I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 229

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

229 – Modification
229.
Unity Town Situation Room.
Ana and Tian Zihao sat in the situation room.
Dozens of monitors displayed
real-time financial data from nations across the globe.
On another side, for CCTV analysis,
the work of cross-referencing people in recorded footage one by one was in full swing.
TraceNet was performing that task.
The situation room was quiet,
yet it operated without pause.
Like a luxury timepiece crafted in Switzerland.
Silent, yet turning with absolute precision.
I spoke plainly to Ana and Tian Zihao.
“We probably won’t be able to find Adrian. He’s hidden himself away completely.”
“···..”
No one answered.
“So instead of finding Adrian, I’ve decided to find Adrian’s money.”
“Money?”
Ana asked in return.
“Yes. Adrian is isolated right now. He’ll need money to stay hidden. He’ll move funds from shell companies, not personal assets. Or secret accounts.”
Ana nods.
“I understand. So we need to find when ‘money that wasn’t moving’ or ‘money that would look suspicious if it moved’ starts to transfer.”
“Exactly. Anything connected to Chairman Parallax’s funds. Corporations, deceased persons, closed accounts, dormant accounts—everything.”
“It might be smaller amounts rather than large sums.”
“Right. He’ll move it as inconspicuously as possible. He’ll be careful.”
“Understood.”
Ana began setting filters to track the flow of funds.
She filtered out countless meaningless transactions.
What remained were only flows with purpose.
When Ana created conditions,
Tian Zihao applied filters to match them.
Only the necessary details remained; everything else was eliminated.
The two began watching the screen intently.
They applied increasingly more filters.
More sophisticated conditions were added.
Within the vast flow of countless funds,
a quest to find a single anomalous trace had begun.
.
.
.
A few hours later.
We were intensively checking suspicious transactions filtered through the system.
We’d filtered out unnecessary transactions,
but the remaining volume was still staggering.
An enormous amount of data cascaded across the screens like a waterfall.
We were manually verifying each transaction one by one.
After staring at the monitor for a while, Ana pointed to one transaction.
She singled out one of them with her finger.
“Boss, take a look at this.”
What Ana indicated was a simple account transfer record.
Nothing appeared particularly noteworthy.
It was just one among an enormous number of transactions.
“Why that one?”
I asked, uncertain of her reasoning.
“It’s a simple account transfer, but money moved from a Swiss corporate account. From an account that hadn’t seen a single transaction in ten years.”
“An account with no transactions for ten years?”
The mention of a decade-long dormancy sparked my suspicion.
“Yes. And they transferred exactly 10,000 euros.”
10,000 euros.
That amounted to roughly 17 million won.
The sum wasn’t large.
It was an amount no one would suspect.
But it was enough to allow Adrian to mobilize immediately whenever needed.
Tian Zihao leaned back in his chair and spoke casually.
“A test transfer.”
Ana nodded in agreement.
“Exactly. It’s for verification. Testing whether the account is active, whether transfers go through, whether withdrawals work.”
“Who’s the recipient?”
“Also a corporation. But it was established less than 48 hours ago.”
“Heh.”
“The timing is almost too perfect, isn’t it?”
I laughed, and Tian Zihao seemed certain of his assessment.
Being cautious was admirable enough.
Hiding behind corporate shells to conceal his identity was genuinely impressive.
But instead of pursuing Adrian directly, we began tracing the flow.
In that moment, everything became crystal clear.
Almost painfully obvious.
Ana continued.
“Funds also came in from Singapore. That also originated from a dormant account.”
“Same pattern?”
“Yes. They’re running tests first, and it looks like they’re trying to consolidate scattered funds now that transfers are possible.”
Ana answered my question.
“Why would they do that? Shouldn’t they be lying low right now?”
Tian Zihao asked, clearly confused.
“They’re preparing a counterattack.”
I replied.
“A counterattack?”
Tian Zihao repeated, sounding surprised.
“They can’t hide forever. So they’re regrouping and preparing to strike back. First, they stay hidden without being detected while making contact with Chairman Parallax, and finally, they counterattack. That’s the plan. They need to have funds ready in advance for that.”
“Gathering the scattered money back together…”
Tian Zihao murmured.
He continued typing on the keyboard.
“Let’s make an assumption. Until now, they couldn’t conduct transactions while hiding, but if they started moving in earnest today for some reason…”
Tian Zihao pressed Enter, and the screen changed.
