I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 5

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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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005-Kwon Ju-ah
5.
“Come here~~”
The moment I arrived at school in the morning, Yang Jung-won called me over.
What? Did this bastard already get to school?
Why does he come to school earlier than me?
How is a delinquent allowed to be this diligent?
Isn’t a delinquent supposed to skip school, hang around with troublemakers, and only show up occasionally?
Yang Jung-won seems to lack the qualifications to be a proper delinquent.
If he’s going to be like this, why bother being one at all?
I’d do a better job.
Wait, is that even right?
Let me go back to my usual slouching posture.
“Uh…”
“Damn it. Why didn’t you come to school?”
What?
Is this guy worried about me?
Even though I was absent,
the teachers don’t even care about me. And this guy thought of me?
I’m telling you, this guy has no business being a delinquent.
How could he ever pull off being a delinquent with such a delicate heart?
“Well… I wasn’t feeling well…”
“You got hit a little and now you’re slacking off?”
“No, I was really sick. I couldn’t even get out of bed.”
“Damn. You can’t be so frail like that, you know? How are you supposed to function if your body’s that weak?”
See?
He really is worried about me.
A tsundere?
“Sorry.”
“Damn it, I couldn’t even eat bread because you weren’t here. Go buy some bread right now.”
With practiced ease, he tossed two thousand-won bills onto the ground.
Last time he only gave me a thousand won, but today it’s two thousand.
He’s more considerate than I thought.
He has compassion.
“I’ll be right back.”
I ran again.
.
.
.
After arriving at school, Kwon Ju-ah scanned the classroom once.
‘He didn’t come again today.’
It’s been several days of absences now.
Not that I’m worried.
Just curious, I guess?
There’s something I want to know.
That day, I happened to see Gong In-bae getting beaten up.
Gong In-bae getting beaten isn’t anything special.
It happens every day.
I thought, ‘Here we go again,’ but
the beating went on longer than usual, and Gong In-bae’s expression looked worse.
‘This is going to cause an accident,’ I thought, and
Gong In-bae collapsed.
But I saw it.
As Gong In-bae fell to Yang Jung-won, his hand touched the necklace around his neck.
And the necklace disappeared.
No one else would have noticed, but I saw it.
I don’t know how that necklace vanished.
Some kind of pickpocketing technique?
I don’t know the method, but I knew the necklace disappeared from Yang Jung-won in an instant.
The necklace doesn’t matter.
How he did it.
That’s what I was curious about.
Because I was curious about that.
I waited for Gong In-bae to ask him.
But after that day, he never came to school.
Kwon Ju-ah wasn’t so much worried about Gong In-bae as she was desperately curious about how he’d stolen it.
She just wanted to ask.
That’s when it happened.
The back door of the classroom opened, and I saw Gong In-bae walking in with bread.
******
Whether it’s because I collapsed,
or because he’s mistaken his fist for some kind of lethal weapon,
or maybe there’s still some pity left in his heart for me—I’m not sure,
but he didn’t hit me today.
That’s sweet.
On the way home.
I’m already excited thinking about what I’ll eat for dinner tonight.
Before I had the inventory, there was nothing to eat.
The school lunch was my only meal.
Now I can eat a full dinner, and I get to choose what it is.
That haul from the warehouse mart last time turned out to be a lifesaver.
I wonder if I’ve ever been this happy in my entire life.
“Gong In-bae!”
“Hey~~ Gong In-bae~~”
Huh? Are they calling me?
My name really is Gong In-bae.
But no one at school calls me by my name.
They call me “beggar brat” every single time.
I’d forgotten that was even my real name.
There’s someone who remembers my name—the name I’d forgotten myself?
There’s someone who calls me by my name?
When you called my name before, I’d have gone over to you and taken a beating, wouldn’t I?
I was hoping I’d make it through today without getting hit,
but the world really isn’t kind.
I head toward the voice.
Kwon Ju-ah is standing there.
Today’s full of surprises.
It’s strange enough that someone at school knows my name.
And that person is Kwon Ju-ah.
Back to my usual crouch.
“Huh? What’s going on?”
“Can we talk for a second?”
“With me?”
“Follow me.”
