I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 30

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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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030-Scout
30.
A Korean barbecue restaurant in Gangnam, Seoul.
Dae-hun, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, had changed considerably.
His once-scrawny frame had undergone a dramatic transformation—he’d clearly packed on serious muscle.
It looked like he’d been training hard.
“Been a while. How’ve you been?”
It was Dae-hun who greeted me first.
I set aside the slight awkwardness I felt seeing how much he’d changed and returned his greeting.
“I’ve been good. What about you?”
“Same here. First time seeing each other since we got assigned to our units?”
“Right. I got assigned to my unit, and pretty soon after that I was deployed.”
“How was the deployment?”
How was it?
Tell him about a deployment stained with blood and vengeance?
But Dae-hun seemed oblivious to all of it—to me, to what my team had done.
There was no need to bring it up.
It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about anyway.
“It was what it was. Deployments are rough—terrible conditions, hard work. When I see the new guys getting ready to ship out, I can’t help feeling sorry for them.”
“Haha. In-bae, you’ve really changed. I never thought I’d hear sympathy from you.”
“Huh?”
“Back then, you were the most pitiful person in the world. I was second.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
It was true.
Back at Special Forces School,
I was the most miserable wretch on earth.
But then you go to Congo once and come back.
The whole scale of what “pitiful” and “wretched” and “pathetic” means shifts completely.
The In-bae who went to Congo wasn’t a pathetic kid anymore.
And having been loved by my seniors in the military, I wasn’t a poor kid anymore either.
Just an ordinary soldier,
receiving a steady paycheck each month.
Becoming an average adult worried about employment and housing after discharge.
Becoming an adult who could sometimes hand out candy to little kids.
Becoming someone who could offer advice to the young soldiers heading out on deployment.
Only three years and seven months had passed,
but Gong In-bae then and Gong In-bae now were very different people.
We sat at crowded Gangnam Station, eating neck meat and drinking soju,
telling stories from training days.
Stories about our drill instructors.
Stories about Close Combat Training.
Stories about Airborne Training.
Talking about the hardships we’d endured,
it was fun just reminiscing.
Looking back now, those trainings were necessary,
and if I had to go through them again, I could probably handle it better.
But why had they felt so brutal back then?
I found myself wondering all over again.
It was useless talk about the distant past,
but it was enjoyable.
I could just laugh.
It was only three years ago, yet it felt like ancient history.
Seeing who I used to be kept popping into my head, and I felt a little ashamed.
We moved on to a second round.
A chicken place in an alley that sold beer—
old-looking enough to make you wonder if a place like this could exist in Gangnam.
A long-established shop, you might say.
Dae-hun took a sip of his beer and suddenly asked,
“You thinking about signing up for long-term service?”
“No. I said I’m not doing long-term.”
“Yeah?…”
“Why?”
“So what are you planning to do after discharge?”
“Still thinking about it. Haven’t decided yet. What about you?”
“I’m discharging too.”
“So what’re you going to do after you discharge?”
“What else? I need to reclaim what was my father’s.”
What was your father’s?
Your father was yakuza, wasn’t he?
You said he died in some suspicious accident.
It seemed like a shady incident,
but you were too young and weak to investigate it yourself,
so you enrolled at Special Forces School to build strength and learn,
didn’t you?
To get revenge.
Seo Dae-hun’s nearly perfect statement of purpose was still vivid in my memory.
But looking at this kid talking about revenge,
about reclaiming what was taken from his father—
there’s no anger in his eyes.
Not the anger I saw in Poapi.
Not the anger I felt myself.
Not the kind of fury that makes you want to kill someone.
If his father was yakuza,
and he wants to reclaim that world,
he’d need serious preparation. Even then, going in alone and getting what he wants wouldn’t be easy.
Since my specialty is intelligence and operations,
gathering intelligence and making a plan before an operation is second nature to me.
It’s normal to set up a Plan B, even prepare for a Plan C.
Sergeant Lee Won-jun—
or rather, Won-jun, as I call him now—taught me that.