A world map appeared, dotted with suspicious transactions.
Money from Europe, South America, and Asia was converging on a single location in Europe.
But there were far more than just one or two transactions.
Over ten of them.
“Did… did Adrian conduct all of those transactions?”
I asked in astonishment.
“I can’t say for certain, but transactions with the same pattern as before—today’s transactions are all of them.”
Though Tian Zihao said he wasn’t sure,
it seemed correct.
We were shocked.
We searched and found them, but we’d missed so much.
But seeing this, I felt something distinctly.
“They seem desperate?”
“That appears to be the case. Given Adrian’s cautious nature, he wouldn’t have attempted so many transactions in a single day.”
Adrian was the type to test the waters multiple times before crossing—he wouldn’t conduct transactions like this,
but he seemed deeply anxious and impatient.
It meant he was being hunted.
Soon, our eyes turned to the map.
The destination where transactions born of desperation flowed and accumulated.
Where all the funds were heading.
‘Luxembourg’
I smiled faintly.
So he was hiding there, waiting for an opportunity to strike back?
Allen spoke from beside me.
“I’ll have the team stand by.”
“Wait, hold on.”
“Yes?”
“No need to rush. Let’s wait until this bastard gathers all the money. We get the funds and catch Adrian too—that’s even better.”
I smiled, something wickedly sinister in my expression.
*******
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
Leon was manufacturing weapons.
Rather, he was modifying them.
It was Boss Alex’s orders.
Secure weapons.
Prepare armaments capable of obliterating Chairman Parallax.
So Leon was modifying weapons.
He was methodically disassembling mortars purchased in South Korea, completely gutting their interiors.
He was removing the conventional explosives and filling the space with thermobaric mixture.
Ordinarily, converting a mortar into a thermobaric weapon would be impossible.
The structural design itself is fundamentally different.
But by completely disassembling and reassembling the entire system, nothing is beyond reach.
The problem was speed.
Each completed unit consumed far too much time.
This was already a significant improvement.
Shin Jung-gi had suggested converting large-scale missiles into thermobaric weapons.
But it lacked any practical feasibility.
Launching missiles from Zamboanga to Europe was impossible,
and the available operational space and regions were far too limited.
The constraints were overwhelming.
Modifying small mortars was far more realistic.
The direction was sound,
but the modification process consumed too much time.
The pace was glacially slow.
Yet we had no choice but to proceed.
It was the Boss’s directive and Dennis’s vengeance.
If hands moved too slowly, we simply added more hands.
He brought more people to the modification site.
Complaints held no power.
Better to produce one more unit than waste time complaining.
Toto, who had been observing intently, suddenly interjected.
“That’s not how you do it.”
“What?”
Leon’s hands stilled.
Toto walked naturally toward the workbench.
At Unity Town, Toto was no longer a child.
He had become someone all the core members coveted.
The kind of boy who could take one piece of knowledge and extrapolate ten, twenty applications from it.
Yet he never stopped asking questions, never stopped yearning to learn.
He had already worked extensively with Shin Jung-gi for a long time.
He had already grasped the fundamentals of weaponry.
When Toto saw the mortar for the first time,
he ran his hand across it in a smooth, deliberate motion.
It was the touch of someone reuniting with an old friend.
“Right now you’re disassembling everything and putting it back together, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. It’s the most reliable way.”
“But it’s slow.”
“Can’t help it. That’s what the recipe calls for.”
Leon spoke in a low voice.
Toto picked up a screwdriver.
“Make the detonator separately.”
“The detonator… separately?”
“Yes. Keep the existing structure as is, and only change the ignition mechanism.”
Toto’s hands were already moving.
There was no hesitation in his movements.
“You don’t need to replace all the explosives. Just change the timing of when the detonator fires. Double detonation.”
Toto’s hands continued their work,
and Leon watched them intently.
“You can’t make a thermobaric warhead with this mortar anyway. Sure, it’ll be more destructive than the standard mortar, but the operating mechanism is different from a thermobaric round. If that’s the case, it’s much better to leave the explosives alone and just swap the detonator. It’s more efficient, cheaper, and faster. The destructive power will be slightly reduced, but it’ll still be better than the original mortar.”
In the meantime, Toto separated the detonator and combined several components from nearby.
He created a simple circuit and ignition device in an instant.
