I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 219

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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219 – Nemesis
219.
Zamboanga, Philippines.
Since the day news of Dennis’s death reached us,
Shin Jung-gi had not left his workshop.
The door was locked,
and thick blackout curtains blocked the sunlight from the windows.
The workshop was dark.
Only the lamp above the workbench,
and dozens of monitors illuminated the room.
Metal components lay scattered across the workbench.
Bullet casings and detonators.
Warhead blueprints.
Dozens of weapon design schematics were spread out in disarray.
Shin Jung-gi sat before the workbench with the face of someone who hadn’t slept or eaten in days.
He looked almost like a madman.
His mind was consumed by a single thought.
Revenge.
And Dennis’s face.
Those bastards who tried to kill Dennis—they must be laughing and talking somewhere right now, aren’t they?
The thought alone made my blood boil backwards.
I knew I shouldn’t get excited,
but every time I thought of Dennis, rage surged within me.
It was too hard to suppress.
I wanted to fire a gun immediately.
I wanted to launch a missile.
Shin Jung-gi slowly rose and walked to the opposite workbench.
The weapons there had completely different schematics from those he’d been developing moments before.
Missiles, large-scale explosive devices, tactical weapons, combat drones, biochemical weapons—blueprints were stacked densely.
Shin Jung-gi was a man who thought in terms of extreme efficiency.
Weapons were ultimately nothing but technology for killing people.
To kill people, he didn’t concern himself with safety mechanisms,
humanitarian restraint, or environmental concerns.
Only one thing.
How efficiently could people be killed?
That was what he focused on.
Yet there were weapons he had abandoned despite everything.
Weapons that simply didn’t yield results in efficiency.
Compared to the cost and energy invested,
they didn’t produce the lethality expected,
Weapons with devastating power, yet impossible to control.
Weapons too dangerous to handle.
Weapons so radical that I had deemed them premature and halted their development myself.
But now, every blueprint for such weapons lay spread across my workbench.
I was considering combining them to create something entirely new.
‘If I can kill these bastards, I can do anything.’
‘I’d sell my soul to the devil if it meant their deaths.’
Shin Jung-gi muttered to himself.
The more he thought this way, the more Boss Alex came to mind.
By now, he was likely already moving to avenge Dennis.
They hadn’t been in contact,
and with the door locked, he’d heard nothing,
but the Alex that Shin Jung-gi knew would certainly act that way.
At this moment, Alex was the only person Shin Jung-gi could truly rely on.
Because he believed Alex would take revenge for him, he could remain locked in this room conducting research.
Shin Jung-gi had only one task.
Develop weapons.
Develop the final weapon to drive into them.
He wanted to create the weapon that would kill them with his own hands.
The rest, the Boss would handle.
With only that belief, Shin Jung-gi barely kept moving.
Like a child, he depended entirely on Alex, crafting only weapons.
He focused on development, leaning on the powerful conviction that the Boss would take care of everything.
.
.
.
Knock, knock, knock.
A knocking sound came from outside the workshop door.
But Shin Jung-gi didn’t respond.
It was probably someone telling him to eat.
Someone come to tell him to rest.
He thought it was an annoying person trying to convince him.
So he gave no answer.
He simply immersed himself in his work.
But the knocking continued.
Knock, knock, knock.
Shin Jung-gi grew irritated.
Rather than open the door and lose his temper, he reached for his noise-canceling headphones.
He couldn’t afford to waste energy on anger.
As he grabbed the headphones, a voice came from beyond the door.
“… Shin Jung-gi.”
His hands froze.
A voice he rarely heard in ordinary circumstances.
Yet a voice he could never forget.
It was Boss Alex.
Shin Jung-gi stood motionless for a moment, then slowly walked to the door and unlocked it.
Click.
As the door swung open, Alex stood before him.
At the sight, Shin Jung-gi’s nose tingled.
His vision blurred.
Tears streamed down silently.
All the sorrow he had suppressed,
all the emotions he had forcibly contained came crashing down at once.
Shin Jung-gi couldn’t speak.
He simply pulled Alex into an embrace.
And began to weep like a child.
His gaunt shoulders heaved violently.
Tears and mucus flowed together.
He felt no shame.
He only poured out his grief.
Alex said nothing.
He quietly patted Shin Jung-gi’s back.
