I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 224

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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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224 – Safety
224.
I was aboard a private jet, heading toward Zamboanga.
My heart raced with urgency.
I had walked out of that conference room with apparent confidence,
but my mind had already fled elsewhere.
To the people around me.
I needed to verify with my own eyes that they were truly safe.
I wanted to confirm their safety in every passing second.
I had already anticipated much of this.
Among the methods a villain could employ,
the easiest and fastest was to threaten those close to me.
It was simple, requiring no preparation.
Convenient, and it cost almost nothing.
No need for direct confrontation or cunning strategy.
Just kidnap and coerce.
Seize the weakest link and shake it.
The return on investment was devastatingly effective.
There was only one problem.
It crossed a line.
Honestly, threatening someone’s loved ones?
Even street thugs lose respect for doing that.
Insulting someone’s family—people forgive you for throwing a punch over it.
But kidnapping someone close to me and threatening to kill them to extract what you want?
That was something you could only do when you had absolutely nothing left,
a desperate gambit from the absolute bottom.
At least for an organization,
you needed to have your own leverage.
Whether through persuasion, inducement, or coercion,
you negotiated with the person directly.
Dragging in those around them was a foul play.
Despicably low foul play.
There was one more side effect of taking hostages from someone’s inner circle:
if something went wrong with the hostages you’d taken, everything truly fell apart.
The vengeance of someone who had lost a loved one defied ordinary comprehension.
It was bitter, relentless, and blind.
It never stopped until the end was reached.
But that was merely my thinking,
and others might differ.
Adrian’s voice coming through the phone seemed more than capable of proving that.
Composed and serene on the surface,
yet something alien lurked beneath.
I sensed a relentless obsession—the kind that charges forward with tunnel vision toward its objective.
A creeping unease took hold: the conviction that he would do anything to obtain what he desired.
So I summoned people.
Better to be cautious than careless.
Simon, Edward, and Shin Jung-gi already lived in Unity Town, so there was no issue there.
Ana and Tian Zihao, who had been living in South Korea, headed straight for the Philippines,
and Sandro, Kang Jae-ho, and Lim Yu-na, who were in Bohol, relocated temporarily to Unity Town at my word.
Kwon Ju-ah and her father, Kwon Sang-yeol.
Seo Dae-hun and Jung Geun-su of the Dae-hun Faction.
Jang Yun-mi, CEO of Candy Tour Seoul.
Kurokawa of the Yakuza and Du Man-sik of the Triad Society also made their way to Unity Town.
Marian, whom I first met on that trip to Bohol,
and even Poapi and Jose, with whom I’d spent time in the Congo.
Everyone who had ever crossed paths with me gathered in Unity Town.
Better to make a fuss now than regret it later.
And while we’re all assembled, we might as well share a meal.
.
.
.
I couldn’t speak for anywhere else,
but if war were to break out in Zamboanga, I had decent odds of victory.
Zamboanga was secure.
Zamboanga had the Rebel Forces,
the Obsidian Unit,
and above all, Shin Jung-gi burning with righteous fury.
Unless Parallax went completely insane and dropped a nuclear bomb—
unless they leveled Zamboanga with missiles before advancing—
it wouldn’t be easy for them to breach the city.
But couldn’t Parallax just launch missiles and march in?
The likelihood seemed extremely low.
Based on his nature, Adrian would never fire missiles.
Because he doesn’t have them?
No.
He’d have missiles in abundance.
But he wouldn’t fire them at us.
Why?
It would be a waste.
That’s all money to him.
Each step worth billions of pesos.
He could reap enormous profits if he sold them.
Yet he wouldn’t simply waste those expensive missiles in empty air for the sake of revenge.
That wasn’t the Adrian I knew.
Instead, he would search.
Adrian would find someone to wage war on behalf of Parallax.
A nation, an organization, a criminal syndicate, a smuggler—it didn’t matter who.
As long as they could wage that war for him.
Once he’d selected the right person,
he would sidle up beside them and whisper in a devil’s voice.
Wouldn’t it be something to attack Zamboanga right now?
If you attacked the Philippines, you could reap tremendous profits, he’d say.
Someone would waver at those words.
Some fool would bite eagerly.
The fortunate thing, though,
was that no nation was hostile enough to declare war on the Philippines outright.
Being an island nation with no shared borders, there were no territorial disputes.
If I had to name one,
there was a sovereignty dispute with China over the South China Sea.
But that was too minor an issue to escalate into war.