But Dae-hun doesn’t look prepared.
He looks like he’s just chasing clouds,
like “I’ll make a lot of money later” or “I’ll be successful later.”
“What?”
“Like I told you before—I’m going to kill everyone connected to my father’s death.”
Why does that sound like empty bragging to me?
Has he ever killed anyone?
I killed people in Congo, whether I liked it or not,
and I got my revenge in anger,
but I’d never want to do it again.
Yet Dae-hun speaks of death too casually.
I don’t even like saying the word.
“Really? How?”
“Just go in and kill them all.”
What?
Is that supposed to be a plan?
It better not be.
There has to be more to it.
Please tell me there is.
“How? Who are you going to kill and how?”
“Just go in and take them all down.”
Shit.
This isn’t right.
“You’re seriously just going to walk in and take them down? Really?”
“That’s why I built myself up like this. I trained my ass off for four years.”
Yeah, I can see you worked out hard.
I mean, I wanted samgyeopsal, but you changed the order to neck meat because of your diet.
You said you had to watch what you ate.
But come on. You can’t do this just by working out hard.
You need at least some information about who you’re going after.
“What’s the name of that organization?”
“Uh… the organization name? Hold on…”
Dae-hun thought for a moment before answering.
“Geumho Gang. Geumho Gang. The name changed from when my father was around, so I got confused.”
“So you’re going to pick up a sword, walk in, and kill everyone? That’s the plan?”
“It’s the fastest and most effective way. Yakuza have their own methods. That’s the yakuza way.”
“And if you die?”
“No way. You don’t know how hard I trained. Against some small-time thugs? With a sword? It’s 100 percent guaranteed.”
This isn’t right.
My worries and fears are becoming reality before my eyes.
“What about after?”
“Huh?”
“Say you go there with your sword. Say you kill them all. What comes next?”
“What’s next? Once I kill those bastards, everything my father had comes back to me.”
“If killing just those guys brings back everything that was your family’s, wouldn’t it be better to just plant a bomb? Much easier and simpler, right?”
“Why are you like this? Yakuza have their own way, I’m telling you.
“But what if the person who killed your father isn’t even there? Then what?”
“Then I’ll go kill them somewhere else.”
“And when the police catch you? You just become a murderer.”
“I’ll hide it.”
“Our police might seem lazy, but once they start investigating, they’re no joke. They’ll find everything.”
“…”
“And say you kill them all and take over. What if the guys under you come after you for revenge? What if they don’t just accept you as their new boss? You’d do the same thing in their position, wouldn’t you?”
“What about the organization members? What about the businesses? They’d just listen to you and follow a twenty-three-year-old kid?”
“How are you going to prevent internal collapse?”
“What about the other gangs? Are they just going to watch as your organization suddenly weakens?”
“Shit! Then what am I supposed to do? I’ve been thinking about only this the whole time. Are you telling me not to do it?”
“I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying if you’re going to do it, prepare properly.”
“What’s there to prepare? I just stick a blade in their throat and I’m done.”
“You really think that’s enough? You really believe that’s sufficient?”
Dae-hun’s eyes waver.
He knows it, I think.
He knows this won’t work.
But he can’t give up on revenge either.
If he gives up revenge, he’d have to deny everything he’s lived for, everything he’s relied on.
His mind is telling him to stop,
but his heart won’t listen.
So he speaks of revenge only in words.
Those clear eyes tell me so.
The eyes of someone truly set on revenge,
the eyes of someone ready to die—they don’t look like that.
I understand.
It must be terrifying.
The more he knows,
the more he tries to plan, the more reality becomes clear.
It must be terrifying and frightening.
He must want to run.
If he gives up revenge, everything that’s held his life together crumbles.
But if he goes through with it, the odds of success are too slim.
Failure means death.
So he speaks of revenge only in words.
That’s the only way to justify it to himself.
I will take revenge.
I’ll kill them all, simple as that.
Nothing to it.
Just go in, take their heads, and come back out.
That’s it. Simple.