Once, twice, three times.
Until Shin Jung-gi had cried enough.
Until the weeping subsided.
.
.
.
Shin Jung-gi looked barely human.
More like a zombie, really.
From having locked himself in the workshop for days,
his body had visibly wasted away,
and a musty stench clung to him from lack of proper washing.
His hair was disheveled and tangled,
and his beard remained unkempt.
This was not the Shin Jung-gi who maintained his routines meticulously.
This was not the Shin Jung-gi who despised filth and poor hygiene with an almost obsessive intensity.
Always cold, always averse to displaying emotion.
Yet the moment he saw me, he broke down in tears.
At first, this unfamiliar version of Shin Jung-gi felt strange,
Given my relationship with Dennis, it was something I could fully understand.
The reason I let it slide when Shin Jung-gi didn’t attend the meeting in Johor Bahru was precisely because of this.
He needed sufficient time to grieve.
The workshop was as much of a mess as the sorrow Shin Jung-gi had endured.
Weapon blueprints, shell casings, and guns were scattered everywhere.
Among them lay half-finished cups of coffee.
Several paper cups were overflowing with cigarette butts.
As far as I knew, Shin Jung-gi didn’t drink coffee.
He always drank iced chocolate.
Dozens of monitors displayed various simulation results,
and unorganized blueprints were spread across the workbench.
Whether he’d conducted some simple experiments here,
the acrid smell of gunpowder was also mixed in the air.
Shin Jung-gi, who had been crying for quite some time, finally began to calm down.
He was barely able to compose himself.
I watched Shin Jung-gi settle into a chair and asked quietly.
“Did you get any sleep?”
Shin Jung-gi shook his head.
“… I don’t need it. I have work to do.”
Shin Jung-gi stood up again and moved to the workbench.
He pulled out a blueprint and unfolded it.
A project designated as ORCUS—the god of the grave.
It was a project I had seen before.
“Isn’t that something you shelved before?”
“That’s right. Back then, I couldn’t control the blast radius. But now there’s no need for that.”
Shin Jung-gi spoke matter-of-factly.
“What?”
“Back then, I sealed it away because I was worried about civilian casualties. But now there’s no reason to worry about that anymore.”
The expression on Shin Jung-gi’s face as he said this looked incredibly bitter.
ORCUS was what we commonly referred to as a thermobaric bomb—a class of weapon.
Conventional bombs create impact through the explosive force of the explosive itself.
But thermobaric bombs work differently.
First, the explosion disperses combustible material throughout the surrounding area.
Then that mixed air is ignited all at once.
At the moment of detonation, the surrounding air becomes fuel.
The instant of explosion generates tremendous heat and pressure simultaneously.
A powerful shock wave is created along with a temporary vacuum.
That’s why people also call it an oxygen bomb or vacuum bomb.
Once a thermobaric bomb enters a building interior, a cave, or an underground bunker, you had to assume everyone inside would be killed.
This was because three forces struck simultaneously: the shock wave, extreme heat, and oxygen deprivation.
It was a bomb as powerful and vicious as it was devastating.
Shin Jung-gi had modified it to be even more powerful.
But as a result, the blast radius became unpredictable.
The explosive force had grown so immense that the blast radius could not be determined.
Shin Jung-gi classified Orcus as a bomb whose blast radius could not be controlled.
He sealed it away himself, declaring such a weapon unusable.
Yet that Orcus has resurfaced.
And.
Another blueprint visible behind it.
Nemesis—the goddess of retribution.
This was a weapon I had personally sealed away.
This weapon was no mere bomb.
Its structure was fundamentally different.
It possessed a [multi-stage detonation system].
First detonation—ground shockwave.
Second detonation—underground structure collapse.
Third detonation—massive thermobaric explosion.
The weapon was designed for these three stages to detonate in succession.
A single use would obliterate an entire district of a city—such was its power.
That is why I had strongly opposed this project.
To use this was to declare actual war.
No matter how much smuggling we conducted, how much profit we reaped, or how lightly we regarded human life, this crossed a line.
This was a weapon that exceeded all boundaries.
So I sealed it away myself.
Nemesis possessed destructive power ten times greater than Orcus.
It was a weapon that would collapse the very structure of a city.
Both were demonic weapons in that regard.