Kwon Ju-ah said nothing more and swiftly turned to leave, and I shuffled along behind her like a stray dog.
Kwon Ju-ah stopped in an empty spot behind the school.
Then she spun around and fixed me with a sharp, piercing gaze.
“You stole it, didn’t you?”
“Stole what?”
“Yang Jung-won’s necklace.”
“Me? No way. How would I steal Yang Jung-won’s necklace? I’d get beaten to death. Even if I’d found it, I would’ve returned it.”
By my own assessment, that was a perfect answer.
A beggar has to live like a beggar.
“No? I saw it. I saw you stealing it.”
“You must’ve seen wrong. I didn’t steal anything.”
Did she really see it?
Even when I place something in my hand and use my inventory ability,
all I know is that it vanishes in a flash—I have no idea how she could’ve seen it from that distance.
Does she have exceptional eyesight?
Is there Mongolian blood running through her veins?
“I saw you touch the necklace around Yang Jung-won’s neck when you collapsed. After you touched it, the necklace disappeared.”
“That’s just a coincidence. The necklace broke, and it just so happened that I collapsed at that moment. Or maybe, like you said, I touched it while falling. If I remembered, I could explain the situation in detail, but I lost consciousness from being beaten so badly. How could I have stolen a necklace while in that state? I don’t remember, so I can’t give you a detailed answer.”
I tried to persuade Kwon Ju-ah by emphasizing that I was the victim.
I don’t remember.
Wasn’t I being beaten at that time?
If I was being beaten, how could I steal a necklace? Like this.
“No, you definitely stole it.”
“No matter what you say, I didn’t steal it.”
“Then show me.”
“Show you what? My backpack? Sure, go ahead.”
I took off my backpack and held it out to Kwon Ju-ah.
But Kwon Ju-ah didn’t take my bag.
“No, it’s already been two days. You wouldn’t keep it in your bag. You could have sold it somewhere, or hidden it in some secret place no one knows about.”
“So what are you trying to say?”
“Tell me how you stole it. I’m just curious about that. It happened so fast. I’m only curious about the method. I don’t care about the necklace itself. I’ll keep it secret from Yang Jung-won.”
“Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? I didn’t steal it.”
“But I saw it.”
“Then report me. Go tell Yang Jung-won. Tell him I stole the necklace. Then I’ll get beaten until the necklace appears. Because of your suspicion.”
“No. I’m just curious about how you stole it.”
“I said I didn’t steal it!!”
My voice grew louder, unlike my usual timid self.
Maybe it was because I was afraid of being caught stealing the necklace.
Or maybe it was caution because Kwon Ju-ah was showing curiosity about my inventory ability.
I didn’t know the exact reason myself.
All I wanted was to get away from that place quickly.
Anyway, it was the first time I’d raised my voice at school.
“If you have nothing else to say, I’m leaving.”
I turned around and started walking.
Kwon Ju-ah followed behind me.
“Let’s go together~”
“Go where together?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“Then I’ll go too.”
“Go where?”
“To your place.”
“Are you out of your mind? Why would you come to my house? You’re not Kwon Ju-ah, are you?”
“I’m seriously dying of curiosity. Can’t I just go look once?”
“Seriously, this is ridiculous.”
“Besides, you live alone anyway. If you have nothing to hide, there’s nothing you can’t show me, right?”
“How did you know I live alone?”
“Huh? Is there someone who doesn’t know that? Everyone in school probably knows you’re an orphan.”
“Well, I’m not actually an orphan. Though I suppose my situation is worse than that.”
Kwon Ju-ah glanced at me once, then spoke again.
“If you let me check your place, I won’t suspect you anymore.”
“… Fine. Understood.”
I wasn’t thrilled about it, but it didn’t really matter.
I wasn’t sure why she wanted to visit my home, but if showing her the place could ease her suspicions, that would be enough.
She wouldn’t find anything anyway, and if taking her there could dispel her doubts about my inventory, that was sufficient.
“It’ll be tough. Keep up with me.”
.
.
.
“How much further do we have to go?”
“We’re almost there.”
“You said that a minute ago.”
“That’s because you asked a minute ago.”
“Tch.”
“There it is.”
I raised my hand and pointed to a dilapidated house nestled at the base of the mountain.
