Free Web NovelI never planned to take down security. If a fight broke out, it would draw way too much aggro. Besides, it didn’t take long to put a non-Awakened guard to sleep with an item.
Gargoyle’s Gaze (C)
A processed tool made from “Gargoyle’s Eye.”
Induces short-term paralysis upon activation.
Even dragging things out a bit would give him a headache later, but all I needed right now was to get the people held in the security room out and tidy up after. This much was fine. Probably.
What worried me was the cleanup. I’d already done more crazy shit in a foreign country than I’d intended, and if even one thing got caught, I had no idea where I’d have to start explaining and where I’d have to stop.
Treating it like a time-attack mission until the guard came to, I only stripped the access card, vest, cap, and radio, then went back inside. Of course, I took basic precautions first, just in case.
Getting inside was easy. I used a face-distorting item, but since the auction was over, the only security left at the entrance was the guy I’d brought over, so just tapping the card was enough to get me in.
The first thing I did once inside was pull up Joo Seowon’s location. He’d said he “seemed to be” in the security room, and a room deeper in showed his position blinking there. I headed that way at a measured pace.
The security room near where Seowon’s marker was only had a tiny window by the door. I stole a glance in and counted heads.
“Three?”
Kang Sojeong was bundled in a blanket and shoved in a corner, and the rest were security staying put “for safety.”
“Where’s Joo Seowon?”
He had to be nearby. I figured he’d slipped away for a moment to talk over comms and eased my steps back. Getting in was one thing, but actually talking was too risky.
I moved away and reconnected to Seowon.
“Seowon.”
—Yeah.
“You can get to Kang Sojeong, right?”
—...I can.
I looked around and glanced at a big planter with a tree in it.
“See the big decorative tree in a planter? In the central corridor.”
—The one with the black trunk? White planter?
“Yeah.”
—Uh... I see it.
“I’ll hide a Teleport Box under it. Come grab it naturally, right now.”
—You want me to hand that to Kang Sojeong?
“Yeah. And you...”
Checking the time, I saw Seowon was already on the move. I set the Teleport Box atop the planter and said, freewebnovёl.ƈom
“You can be anywhere. I’ll come to you.”
***
It ended more tamely than I’d expected. Looked like they’d intended to let her go anyway; the security hadn’t been all that tight from the start.
From what I overheard, they didn’t think it was outright identity fraud—at worst they’d written it off as a VIP proxy purchase.
So... all I really did was shorten the time they were going to sit around “verifying identity.”
Kang Sojeong didn’t even need to use the spare Teleport Box to slip away. I wondered what she was relying on, but seeing her work, she clearly knew just how good she was at running cons.
Once Seowon passed off the Teleport Box, that concluded my deal with Kang Sojeong.
From a distance, it looked like she left the security room and went straight into a guest room using the Teleport Box.
We might have reason to contact each other later, but for now, this was the best stopping point. I had no desire to keep meeting and draw more eyes.
Given how things went, I tossed meticulousness to the dog as far as the item exchange too. I’d left the Tear of Gold in our room, and the moment Seowon handed over the Teleport Box, Kang Sojeong passed Tae Hyunjin’s sword to him.
“They’ll bring it over on their own.”
With Sojeong gone, finding Seowon—left alone and stranded—was easier. While security flailed, I located where he was hiding and tapped him.
“Seowon.”
At my voice, his guard dropped at once.
“Funny.”
Thinking about it, at some point he’d stopped keeping any guard up against me at all. Even if he knew it was me, instinct should’ve told him to flinch back—but just hearing my voice, the tension drained out of him. In a lot of ways, memorable.
He used to lunge for my collar at the start. When did this change?
Well, he still got prickly when his mood soured, but he’d undeniably grown tamer. Watching him up close, I’d learned he was ridiculously weak to attachment.
Anyway, mushy or not, I did what I came to do.
“It’s me.”
“...That’s an item, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Earlier, the other—”
“Later.”
He settled down immediately and nodded. I took an Invisibility Orb from my coat. Best odds of getting out clean.
“Open up.”
He obediently opened his mouth. I slipped the orb in, and at the same time tucked the room key into his jacket pocket.
“Take a cab and go. Just in case, move separately.”
That should be... enough.
I left him and backed out the way I came, hauled the guard I’d stashed in the emergency exit back out. I’d bound him so he couldn’t run even after the paralysis wore off; fortunately, no one seemed to have found him.
“If only Im Haekyung were here, I’d wipe this guy’s memory.”
I watched his terror-soaked stare without feeling a thing, handed his clothes back one by one, zapped him once more, then undid the restraints.
