The Second Coming of Gluttony - 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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Episode 5. March 16, 3:30 PM (2)

“You wouldn’t even die from falling in here, you know?”
A bright, clear voice rang out. Without anyone around, it sounded unusually loud.
Presently, a figure emerged from the darkness.
White blouse, black blazer, and a deep gray H-line skirt that laid bare every curve of her silhouette. A young woman in crisp business attire, a leather briefcase in hand.
“The water here isn’t very deep, after all. Unless you were just out for a swim?”
Her voice rose playfully at the end. Despite the professional outfit, her manner of speaking was decidedly carefree.
As Seol quietly withdrew his feet, the woman offered a faint smile.
“You must be Seol….”
“Who are you?”
The woman swallowed her words and approached him with an unhurried gait. With practiced ease, she extracted a business card and held it out.
“This is who I am.”
Seol glanced at the card.
Shin Young Pharmaceuticals.
Team Leader Kim Han-na.
When Seol made no move to take it, Kim Han-na withdrew the card, perhaps embarrassed. She offered a handkerchief instead.
“Take it. I find it hard to watch a man cry.”
Seol didn’t accept it, wiping his eyes roughly with his sleeve. He might have felt offended, but Kim Han-na seemed intrigued by his wariness instead.
“They say a gambling addict won’t budge even if reason and beauty both throw themselves at him. Looks like it’s true.”
Seol studied the intellectual beauty of the bespectacled woman. Her face was familiar—he’d seen it in a dream.
Specifically, in the first scene. At Tancheon, where he’d been drinking beer when some woman approached him. She said she had good news.
And it was good news indeed. She offered him enough money to clear his debts and more, promised he’d earn even more if he worked hard. When he received the bundle of money that very moment, he felt as though he’d been bewitched.
The price was a contract, but dream-Seol didn’t care. In a situation where he had nothing, the moment he was considering signing up for clinical trials, money appeared without effort.
Of course, he discovered the deception only after everything came to light. He’d been forcibly dragged away to some unheard-of place. And the contract had been a slave contract.
Though it was all a dream, remembering how he’d groveled like a dog made him shudder involuntarily.
‘Wait, hold on.’
Seol suddenly grasped a contradiction.
The things he’d dismissed as merely a dream were actually happening?
The moment he realized this, his pounding heart turned cold, and a sharp sense of caution took hold.
“You’re more composed than you look.”
“?”
“I expected some kind of reaction when I brought up gambling.”
Certainly. To Kim Han-na, his response was unexpected. In reality, Seol’s attention was focused entirely elsewhere.
“Well, that suits me fine. Seems like we might actually understand each other after all.”
“Understand each other?”
“Yes. I came here to give you some excellent news.”
At her own words, Kim Han-na chuckled. Seol couldn’t hide his shock.
I came here to give you some excellent news.
The exact words he’d heard in the dream. It was starting to feel less like an ordinary dream and more like a prophecy.
“You see.”
Kim Han-na gently set down the leather bag she’d been carrying on her right shoulder. As she pulled the strap, the contents gleamed brightly. Fifty-thousand-won bills were neatly bundled and packed snugly inside.
“Would you like to gamble with me?”
The main point had come.
Her investigation into this man was already complete. All that remained was choosing when to cast the bait.
A man addicted to gambling was generally easy prey. But she aimed for perfection. She needed to choose the most certain timing, one he couldn’t refuse.
Today was that day.
Kim Han-na watched the man, his eyes captivated by the bag, and felt certain.
Seol slowly lifted his head. Kim Han-na clasped her hands as if urging him to speak.
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay. So what’s the game?”
Kim Han-na’s words faltered for a moment.
“I’ve quit gambling. I’m not going to do it.”
As Seol spoke with emphasis, Kim Han-na recovered her composure. She blinked rapidly, then tilted her head slightly.
“But if you just win one round, all this money could be yours?”
“I won’t do it.”
“Even if I give it to you regardless of winning or losing? I believe you have quite a bit of debt~.”
“I’ll pay my debts myself.”
“Then why aren’t you curious about why I’m doing this?”
“…….”
“I’ll tell you everything. All I ask is that you play one round of cards with me as the price of listening. And I’ll give you this money too, regardless of who wins.”
To be honest, it was tempting. At a glance, there had to be at least forty bundles. The way he spoke with such confidence inspired a measure of trust, and hearing him out didn’t seem like a bad idea.
