Seol-Hwi slept in the bedroom on the 3rd floor.
Yet, it wasn’t long until he awoke from his sleep at the sound of muffled voices.
“…”
Seol-Hwi’s eyes opened, and his vision adjusted to look around in the darkness. There was little light, and it took time for his eyes to adapt. It was humid, and there was some kind of musty smell.
For a moment, Seol-Hwi couldn’t figure out where he was or what was happening.
Did the system intervene?
He doubted it, but he couldn’t feel anything nor get any information. And he wasn’t lying down, but tied to a chair.
More importantly, Seol-Hwi heard a voice calling to someone and reporting on the current situation.
“Big brother, he seems to be conscious.”
A strangely familiar male voice…?
Seol-Hwi began to recall memories of before he went to sleep.
After his brief encounter with that woman, Seol-Hwi got up from the table. And he was guided by Chil Duk to the 3rd floor. After drinking some water left in the room, he lay down to rest.
And now…
He was sitting in a chair, bound by a rope.
And suddenly, he was slapped in the face. A lamp was held in front of him, and the perpetrator’s face could be seen clearly.
“Look, you awake?”
Only then did Seol-Hwi realize that the man who slapped him…is Chil Duk.
“…his eyes are open!”
With a rough voice, Chil Duk announced Seol-Hwi’s wakefulness. As Seol-Hwi got accustomed to the darkness, he noticed three men walking toward him.
Two were giant-sized. And the other was a man of a decent build, with long hair, chewing something in his mouth. He placed a chair right in front of Seol-Hwi, and sat down.
“Nice to meet you, Mister Unknown. I’m Haenga.” The man spoke kindly, but then slapped Seol-Hwi twice. “Well. I’m going to ask a question, so I hope you answer me sincerely. That way, I won’t kill you.”
“…”
“This sword. It looks good…where did you get it?”
Seol-Hwi looked at the sword the man was pointing to.
A sword with a golden pattern on the sheath. The Sword of Reverence.
Seol-Hwi lifted his head and looked at the abilities of the man.
<Haenga [Mistresses of Ming Brother, warrior_42]> Health: 240/ 440 Internal energy: 80/ 80 Combat power: 980
….
Seol-Hwi felt embarrassment and confusion at this.
However, realizing late that there was no million in the figures, he sighed. It’s been a long time since he found anyone with such low numbers.
“Didn’t you hear me? You speak, you live.”
The stiff expression Seol-Hwi had loosened to a relaxed one at Haenga’s warning. Now it was his turn to ask the questions.
“Excuse me, if it’s the Mistresses of Ming Brothel…it looks like a guest house too?”
“…what?”
“I was just curious.”
“…this brat. He’s a cheeky one.”
He smiled like Seol-Hwi was amazing and then looked at him again.
“You don’t understand this situation, right?”
“…I’m tied up by a rope.”
“Right. And what does that mean?”
“I know what, and I’m quite happy.”
Seol-Hwi smiled at Haenga’s stiffening face.
“It looks like things worked out better than I expected. I need to go to that brothel…so I thought it would be easy to go in appropriately disguised.”
“Ha…This bastard…”
Haenga kept shaking his head like he couldn’t understand it. He immediately got up, and said to the two escorts and Chil Duk behind him,
“Cut him in half.”
“Yes!”
Hearing that, the muscled men reacted quickly. One of them approached Seol-Hwi with a clenched fist. He looked down and…
“…?”
Doubted his eyes.
Seol-Hwi, who was tied to the chair a moment ago, was now moving around freely.
“Do you know what the Latent Image Projection Technique is?”
“…!”
The escort hurriedly prepared to attack, but Seol-Hwi was several times faster. No, a dozen times faster.
Puick!
In one hit, the man fell to the ground.
The other escort who was there, rushed from the back, and,
Puick!
He too, fell down with just one hit. Chil Duk was frozen in fear after seeing this.
“Kuak!”
Seol-Hwi grabbed Chil Duk by the neck and shook him.
“…?”
Around that time, their leader Haenga felt something was wrong, so he turned back and was shocked.
Two giant bodies on the floor.
And Chil Duk caught by the neck.
“Still want to talk?”
“…”
Haenga knew it instantly. This man wasn’t someone he could take on.
Seol-Hwi was walking down the street in the evening.
He had tied Haenga and the others up, and left them in the basement.
Even if they get discovered later, it would be more than a day, and Seol-Hwi was already gone.
Seol-Hwi was dressed in Haenga’s clothes, and he had transformed his face too. And he confirmed everything before his visit to the brothel.
“My role is to extort money from the customers who make a fuss around the red light district, or who come alone.”
“All the money goes to the head of the brothel…”
“The head is called Chang Sik, and he is the one who took control of the area around the red light district. There are around two hundred men…”
“This is the Mistresses of Ming.”
Seol-Hwi stopped in front of a three-storey building.
