I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 252

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

252-Nemesis
252.
I left the hotel and headed back to the warehouse.
The moment I stepped out of the hotel doors, the air transformed.
Distant, dull explosions continued to shake the night sky relentlessly.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
The artillery barrage showed no signs of stopping.
Even as I drove through the streets,
that sound never ceased.
Not mere flashes of light, but towering infernos erupted across the landscape.
Smoke blanketed the city,
and sirens wailed from every direction.
But I had no intention of stopping.
Once begun, I would see this through to the end.
I had to uproot everything completely.
As I arrived at the warehouse, the Obsidian Unit spotted us from a distance and opened the doors.
The moment I stepped inside,
the air changed.
The acrid stench of gunpowder saturated the warehouse.
The interior was an absolute warzone.
Allen’s voice rang out,
and the sound of mortars firing echoed through the space.
The Obsidian Unit moved with mechanical precision.
Transporting ammunition, adjusting coordinates,
feeding shells into the barrels.
Firing again and again.
As I stepped into the factory,
Tian Zihao, Allen, Shin Jung-gi, and Toto approached me.
“Most of Rodrigo’s strongholds have been destroyed.”
Allen reported.
“During the assault, we discovered tunnels underground. We’re collapsing those as well.”
I was satisfied.
Tunnels like that needed to be demolished on sight.
That way, nothing could go wrong.
“However, the location where Rodrigo is hiding appears far more fortified. We’ll likely need to use that.”
Allen turned his head.
At the end of Allen’s gaze stood Nemesis, already prepared for firing.
Amid all this chaos,
that place alone remained silent.
A profound stillness seemed to permeate the air.
I naturally moved to stand beside Nemesis.
Seeing Nemesis, my thoughts shifted somewhat.
“Will this work?”
Allen looked slightly taken aback by my question.
“What do you mean···”
“No, isn’t this too close? At such a short distance, will the bunker buster effect even activate?”
Allen appeared genuinely perplexed.
That’s when Shin Jung-gi, standing beside us, answered.
“The effectiveness will certainly be reduced.”
“Then it’s pointless, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s better this way.”
“Huh?”
“If this Nemesis detonates properly, it would penetrate far too deep underground. The reduced effect is actually ideal. Since the underground here isn’t that deep, this distance is perfect.”
“Really?”
My doubt dissolved.
“Yes. We’ve already locked onto the coordinates.”
“Where?”
“Rodrigo’s Mansion.”
“Once it explodes, we’ll be able to confirm Rodrigo’s body, right?”
“That will be difficult. When Nemesis detonates, the entire surrounding area will collapse. Finding Rodrigo inside the collapsed tunnel will be nearly impossible. And even if we find him, his body won’t be intact.”
I paused to consider Shin Jung-gi’s explanation.
Whether it was right to simply obliterate Rodrigo like this.
Blowing Rodrigo away with Nemesis was appealing enough,
but I wanted to at least witness his final moments.
I needed to end this decisively.
“Then don’t strike the mansion with Nemesis. Hit the perimeter instead. Block his escape routes.”
“Sir?”
“We’ll confirm Rodrigo’s end ourselves.”
Tian Zihao nodded, understanding what I meant.
“You mean you want to confirm Rodrigo’s death with your own eyes, sir?”
“Exactly.”
At my words, Tian Zihao checked his laptop and shouted.
“Adjusting coordinates. Coordinates being adjusted.”
“Coordinates adjusted.”
As Tian Zihao called out,
the Obsidian Unit echoed his command and recalibrated the coordinates.
The coordinate adjustment didn’t take long.
I was holding the trigger mechanism of the prepared Nemesis.
I stared down at that trigger,
then extended it toward Shin Jung-gi.
“You do it.”
“Me?”
“You should be the one to finish this.”
“···..”
Shin Jung-gi said nothing.
Then, slowly, he accepted the trigger mechanism.
He stared at it for a long moment.
His eyes shifted.
The expression of someone who had made a decision.
Shin Jung-gi shouted loudly.
“Nemesis launch in 10 seconds.”
He called out in a booming voice.
Every movement in the warehouse synchronized with those words.
“9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Launch.”
Shin Jung-gi pressed the button in time with the countdown.
Whoooosh
With a heavy vibration,
Nemesis rose into the air.
The massive metal structure tore through the atmosphere as it ascended.
It soared toward the night sky above Tijuana.
*******
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Rodrigo sat dazed in the bunker, listening to the artillery fire.
There was nothing to do, and nothing he could do.
He couldn’t leave, and no one was coming.
Communications were cut off,
and all that remained was electricity barely maintained by the generator.
Rodrigo sat in a daze,
waiting for the situation to end.
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, silence descended.
The constant barrage of artillery fire ceased.
Huh?
He doubted his ears.
His heart began to beat faster.
‘Is it over?’
Had the military begun their suppression?
Hope flickered within him.
By now, the military should have arrived.
Or perhaps they were late.
I should have come sooner.
“Yes. Let’s end this here.”
Rodrigo spoke quietly.
But.
