I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 241

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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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241 – Internal Contact Suspended
241.
On the outskirts of Zurich.
Winery Basement.
Rodrigo reclined against the sofa,
while Pablo sat across from him.
A brief silence hung between them.
“Mauritius?”
Rodrigo asked quietly.
Pablo nodded without hesitation.
“I’m certain. Adrian is there.”
“Your evidence?”
Pablo set the tablet down on the table.
Recovered communication logs glowed on the screen.
“It appears he left for Europe after the Mauritius negotiations, but he never actually moved. Luxembourg is noise—mere bait to draw attention.”
Rodrigo stared at the screen without speaking.
“Adrian is perfectly capable of such a move. Twenty years at Adrian’s side confirms it with certainty.”
Pablo added his words, but Rodrigo’s expression remained unchanged.
He simply gazed at the recovered communication logs.
“Is there any possibility the message was corrupted?”
“None. We barely managed to find the data Adrian routed through.”
Rodrigo took a light drag from his cigar.
Then he made his decision.
“We’re not going to Mauritius.”
“What? What did you say?”
Pablo was utterly shocked, clearly having anticipated nothing of the sort.
“I said we’re not going to Mauritius.”
Rodrigo spoke again with absolute finality.
“I’d like to know your reasoning.”
“You’re asking for a reason? Do you have no interest in the organization?”
Rodrigo shot back at Pablo’s question with reproach.
“I have great interest in the organization, which is precisely why I don’t understand. If we just find Adrian, we can resolve everything. I don’t see why you’re opposed.”
Pablo refused to back down either.
Rodrigo looked at him with eyes that suggested he lacked perspective.
“Pablo. Do you know how many operations we’re currently running?”
“…”
“We need to consolidate South American forces, manage internal personnel, and keep the Alex Group in check. And you want to chase after Adrian—who may not even be there—all the way to Mauritius? Waste manpower, time, and resources on that? I won’t do it. We need to focus on what we can accomplish now. Going all the way to Mauritius is far too inefficient.”
“It’s not inefficient!”
Pablo shouted.
“What?”
“It’s not inefficient. Rather, it’s the crux of the matter.”
Rodrigo was taken aback by Pablo’s unwavering confidence.
“If we secure Adrian, the entire game shifts. Whether he’s alive or dead, we can turn it to our advantage. This isn’t a choice—it’s something we must do.”
“···..”
Rodrigo fell silent, considering the words.
If Adrian returned now, they could reverse the situation in one stroke.
But nothing was certain.
Pablo claimed it was certain, yet Rodrigo couldn’t trust it.
Even if it were certain, there was no way to predict how long it would take.
An Adrian who arrived after everything had already concluded would be nothing but a burden.
After wrestling with the dilemma, Rodrigo asked:
“How long would it take to find Adrian and bring him here?”
“···. Hmm.”
Pablo hesitated, unable to answer immediately.
Mauritius wasn’t a large country, but if someone deliberately hid there, finding them wouldn’t be easy.
Add the countless surrounding islands to that, and the situation became entirely different.
He couldn’t confidently commit to any specific timeframe.
“Five days from now. If you can bring Adrian before me within five days, go. Otherwise, don’t.”
“Five days is.. five days is too short. Subtracting travel time, we’d only have three days to search.”
Pablo’s eyes wavered slightly.
“Then how much time did you have in mind? A month? Two months? Or until we find Adrian? I just said it—the organization is in crisis. If we focus here now, we can devour Parallax, but if we slip up, we’ll walk away empty-handed. Do you understand?”
“Still.. five days won’t work. We need at least a month.”
“A month? By then, the situation will be over. Adrian’s arrival would be pointless.”
“I’ll bring him before that.”
“No. Just don’t go. A month? Hell, even five days feels wasteful. Just go to South America and help gather forces. Assemble them well and bring them back. So we can unleash everything here at once.”
“It won’t work. Adrian is necessary.”
Pablo spoke with conviction,
but Rodrigo’s expression remained unmoved.
Seeing that, Pablo carefully manipulated the tablet.
“I was planning to tell you about this separately, but.. there’s a problem within the organization.”
Pablo extended the tablet.
On the screen was a single line from the recovered communication packets—one that Pablo had deliberately hidden until now.
[Internal contact suspended. Blocked pending verification]
Rodrigo’s expression turned grave as he read it.
“··· What is this?”
“A recovered communication packet. It explains why Adrian didn’t contact Parallax and only moved through external channels, why he meticulously concealed his traces.”
“Information is leaking?”
“Correct. Adrian couldn’t trust the inside.”
“There’s a traitor.”
“Exactly. That’s why we must find Adrian. We need to identify who the traitor is.”
Rodrigo remained silent for a long moment.
“But why are you telling me this only now?”
“I intended to inform you once I brought Adrian back.”
Rodrigo, whose expression grew troubled, drew deeply on his cigar once more.
Rodrigo reached a decision.
“For now, we keep the traitor matter confidential. And I’ll refuse the Mauritius proposal. This is the time to unite, not scatter. You’ll help me. Go to South America and gather our associates. That’s the priority.”
