I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 46

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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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046-Seo Dae-hun
46.
“Boss. The Hold’em Pop establishment in Shin Young-dong got raided.”
“That so?”
Upon hearing the report, I nodded as though I’d anticipated it.
“The old man’s getting too greedy, isn’t he?”
“It appears so.”
“We run that tiny operation just to feed the guys, and they won’t leave us alone.”
“What should we do? Open another establishment elsewhere?”
“If we open a new place, you think they won’t raid it? They’ll raid it 100%. Honestly, can you trust the police?”
“No, sir. We can’t trust them.”
“When we tipped off the police about the Geumho Gang’s establishments, did they raid them? They didn’t. We had to complain multiple times before they finally went out there formally, found no violations, and called it a day. That’s the level of police we’re dealing with here. They’re the Geumho Gang’s dogs. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“So what do we do now?”
“It’s not like we didn’t expect this. I was just testing the waters to see how they’d react. At least we’ve confirmed they don’t have good feelings toward us.”
“That’s not certain, sir. What if you left Gunsan altogether? If you moved, quite a few guys would follow you.”
“Geun-su. You know the saying, ‘There is no paradise in flight’?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if we run away from this problem and go somewhere else, we won’t find happiness.”
“Wouldn’t we be fine as long as we’re together wherever we go?”
“We need to hold our ground here as long as we can.”
“As long as we’re in Gunsan, the Geumho Gang will keep coming at us. Are you okay with that?”
“We can’t just let this slide. We got hit once—we need to hit back.”
“Should I get the guys ready?”
“Why would we? I don’t want to hurt the guys. We pay our taxes too—let’s get some help from the police.”
“But tipping off the local police won’t do anything, right? They won’t raid them anyway.”
“That’s the local Gunsan police. But if we tip off the Special Investigation Team about drugs, wouldn’t that be different? They came for drugs, and there’s an illegal gambling den? The police won’t just sit idle. And it’s the Special Investigation Team we’re talking about.”
“That sounds like a good approach.”
********
Gunsan, South Korea.
The top-floor suite of the Gunsan Tourist Hotel in front of Eunpa Reservoir.
Yun Ki-hwan, the boss of the Geumho Gang, rose late and stood before the expansive floor-to-ceiling window with a cigarette between his lips.
Click. Flick. Sizzle.
He lit the cigarette with an old-looking zippo lighter and gazed down at the view outside.
Through the window, the Eunpa Reservoir shimmered with rippling light,
and beside it, he could see people jogging, strolling, and dating moving about.
I loved this scenery.
The world visible through this window seemed peaceful, and I cherished that.
It was like a painting.
Utterly different from the world I inhabited.
In the world beyond the window, there were no bleeding people, no one stabbed with blades,
No one was being sealed in a drum barrel with cement.
There was only ordinary, everyday life.
People exercised, walked their dogs,
and went on dates with their girlfriends.
I loved that view so much that I insisted on staying at the Gunsan Tourist Hotel.
There were many places with better facilities,
but Yun Ki-hwan refused to leave this one.
Because of this window.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Lee Hyun-seung, my secretary director, entered.
Upon entering, the secretary director bowed deeply to Yun Ki-hwan at a ninety-degree angle.
“Did you sleep well through the night, sir?”
“What? What would keep me awake? I slept fine. But what brings you here so early in the morning?”
“There’s an urgent matter I need to report, so I came by necessity.”
“What is it?”
“The gambling den in So-ryong-dong has been raided.”
“What? So-ryong-dong? Raided? What was Police Chief Kim doing?”
“Well… they bypassed the Gunsan Police Station entirely and went directly through the Special Investigation Team. Police Chief Kim found out later and tried to scramble to handle it, but by then the Special Investigation Team had already arrested everyone and seized all the evidence at the scene, so there was nothing he could do.”
Yun Ki-hwan pulled out another cigarette and put it in his mouth.
The secretary director immediately lit it for him.
“How much damage?”
“Well… they seized about 500 million won just from the scene. With that being confiscated, this month is going to be difficult.”
“It’ll be difficult for a while. Not just the seized money, but it’ll take time to set up a new gambling den and get it running again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damn it, So-ryong-dong was perfect. The location and size were ideal. Where am I supposed to find another gambling den like that?”
“I’ll take care of it quickly, sir.”
“Send Police Chief Kim an envelope. He’s probably getting a lot of heat from above—asking why he didn’t prevent a gambling den of that size. I’m angry he couldn’t cover for us, but he’s someone we need to keep around anyway. You have to take care of people like this when situations like this arise.”
“Understood, sir. Should I send one envelope?”
