Chapter 19
When the martial artist fainted, what remained was an unguarded mountain.
There was not a single person who could resist him not only on the second floor but also the third floor, and Jinseong was able to go around killing the unconscious loan sharks as if on a stroll. The cat's head held in Jinseong's left hand opened its mouth wide like it was alive and harvested heads like earlier, and Jinseong reached the president's office on the third floor.
"Huh-uck, huh-uck."
There, the president of the third floor was on the ground moaning, gasping for breath just like the president on the second floor.
Crunch!
Jinseong fed the collapsed president's head to the cat. Then he tore off one of the arms and pressed the fingerprint to the safe.
Beep.
The fingerprint recognition safe recognized the torn-off president's fingerprint and opened with a clank, revealing piles of green and yellow bills before his eyes.
"Ho ho ho, wealth fortune overflows here."
Bills.
Bills.
Bills!
How could he not be happy when the great King Sejong (10k won) and benevolent Shin Saimdang (50k won) were smiling and greeting him!
Moreover, unlike banks, loan sharks wouldn't remember the serial numbers of each bill, and as Jinseong scanned them, there seemed to be no energy source or thought residue, so there was no worry of being tracked by supernatural abilities. In other words, the bills before his eyes were amounts that Jinseong could fully utilize as funds.
"ॐ."
Jinseong levitated the money filling the safe and then crouched to make himself small. With Jinseong's spell, the money began to rush towards Jinseong's body as if meeting an opposite pole magnet, and as soon as it touched the surface of Jinseong's black shell, it began to enter through each gap as if slipping.
Jinseong's crouched body gradually increased in size like an inflating water balloon, and when all but a few bundles of bills from the safe had disappeared, he became a large body. The sight of a massive body weighing well over 100 kg with a hump that had already disappeared now protruding again was disgusting just to look at.
Especially, the bug mask Jinseong was wearing had become mottled as if mold had stuck to its black gloss, creating an even dirtier effect.
"It's heavy."
The weight of the golden slime that had burrowed into his body.
The piles of bills layered between the shell and skin that had burrowed into his body.
Thinking it was a truly satisfying weight, Jinseong left the room and went down to the second floor.
"Are you seeing happy illusions?"
He approached the man who was still standing in the corridor covered in white mold with a blank expression. Whether he was intoxicated by hallucinations or lost in the horrific scene, the man was staring into space with unfocused eyes, and traces of saliva that had turned white due to mold could be seen flowing down from his chin to below his neck.
Jinseong placed his hand on the man's head.
"You've done very well."
The shadow snake writhing on the man's face quickly moved like a loyal dog hearing its master's call when Jinseong's hand came up, and eventually moving over onto it completely, it swam along the back for a while before moving to his thumbnail and curling up to hide its form.
"So I'll make you succeed."
Well, don't feel burdened. This is a bonus and severance pay.
With those words, Jinseong cast another spell on the man. Then he spewed extremely compressed bills from his mouth.
"Ugh! Uugh!"
Although he was out of his mind, the man kept dry heaving as if instinctively feeling that what was entering his throat was not ordinary, but the bundles of bills forcibly stuffed in by Jinseong completely ignored this insignificant resistance and kept going in.
And when there were no more bundles of bills left in the air.
Thud.
Thud.
Jinseong left the corridor with very quiet footsteps, just as when he had entered.
The only difference from before was that the man's expression was like a puppet being controlled, Jinseong's body was greatly swollen as if he had eaten a lot of something delicious, and a strange man was being carried on his shoulder, unconscious.
Just that.
Only that had changed.
There was nothing strange.
* * *
"Wh-where is this?"
The man woke up in his room with a splitting headache. As soon as he sat up, a sharp headache that felt like his brain was being stabbed and scraped with an awl tormented him, and a strange feeling of soreness and itchiness filled his entire body.
"I, I was definitely with the Sorcerer..."
The man desperately tried to recall his memories.