But their explosive force and the scale of catastrophe they wrought were in entirely different dimensions.
And now Shin Jung-gi was unveiling every weapon we had sealed away all this time.
Even weapons whose development remained incomplete.
I alternated my gaze between the blueprints and Shin Jung-gi.
Shin Jung-gi was merely unkempt from not bathing, but he showed no signs of erratic behavior.
Rather, he was remarkably composed.
Disturbingly so.
He was perfectly rational and lucid.
And that was precisely why I could not stop him.
*******
I had Shin Jung-gi rest for a moment.
I urged him to sleep,
but Shin Jung-gi stubbornly refused to close his eyes.
So I had no choice but to knock him out temporarily.
Even though I struck lightly, Shin Jung-gi collapsed like a paper doll, as if exhausted.
I sighed and laid Shin Jung-gi on the bed before stepping outside.
As I closed the door and entered the hallway, Scott was waiting.
“A meeting with Chairman Parallax has been arranged.”
Scott reported.
After that call with the old man, the suggestion to “see each other properly” had come up, and the operational teams had been coordinating since then.
It would be nothing more than a brief meeting over a cup of tea,
but arranging that meeting had taken quite a long time.
“Where?”
I asked casually.
“Mauritius.”
“… Mauritius? Mauritius… isn’t that where people go for their honeymoon?”
I paused to think before speaking.
It was somewhere I hadn’t anticipated.
“That’s correct.”
“Why go all the way to Mauritius just to see someone’s face? Isn’t that in Africa?”
Scott began explaining.
“They said Singapore or Hong Kong, anywhere in Asia would be inconvenient, so they won’t come.”
“So we’re supposed to walk into their territory?”
“That won’t work either. We said we won’t go into their territory either. We excluded Europe and South America because their influence is too strong there.”
“So that’s why we’re going all the way to Africa?”
“Yes. America has some issues with all our personnel entering, and while searching for a safe and neutral location, it came down to this.”
Scott calmly explained the reasons why Mauritius had been chosen as the location.
“As far as I know, Africa should be their territory too, shouldn’t it?”
“That’s true, but Mauritius is a rather special region, so it’s fine. Unlike other African nations, it’s a tourist destination with good security and stable politics.”
“I wonder if those bastards are pulling something there.”
“That’s why Allen has already departed. With the Obsidian Unit. He said he’d conduct thorough security checks. He said he’d check the hotel, movement routes, surrounding buildings, and even sniper positions.”
Hearing that Allen had departed put my mind at ease.
Allen was someone I could trust.
Truth be told, I don’t usually concern myself with security to this degree.
Would I really die?
Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.
That’s how I feel.
But that intuition I felt over the call—that old man was different from other people.
Unpredictable.
Completely impossible to anticipate.
And his greed was oozing out everywhere.
I couldn’t even predict what might happen.
My own death didn’t matter,
I couldn’t die without avenging Dennis.
Scott sensed it too, and chose the location with meticulous care.
He was sensitive to every detail, no matter how small.
That’s why coordinating the venue took so long,
and eventually we ended up in Mauritius.
“When did you arrange to meet?”
“In five days. It’s a luxury resort on the eastern side of Mauritius.”
“Ha. Sounds like a honeymoon.”
“We needed a place where our people could slip in without drawing attention. That location was the most suitable.”
“That old bastard is coming too, right?”
“Yes. He said he’ll come personally.”
“Good.”
I laughed.
But my eyes didn’t.
I tried to sketch out a rough picture of what I should do when I met that old bastard.
Or rather, how those bastards would make their move.
But nothing came to mind.
I had too little information.
A sense of frustration crept in.
I spoke to Scott.
“Prepare the operation.”
“Understood. How many personnel should I bring?”
“A lot… No, bring everyone.”
“Is this war?”
Scott’s eyes changed.
He asked solemnly.
“Not yet. But who knows how things will unfold? We need to be ready.”
“Understood.”
“Prepare the weapons and pack them carefully. I’ll bring the weapons myself.”
“Understood.”
After Scott left, I stood alone in the empty corridor.
The same corridor I had walked with Dennis, now empty.
‘Dennis, wait a little longer. Those who made you lonely, those who killed you—I’ll reduce them to dust no matter what it takes.’
I steeled my resolve once more.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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