Chapter 11
"Daemo Capital, Sambon Money."
These were what are called private loans or moneylending businesses.
Jinseong smiled as he looked at the golden smoke coiling like a snake around the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building.
"Loan sharks have a lot of money."
It was obvious, but loan sharks had a lot of money.
With people perceiving gangsters or daily lenders as going around collecting money while being dressed shabbily, they didn't know how much money these people had, but these loan sharks often played cleverly on the border of legality and illegality and often stockpiled things like slush funds or gold bars. Especially since they often needed to flee at a moment's notice, they often possessed items that were small in volume but expensive.
"But loan sharks have no money."
However, there was a contradiction.
Robbing a loan shark didn't yield money.
These loan sharks knew all too well that they were treated like golden goblins.
Let's assume a powerful ability user decided to rob.
Then, where would be the best place to hit?
A private home?
It was meaningless to rob.
At most, you'd find pocket change and wedding gifts. Even then, the gifts were hard to dispose of, needing to be sold on the black market or stored away, leaving little in hand.
A rich person's house?
This too wasn't profitable.
Rich houses naturally had slush funds or emergency funds, and touching those would be lucrative.
But there were always consequences afterwards.
Many rich people not only disliked but hated losses on their part or having their face damaged.
A bank?
A place often appearing in movies as having a lot of money.
It was almost a stereotype in people's minds that robbery = bank.
But this was the worst choice.
Strong ability users were stationed there, and as soon as a robber caused trouble, the police station was immediately contacted through various means. And the police would instantly surround the bank heavily armed and deploy special forces to attack all the robbers.
And it didn’t end there.
Let's assume you had incredibly good abilities and managed to steal the money. Do you think you can spend it freely?
They would start tracking as soon as the money was stolen.
Magic, science, sorcery....
They would use all means to track and certainly catch the robber. If they couldn’t catch them, they made it so not even a penny could be spent.
Human obsession with credit currency reached the level of madness.
Most couldn’t handle this madness.
Then where would be the best?
Where should one rob that wasn't a private home, a rich person's house, or a bank?
Where would money flow out like from a horn of plenty when robbed, have no strong ability users, have no consequences after robbing, and wouldn’t use public power for tracking? Moreover, where might one even receive cheers from people rather than curses for robbing?
'Loan sharks.'
From the perspective of strong ability users or heinous criminals, these loan sharks were truly laughable fellows.
People often viewed loan sharks as heinous criminals.
But those who regarded human life as cheap as a fly's life didn't become loan sharks. They fell into truly heinous crimes classified as murder, kidnapping, drugs, or violent organizations. If not that, most cases fell into mercenary or bodyguard work where violence could be legally exercised.
That's why the mercenary world was full of all sorts of crazy people. It was truly a terrible thing.
For Jinseong, who considered himself a relatively sensible person, it was full of crazy people he could never accept, truly deserving to be called a demon realm.
Therefore, for Jinseong who had seen such a demon realm, loan sharks were small fry among small fry.
In other words, they were at the level of petty gangster groups.
Weren't they just people who claimed to be gangsters or thugs or organizations but only exploited the weak?
Naturally, from the perspective of heinous criminals living in the criminal world where blood splattered and corpses were strewn about, or ability users engaged in power struggles, loan sharks could only look truly laughable.
Loan sharks also knew they were seen this way, so they had prepared various countermeasures. Like a pufferfish inflating its body, they tried to look scary by threatening in all directions, or tried to use strong ability users like limbs by purchasing them with money....
But what was the point of all that?
Have you ever seen a bear pass by a honey pot just because bees were fiercely causing a commotion?
Trying to look scary didn't actually make them scary.
It was like a cat raising its fur, which looked like mere playfulness to a beast of prey. From the perspective of real criminal organizations, it just looked like some petty thugs making a fuss, and to strong ability users, it only gave the impression of insignificant bugs making a ridiculous scene.
Ability users that could be bought with money could be dealt with by other ability users aiming for money. There were many slaves to money in the world, and there were plenty of strong ability users looking for money for the same reasons as Jinseong.
Therefore, loan sharks took numerous measures to protect themselves, and what they chose were two things.
A backing to protect them.
A safe and sturdy vault.
And these survival methods were quite effective, allowing loan sharks to survive intact until modern times.
So it's probably not telling me to kill all these petty thugs and rob their goods....
Divinations were as mysterious as they were ambiguous, making it difficult to easily guess their meaning.
Tarot, astrology, turtle shells, playing cards, yut sticks, counting sticks....
There were countless tools for divination, but while they all may tell the future, they didn't tell it clearly. This was because the future had a variable nature that could change at any time and was determined by exposure to countless probabilities and conditions.
The guiding cursed object Jinseong created also answered his questions and guided the way, but it didn't tell him what to do.
Therefore, what was needed was....
Patience.
Jinseong closed his eyes and hunched his body.
He bent his waist, bending until his hands almost touched the ground.
So that his back protruded outward.
He pushed his body abnormally forward.
His knees bent slowly like bending rebar, and his neat hair became disheveled.
"Frost settling on life."
Crunch!
And when his form became like a hunchback, grayish-white mold began to form all over his body. Starting from the neck and spreading to the body as if extending roots, it somehow emitted a crushed grass smell that stimulated the nose.
The mold spread its influence, covering his entire body like frost settling on a cold day.
His skin, which had been white from lack of sunlight, changed to an unpleasantly white color reminiscent of a wax figure or corpse. The vibrant color disappeared without a trace, changing to a horrible appearance as if concrete mix had been poured and mixed with his skin.
Crunch!
Like the inorganic color of the mold covering his body, its nature also followed the color.
The mold's net, resembling stone, constrained his body to maintain the posture already taken, like a plaster cast.
Keeping the protruding back protruding, the bent knees bent.
Thus, Jinseong instantly became a short-statured hunchback.
And there, Jinseong opened his mouth again.
"Like begets like."
Homeopathic magic.
Similar things beget similar things.
Like things became closer to like things.
The result resembled the cause, and the cause became the result.
"Settled frost. Color covering the body."
Since ancient times, humans have imitated nature.
They made sleeping bags imitating cocoons.
They made airplanes imitating birds.
They made knives imitating animal fangs.
They made houses imitating caves.
Then what did people imitate to cover their bodies with a different color?
How did something like stone wrap around people?
"Become stone."
The grayish-white covering his body resembled stone.
Thus, it became stone.
"Stone is hard."
Stone resembled hard things, so it could transform into something hard.
Thus, the gray became black.
"What is covered with something hard is like an insect."
Those who went around with something hard covering their body were insects.
Rhinoceros beetles, centipedes, cockroaches.
Beings that roamed the world freely with exoskeletons.
Thus, seams and gaps appeared in the stone statue.
"What insects wear is armor, so become armor."
Humans made armor imitating insects that go around wearing exoskeletons.
Thus, Jinseong became a human wearing armor.
Like begets like.
A person covered in white mold became a human wearing armor.
Mold parasitic on insects, humans imitating insects.
"Kh-heh."
Jinseong laughed.
He laughed wearing a black mask resembling an insect.
* * *
"Agh shit, what a fucking unlucky day."