Planning to let him weasel out of it somehow, I whispered in his ear while he was paralyzed, “A VIP ordered this.” His tight eyes twitched.
“Good. Go make your own wrong assumptions.”
Nothing huge had happened, but with everything overlapping, the fatigue hit twice as hard. Cracking my stiff neck, I headed for the cab I’d booked.
“I’ll think about cleanup... later.”
The auction was private to begin with, skating a fine line between illegal and legal, so at least it wasn’t going to blow up into some international incident. Lucky me.
I took a cab to the hotel, and felt a weird kind of fatigue the moment I stepped into the lobby.
Things had gotten a bit tangled, sure, but we’d clearly scored. Didn’t feel much of a sense of accomplishment, though. Not much dopamine from getting what I wanted.
“Why?”
Was it just that I was worn out?
It wasn’t a line of thought with an answer, so I dropped it and went straight up to the room.
The second I hit the doorbell, it flew open and Seowon popped out.
“...You’re not going to check?”
“Ah... Who else would it be but you? At this hour.”
“That’s exactly why you check, Seowon....”
I nudged the softened Seowon aside and stepped in.
“...Seo Jehyun?”
“Did you get Aquarion’s Heart?”
“Huh? Oh.”
He hesitated a moment, then brought the Space-Saving Box and handed it over.
“Here.”
“Good job.”
I opened the box and checked the contents. The item I’d been waiting on for a very long time was inside.
“Mm... pretty.”
It was a white blade with a cool blue sheen overall, not a single design element out of place. Not that it mattered to me, since I was going to dismantle it anyway.
“Status Window.”
Aquarion’s Heart (A)
A sword made using the dragon heart of the sea dragon “Aquarion.”
Possesses an immortal heart, enabling endless growth potential.
On a hunch, I gripped the sword with the hand where the Beast slept, and the faint pulsing went quiet at once.
“So it works.”
I couldn’t use it as-is, and it needed proper processing, of course.
Planning to visit Sung Eunha as soon as we got back, I returned the sword to the Space-Saving Box.
“...Seo Jehyun.”
“What?”
He’d stayed quiet while I appraised it, but only called to me once he saw me pack the box away.
I looked up; he was watching me with a strangely tense face.
“Got something to say?”
“Uh... Are you mad?”
“Me?”
What the hell is he talking about.
The sudden non sequitur made me frown, and he hurried to walk it back.
“...Ah, I didn’t mean, like, are you mad in that way.”
“I’m not mad. Why?”
“Just...”
What? I stared at him as he said something half-baked and looked away, gauging my mood.
“...Thought maybe you were mad since the plan got messed up a bit.”
“Messed up? It ended up in my hands cleanly.”
“Yeah, but right now it kind of... feels like.”
Not anger... More like that itch you get when your satisfaction is lower than expected. I watched him for a beat and tipped my head.
“More...”
“Huh?”
“Ambiguous than I thought.”
“......”
But did I need to go digging for the source of a feeling right now?
“I’m not mad.”
I left it at that and started packing. We’d hit the goal; if I could move the flight up tomorrow, I wanted to get home ASAP.
Watching me pack, he asked,
“...Already packing?”
“Let’s head back tomorrow morning.”
“Did you move the flight up?”
“I will. If there’s no morning seat, afternoon’s fine. I don’t want to stay another day.”
“Hey, uh....”
“......?”
He shut his mouth a second, licked his lips, then went on.
“I think I kind of slipped up today. If that’s why...”
“What slip?”
“I could’ve just left, honestly... but I called you in and made you do the job twice.”
“Whatever the process was, results are all that matter.”
Hearing the truth, he went quiet again. That should do it.
Once I stowed the Space-Saving Box with the luggage, he switched topics.
“...So how are you going to process Tae Hyunjin’s sword? You said it has a Dragon Heart.”
“I’m thinking ranged weapon. I’ll decide the details back home.”
“Why did you... even want to take the Dragon Heart? If you use it wrong, it can be poisonous.”
Where’d he pick that up so neatly? I flicked my eyes his way; ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) he added quickly, like an excuse,
“I looked it up. Thought you were going to do something weird again.”
“When did I ever do anything weird.”
“...Are you seriously asking?”
Maybe it was the dead-serious tone with nonsense words, but I snorted.
“It’s nothing.”
“...You’re not going to tell me?”
“Why are you so curious about everything.”
At that curt reply, he shut up again. But that didn’t last long either.
“...You said you’d tell me everything you can tell me, didn’t you?”
