Weapon-Eating Bastard [EN]: Chapter 75

Weapon-Eating Bastard – Chapter 75

What I handed over was Baek Cheol-soo’s safe location, bank accounts, and other documents, USBs, and so on.

It was what I had received from Jung Jin-soo a while ago.

“Why are you giving these back…?”

“I just took them to check. Now, I’m entrusting them to you again, so make good use of them. It seems like I’ll have a lot of places to spend money in the future.”

Jung Jin-soo’s eyes widened.

Of course, he knew that the other party was a scion of the Soongmoo Yi family [a powerful and influential family known for their martial prowess], and he also knew that he had to pledge his loyalty now, but he fully expected to be given shady work.

“Why are you entrusting this to me? This money is now ownerless. Don’t you think I might run away with it?”

It was a small amount of money to start something huge, but it was an enormous amount of money for one person to use.

I smiled lightly.

“Why, are you planning to run away?”

“It’s not that…”

“Of course, I don’t trust you. You haven’t shown me anything yet.”

It would be reckless to trust Jung Jin-soo as he is now.

I haven’t spent enough time to trust him yet, and I haven’t had any in-depth conversations with him.

“But I do trust the circumstances surrounding you right now.”

Jung Jin-soo is currently entangled in two circumstances.

First, Jung Jin-soo’s daughter needs continuous treatment from the Soongmoo Yi family. Even if she has improved a lot, she is not completely cured.

Second, whatever his true intentions, Jung Jin-soo was involved with the White Bone Clan.

I was freed as a result of a deal with my seventh brother, but if he tries to go into hiding, I can use his past to put shackles on his hands and feet at any time.

“I think that’s enough of an answer.”

“…Yes.”

Jung Jin-soo also realized the meaning of my words, and his expression hardened slightly.

“But I ‘still’ can’t trust you. I hope that someday I can trust you.”

Jung Jin-soo’s gaze, which had been directed downwards, slowly rose to look at me.

“Whether it’s a deal or a situation, I hope that in the future, we can trust each other without thinking about such complicated things.”

I want to trust Jung Jin-soo.

So I won’t wield him with the weaknesses I hold.

The moment I shake those weaknesses, I will be no different from Baek Cheol-soo. If that happens, Jung Jin-soo’s loyalty will be forever out of reach.

‘What about me do you trust to be so honest?’

Jung Jin-soo was inwardly confused.

Lee Cheol was also going to wield him by holding his weaknesses like Baek Cheol-soo did.

Lee Cheol drew a line with the word ‘deal,’ but in the end, his relationship with Jung Jin-soo was one-sided, with Jung Jin-soo owing him a debt.

But now, Lee Cheol’s appearance made him think that he was sincerely regarding him as an equal.

“I understand. Thank you for trusting me. I will do my best to produce results.”

“Good, I’ll look forward to it.”

“I will prove it one by one. It won’t take long.”

Jung Jin-soo’s eyes gleamed.

It seemed like I was seeing a glimpse of Seol-geom, who had lost his light under Baek Cheol-soo, driving the first brother next to the third brother.

“I’ll look forward to it. I mean it.”

I grinned.

After that, I added a few instructions and got up from my seat.

“Keep your contact information as it is. We’ll need to contact each other when we need to.”

“Where are you planning to go now?”

“South.”

I said that while packing my things.

* * *

I received an account from Jung Jin-soo to use for activity expenses, packed my equipment, and returned to Seoul Station.

It was to go south as planned.

As soon as I entered the station, I felt subtle glances from people.

‘I guess it shows.’

I was hiding the equipment I originally had in the golf bag, but since it wasn’t a dedicated storage case, it wasn’t completely covered.

The handles or ends of some of the equipment were sticking out.

One middle-aged man who witnessed it glanced at me and slowly distanced himself, while a young man’s eyes sparkled.

An old man who was standing in line at the ticket office also gave me a pitiful look.

Among them, a little kid opened his eyes wide and looked at me without hesitation, saying as if he was amazed.

“Wow, Mom, look at that. That brother must be a warrior! So cool!”

“Where did you learn such words! Come here quickly.”

“Can’t I say hello to that brother?”

“Tsk! No, you can’t. Come here.”

I chuckled as I watched the mother hurriedly pull her child away.

Curiosity, admiration, fear, pity.

The emotions contained in each gaze were truly diverse.

The way people in Korea view warriors or hunters is usually like that.

‘I was going to look around a bit, but it’s better to get on right away.’

Although there was still time left before the train’s departure, I headed straight to the platform.

The train I was going to take was a direct train that only a small number of customers could ride.

Even though it was just a train, it cost as much as a first-class airplane ticket, but Jung Jin-soo had prepared it, saying that I could go comfortably.

“Welcome, customer. I will guide you. May I see your ticket?”

“Here it is.”

The seat I was guided to looked more like a room than a seat.

It was small, but there was a bed, and even a bathroom where I could take a simple shower was installed.

I sat on the bed and checked the bank account I had received from Jung Jin-soo.

The deposit was about 100 million won [approximately $75,000 USD].

It was enough for the activity expenses I would use right away. If necessary, I could receive more at any time, so there was no burden on my wallet.

‘What kind of 모습 [Korean word meaning ‘appearance’ or ‘figure’] will Jung Jin-soo show?’

I thought about Jung Jin-soo while drinking tea in the room.

Jung Jin-soo is not Seol-geom yet.

In my previous life, he became the right-hand man of the third brother and showed amazing strategies, but he hasn’t shown that much ability now.

If he was Seol-geom at that time, he would never have lived under Baek Cheol-soo.

‘But his talent has already been proven.’

How many people in the world would be able to use vagrants who are no different from gangsters to bring in company chairmen and wealthy people?