Judging from all the bright lights, it looked like business was booming.
“Uh?”
A man with a strong physique was guarding the door. He grinned when he spotted Seol-Hwi.
“Haenga, already here? Did the business go well?”
“Well, a little.”
“Boss is here, head up.”
“Right.”
Seol-Hwi gave a short response and headed in.
“…”
The first floor was filled with tobacco smoke. People were holding pipes in their hands, and the women were fixing their make-up.
In a place full of this stagnant feeling, Seol-Hwi waited.
“Uh? You’re here?”
Out of the blue, there was a man smiling at him.
He was a skinny guy, and judging by his pale face and bad complexion, it looked like he was an addict.
Seol-Hwi saw the name above his head was Gongya.
“Did something good happen?”
“Well…”
“As expected, because all the stores you are in charge of are your servants, the outsiders come, they go down.” He chuckled, and then looked around, before he whispered, “The boss is here, but… you know, he doesn’t seem to be in a good mood today.”
“Why?”
“Well? It’s because of the Blue Dragon Sect. And Geum Man-jung who is compromising. But it doesn’t seem to be working, and there is no open fight either.”
Seol-Hwi’s eyes widened at those two words.
Come to think of it, this red light district is near Chengdu. It’s hard to manage such a place, and in the end, there has to be someone who looks after it.
“Anyway, the higher-ups will be taking good care of you. Rather, when you come down after meeting the boss, shall we have fun together?” Gongya said, pointing to the prostitutes.
“It’s fine…” Seol-Hwi, who was about to refuse, caught the sight of a familiar woman.
The woman he met yesterday. She was going up with some warriors in leather clothes.
“Ah, that one?”
When Gongya said that, Seol-Hwi asked,
“You know her?”
“Of course. The newest one here. I heard that her father sold his child to the Lower District Sect to pay off his gambling debts. Our boss brought her here with a lot of money paid for her.”
“…!”
Lower District Sect.
It was then that Seol-Hwi could guess why the system said “Friendly Group” above her head.
If that’s true, what’s the connection with that woman?
No, how does a Friendly Group apply to her?
“But, why do you ask?” Gongya inquired, and Seol-Hwi shook his head. Seeing that, Gongya nodded.
“Hurry up. Things like that kid aren’t things we can covet. If you want to live long that is.”
Seol-Hwi didn’t heed the warning. He looked around once more and said,
“Gongya.”
“Uh?”
“The boss is on the 3rd floor?”
“Right.”
“Are there guests with him?”
“…why?”
Seol-Hwi smiled.
“I thought it would be good to know.”
And he started walking up to the 3rd floor.
A man was standing in front of the door, and then he opened it for Seol-Hwi. As soon as it was opened, Seol-Hwi could smell more tobacco.
There were people who were gambling and guards with weapons behind their backs. They were concentrating on someone in the corner of the room.
“…!”
Seol-Hwi’s expression went stiff.
Her.
The woman who came up a while back, somehow had blood on her face. And next to her was an old man holding a long sword, poised to kill her.
“Uh?”
When the old man noticed him, he flinched. But then, he sheathed the sword and approached Seol-Hwi with a bright face.
“Haenga! You’re here!”
Seol-Hwi recognized that this man was the boss.
<Chang Sik [Red Light District Boss of Chengdu] > Health: 10k/ 10k Internal energy: 10k/ 10k Combat power: 110k
After he saw his abilities, Seol-Hwi was confused.
The one who controls the red light district has only 110k in combat power? Actually, he could understand it somewhat.
The spy who poised as the Earth Demon’s subordinate, Goeun, also had a combat power of 110k.
“Yes.”
Seol-Hwi simply greeted the man.
“What did you get this time?”
“We found a good thing.”
Seol-Hwi touched his sword. The Sword of Reverence.
“Oh!”
When Chang Sik took hold of the sword, he showed an ecstatic expression on his face.
The sword was something the Fourth Disciple gave Seol-Hwi. It was natural that this sword was probably one of the best in the Central Plains.
“Hehehe.”
Chang Sik was surprised and perplexed, but pleased.
Then he noticed the woman was looking at them.
“Ah! I’ll kill that bitch soon.”
He continued to talk while admiring the sword in front of him.
“I bought her with a lot of money. But I found out the bitch was taking some of it. Well, even if I ignored that…”
He pulled the sword from the sheath.
“I witnessed situations where this bitch was trying to hire an assassin with the money she stole. Do you know why? Because I killed her father. That wicked wench. She knew that and approached me.”
“…”
Seol-Hwi nodded without saying anything. He could guess what had happened.
“Right.”
Chang Sik handed the sword back to Seol-Hwi.
And Seol-Hwi was puzzled.
“You kill her.”
He immediately spoke with a smile on his lips, and eyes gleaming with madness.
“This sword needs a good meal.”