Just as he was about to nod in agreement, alarm bells went off in his head. All remaining sentiment twisted violently into fierce rejection.
Yet at the same moment, he felt an odd pull as well.
Caught in the whirlwind of contradictory emotions, Seol took a deep breath.
‘Was I nearly about to make a grave mistake?’
No matter how vivid a dream, it fades quickly after waking. Yet he remembered that woman. She had to be someone of consequence. He needed to be careful.
Seol’s instinct was sound. The phrase “as the price of listening” carried multiple layers of meaning that warranted caution.
“I’ll have to decline.”
Kim Han-na muttered under her breath. Oh, really?
It was unexpected—or rather, more unexpected than she’d anticipated. She’d thought the moment he saw that bundle of money, his eyes would light up and he’d throw himself at it. The Seol that Kim Han-na knew would have been exactly that sort of man.
But it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility either.
Sometimes men like this existed. The type who put on airs, claiming there was something better to be had elsewhere.
Kim Han-na mentally upgraded her assessment of Seol by one tier. She didn’t think poorly of him for it. He was better than those brainless fools who didn’t think things through. But still….
‘You’ve picked the wrong target, you bastard.’
She hadn’t just done this once or twice. Men like this had their own way of being handled.
“How troublesome.”
Kim Han-na crossed her arms while subtly pressing her inner pocket.
Buzz—a vibration sounded.
“Ah, my apologies. One moment.”
She drew out her mobile phone and deftly connected her earbuds.
“Yes, this is Kim Han-na. Ah, yes. I’m currently in contact with someone now. Yes, yes… Really? So you’ll fill it from your end?”
She glanced sidelong at Seol.
“Of course, no problem at all. My client here has declined, so… Anyway, understood. I’ll withdraw then.”
She removed the earbuds and smiled brightly.
“Funny how these things work out. That last opening just got filled, wouldn’t you know.”
Kim Han-na emphasized the word “just.”
“Well, since your client has declined, there’s nothing to be done. Thank you for your time. I do hope you achieve what you’re after.”
She grabbed her leather bag without hesitation and turned away. Her footsteps were light and unhurried.
She expected one of two things now: either he’d grab her, or after a brief moment of hesitation, he’d scramble after her.
“Wait.”
Kim Han-na let out a quiet laugh.
“Yes? Sir?”
She turned only her head, tilting it with a questioning tilt. Her expression was deliberately condescending.
‘Different from what I expected, but you’re going to pretend you’re not interested? Please.’
It was as this smirk bloomed inside her that—
“If it’s not a contract.”
Seol opened his mouth.
“If it’s not a contract, then I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
Just one sentence.
In that single sentence, Kim Han-na’s train of thought came to an abrupt halt.
Blink, blink. She stared at the man before her with a dazed expression, mouth slightly agape.
“…Pardon?”
She barely managed the question.
“I don’t want—”
The words that followed—
“a contract. I want an invitation.”
destroyed every scenario she’d imagined.
“You…”
Her cheerful expression vanished as if it had been a lie. She let out a chill and slowly removed her glasses, her countenance hardening.
“Who are you?”
Her tone had changed. There was even a hint of hostility in it.
“You already know.”
Once the other party had dropped the formal speech, Seol followed suit. The woman’s eyes narrowed as she studied him intently.
“Were you already one of them?”
“You know better than I do that I’m not.”
She’d almost conceded the point. She’d been observing Seol as one of her targets for half a year. She’d detected nothing amiss in all that time.
Most importantly, if he’d ever stepped foot in that world, traces would remain. But she felt no resonance of the Mark. It was definitive proof that Seol had no direct or indirect connection to that other world.
Kim Han-na found herself in a situation she’d never imagined, with no idea how to respond. This simply shouldn’t have been possible.
“You’re asking me to believe that? Even though you can distinguish between a contract and an invitation?”
“What’s wrong with that? Can’t an invitation make such a statement?”
At the slack, evasive parrying, Kim Han-na bit down on her lower lip.
“I don’t like word games. Where is it? Where did you first make contact?”
“That’s not important.”
Seol deliberately changed the subject.
In truth, everything she’d said so far was based on the dream. The contract, the invitation—all of it. She’d simply thrown out whatever her emotions dictated, whatever came to mind.
Either way, Kim Han-na had no way of knowing the truth. Better to let her remain confused. This was the only weapon Seol had to deceive the woman.
