Chapter 7
#007
1.
Today, seven people died in the alleys of District D-9.
Six vagrants.
And yesterday's weak self.
The count family's wastrel Cedric had died, and I was reborn as the spineless James Bond.
“Kid, you’re a proper man now. You’ve lost your virginity, haven’t you?”
“This little bastard, this little bastard’s the real thing, I’m telling you. Shwoosh, shwoosh, bam! Teach me that sometime too.”
“I knew it from the start. There’s no one as easygoing as him who’s bad at his work.”
“We were only going to have you do a test, but you took down three by yourself. Good work, James.”
Big and Dick had their arms around my shoulders, affectionately ruffling my hair.
“Ah, of course. Because this body has ‘awakened.’”
“What do you mean, ‘awakened’?”
“Let’s just say I’ve come to grasp the essence of the law of the jungle.”
“This punk even makes fancy words sound cool!”
I said it with my chin lifted, all cocky.
I had every right to.
Because I’d filled half of the sack we were dragging along.
-Swish, ssswish
But is it really okay to drag this thing around like this?
Yet sticky blood spread beneath the sack as if painted on, and not a single passerby spared it a glance.
...Looks like I still haven’t fully shaken Ark City off yet.
That place was wild enough, but this is just an inhuman hellscape.
Seeing it that way, Big, Dick, and Ron’s behavior—so far removed from normal—made a lot more sense.
A person from another world is a different person.
Would a child soldier in an African civil-war country carrying an AK-47 have the same values as a Korean high schooler ditching evening study to play LoL?
“Kid! You’re coming straight to the welcome party, right?”
“You’re treating?”
“You punk! You think I’d make you pay and look lame?”
“Of course I’ll go!”
Let’s stop thinking about the complicated stuff.
Free food!
We tossed the sack into the office and headed for the food alley.
It was the market I’d only been able to pass by last time, swallowing my saliva the whole way.
“Kid, have you been to this market before?”
“I have! But I only looked around that time! This is my first time seeing a market this big!”
“This is Hongsheon (紅蜃) Market, the biggest food alley in our city.”
We took a seat at a shop, dodging the swarming crowd.
A small street stall with only counter seating in front of the cooking area.
On the side table sat a pig’s head with a friendly grin.
“Boss! Four steaming bowls of meat gukbap here! And four beers! It’s the rookie welcome party today, so if you skimp on the meat, I’ll kill you myself, got it?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Bring the beer first!”
The opened bottled beers were served, foaming up in bubbly froth.
Beer!
My eyes practically rolled back. How long had it been since I’d last had a drink?
“James! You’re the star of the day, so give us a toast.”
“Then I’ll go with ‘lawyer’!”
“Lawyer? Why the hell is that a toast?”
“It means, ‘May we always be brothers! A man’s friendship!’”
“Hahaha! Our youngest really does have style!”
“I’ll lead it! Lawyer!”
“LAWYER!!!!!”
-Clink
As the bottle mouths clinked, the beer foam bubbled under the wavering lights.
Glug, glug. The sharp barley burn slid down past my Adam’s apple.
Cold and tingling.
Alcohol seeped into my body, which had been steeped in poverty, labor, and exhaustion, like sweet rain after a drought.
My eyes welled up over something as trivial as beer.
“Kraaaah!! This is it!!!”
The freshly ladled gukbap also came out on a wooden bowl.
A mound of rice well soaked in a blazing-red broth that looked like it had been loaded with chili oil.
On top, a heap of meat from some unidentifiable cut.
“Kid, this place makes the best meat gukbap in Hongsheon Market.”
So even in another world, there was gukbap!
“Haaah, hoo... hoo....”
I burned the roof of my mouth and shoved spoonful after spoonful into my mouth.
Delicious food is, after all, a proper source of dopamine.
I can say that with confidence, having sampled delicacies all over the world.
To be honest, the gukbap here in Hongsheon Market itself wasn’t anything special.
The rice had a musty smell, as if no one could tell how many years it had been since it was milled.
The spicy broth was so funky it was downright rank, as if they’d tossed in pig kidneys.
They were only forcing it down with the strong aroma of chili oil.
“Hup, haaah, hoo.... slurp!”
“Kid, eat slowly.”
But why is this so good!!!
Three stars.
Good enough that I’d visit Necropolis just to eat this.