At Rodrigo’s earnest request, Pablo nodded.
“… Understood.”
The moment Pablo stepped through the door.
His expression shifted entirely.
Without breaking stride,
my mind began racing rapidly.
‘Why block it so completely?’
If it were merely a matter of efficiency,
there would be no need to resist so forcefully.
He’s blocking all access entirely.
And then.
The talk of a traitor.
He should have asked who was suspected,
whether there were any suspicious details,
yet instead he demands secrecy.
As if he already knows.
Could it be?
The puzzle pieces began clicking into place in my mind.
Rodrigo, who had been Parallax’s second-in-command.
If Adrian died, Rodrigo would benefit the most.
What if he tried to eliminate Adrian under the guise of Mauritius?
Adrian, in danger, secretly handed the signet ring to Mateo,
and Rodrigo, unable to accept that things didn’t go as planned, couldn’t bear it?
What if he’s now considering a coup?
Once I suspected Rodrigo was the traitor,
all the pieces seemed to fit perfectly.
From Rodrigo’s perspective, Adrian cannot appear at this moment.
That’s why his refusal seemed so absolute and strange.
Then the destination isn’t South America—it’s Mauritius.
I need to go there and find Adrian.
Pablo issued an order to his subordinate.
“We’re going to Mauritius.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself. We’re going to Mauritius.”
“…Yes.”
Pablo departed for Mauritius.
This was no longer a search for Adrian,
but a journey to confirm the traitor’s identity.
.
.
.
After Pablo left, Rodrigo remained motionless for a long while.
My mind was turbulent.
When Pablo brought up the traitor,
Rodrigo’s thoughts immediately turned to Carlos.
The day he went to meet Alex’s proxy.
Carlos had definitely been at the scene.
Yet the proxy had already left Zurich by then.
The hotel remained untouched, the traces cleaned up far too meticulously.
Carlos, who had directed the operation, knew nothing of this fact.
It was too clean to be mere coincidence.
A calculated failure.
Back then, I simply let it pass.
I hadn’t even considered the word ‘betrayal’,
and it wasn’t the time to assign blame.
But.
The moment the keyword ‘traitor’ emerged,
Carlos’s face surfaced in my mind once more.
Could it be Carlos?
Suspicion flickered through me.
Yet as I spoke with Pablo, my thoughts shifted.
The way Pablo brought up the traitor troubled me.
He could have mentioned it from the start, but deliberately concealed it.
Only when the Mauritius matter hit a wall did he reveal it.
It was gentle, but unmistakably a threat.
He used the pretext of a traitor to push for going to Mauritius.
Pablo claimed the message had no corruption.
He said he recovered it himself.
He alone found what no one else could?
He discovered what Adrian had routed through satellites to conceal?
It made no sense.
Once suspicion took root, there was no end to it.
Rodrigo set down his cigar
and gathered my thoughts.
First hypothesis.
Pablo is genuinely pursuing Adrian’s true identity.
An obsession to find someone he spent twenty years with.
If that’s the case, the communication logs are real,
and Mauritius is a genuine clue.
Second hypothesis.
Pablo is connected to the Alex Group or Mateo’s faction.
Whether it’s Alex or Mateo doesn’t matter.
Pablo planted false information,
and invoked the word “traitor” to throw Parallax into chaos.
Third hypothesis.
Pablo knows nothing.
He simply believes the material someone planted and acts on it.
He’s merely being deceived.
I’d organized my thoughts, but it remained complex.
Yet a conclusion had emerged.
Regardless of which of the three it was, Pablo could not be trusted.
He was either emotional, contemptible, or foolish.
So I would exclude Pablo for now.
In any scenario, he lacked the qualities needed as a partner to stake Parallax’s fate on.
The decision was made.
What remained was the response.
Whether to stop Pablo,
or to use him.
The answer was clear.
There was no need to stop him.
I would use him instead.
Whether Pablo was genuine, false, or deceived,
he would move regardless.
Then I could weaponize that movement itself.
I would simply let Pablo move.
Whether to South America,
or to Mauritius,
I would let him go.
And I would merely observe.
Whether Pablo was sincere, foolish, or a traitor.
I would know immediately.
I could discern who he was aligned with.
If necessary, I could eliminate him on the spot.
We were short one person,
Taking a traitor along is an even more foolish move.
Incompetence and betrayal are fundamentally different.
I can bring along the incompetent,
but not the traitor.
There is no emotion in this.
It is merely a choice to maintain the game.
As that thought crystallized,
Carlos came to mind again.
‘Why does Carlos keep bothering me?’
It was strange.
I couldn’t simply brush it aside.
There was no concrete evidence,
but once that sense of discord took root, it would not easily fade.
‘I’ll verify Carlos. Verify and move on.’
It was better to clear the air than to proceed with lingering doubt.
Now, no one was exempt.
If a traitor was among us, this entire operation would collapse before it even began.
‘I will eliminate anything that wavers.’
There was no hesitation.