His last memory was when he guided the Sorcerer to the president's office.
At that time, the Sorcerer seemed satisfied looking at the chair, so he vowed to buy it for him if he succeeded greatly... And then...
And then.
And then what happened?
He had no memory after that.
The memory after that had completely disappeared like he had drank to the point of blacking out. The man got up from his seat, wondering if he had drunk heavily, and if the headache he was experiencing now might be a hangover.
"Huh?"
And as soon as he stood up, he sat back down due to the dizziness that overwhelmed him.
It was dizziness like seasickness.
With that thought, the man felt his stomach churning and something refluxing in his esophagus.
"Ugh!"
Uweeek!
The nausea was unbearable, so the man ended up vomiting on the floor without even thinking of going to the bathroom. The man, thinking he must have drunk alcohol, slightly raised his head to see the pancake he had made.
"What is this?"
What he saw when he raised his head were bills covered in sticky body fluid. The mix of 10,000 won and 50,000 won bills were crisp as if freshly printed from the bank, and they were emitting a sour scent as if claiming they had come from the man's body.
"Ugh!"
Wek!
Weehk!
The number of those bills increased every time the man vomited. Every time he vomited, extremely compressed bills that looked like small beads shot out of his mouth, and as soon as they fell on the floor, they spread out and lost their wrinkles as if ironed.
When this act was repeated several times.
"H-how much is all this..."
Money that looked to be tens of millions of won at a glance.
"Why is this money..."
Why were tens of millions of won inside his stomach?
Why did this money come out when he vomited?
The man blankly stared at the money.
『 I'll make you succeed. 』
How long had he been staring like that?
The man recalled those words the Sorcerer had said to him in an eerie voice, and realized that this money was a gift given to him by the Sorcerer.
Zzzzt.
I have to go.
With that realization, a weak, stabbing headache arose, and the man felt he had to go back to his workplace.
He didn't think the Sorcerer would be there, but his instinct whispered that the answer was there, the answer about the money he had received.
Following his instinct, the man rushed out of his house and headed to his workplace.
"Why are there cops?"
What he saw as he approached his workplace was the police.
And there were many of them, as if about to surround his workplace.
The man felt something was wrong.
But he couldn't take a single step into what had been his workplace until just a while ago as it was blocked by the yellow police line, and could only hear the conversations of people presumed to be police from within.
"My God, there are such crazy bastards in this world."
"How many people is this..."
"Wow, this crazy bastard really went for it. Not a single soul or spirit left. What the hell did they do to go this far?"
"Damn, what's with this cat? Did it get struck by lightning while being next to these vicious guys?"
The voices of police officers, presumably on the second or third floor, could be heard loudly like they were whispering in his ears.
"Sir! Look at this! Here!"
"Whoa, geezus. Wrote something in blood, eh?"
Very clearly.
『 This is a bonus and severance pay. 』
The man realized that this hearing was a gift given to him by the Sorcerer. Thanks to the gift, he understood the cursed reality and vaguely realized what tragedy had occurred inside the building.
Very unfortunately.
He realized it.
"This, this crazy..."
He realized that the Sorcerer had completely turned his life upside down.
"Argh."
He didn't know if it was in a good or a bad direction.
"Thank you for your hard work in catching society's harm. The divination showed an auspicious day."
But the man could tell intuitively that he was going to live a proper life from now on.
"I have eradicated pro-Japanese collaborators, anti-national traitors, and advocates of invading Korea."
He never wanted to meet the Sorcerer–
–no, the strange person again.
Because just thinking about encountering the strange person, or someone similar to him while continuing to live like this was too scary to bear.
The man felt nausea rising at the strong smell of blood in his nose.
He turned his back before vomiting on the street and trudged towards his room.
On his way back, as if there was something unfair or dumbfounded by this reality, his mouth moved on its own and spilled his regrets.
"Fuuck. I made a wish on a monkey's paw..."