“This time we need to put in three, don’t we? Prices have gone up so much. Back in my day, 100 million won could buy a congressman or a minister, but now we have to slip 100 million, 300 million to some local police chief. Damn it. I can’t even do this job anymore. There’s nothing left to make.”
“I’ll have it delivered by today, sir.”
“All right… and another thing. The Special Investigation Team couldn’t have found it on their own—someone must have tipped them off. Who do you think it was?”
“We’re looking into it now, sir.”
“Tell me. You must have a suspicion.”
“I suspect it was the Dae-hoon Faction.”
“Ha ha… you think the same way I do? That’s what I thought too.”
“They seem to have harbored a grudge since the last holdem bar was raided.”
“That’s why I say—why don’t they just stay in the military eating their rations instead of crawling out here and causing trouble?”
“… I apologize, sir.”
“Sigh… should I have crushed that bastard back then too? My heart was too soft. I couldn’t kill a kid who called me uncle and followed me around. So I let him live, and look—he’s become the source of all this trouble.”
For a moment, I recalled how someone so soft-hearted had spent a lifetime calling another man his superior—and then killed him.
But I didn’t make the mistake of voicing that thought aloud.
Had I done so, my tongue would have been cut out and my eyes gouged from their sockets before I sank into the waters off Gunsan’s coast.
“When I returned to Gunsan and those brats started running around in packs, that’s when I should have acted. I was too soft, Director Lee.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“I need to deal with that bastard. Get it done immediately.”
“Yes, understood.”
Director Lee Hyun-seung bowed at a ninety-degree angle, offered his acknowledgment, and slipped out of the suite.
Left alone, Yun Ki-hwan turned his gaze back to the window.
I didn’t want to lose sight of this view.
There was no desire in me to step down from this throne I’d built.
I was the king of Gunsan.
With a single word from me, anything was possible in Gunsan.
True, I’d employed somewhat underhanded methods to claim this throne, but it was unavoidable.
It wasn’t something I chose to do.
I bore this cross for Gunsan’s sake.
Everyone wanted this.
Seo Moon-sik—Seo Dae-hun’s father—who had controlled Gunsan until then, wanted no change.
He didn’t want development either.
Though he led Gunsan’s largest criminal organization, he preferred indulgence to profit.
Rather than conducting business, his men simply ran around together, drinking and carousing like wastrels.
They collected protection money from establishments,
and managed gambling dens and liquor distribution—that was all.
Whenever they met, they drank,
and spent their time gambling.
I hated it.
It seemed to me that with just a little effort, the organization could generate enormous wealth.
Money was visible everywhere, yet Seo Moon-sik did nothing. It frustrated me.
I’d spoken to Seo Moon-sik about it many times, but
“Isn’t this enough? It’s not so bad, is it?”
I wasn’t the only one frustrated.
The local power brokers and politicians felt the same way.
They wanted to sweep out the street vendors and eliminate all unlicensed operations.
They wanted to redevelop the area, build apartments, and sell commercial spaces, but Seo Moon-sik wouldn’t budge.
He gripped the organization so tightly that bringing about change was nearly impossible.
“Boss, shouldn’t we clear out those street vendors over there?”
“Those people need to eat too. Let them be. They’re just scraping by day to day. Don’t touch them.”
So I eliminated Seo Moon-sik.
At that time, I joined hands with the Geumho Gang—the only rival one could really call a rival—and removed him.
Though I called them rivals, the Geumho Gang’s scale wasn’t particularly large.
Yet I was able to eliminate Seo Moon-sik precisely because Yun Ki-hwan orchestrated the plan and handled every preparation.
After Seo Moon-sik’s death, we rebranded the Moon-sik Faction as the Geumho Gang.
To outsiders, it appeared the Geumho Gang had completely absorbed the Moon-sik Faction, but the reality was far different.
In truth, the Moon-sik Faction had merely changed its name.
As the new boss of the Geumho Gang, Yun Ki-hwan accelerated Gunsan’s development at full throttle.
I purchased a dilapidated construction company.
We razed everything and initiated redevelopment.
The police, politicians, and bureaucrats worked in perfect synchronization.
The police turned a blind eye, and the bureaucrats rubber-stamped every document.
The politicians emphasized the necessity of development and secured the budget.
That’s how we tore people apart, crushed them beneath our heels, and shattered them to reach this point.
This is my world—the one I’ve built.
Anyone who threatens to crack my world deserves to be eliminated preemptively.
.
.
.
Dae-hun Faction Office.
“Hey. Did we really nail them this time?”
“Yes, sir. We hit them hard this time. Especially since it was before their payoff, they had cash stacked up there, and it all got seized.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. Why does this taste so damn sweet? It’s delicious. Call the guys over tonight—let’s grab some meat.”