‘I should let him unleash his abilities as he pleases for now.’

That’s why I didn’t give him complicated instructions on purpose.

‘If he gets complacent or his ability to handle things becomes less sharp than he showed in the future, I’ll have to intervene. But I don’t think that will happen.’

If given free rein, how far will Jung Jin-soo’s abilities reach?

‘Jung Jin-soo is enough to play a sufficient role in creating my support base in the future.’

What I’m aiming for is not the end of a mediocre hill, but the summit of a high mountain.

I couldn’t spend my time on every little thing that passed by.

I needed someone like a Sherpa [a Himalayan guide] to do the work for me in order to walk the path to the summit.

‘And it needs to be known that such a base is behind me so that I won’t be subjected to annoying suspicions in the future.’

More than anything, this was important.

From now on, I have to actively use the information from my past life to move forward.

There are still things that are hidden, or things that are obscured for now.

‘Mujin and Black Night, the Gwan of Beginning and the Stone Tablet were lucky, or I can offer a plausible excuse….’

‘There are many things that I can’t do unless I know the future. If that happens repeatedly, I’ll get unnecessary attention.’

I have no intention of becoming Cassandra [a figure from Greek mythology cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed].

The things I will do from now on should appear to be predictions based on reasonable assumptions.

And that prediction can only be made with data.

As modern society has become highly developed and it has become increasingly difficult to hide information, once information is hidden, it is extremely difficult to find out.

But if I combine hidden information and produce unbelievable results, then unnecessary eyes will follow me.

‘But if Jung Jin-soo grows and it’s known that I have some kind of organization, I don’t have to worry about that.’

There is no need to prove how I secured information.

Only the result according to the facts is important.

I’ll have to wait and see if Jung Jin-soo will be helpful up to that point.

‘I’ll keep getting reports, so I should have expectations.’

I wonder if I’m expecting too much.

But knowing the future Jung Jin-soo, I can’t help but have expectations.

-The train will depart soon. This train departs from Seoul Station….

‘I need to worry about my own work now more than Jung Jin-soo.’

I carefully opened the case I had brought with the golf bag.

An old stone tablet appeared from inside the case.

The first thing I wanted to obtain after starting the path of the warrior, and an item more valuable than any valuables on the black market.

This old stone tablet, which looks like nothing special, had a secret.

‘The traces of that place are hidden right here.’

I swept the end of the stone tablet and shined my eyes.

* * *

Mankind developed science and magic, identified things that were once treated as mysteries, and revealed many secrets that were veiled.

But even so, not everything was revealed.

That was also the case with Yi Hyul-hyun, the founder of the Soongmoo Yi family.

The existence of Yi Hyul-hyun was a mysterious figure in many ways.

Most of the stories that are passed down were in the form of oral tradition, and even the related historical materials were very unreliable.

He doesn’t even have a grave.

There is only an altar with memorial tablets in Soongmoosan, the ancestral mountain of the Soongmoo Yi family. Even there, Yi Hyul-hyun’s remains were not present.

It was so difficult to find his traces that there was even talk in academia that he was a fictional figure.

Then, in my previous life, one of the relics related to Yi Hyul-hyun was revealed to the world.

‘Records about Black Night were excavated there.’

The place where the ruins were discovered was Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongju [a province and city in South Korea], which was called the ancient capital of a thousand years in ancient times, and is now even called the home of sorcerers.

As soon as I entered Gyeongju, I felt a pain in my eyes as if they were being crushed by my hands.

‘Ugh….’

It was because the Evil Eye was trying to see the world by sucking up magic on its own.

‘It hasn’t been out of control since the training at Cheonwisan….’

Perhaps because of Gyeongju’s heterogeneous energy, it suddenly started to react sensitively.

I tried to control the Evil Eye and looked around.

All kinds of energies were intricately intertwined in Gyeongju.

‘I knew it, but I didn’t know the Evil Eye would react to this extent.’

The energy changed every step of the way, and the flow of magic was distorted even in the same space.

‘A miraculously balanced artificial spiritual land.’

Sorcerers described Gyeongju that way.

Gyeongju was a place where numerous intertwined energies were miraculously balanced and maintained.

The reason was simple.

Because there are so many relics and ruins in Gyeongju.

As a joke, this place, Gyeongju, is where relics come out just by digging the ground.

A land where ancient and modern coexist, and at the same time, it contains many mysteries of the ancient world that have disappeared.

Objects with a long history have power, and that power has mysteries that cannot be known in modern times.

Moreover, Gyeongju’s terrain is in the form of a basin.

It is a terrain where energy does not escape and accumulates.

In such a place, all kinds of things pour out energy, so it naturally became a spiritual land.

In addition, as sorcerers set up shop one by one to receive the spiritual energy of Gyeongju, it became an even more complex and bizarre land.

‘There’s no way sorcerers would just pass by a place like this.’

I chuckled as I watched the strangely dressed sorcerers walking around the streets as if nothing was wrong.

‘If it weren’t for the Evil Eye, it wouldn’t have had a big impact.’

Other warriors would just feel it as a magically special land, but I had no choice but to be sensitive to all kinds of energy due to the influence of the Evil Eye.

Throb. Throb.

The pain continued because the Evil Eye kept repeating opening and closing on its own.

‘Hoo, it’s calmed down a bit now.’

I leaned against the alley wall and gathered my magic.

“Hey, kid.”

Then suddenly I heard a voice.

Instinctively, I turned my head towards the direction of the voice.

“What are you?”

A woman who took a puff of a cigarette stuck in a water pipe smiled and walked towards me.

“This is really interesting. Suddenly, a strange thing was caught on the magic detection device, so I came.”

She blew out cigarette smoke.

Beyond the cigarette smoke that blurred and scattered the view….