Even China was content with flexing its muscles and making threats—it had no appetite for actual war.
And even Adrian couldn’t easily move a great power like China.
Wei Zhonglin was just a fool to me and my hometown, but his external image was different.
If he couldn’t find an external enemy, he’d have to search for rebel forces within,
but the Philippines’ once-numerous rebel forces no longer existed.
I’d eliminated them all.
The rebel forces from Mindanao, which had been the biggest headache,
had become our loyal family.
Everything else was insignificant.
Their organizational scale, influence, and military power were all pathetic.
They were gangster-level at best.
Of course, he could build up an organization to wage war against us.
But then the tail would wag the dog.
He’d be trying to sell weapons by manipulating an organization,
yet he might end up having to support them far more than he’d profit from sales.
He’d be trying to make money,
but far more would flow out instead.
Perhaps creating a new organization from scratch to wage war would be better.
But Adrian would never make such a foolish choice.
Nevertheless, Adrian would find a way.
A way to blow my nose without getting my hands dirty.
Parallax would orchestrate everything from a step behind,
arranging for others to fight in his stead.
By any means necessary, he would construct the board,
and then redesign it again.
Parallax would pursue two objectives simultaneously.
He would sell weapons while plotting revenge at the same time.
Two birds with one stone.
He would attempt to catch both rabbits at once.
That was the Adrian I had come to know.
Contemptible, quick-witted, and petty.
But obsessively cautious.
Before executing any plan, he would review it countless times,
running simulations over and over again.
A man like that would never simply let the humiliation he suffered slide.
No matter what, he would seek retaliation.
And he would do it through others’ hands.
He was probably seething even now.
I gazed out the window.
Clouds stretched endlessly across the sky.
It was a magnificent sight,
but it bore no resemblance to my state of mind.
Today, the private jet felt unusually slow.
I wanted to reach Zamboanga faster.
I contacted the cockpit.
“Push harder. Max it out all the way.”
.
.
.
Back in Zamboanga, I found myself extraordinarily busy.
According to Allen, everyone had arrived safely at Unity Town.
The moment I saw them, relief washed over me.
‘They’re safe.’
But unlike my relief, their expressions were peculiar.
They all wore expressions of bewilderment.
When I thought about it, it made sense.
It didn’t seem like I had called them to discuss anything in particular,
nor was this a social gathering.
There were far too many unfamiliar faces.
Security was far more stringent than usual.
I brushed off the question vaguely.
“I just wanted to grab a meal together.”
No one seemed to believe me.
But they didn’t press further either.
They simply chose silence.
But it didn’t matter.
Better to be a liar
than to see them get hurt.
.
.
.
I called Tian Zihao.
“You secured the CCTV footage, right?”
Tian Zihao checked his tablet and replied.
“We have it in 8K resolution.”
We had installed additional CCTV cameras throughout Belle Mare Resort.
Officially, it was a security measure,
but in reality, it was to gather facial and physical data on Parallax personnel.
I nodded.
“Good. Run the facial recognition program right now. Find those bastards.”
“Now? Didn’t you say we had twenty-four hours?”
Tian Zihao blinked in confusion.
“What are you talking about? I said we wouldn’t catch them, not that we wouldn’t look for them. In hide-and-seek, even with your eyes covered, your ears are open, right? You listen first to figure out where they’re hiding. So it’s not cheating.”
“Oh, I see.”
Tian Zihao laughed and nodded.
“Then run the program right away.”
“Should I find where Adrian went?”
Tian Zihao asked while operating his tablet.
“No, Adrian and everyone else who was there that day. I want to see how these bastards move. Where their office is, how they operate, where they hide, who they associate with—let’s expose everything.”
“Understood.”
Tian Zihao nodded.
The price Parallax would pay for exposing their faces so carelessly would be steep.
Now there was nowhere on Earth for them to hide.
Unless they lived in the Sahara Desert or the Amazon Rainforest, they would be caught on some CCTV.
All we had to do was sift through the footage and find where these bastards went.
“Do we have a facial recognition program? If not, I’ll request ‘Skynet’ from China.”
“What we’ve developed should be better than Skynet.”
Tian Zihao answered with confidence.
“Really?”
“Skynet isn’t really a facial recognition system—it’s a state control system. It identifies people by their faces and links their registration numbers, financial records, movement history, and communication records. It’s literally a program that traps people in a net.”
“That’s right.”
I nodded.
“But we don’t need to manage those people, do we? We just need to find them.”
