Chapter 20
You Can’t Rob a Bank Alone (2)
* * *
Once again, I felt that the world had changed a lot while I was locked up in the Carlson Labor Correctional Facility. I pondered for a moment, then nodded my head.
“I understand. Just tell me where I need to go.”
“You should go to a café called Round Rhombus and ask to be guided to Room 3. The café’s location is...”
Spring Parsley told me where to find the café called Round Rhombus.
“It’s located in Upside.”
I remembered Jonathan saying that one of the branches of Areumdri Pawnshop was located in Upside.
“We’re about to pull off something big. We can’t exactly hold a meeting out on the street, can we?”
“Upside, huh.”
It was the largest downtown district located at the center of Bennett City. It didn’t serve as a place where people lived but rather functioned as a black hole that devoured all the money they possessed.
Whenever people somehow managed to get their hands on a large sum of money, they naturally ended up squandering it in luxurious brothels and gambling dens in Upside.
Unlike high-end establishments in other places, Upside had an unspoken rule that required no reputation, credentials, or rank.
There was only one thing you needed in Upside.
Money.
In Upside, as long as you had money, you would be treated like a king.
“All right. I’ll go and be back. Let’s meet again later.”
I said no more to Spring Parsley, gave her a nod, and headed toward Upside.
“They really weren’t kidding about it being a downtown.”
The streets of Upside were so dazzling they shook my senses, and at the same time, they were overwhelmingly chaotic. Sparkling fireworks and laughter, the clinking of glasses, and handsome men and beautiful women calling out to customers.
“Instead of wandering far and wide, how about having a cheap and pleasant drink close by? We absolutely will not demand any extra charges except for the drinks and table fee!”
“Look for the Chili King at Rodeo Three-Way! Service up high, prices down low!”
“Had a lucky day today? End your day with joy at ‘A Lucky Day’!”
The cries of solicitation, aimed at no one in particular, became entangled with the laughter of drunken passersby.
On giant banners mounted atop iron structures, cards, roulette wheels, and shimmering Pyint coins and drem coins were drawn.
Thumping music, a flashing street of pleasure.
Walking through Upside, I couldn’t help but feel the illusion that maybe Bennett City had been a paradise after all, contrary to all the rumors.
‘But if you look closely.’
Beneath the street’s dazzling veil, you could glimpse filthy schemes and swindles, scams and brazen robberies.
It was like alien bacteria lurking within a seemingly splendid feast.
If you were fooled by the mouthwatering sight and reached out for a taste, a brief moment of pleasure would soon be replaced by a long, dreadful agony.
The large sums of money earned by risking life and enduring threats and risks melted away the moment you stepped into Upside, dissolving like a sugar cube dropped in warm water.
A place where someone who entered with bulging pockets could, in the blink of an eye, end up losing everything except their underwear.
That was the true face of this street. The fortunate part was that today, I hadn’t come here to spend money.
“Round Rhombus. Found it.”
After wandering the dazzling streets for some time, I finally succeeded in locating my destination.
“Welcome. This is Round Rhombus.”
It appeared to be a high-end café offering various types of tea and coffee. The moment I opened the door and stepped inside, the aroma of roasted coffee beans and tea leaves tickled my nose.
“I have a reservation for Room 3.”
The female attendant, who was checking the list of reservations I had brought, let out a small sound of recognition.
“Reservation confirmed. Is there any particular beverage you’d like?”
“What options do you have?”
At my question, the attendant smiled and replied.
“We have almost every kind of tea leaf and coffee bean prepared. As long as you know their worth and are willing to pay the corresponding price.”
In truth, there was no need to know their worth as long as you were ready to pay. After listening to her, I spoke.
“Then, I’ll have a Lambda Royal Hand-Pick, After Blend.”
But before I ended up in the Carlson Labor Correctional Facility, I had been a direct descendant of House Featherwing, who only chose the finest things.
At my words, the attendant, who had been speaking so confidently a moment ago, flinched for an instant. She studied the catalog for a while before answering.
“Yes, we have that.”
“Then one press-brewed cup.”
Having finished my order, I followed the attendant to Room 3.
“Here you are. Then, please enjoy your time at Round Rhombus.”
After completing the guidance, she bowed and left. I reached for the doorknob of Room 3 and turned it.
The moment the door opened, a blade, its edge gleaming blue, flew straight toward my forehead.
I twisted my body to the side to evade the blade. At the same time, I drew the sword hanging from my waist and thrust it into the neck of the attacker.
“Uh… kuh… k…”
The sword tip pierced and burrowed through the attacker’s throat. Without stopping there, I immediately seized the attacker by the hair and pressed down with all my strength gripping the sword.
Crunch.
The sound of the attacker’s neck bone cracking rang out.
The body, which had been struggling for a moment, went limp. Blood flowed down the blade, soaking the floor.
“Damn it. What the hell are you jumping at me for?”
I belatedly checked the attacker, now dead. She was a woman.
The blade stuck in the dead woman’s neck slid free. With a dull thud, the corpse collapsed onto the floor.
…
Originally, there had been five people waiting in this room. But since one had just died, there were now four.
“You… you! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you insane?!”
One of the people who had been staring at me in shock suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted.
He was a young man. I noticed a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. Then, a moment later, I also spotted a ring on the same finger of the corpse lying on the floor.
Looked like they had been lovers.
“She attacked me, so I fought back. The one who was crazy wasn’t me, but that bitch over there who’s dead.”
When someone swung a blade at your forehead without warning, you couldn’t exactly stand around introducing yourself.
“No, you bastard. I’m asking if you really had to kill her!”
“If she came at me ready to kill, she should have been ready to die in return.”