That hope didn’t last long.
A deep, resonant boom echoed through the air.
A sound entirely different from before.
Not the dull crack of artillery fire.
Far deeper,
far heavier.
An explosion of a different magnitude reverberated through the bunker.
In an instant, the entire bunker shook.
“… What the hell!”
Rodrigo flinched in shock.
The walls trembled, the ceiling quivered.
The floor buckled slightly beneath us.
Rodrigo instinctively pressed himself against the wall.
“This… this shouldn’t be happening.”
The bunker’s walls were over a meter thick.
It was built to withstand any conceivable scenario.
Yet the bunker was shaking.
When the shells fell earlier, we only heard the sound,
there was no direct impact,
but this was different.
The earth itself trembled.
And in an instant, a sound of compression followed by detonation tore through everything.
I didn’t know what that explosion was,
but the impact felt like it could obliterate the bunker itself.
Something was clearly wrong.
It seemed the bunker had suffered damage.
Breathing became difficult in an instant.
The air felt suffocating.
Hope vanished.
I returned to that vacant, hollow expression.
I crouched down again.
All I could do was wait for the explosions to cease.
There was nothing else I could do.
********
Nemesis had fallen.
Near Rodrigo’s Mansion.
The warhead that burrowed into the ground created a tremendous impact.
A deafening roar tore through the earth.
The ground trembled.
Soil and concrete erupted skyward.
But that wasn’t the end.
Another explosion detonated from somewhere unseen.
It collapsed the underground tunnel,
and consumed all the oxygen within it.
Now there was no escape route.
Every exit was sealed.
“Let’s move. We’re heading out.”
We made our way directly to Rodrigo’s Mansion.
.
.
.
“Get out. We’re proceeding on foot.”
On the drive toward Rodrigo’s Bunker,
we exited the vehicle and began walking.
The car was useless now.
The barrage had been so relentless
that the landscape had lost all semblance of its former shape.
The road was fractured,
buildings lay in ruins,
and debris was piled in layers upon the ground.
The vehicle could advance no further.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
We surveyed our surroundings and moved forward cautiously.
Throughout this, Shin Jung-gi was scrambling our location using Phantom Grid 2.0.
It was the reason the military hadn’t reached us yet.
When we arrived at Rodrigo’s Mansion,
the bunker entrance proved easier to locate than expected.
Everything around it had collapsed,
yet the bunker alone remained standing.
Which made it all the more conspicuous.
There was only one entrance.
I stood before it and asked,
“Can you open it?”
“I can, but time is the issue. If no one opens it from inside, it’ll take at least two hours.”
Allen replied.
“What if we blow up the door?”
“That won’t work. It’s a steel door. Nothing we have will break through it.”
Allen touched the door and answered.
An entrance existed.
It could be opened.
But time was the problem.
I shook my head.
We didn’t have time for that.
Rodrigo could hold out inside,
but we couldn’t.
The longer we waited, the worse our position became.
Using Phantom Grid to distort our location was only a temporary measure.
We couldn’t rely on it indefinitely.
I had to deal with Rodrigo quickly and return home.
Then, from somewhere, a faint humming sound emerged.
Following the noise,
I found a ventilation fan spinning among the collapsed debris.
I pointed at it and asked.
“That’s connected to the Bunker, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct. The Bunker’s air purification system appears to be operational.”
“Let’s use that.”
We tore out the ventilation fan.
A thick duct was exposed.
An intake passage leading to the Bunker.
A vital conduit supplying air to the Bunker.
We inserted tear gas canisters into it.
The tear gas canister rolled into the duct.
White smoke began filling the duct.
The intake was still active.
Which meant.
The tear gas would be sucked directly into the Bunker.
And when the tear gas had sufficiently dispersed,
when the canister had nearly exhausted its payload,
“Block it.”
We sealed the intake itself.
Now the Bunker would be filled with tear gas.
Oxygen would become scarce.
‘Let’s see how long he can last.’
.
.
.
Inside the Bunker.
Rodrigo, who had been leaning against the wall, suddenly felt something was wrong.
Breathing had become strangely difficult.
It felt suffocating.
The oxygen seemed depleted.
Like altitude sickness.
Then.
A foreign smell began to permeate the air.
Not the acrid stench of gunpowder from the bombardment.
Sharp and stinging.
This was more than simple discomfort.
The moment I inhaled it,
my nose and throat burned as if consumed by fire.
A searing sensation spread through my insides.
It felt like barbed wire scraping across my airways and lungs.
The pain was unbearable.
I wanted to bolt from this place, but I held back.
There was nowhere safer than here.
If there existed the safest place in Tijuana, it was this bunker.
As long as they remained out there, this was the only place I could endure.
But.
Enduring was becoming impossible.
No—I couldn’t endure it.
I pressed a cloth soaked in water against my nose and mouth, but it was useless.
The gas I had already inhaled was ravaging my internal organs.
The suffering was immense.
My skin felt as though it were burning.
I couldn’t open my eyes.
And most critically.
There was no oxygen.
Breathing was becoming impossible.