Without thinking that way, living would be impossible.
Understanding that, I see Dae-hun differently again.
“In-bae.”
“Yeah?”
“Help me.”
“With what?”
“With finding what was my father’s.”
“You crazy bastard. You’re insane.”
********
With just a month and a half left before discharge,
I’m still doing well, organizing supplies in the Supply Warehouse.
Though the actual work isn’t mine.
“Sort the broken ones separately. If they mix in later, it’ll be a headache.”
“Yes, sir.”
I’m piling more work on top of the soldiers who are already working hard,
when someone comes running up, breathless.
“Sergeant In-bae, the Commander is looking for you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know that much, sir.”
“Understood.”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.”
I step into the Commander’s Office.
Besides the Commander, there are two men in black suits sitting there.
At a glance, they don’t look ordinary.
“Sit over here.”
At the Commander’s instruction, I sat down on the edge of the sofa.
“I’ll step out for a moment. Feel free to talk.”
As soon as I sat down, the Commander left, and the man in the black suit spoke up.
“Nice to meet you. We’re from the National Intelligence Service.”
“The National Intelligence Service?”
The unexpected words caught me a little off guard.
Why would the National Intelligence Service want me?
Am I under suspicion of being a spy?
I could call out that bastard Kim Jung-un right now if they wanted.
“We monitor soldiers as they leave the service, and Sergeant In-bae caught our attention. Your performance has been outstanding. It seems wasteful to just let you discharge like this. There are still many opportunities to serve your country. Why don’t you consider seizing one of those opportunities to serve?”
What the hell is this bullshit?
If they just asked me to work for the National Intelligence Service, I could think about it.
If the conditions were right, I could take the job.
Good pay and benefits? The National Intelligence Service would be fine.
It’d look good.
But serving your country?
What the hell has the country ever done for me?
Serve the country.
When I was starving as a kid, where was the country then?
Now suddenly it’s offering me opportunities?
Is opportunity only for those who don’t need it?
“I think I’ve fulfilled my duty and service to the nation quite sufficiently, haven’t I?”
I made my refusal clear, tactfully.
A refined response.
Perhaps they didn’t expect such a polished answer.
A look of bewilderment crossed the man’s face.
The other man added something.
“Rather than making such a quick decision, why don’t you take some time to think it over?”
“What are the conditions?”
“Conditions? What are you referring to?”
“Salary, benefits, vacation days, things like that.”
“Those follow the standards set by the state…”
“Take it or leave it?”
“Rather than it that way, there are regulations, and we follow those regulations, if you will.”
“What about the posting location?”
“That can vary depending on circumstances. In your case, Sergeant In-bae, you’d be active as a Black Agent, so your posting would change depending on the operation.”
“I decline.”
Not a single condition appeals to me.
If I was going to accept those terms, I would have signed up for long-term service.
I already have plenty of points for that anyway.
There’s no difference between this and the military.
Why would the National Intelligence Service want me as a Black Agent?
An agent with no name, even in death?
They probably expected me to have loyalty to the country? Patriotism?
I don’t have any of that.
The parents who should have taught me that aren’t around,
and my teachers were too busy slapping me to teach me loyalty.
How could I have learned patriotism from anyone?
These two have completely misunderstood me.
They must have thought my good performance came from loyalty.
They should have read my statement of purpose first.
Ah, I probably wrote it too much like a novel, so they could’ve gotten the wrong idea.
“In any case, think it over and contact us.”
The man in the black suit realized that continuing the conversation wouldn’t help,
so he quickly wrapped things up and handed me a business card.
The card read “Hae-gwang Industrial.”
********
On my way back to the barracks after the meeting with the National Intelligence Service,
my phone rings.
A number I don’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Hello? Is this Sergeant In-bae?”
“Yes, it is.”
“How do you do? This is Hwang Byung-il, CEO of AllDayGuard, a security specialist firm.”
“A security specialist firm?”
“Yes. I had something I’d like to discuss with you, Sergeant. Do you have some time?”

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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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