Thanks to my decisive response to the ambush, it had already become impossible to establish any sort of amicable relationship with the people waiting here.
But since we still had to work together, there was only one option left for me.
To crush them with force.
“And by the way, the tone of your mouth’s been something else from a moment ago. Maybe if I split your jaws in two and hook them up to your temples, you’ll start speaking more politely.”
I flicked the blood from my blade and took a few steps closer to the one who kept yelling.
“She didn’t really intend to kill you. You didn’t have to go this far…”
In the midst of it all, a middle-aged man who’d been sitting down spoke to me.
“Oh, so you’re saying she swung a blade at my forehead but didn’t mean to kill me? Fine. Old man, I don’t intend to hurt you either.”
I grabbed the middle-aged man by the collar and lifted him as I spoke. Then I slammed him against the wall and tightened my grip on his throat.
Feeling his windpipe being crushed, the man’s body thrashed. He clutched at my hand with both of his.
Watching him, I let go of his collar and spoke.
“I said I don’t intend to hurt you. Why don’t you believe what I say? It pisses me off.”
The man collapsed onto the floor, coughing and gasping for air. I glanced up at the clock on the wall and looked back down at him.
“You pathetic bastard. Can’t even keep your own words from thirty seconds ago.”
I clicked my tongue, staring down at the man as if he were pitiful.
The others didn’t step in to stop me.
More accurately, they couldn’t. If they did something careless, they could end up dead right here, like the woman who swung her blade to test me and got herself killed.
“Anyway, introductions are in order. I’m Kairus.”
After finishing my introduction, I walked over to the sofa set up inside the room and sat down as if nothing had happened. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, I took the seat of honor and stared at the remaining people.
“Everyone, have a seat. If you prefer to stand while we talk, that’s fine too.”
I didn’t do any of this just to act like some lunatic.
If they were people belonging to a large organization, there was no way Spring Parsley could have hired them in the first place.
And if any of them were more skilled than I was, there would be no reason for Spring Parsley to go out of her way to hire me.
In other words, everyone here was less skilled than me and had no terrifying backers or powerful organizations behind them.
‘I didn’t really want to act like this with people who are in the same boat.’
I never intended for things to go this way. Since we were going to work together, it was better to keep a smiling face in the meantime.
However, I couldn’t be the only civilized gentleman when these bastards had swung a blade at my face the moment the door opened.
“You over there, if you’re so pissed about your lover dying that you’ve lost any intention to work together, I won’t stop you.”
At my words, the man who had been glaring daggers at me eventually spat onto the floor and dropped heavily into a nearby seat.
‘I’m sure he holds a grudge.’
In a situation where we had to operate together, having one of the members harbor resentment was nothing but trouble.
But that didn’t mean I could just kill the man too, thinking I’d nip the problem in the bud.
It would be no different from killing a soldier outright and then spouting nonsense like, “This bastard is a coward. Once the fighting starts, he’ll run away and drag down everyone’s morale. So it’s best to kill him now and get rid of that uncertainty!”
There was a clear difference between striking back after being attacked and stabbing someone preemptively because they might attack.
“All right. Let’s get started.”
The others looked hesitant for a moment, but then they all took seats.
The only one who couldn’t was the woman who was already dead.
I picked up the large receiver placed on the table and asked the operator to connect me to Spring Parsley.
— Ah, can you hear me?
Her voice coming through the receiver was quite loud.
While Spring Parsley was confirming her voice, the coffee I had ordered arrived.
The attendant seemed briefly startled when she noticed the corpse lying on the floor, but soon regained a calm expression and asked whether she should remove the body.
‘So this sort of thing must happen often.’
At a glance, it looked no different from the downtown districts in any other major city, but this was proof that Bennett City’s central district was in a league of its own.
I took a sip of coffee, and in that moment, Spring Parsley’s voice flowed out.
— Esteemed contractors, thank you for gathering here. I am Spring Parsley, the one who prepared the blueprint for the operation we will be undertaking together.
As the tense atmosphere continued to linger, Spring Parsley finally spoke up first.
— The taxes that the transport convoy we plan to attack is carrying amount to approximately 2.8 million Pyint. Not in promissory notes or paper bills all of it in gold bars.
“What?! That’s insane!”
The moment the potential profit of the operation was presented in concrete figures, the mood, which had been frozen stiff by the sudden bloodshed, flipped over in an instant.
Even Erickson, who had been swallowing his rage over his lover’s death, seemed to forget about her entirely.
If we succeeded, we’d walk away with gold bars equivalent to 2.8 million Pyint. Gold bars. That meant every last bit of that enormous fortune carried real, tangible value.
An unimaginable amount of wealth was within reach. But if we failed, the best-case scenario would be heading straight for the Carlson Labor Correctional Facility.
“What a perfectly fucked balance of options.”
Other people might have bluffed, saying, “So what? If we fail, I’ll just do a stint in the Labor Correctional Facility!” but I didn’t have the guts to say that.
Because I’d already been there.
The Labor Correctional Facility was hell. It was a place where you had to repeatedly commit acts no sane person could endure, just to stay alive.
If my goal were simply to rake in a pile of money and burn through it for fun, I wouldn’t have spared a single glance at a job that carried the risk of ending up back there.
But now I had a clear purpose.
To recover my family’s lost heritage, to perfect the martial techniques of House Featherwing, and to carry that legacy forward.
And eventually, to slit the throat of that bastard Emperor who had driven me into this miserable state.
“Ah, it looks like I’m the only one who introduced myself.”
Everyone had been too stunned to say a word after I turned one of the living into one of the formerly living so abruptly.
It wasn’t as if people could exchange introductions right after watching someone alive transform into a corpse before their eyes.