“Beef, sir?”
“Beef? No way. Pork. Pork’s better for you.”
“Not beef today, sir.”
“Geun-su~ are you paying for it?”
“Not pork either, sir. Come to think of it, pork suits me better anyway.”
Geun-su, my junior from the orphanage, had stuck to my side like glue ever since I returned to Gunsan.
Having been in the orphanage since childhood, Geun-su lived like a street punk in Gunsan’s underworld.
One day, while shaking down high schoolers, he got caught by me and received a brutal beating—after that, he never left my side.
“But why do you keep saying ‘sir’ at the end of every sentence when you never even served in the military?”
“If I talk like this, won’t people think I’m from an elite special forces unit like you, sir?”
“Everyone in this neighborhood knows you got a medical exemption.”
“There might still be some kids who don’t know, sir. Anyway, I like talking this way.”
“Do whatever you want. Either way, let’s eat meat tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
.
.
.
Flower Pig Pork Belly Restaurant in Gunsan.
The table was set with a grill, meat, and various vegetables.
Soju and beer were arranged in abundance.
“Alright, before we dig in, let’s hear from our eldest brother here. Come on over.”
“Hey! Just eat!”
“Come on. We’ve all gathered like this—you have to say something.”
“Ugh… I don’t want to.”
“Come over here.”
Seo Dae-hun emerged as if being half-dragged forward.
Slightly embarrassed, yet speaking with genuine sincerity.
“Thank you. All I can say to you is thank you. And all I can promise you is that as long as our organization exists, we will always be together. I may be weak, but our organization is strong. I believe in you.”
“We believe!!!”
As I spoke, roughly twenty people sitting in the restaurant shouted loudly.
That cry pierced straight into my heart.
So many people followed me.
I suddenly felt how reassuring their voices were.
I felt unexpectedly emotional.
I said one more unnecessary word.
“We are strong.”
“Strong!!”
With the shout, I drained the drink in my hand in one go.
I rarely drank alcohol to maintain my physique,
but today I drank.
Though I didn’t eat pork belly.
I ate neck meat instead.
“Let’s go to the second place.”
“Third place too.”
The gathering that started at eight o’clock continued past midnight.
I was feeling the effects of drinking for the first time in a while.
I handed my card to Geun-su.
“Geun-su. Take this and handle the payment later.”
“What about you, hyung?”
“I’m heading out first. Besides, the guys will have more fun without me. Let them enjoy themselves to the end.”
“I’ll see you home.”
“No need. You enjoy yourself without me. You work hard enough as it is.”
“That’s not hard work. Let me take you home.”
“I said no. Don’t make everyone get up when I leave—I’ll slip out quietly. See you tomorrow.”
“Yes, hyung. Go ahead.”
“Yeah. Have fun. See you tomorrow.”
I stood up and quietly slipped out of the restaurant.
The cold air cleared my head a bit.
As I headed home, someone walking toward me from the opposite direction looked odd.
Black clothes, black hat, black mask.
The outfit screamed trouble.
I hugged the edge of the road as I walked.
I didn’t want to collide with anyone.
But he was coming straight toward me.
Something felt off.
Just as I decided to dodge—
he lunged at me in a flash.
He pulled a long sashimi knife from his jacket.
And without time to evade, the blade flew straight at my heart.
I wanted to dodge, but my body wouldn’t respond.
My movements were sluggish.
Why did I have to drink earlier?
I managed to deflect the knife aimed at my heart, barely changing its trajectory.
But not by much.
The blade pierced my abdomen.
Just as he tried to pull the knife free from my belly—
I stepped forward instead of back.
I couldn’t retreat.
I couldn’t give him space to withdraw the blade.
And in that same moment, I struck his throat.
The man who’d focused all his concentration on driving the knife in
was too fixated on pulling it out and stabbing again to properly see my attack coming.
Gack. Gack. Gack.
He choked, struggling to breathe.
I threw a punch.
He couldn’t block it. After taking several blows, he collapsed.
Watching him fall, I sank down as well.
I could barely breathe myself.
The knife lodged in my abdomen was unbearably cumbersome.
But I couldn’t pull it out.
I had to get to a hospital first.
I didn’t want to call Geun-su while he was out having fun—
but I had no choice.
Right now, Geun-su was all I had.
My vision blurred.
Damn it, where did he stab me?
I opened my phone and dialed Geun-su’s number.
His voice came through.
But it was weak.
I couldn’t form words.
I should tell Geun-su to take me with him,
but the words won’t come out.
I closed my eyes quietly.

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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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