.
.
.
My father bought this house.
Among all the things he’d done, there were hardly any that ended cleanly.
Most of them brought problems.
From major matters to minor ones, he created trouble indiscriminately and fairly.
He made the wrong choice every time.
The one thing he actually did right was buying this house.
Why?
A mistake that turned out to be fortunate for me.
A house he bought without proper inspection, simply because it was cheap.
It turned out the land owner and the house owner were different people.
My father bought the house, but the land had a separate owner.
Was it two people? Three?
To buy this house, someone would need to meet with my father, the house owner, and two or three unknown people who owned the land, negotiate prices, and close the deal.
And that process is absolutely not easy.
Even buying a normal house where land and structure come as a package is grueling enough.
But to track down and negotiate with multiple owners of land and house separately, then complete the transaction?
It’s genuinely difficult.
And human greed knows no bounds.
The moment someone expresses interest in buying, the homeowner or landowner demands an exorbitant price,
and the buyer must navigate all these circumstances and conditions just to complete the purchase at that inflated cost.
But after all that effort and expense, there are simply too many better properties available elsewhere.
For these reasons, this house is nearly impossible to sell.
That’s why it still remains under my father’s name,
and it’s also the reason I don’t have to live on the streets.
The house won’t sell.
If it had sold, I probably would have been thrown out onto the streets long ago.
But it’s not just this house.
The entire neighborhood is like this.
There are roughly twenty to thirty houses in this area,
but nearly fifty different landowners, or so I’ve heard.
The landowner, the homeowner, and the resident are all different people.
Such tangled contractual relationships create enormous obstacles for redevelopment.
That’s the primary reason why this Mountain Village, despite being in central Seoul, has never been redeveloped.
It’s not as though construction companies never attempted redevelopment.
Well-known firms came, promising to redevelop the area, distributing flyers and meeting with residents.
They confidently signed contracts, insisting they were different from the rest.
First, they purchased houses with clean paperwork that could be easily acquired.
They also made efforts to contract with properties that had complicated ownership structures.
They tracked down residents one by one to persuade them.
But those holding even less than a single pyeong of land demanded compensation plus an apartment unit,
while those with larger plots insisted their compensation should scale proportionally to their land size.
If a single pyeong entitled someone to compensation plus one apartment,
then ten pyeong meant they wanted ten times the compensation and ten apartment units.
Squatting tactics were deployed,
and landowners and homeowners resorted to coercion and threats as casually as eating meals.
It was utterly unreasonable.
Eventually, even the construction companies gave up and left.
Those who had sold their houses abandoned the neighborhood,
the construction companies departed,
and with no one left, the merchants who had done business here moved away too.
Empty houses began appearing throughout the neighborhood,
and vacant storefronts started multiplying.
The neighborhood transformed into a slum.
It became oppressive.
Even delinquent youth avoid this place.
Bad location, they say?
I live at the very top of that neighborhood.
.
.
.
I ended up bringing Kwon Ju-ah all the way back to my home.
Kwon Ju-ah, who had insisted on going home immediately, now hesitated before the ruins that was my house.
Was she worried a ghost might appear?
“Just search quickly and leave.”
I spoke curtly and slipped inside the house.
My house was small, but the yard was quite spacious.
Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure if this was my yard, my neighbor’s yard, or part of the mountain itself.
It didn’t matter.
I simply enjoyed placing a wooden platform there and gazing down at Seoul while I lived.
I set my bag on the platform and opened the front door, speaking to Kwon Ju-ah.
“This is my home. I won’t go inside—search wherever you’d like. Oh, I can take this, right? I’m starving.”
I grabbed the burner and two instant noodle packages right in front of me and headed to the platform.
“Um…”
Kwon Ju-ah spoke in an uncertain voice.
Was she frightened at the prospect of entering a ghost’s home?
While Kwon Ju-ah lingered at the doorway, I began cooking the instant noodles on the platform.
Even if Kwon Ju-ah searched for a lifetime, she would never find the necklace.
Because it was in my inventory.
The noodles cooked beautifully.
Now I could eat.
I blew on it gently, about to take a bite.
“Can I have just one bite?”
An irritating voice came from behind me.

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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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