For me, who had lived on compressed biscuits and cockroach cat food, it was a delicacy unlike anything else in the world.
2.
“Oof, I’m buzzed.”
After the company dinner, I staggered home.
In one hand I carried a wrapped bowl of meat gukbap.
The older brothers had packed it up for me, saying to take care of my little brother.
Why had I introduced myself as the little brother?
Because Arbel is a beauty so gorgeous she’d make your eyes pop out.
No need to go around this cesspit shouting, ‘I’ve got treasure.’
“I bought gukbap!”
I opened the door and stepped into the gloomy room, then widened my eyes.
“Uh, ah......”
Did she smell the gukbap or something? Arbel was moving.
Arbel, who had only lain there motionless like a corpse!
I tossed the gukbap aside and approached her wriggling on the bed.
“Big sis, are you coming to?”
Her eyelashes fluttered, and then Arbel opened her eyes.
Those lovely golden eyes, seen for the first time in a while, rolled toward me.
The focus was still a little off, but she was conscious.
A low voice leaked through the cracks of Arbel’s split lips.
“Cedric....”
“Yeah, it’s me! Your little brother Cedric, always devoted to you!”
As expected of a mage!
She woke up! My investment!
Maybe, instead of leaving her to some quack doctor in this utterly doomed city, the anti-medicine strategy of trusting a mage’s recovery was the right move after all?
“I’m sorry....”
“Ah, no need to apologize. Still, could you read this first? It’s the care log I wrote.”
This makes things easier.
Obvious as it sounds, there’s a world of difference between a hunk of cargo with no consciousness and a patient who can actually hold a conversation.
Maybe, seeing this pitiful little brother’s devotion, she’d offer me more than just company.
And Arbel, the person directly involved in the ambush incident.
Not only could I get a more accurate grasp of the current situation, but if she recovered smoothly, I’d gain a powerful asset.
I’d heard that a first-tier mage was recognized as a 5th-rank fixer in and of herself.
“Want some gukbap first? Hold on. I’ll bring it over.”
Arbel’s hand suddenly grabbed my sleeve as I was about to stand up.
“Mom....”
A whisper-thin, feeble murmur.
“Mom, I... hurt....”
Transparent tears ran down the corners of her eyes.
The light in Arbel’s pitifully shining eyes vanished as if someone had blown out a candle.
The hand clutching my sleeve slipped away weakly.
A dreadful silence settled in the cramped room.
“...Hey.”
No, right? It’s not real, right?
“Snap out of it! Hey! Hey!”
No, fuck, don’t bullshit me!
I tapped Arbel’s cheek.
There was no response.
In the room where our breath fogged the air, her body—once like a fireball—was cooling fast.
Her fully relaxed pupils felt like deep black pits.
“Fuuuck....”
I couldn’t keep the curses from spilling out.
That sobered me right up.
3.
Arbel was dead.
In front of a younger brother who was a complete stranger.
Leaving behind a deathbed message of about four words.
“Hoo....”
Of course, my chest wasn’t being ripped apart by grief or anything.
For the record, trying to save Arbel wasn’t basic human sympathy or some bleeding-heart nonsense.
It was because she’d be useful to me if I invested in her.
But I hadn’t expected her to go out so pathetically, so I’m feeling hollow.
Investment losses are always depressing.
For now, I wrapped Arbel tightly in a blanket, then wrapped a tarp around that as well.
“May you be reborn in paradise.”
With a cigarette in my mouth, I quietly prayed for Arbel’s repose for three minutes.
This was the utmost condolence I could offer Arbel.
Anything more than that would be a luxury.
“Heave-ho.”
I slung the tarp containing the corpse over my shoulder.
Arbel’s body was disgustingly light, and some corner of my heart felt shitty because of it.
No matter how cold the room was, a corpse would inevitably rot.
I had to deal with it before it started getting nasty in this cramped room.
There was a useful way to dispose of bodies in Necropolis.
Selling them to Twilight Development.
Twilight Resource Development was one of the giant corporations that divided Necropolis alongside Overnus Pharmaceuticals.
And behind them, supposedly, were necromancers who handled ‘death.’
Since necromancer magic required corpses as material, most of Necropolis’s dead ended up flowing their way.
“The living should stay alive.”
Don’t think I’m being too harsh, Arbel.
It’s not like there are any other options anyway.
