of hush money on top.
"There's nothing to get straight. Just think of yourselves as belonging to this Legion from today. In front of the inspection team you only have to pretend to train."
Next were the training facilities.
Since he couldn't build a Legion's own center on the spot, he bought off the owner of the largest private gym nearby with money.
A hastily made sign reading 'Veil Legion Dedicated Training Center' went up at the gym entrance, and a variety of training equipment was arranged inside.
Add in hurriedly hired coaching staff and office workers moving about busily, and it took on a fairly plausible shape.
As a result, Chae Geon-uk was able to finish his preparations before the staff from Nova Arena's Korean branch arrived.
"Tae-min, you just carry on as usual. Don't act like you know anything, don't open your mouth. Got it?"
Go Tae-min, poking at a punching bag in the middle of the gym, nodded indifferently.
"Don't worry. I've done enough acting to be sick of it."
A moment later the gym door opened and a man and a woman in black suits walked in.
On their chests, silver Nova Arena logos gleamed coldly.
Chae Geon-uk swallowed dryly and stepped toward them.
"Hello. I'm Chae Geon-uk, the CEO of Veil Legion."
Chae Geon-uk put on the most courteous and yet unhurried smile he could manage and held out a hand.
The man at the head of the party took it.
Neatly combed-back hair and sharp eyes that were anything but ordinary.
"So you're the CEO. I'm Oh Hyeon-seok, Nova Arena's Korean Branch Director."
The instant he heard that name, Chae Geon-uk felt gooseflesh run up his spine.
'......The Branch Director came?'
Against his expectation that a simple working-level official would show up, a heavyweight had appeared.
For Branch Director Oh Hyeon-seok, who held every authority in Korean Nova Arena, to come out personally to inspect a mere newborn Legion was beyond common sense.
But Chae Geon-uk kept his poker face like the veteran he was and carried on smoothly.
"Oh, it's the Branch Director himself. It's an honor. Allow me to show you through."
Chae Geon-uk guided them inside without delay.
It was a facility thrown together, but on the surface it was as perfect as could be.
Mercenaries sweating away at their training, the latest equipment, and even systematically organized management documents.
Chae Geon-uk poured out the lines he had prepared as he walked.
"Our Veil aims at a small elite. As you can see, with five Pro License holders at the head, we've built a 24-hour training system through close partnership with the gym nearby."
"I see. The facilities are extremely good."
"This is the space where our warriors do their conditioning. We don't spare money on investing in equipment. As you'll know, stamina has to be in place before a man can survive a life-and-death fight."
"You're absolutely right."
But something was strange.
Oh Hyeon-seok's gaze, which Chae Geon-uk had assumed would comb the place as if putting a microscope to it, was scattering far too carelessly.
He didn't check the equipment's serial numbers, and he didn't probe into the Legion members' histories.
He simply circled the interior at his leisure, like a visitor looking around a museum.
"Perhaps because it's a small elite, it does look a little empty."
The place Oh Hyeon-seok stopped was the corner where Go Tae-min was hitting the punching bag.
In keeping with Chae Geon-uk's instructions, Go Tae-min was pushing out his fists in silence without so much as glancing over.
Oh Hyeon-seok's gaze rested on Go Tae-min's back for a moment.
Chae Geon-uk's heart began to beat as if it would burst.
'What is this? Don't tell me he's noticed?'
But Oh Hyeon-seok soon turned his eyes away and added briefly:
"Let's call the inspection done here. I think this will be sufficient."
It was a far more insipid conclusion than expected.
If the Branch Director had come in person, it would have been normal for him to shake out every speck of dust looking for something to catch, and yet he was behaving like a man who had come to put a formal stamp on paperwork he had already marked as passed.
Oh Hyeon-seok moved toward the entrance and held out a hand to Chae Geon-uk.
"I look forward to working with you from here on, CEO."
"......The pleasure is mine, Director."
Oh Hyeon-seok left the gym with his party, leaving behind a loaded smile.
To Chae Geon-uk, the sight of it came across as decidedly unsettling.
'......Nothing's going to come of this, surely?'
***
"How was it, Director?"
Nova Arena's Korean branch, in Gangnam, Seoul.
His secretary asked the question of an Oh Hyeon-seok who had come back earlier than expected.
But Oh Hyeon-seok gave no answer.
A man who on a normal day would have thrust out paperwork first, saying "the business plan was a mess. The equipment serial numbers don't match the register either. I can't approve a Legion this far short of the basics, so schedule a re-inspection", was now standing stopped in place like a man whose soul had left him.
A moment later, what came out of his mouth and broke the silence was a low murmur.
"He's insane, absolutely insane!"
"......?"
The color drained out of his secretary's face.
He had attended him for nearly 10 years and seen all manner of ugly situations, but it was the first time a reaction that urgent had burst out of Oh Hyeon-seok's mouth.
"Wh-What's the matter?"
Leaving his bewildered secretary behind, Oh Hyeon-seok yanked his tie loose and seized the water bottle on his desk.
Draining it straight from the bottle as if he hadn't the patience to pour a glass, he turned to his secretary with bloodshot eyes.
"It's a jackpot. This is genuinely...... an absurd jackpot."
"Pardon? What do you......"
Oh Hyeon-seok swept his hair back roughly with a trembling hand.
Then he lowered his voice, and yet let it out carrying a conviction strong enough to ring through the whole office.
"That Demon...... was Korean!"