I reached for my phone to issue orders.
Then I stopped.
‘There’s no one available?’
Eduardo had gone to South America,
Pablo was not following orders,
and Carlos was under suspicion.
Among those remaining, was there anyone capable of handling this?
Who could I entrust with something so critical and sensitive?
I scrolled through my phone’s contacts repeatedly, but found no suitable person.
There was no one who could inspire absolute confidence.
Once suspicion took hold, everyone looked like a traitor.
In the past, I would have trusted and delegated without hesitation, but now caution prevailed.
A phrase surfaced in my mind.
[Internal contact suspended. Blocked until verification complete]
Now I could not simply ignore it.
What if the person Rodrigo gives orders to is the traitor?
It would be the same as handing all information directly to the traitor.
The blade could even turn back on Rodrigo.
There was no winning strategy this way.
I cannot verify one by one, filter, and organize.
There is no time.
Before that, Mateo will take control of Parallax.
Then there’s only one way.
Accelerate the game itself.
I abandoned the greed of swallowing both the Alex Group and Parallax in one fell swoop.
I’ll consume Parallax first.
As for the Alex Group, I can negotiate or threaten them depending on the situation at that time.
Then the first thing I need to do is eliminate Mateo.
Once I eliminate Mateo and obtain the Signet Ring, that’s all.
After that, I can sort everything out.
Who is an ally and who is an enemy—I’ll settle that then.
Right now, dealing with Mateo comes first.
Consuming Parallax takes priority.
I can force everything into order.
This complicated situation, this atmosphere of mutual suspicion.
There’s no time.
Rodrigo’s resolve hardened.
The false information planted by Alex and Tian Zihao.
If it sowed even a little chaos, that would be enough, they’d thought,
planting false information almost as a joke.
That small piece caught in Pablo’s persistence.
Tangled with Pablo’s stubbornness, it became truth.
Pablo moved,
and Rodrigo began to suspect.
Their divergent judgments deepened the cracks further.
The ripples spread far deeper and wider than anticipated.
*****
“Three days from now? That’s possible.”
I stood by the window,
while Mateo reviewed documents at his desk.
“Adrian’s funeral? I need five days.”
“Five days?”
I didn’t quite understand.
Death arrives without warning.
Yet a funeral to mourn that death takes five days?
“There’s more to prepare than you’d think. Besides, he was the Chairman of Parallax. We can’t use a public venue, and the guests are all sensitive people, so we need to be careful about their movements. We have to send out invitations separately. We need to maintain proper form. Five days is the minimum.”
I nodded.
If that’s what he was going to do.
Who was I to object when I wasn’t even doing anything?
“Understood. Then let’s hold Adrian’s funeral in five days. You handle the arrangements.”
“But why are you rushing like this? Wouldn’t it be better to believe Adrian is still alive?”
“But then, some madman kept searching for Adrian so relentlessly that I thought it would be better to just eliminate Adrian as a ‘variable.’ Anything related to Adrian would never work in our favor.”
“Understood. But···”
“But? What?”
“What about the body? Can we retrieve it?”
“No. Of course not. It’s been too long since he died.”
He was asking the obvious.
“Then we’d have to hold the funeral without a body···”
“Why is that a problem?”
Mateo’s voice trailed off, and my tone grew slightly sharp.
“There are already many people suspicious of Adrian’s death. Will it even be possible without a body?”
“Are you asking me that?”
“Huh?”
“If you can’t even handle something this simple, I’m starting to think it would be better to put Rodrigo in that position instead.”
Mateo’s expression hardened.
“What?”
“What do you think I saw in you when I put you there? Ability? Power? Do you think you have any of that?”
“···..”
“You were simply close to me. I needed Chairman Parallax, and you happened to be near me. On top of that, you said you’d follow orders well. That’s the only reason I gave you this position. There’s no other reason. But if you can’t even handle something this easy and keep asking me to take care of everything from start to finish, then handing that seat over to Rodrigo doesn’t seem like a bad idea either.”
In that instant, the air froze completely.
Mateo’s eyes wavered.
“Handle it yourself. You take care of everything. I’ll see how you do it. But remember one thing. That seat isn’t yours. I lent it to you. So you’d better think carefully.”
I slammed the door shut and left.
In truth, I shouldn’t have spoken that way.
But I was on edge because of my mood,
and seeing that Mateo still hadn’t come to his senses even after becoming Chairman, I spoke more harshly than intended.
I’d be able to gauge his true intentions by how he handles the funeral arrangements.
After all, the funeral is simply announcing that Adrian is dead.
And it’s nothing more than Mateo officially inheriting that position.
But the fact that he’s still searching for the body only frustrated me.
‘He’ll handle it well on his own.’
.
.
.
Mateo sat alone in the room Alex had left.
His hands trembled with rage.
Whether from anger or humiliation.
Or perhaps both.
His gaze naturally drifted to the signet ring.
The signet ring, catching the light, gleamed with particular brilliance.
As Mateo touched the signet ring, he made a silent vow to himself.
I will never let it be taken from me.
Never.

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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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