“What matters is that I want an invitation, not a contract.”
Kim Han-na drew in a long breath.
“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, don’t. I’m curious, but I don’t need to know.”
One, two, three, four. Kim Han-na counted silently, trying to steady herself. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being outmaneuvered by her opponent’s pace.
“Setting that aside, explain to me why you want an invitation.”
“Because I don’t want to live as a slave under a contract.”
Seol answered simply. Kim Han-na’s eyebrows twitched.
“So tell me why I should waste my precious invitation voucher on some worthless gambler!”
Seol hesitated. At some point, she’d begun accepting as real what she’d dismissed as a mere dream. Now, beyond the question of righteousness, she wondered: did she really need to accept this?
It wasn’t too late. She could make it all go away here. She’d make up her mind to quit gambling. From this point on, she could choose to work honestly and restore her credibility.
And yet.
Ever since she’d declared she wouldn’t sign a contract, that unnamed sense of rejection had faded. But the pull she’d felt alongside it remained.
On the other hand, there was personal curiosity too. There were things she wanted to confirm.
Seol recalled the final scene.
The emotion that had made the man regret—it was now pushing her from behind. Urging her forward.
Only then could Seol understand the emotion from before. To go there, she absolutely could not sign a contract.
She clenched her teeth. Straining with all her might, she clawed at her memory.
“If you don’t give it to me, you might find yourself in trouble.”
“What?”
“Shin Young Pharmaceuticals, Team Leader Kim Han-na—isn’t that right?”
“And?”
“I understand they’ve been known for continuous new drug development for several years now. Could it be they have some connection to that other world?”
The gamble she’d thrown out half-believing had struck home. The woman’s carefully composed expression crumbled once more.
Before the dream, Seol hadn’t even known that other world existed. Which meant it was a secret not disclosed to ordinary people.
Whether she’d been forced to keep quiet or had chosen silence, it seemed like a weak point worth probing. The current Seol was just an ordinary person, bound by nothing and with nothing to lose.
“There’s no need to go around loudly broadcasting it. They say the twenty-first century is the information age, don’t they?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“You tried to deceive me first. Aren’t we even?”
“That’s funny. Who’d believe you even if you did spread it around? The word of some gambling addict?”
“…You might be right about that.”
When Seol agreed so readily, Kim Han-na felt unease creeping up. What was with that casual confidence all this time?
“But would your superiors think the same way?”
A grinding sound—teeth clenching—was audible.
“Couldn’t seal the contract, couldn’t maintain confidentiality. Your boss would just love that, wouldn’t he?”
“You bastard!”
At last, Kim Han-na dropped her mask. Seol sensed they were close to the finish line. A con artist cursing was as good as waving a white flag.
She considered pressing further, then thought better of it. She’d lashed hard enough with the whip—time to soothe with a gentle hand. Besides, the final decision rested in Kim Han-na’s court.
“Of course, I don’t want to go that far either. Just give me one invitation voucher.”
Seol stepped back slightly. Kim Han-na was still grinding her teeth venomously.
“A contract and an invitation are distinctly different matters. I can make a contract happen within my authority, but an invitation is outside my purview.”
“What about when you said it was your precious invitation voucher?”
Damn it. Kim Han-na chewed on her lower lip.
‘This cursed bastard. So this is the situation where I’d have no choice but to use it?’
Kim Han-na, who’d reduced a god of an entire world to a sniveling wretch, scratched her neat hair vigorously.
“It’s not a lie. For regular invitations, I need approval too.”
Seol shrugged. Facing that calm gaze, Kim Han-na’s seething rage gradually cooled.
A contract is business. An invitation is a different concept, though it can be seen as a natural extension.
From that perspective, Seol had exceeded Kim Han-na’s expectations. Not a slave, but rather a talented one—no, it felt like facing a veteran who’d been rolling around in that world for at least several years. Even though she knew that was impossible.
Kim Han-na, breathing deeply, turned on her mobile phone. Just before pressing the call button, she was seized by fierce conflict.
‘Damn it, how did I get tangled up with this bastard….’
Converting a contract to an invitation wasn’t a simple matter. No matter how convincingly she explained it, it would be hard to avoid censure. For Kim Han-na, for whom her career was everything, a blemish was unbearable.
She spoke abruptly, still holding the mobile phone to her ear.
“I’m going to set three conditions.”

(To be continued in the next installment)

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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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