My head spun, and my vision wavered.
“Ha… ha… I… I have to open it.”
My breath felt like it was cutting off.
Rodrigo staggered toward the door.
I grasped the handle but couldn’t open it.
I simply held the handle, continuing to hesitate.
A gas like this couldn’t occur naturally.
Someone had deliberately forced it in.
And it was highly likely that it was the Alex Group.
That meant they were in this area.
‘If I go out, I die.’
Even knowing that, I had no choice but to leave.
The bunker was that suffocating.
I couldn’t breathe.
To live, I had to breathe.
I regretted it.
When I built the bunker, I should have invested more money in the air conditioning system.
I thought it wasn’t important.
I thought I was wasting money on something unnecessary.
Back then, I thought the filters were too expensive.
So I didn’t install filters or anything like that,
but I never imagined it would lead to this.
The bunker I entered to hide,
had become a tomb imprisoning Rodrigo.
Whoever was outside, I had to leave.
I couldn’t die here like this.
I disengaged the lock and pushed the door open.
Something was blocking the entrance—the door wouldn’t budge.
“Aaahhhhh!!”
I summoned every ounce of strength and shoved with all my might.
Only then did the door move.
Rodrigo pushed the door with all his strength once more.
He threw his entire body weight against it.
Screeeech.
A gap just wide enough for one person to slip through opened.
Rodrigo barely squeezed his body through the gap.
And then he collapsed.
Rodrigo’s memory ended there.
.
.
.
“He’s coming out.”
Tian Zihao, who had been watching the bunker’s entrance, called out softly.
The door moved, but
debris piled in front of it prevented the door from opening properly.
Once more
the door stirred, and Rodrigo appeared.
At the same moment, he collapsed.
Obsidian charged toward him.
.
.
.
“Are you coming to your senses?”
I tapped Rodrigo’s cheek repeatedly to wake him.
Rodrigo barely regained consciousness.
He looked at me and flinched in surprise.
“You···”
Rodrigo stared at me with wide eyes.
“You··· bastard. The representative.”
“Representative?”
“You’re the representative of the Alex Group.”
“Didn’t Eduardo tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“That my name is Alex.”
“What?!”
“I told him clearly. My name is Alex. It seems like your reporting here is terrible. Your information chain is a complete mess.”
“What? You’re Alex?”
I grumbled,
but the shocked Rodrigo didn’t seem to hear my words.
He appeared devastated by the revelation that I was Alex.
He seemed to be despairing at the realization that everything had been orchestrated from the beginning.
He tried to say something,
but then lowered his head.
His expression was one of complete surrender.
Even breathing seemed to take effort.
Rodrigo spoke in a small voice.
“Just spare my life. I’ll give you everything you ask for.”
Rodrigo’s first words were those of submission.
It was hard to believe these were the words of the king of this city.
“Money, factories, drugs, routes, people··· I’ll hand it all over if you just let me live.”
Rodrigo’s eyes were serious.
I let out a short laugh.
I glanced around before speaking.
“It’s already all collapsed. What are you going to hand over? You have nothing.”
“···”
Rodrigo surveyed his surroundings with trembling eyes.
There truly was nothing left around him.
If ruins existed anywhere, it was here.
Rodrigo spoke again.
“There’s money elsewhere too. In Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. I can have it brought here with just a word. So… just spare my life.”
Rodrigo’s voice was desperate.
He pleaded with every word.
Seeing him like that, I couldn’t help but sigh.
“Why were you so greedy if you were going to give it up this easily?”
“… Because I could see it.”
“What?”
“Because I could see it. It seemed like I could have it. Everything looked so easy. It felt like if I just eliminated one person standing in front of me, I could have it all.”
Rodrigo spoke with regret.
But his eyes changed in an instant.
“Use me. I’m still useful. I know this region well. I can handle everything. Leave it to me. You just sit back and take it all. Mexico, South America. Even the United States. What do you say? Sounds good, right? I’ll give you everything you need.”
Rodrigo pleaded once more, his voice pitiful.
Though I felt some pity for him, there was nothing I could do.
“I know you’re useful.”
I spoke quietly.
“But I don’t need this South American territory. And I don’t need you.”
“What?”
“I’m tired of all this now. I just want to live peacefully with my people. What I want isn’t money or power. It’s peace and rest. In that sense, you’re the worst kind of existence. Trouble follows you wherever you go. That’s why you’re not needed.”
At my words, Rodrigo lowered his head.
He seemed to realize that further words were meaningless.
I drew out my gun.
But Shin Jung-gi approached.
Shin Jung-gi carefully took the gun from my hand.
I looked at Shin Jung-gi’s face.
So many emotions were hidden in his expression that it was difficult to read.
Anger and sorrow, vengeance and emptiness all seemed to appear at once.
The gun in his hand trembled slightly.
But the barrel was aimed precisely at Rodrigo’s forehead.
Shin Jung-gi said nothing to Rodrigo.
He simply stared at him with an indecipherable expression.
And then—bang.
A single gunshot echoed through the night of Tijuana.
With that, everything came to an end.

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