“Like this…”
Toto was securing the device with the screwdriver.
“You don’t have to disassemble everything. The speed increases dramatically too.”
Toto handed over the completed mortar.
Leon’s mind began running calculations.
If made Toto’s way,
the disassembly and reassembly process disappears.
The tedious steps of loading and unloading explosives also vanish.
The time required is cut by several times over.
“But will this work? Will Shin Jung-gi just accept it?”
Leon was concerned about Shin Jung-gi.
“Teacher Shin Jung-gi won’t mind. Looking at the recipe, he didn’t care about the work process. He just thought about maximizing the destructive power this mortar could produce. Right now, Teacher Shin Jung-gi’s mind is filled with nothing but scenarios of total annihilation.”
Leon nodded.
The weapons Shin Jung-gi was making now were more dangerous and destructive than usual.
I was briefly grateful that Toto was here.
“I’ll help you. Uncle Dennis was precious to me as well.”
Toto spoke lightly and picked up a screwdriver.
“I’ll assemble the detonators. You just need to swap them in.”
Toto began assembling the detonators.
A proper division of labor commenced.
On one side, the mortar was being disassembled,
and on the other, Toto’s detonators were being fitted in.
Finally, the assembled mortar was put together.
The work never stopped.
The rhythm flowed seamlessly.
The pace visibly accelerated.
Our hands began to synchronize.
.
.
.
Some time later.
As Toto headed home after finishing the work, he was lost in thought.
Can we actually use this?
A thermobaric modified mortar.
It’s certainly appealing.
The destructive power is sufficient.
But the location is in the middle of a city, right?
And in the middle of a European city at that.
Pull out a mortar and fire it in a place like that?
Toto shook his head.
It seemed difficult.
Of course, it’s not impossible.
Just pull it out and fire—the shot would go off.
But what comes after?
Nothing.
The moment we fire a few rounds, everything ends.
The team members would be arrested as terrorists on the spot.
They’d probably rot in prison for life.
Of course, the Obsidian Unit would do it.
But conversely, the Boss would never issue such an order.
So I had to think of another way.
I needed to prepare alternative options that could be used on-site.
Was there a simpler method to deploy?
I pondered.
Pssshhh~~
That’s when I noticed someone beside me spraying insecticide to drive away insects.
My gaze froze.
Wait… could that be it?
Something clicked in my mind.
With that, couldn’t I create a makeshift thermobaric weapon?
I began sketching the structure in my head.
A pressurized liquid compressed inside a container, along with an ignition mechanism.
The first explosion ruptures this.
This isn’t a true explosion.
It’s merely a preliminary stage—dispersing the liquid fuel inside into the air, misting it like a cloud.
The second stage: a small spark ignites at the center.
That reacts with the fuel suspended in the air, causing an explosion.
“Boom”
The third stage is what’s truly terrifying.
The temperature during detonation would soar to 3,000 degrees.
This intense heat expands the air, sending out a devastating shockwave.
Powerful enough to shake buildings.
And because the explosion consumes all the oxygen in the vicinity, the area becomes temporarily vacuous.
The surrounding air is rapidly sucked toward that void.
If anyone is nearby, the very air in their lungs is forcibly expelled from their mouth.
Every organ in the body is destroyed.
Especially with a bomb like this—in an enclosed space,
a building or underground, it becomes exponentially more devastating.
In Europe, wouldn’t it be even more effective?
From my perspective, what we really needed wasn’t a mortar.
Even if it looked crude, this kind of improvised explosive seemed essential.
I went to find Boss Alex.
“Boss, there’s something I’d like to make. I’m thinking the current project···”
I explained the situation.
Just a brief overview.
And as I was about to go into specifics.
“Sure. If you need something, talk to Shin Jung-gi or… no, not him. He’s on edge right now. Talk to Leon, and if that doesn’t work, talk to Simon. They’ll get you everything you need.”
“Just like that?”
“You said it’s necessary, right? I think you’re right about this too. We’ll find another use for the mortar eventually. Thanks for the good idea, Toto.”
Boss Alex gently patted my head.
That single touch.
Meant more to me than any reward could.
My chest burned with warmth.
I was recognized.
Alex knows my name.
Toto bowed his head, unable to speak.
In that moment.
Something crystallized within me.
I had to do better.
I had to become stronger, I realized.
To protect this place. Unity Town.
And to protect Alex.

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