It was either toss her into a pile of trash, or buy land at great expense and bury her....
The former makes no money, and the latter actually costs money.
So what else am I supposed to do?
Might as well make a quick buck.
I slung the sack over my shoulder and hurried along.
The place that took in corpses was the ossuary, a subcontractor of Twilight Development.
In Necropolis, it was harder to find a place with no crowd, but the front of the ossuary was especially packed.
Despite the name, there was no one there mourning the dead.
Without exception, in the expressionless eyes of every one of them,
I saw Arbel’s pupils, which had turned into a bottomless black pit.
“What are you staring at, you little shit?”
“If I want to sell a corpse, do I line up here?”
“Get behind me. If you cut the line, I’ll stuff you in this sack too.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
So this was the line.
“Who did you come to sell?”
“My wife. You?”
“Me too. Do you know how much these usually go for?”
“I heard it depends on the use.”
“Use?”
“I don’t really know either. I just hope they pay a lot.”
The line was long, so I was continuing with some small talk while gathering information.
Something suddenly caught in my throat, like a fish bone from eating sliced gizzard shad.
Wait a second.
Use?
A bad hunch flashed through my mind too late.
Come to think of it, Arbel is a mage.
Wouldn’t a mage’s corpse definitely be different from a normal one?
And wouldn’t the guy bringing in a mage’s corpse look suspicious no matter what?
At worst, wouldn’t my identity get exposed and my pursuer catch my trail?
Still, I doubt he’d have followed me all the way to this godforsaken shithole of a city.
But if he had, the risk would be way too high.
I couldn’t forget that the other side was stronger than Arbel.
“Fuck.”
“What’s wrong, all of a sudden?”
I realized it too late.
For Cedric of all people to forget such a simple fact.
Even I must have lost my composure for a moment.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Hey, I get how you feel, but keep quiet and stay in line. Guys who leave like you always end up lining up again within two days anyway.”
“Fuck off, get your hand off me, you bastard! Since when are we close?”
“Tsk tsk. Hang in there.”
Just as I was about to hurry back, a shadow blocked my way.
“What a cute little thing.”
The woman was a mysterious beauty.
A jet-black frilly dress with no other color mixed in.
A pillbox hat with a mesh veil.
Her oddly hollow-looking black eyes stared at me from right in front of my face.
Fuck, my heart!
Use your blinker before you come in!
As I stumbled back in fright, the woman straightened up with a sly smile in her eyes.
But... her head kept rising.
Seeing the huge shadow she cast, I finally realized what felt off.
It wasn’t that the perspective was weird.
A height of at least 2.4 meters.
The woman was an absurdly tall giant, as if every step should go pop-pop-pop.
Seeing that distinctive aura, I could tell instinctively.
You can tell at a glance, after all.
In this hellish maw of a place, that smile, that ease, that refined appearance, and that indescribably dangerous aura...
A mage.
So humans could have that kind of presence after all.
As I stood frozen, unable to move a muscle, the attendants behind her shouted at me.
“How dare a rat still hold its head high? Do you even know who this is?”
“This is Ms. Ceres Cassian, a director of Twilight Resource Development.”
“I’m sorry! This lowly one was too presumptuous! It’s just that you’re so beautiful....”
Just as I was about to slip in some flattery and kneel dramatically.
Her hand grabbed my chin and made me lift my head.
An artificial lemon scent rose from around her wrist.
Her hazy eyes, meeting mine, seemed to observe straight through me.
Her soft, husky voice sent a chill down my spine, too.
What’s with this lady, seriously?
“You have good eyes. Mad eyes.”
I wasn’t sure why, but for now it seemed like a friendly attitude.
Hm, I am pretty handsome, after all.
Though I’ve never been with a woman over two meters tall before....
What would that feel like, I wonder?
Maybe this would be a good chance to find out, step by step?
“You came to sell a corpse, right? I’ll buy it.”
Seeing her extend a hand to the attendant as if to take out money, I snapped to my senses.
This was not the time.
“I’m sorry. I did come to sell a corpse, but I changed my mind. I’ll commemorate the deceased in another way....”
“Liar.”
Ceres lowered herself again to meet my eyes.
The corners of her mouth were stretched to the limit, to a chilling degree.
“You’re not the kind of child who’d think such a noble thing, are you?”
Shiiit....
How the hell did she know....