“Exactly.”
“Our program focuses solely on locating people. Even if a face is partially obscured, we find them. We can track them even through disguises or hair color changes.”
“Really? That must be incredibly difficult.”
I was genuinely surprised.
“Once we confirm the face, yes. But we don’t just track the face—we track their gait, body shape, center of gravity, movement patterns, and even the people around them all together.”
“That’s impressive.”
I was truly astonished.
I hadn’t imagined technology had advanced this far.
“That’s why we’re much faster at finding people. We call this ‘TraceNet.'”
Clap, clap, clap.
I applauded.
With this, the hunt would end considerably faster.
“Good, I like it. Besides, we only need to find them. We’re not in a position to manage anyone.”
“Ha. Right. We can barely manage ourselves, so how could we manage anyone else?”
“Exactly.”
“Then I’ll pull the data and run the program right away.”
I nodded.
“Yes, contact me as soon as you have results. Don’t worry about the time.”
“Understood.”
Tian Zihao bowed and left the room.
.
.
.
After Tian Zihao left,
Leon entered.
Leon was the man who had engaged in weapons trafficking with Dennis for a long time.
With Dennis gone, Leon now handled the weapons.
Why did I call for Leon?
Simple.
I needed to assess our current weapons situation.
How many weapons we had.
Whether those weapons could hold back our enemies.
Whether we could wage war,
whether we could erase Parallax.
I asked directly.
“How many weapons do we have?”
“Rifles are sufficient.”
“What about heavy weapons? Do we have those?”
Leon hesitated for a moment before answering.
“We primarily deal in firearms smuggling, so we’re quite lacking in heavy weapons.”
“Can we wage war with what we have?”
“War?”
Leon stares at me with startled eyes.
“I’m asking if we can win if we go into all-out war against Parallax.”
“Since we’d be in a defensive position, we’d sustain some losses, but I believe it would be possible.”
Leon answers while perspiration beads on his forehead.
He doesn’t seem accustomed to this kind of situation.
A position he suddenly inherited when Dennis disappeared.
Without a Team Leader, he feels like a manager dragged into this against his will.
He’s not thinking ahead—he’s just scrambling to handle what’s right in front of him.
I shake my head.
“I never said we’d defend. I said all-out war. Do we have a chance if we clash head-on? Do we have weapons for that? I told you before to secure weapons, no matter how much money it costs.”
Leon looks flustered.
“As I mentioned before, it’s not easy to obtain such weapons without going through Parallax. Those kinds of weapons can’t be acquired unless you deal directly with each nation’s Ministry of National Defense. Unlike rifles, they’re managed very strictly.”
I let out a sigh.
I understand Leon feels helpless too, but I’m frustrated as well.
“What about what Shin Jung-gi developed?”
“What Shin Jung-gi developed isn’t creating something entirely new—it’s modifying existing weapons, isn’t it? Basically, only prototypes exist.”
“You’re saying we can’t use them?”
“I’m saying there aren’t many of them.”
“How long does it take to make one?”
“About a week per unit.”
I speak immediately.
“That won’t work. Make one a day.”
“Yes? But that’s…”
I can see Leon struggling.
Unfamiliar work,
a situation he’s never faced before.
Yet that situation is a large-scale battle unlike anything he’s known.
But I can’t afford to be understanding and patient—the situation is too urgent.
“Leon. I know you’re not comfortable in this position. But do I look like I’m doing something insane?”
“No, sir.”
Leon shakes his head.
“Without those weapons, we might not be able to protect ourselves. I don’t want to lose anyone in our organization. Not a single person. That’s why we need to prepare. We need to build shields and spears. Only then can we protect ourselves and eliminate Parallax.”
I pause for a moment.
Leon’s shoulders tremble.
I place a hand gently on his shoulder.
“It won’t be easy adapting to that position. But we can’t delay it. This isn’t for me or for you—it’s the bare minimum we need to protect ourselves. We have to make sure Dennis’s death wasn’t in vain.”
My words made Leon’s eyes redden.
“Understood. I’ll make it happen no matter what.”
Leon left after pledging several times over.
But I couldn’t simply wait for the weapons to be manufactured like this.
The problem was we lacked heavy weapons.
We had to acquire heavy weapons.
I felt sorry for the people who’d invited me to dinner,
but I couldn’t stay here right now.
“Scott. Let’s move.”
“Where to, sir?”
“South Korea. Have President Kim Min-su make time for a quick meeting.”

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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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