Chapter 164

I desperately racked my brain to remember his name.

Up until now, we had always addressed each other solely by code names, so having him suddenly blurt out my real name was incredibly disconcerting.

“Shh! Mister Brown! What do you think you’re doing right now!?”

“What’s wrong? I simply called out to you because I happened to have an item to deliver.”

“That’s not what I mean! Isn’t protecting a customer’s anonymity the golden rule of this place!? What if you mention my identity in front of so many people!?”

When trading on the black market, keeping one’s identity strictly classified was standard protocol.

If a merchant harbored any desire to survive in this place where criminal organizations ran rampant, they would absolutely never leak a customer’s information.

Even within the Bureau, there were instances where people quietly inquired through illicit channels to obtain unauthorized Gates or ‘growth-spurt supplements,’ but merely getting caught doing so was a disciplinary offense.

However, hearing my protest, the man adjusted his fedora and countered with a question instead.

“Well, that’s because ever since you obtained your epithet, you’ve forced me to call you ‘Sae Hayan, the Light Mage’ every single damn day.”

“Ugh…!”

“So I naturally assumed you had abandoned anonymity altogether.”

I was caught in a dilemma of whether to laugh or cry at the fact that out of all the surviving remnants of humanity on Earth, a single black-market merchant in a criminal city was the only one who properly called out my epithet.

But how on earth did he recognize it was me?

I should have completely transformed my face using Disguise Mastery.

Before that train of thought could finish, Mister Brown reached into his pocket, making a motion to draw something out.

While the agents behind me tensed defensively, what he held out was a precisely designed artificial finger prosthesis—a prosthetic limb.

“It’s rare to find anyone with all their limbs intact in this neighborhood, but conversely, a mage who lacks only the ring fingers on both hands like you is even rarer.”

“…”

“Exactly what kind of trouble have you been getting into to wind up in that state? Did you get caught cheating on someone?”

“There were deep, complicated circumstances involved.”

So he recognized me by looking at my fingers.

Receiving the artificial prosthetics I had ordered previously, I signed the document he thrust forward to confirm delivery.

It was an action I had done countless times before, so I pulled out a pen and wrote my name strictly out of instinct, but because of that, I could no longer deny the fact that I was Sae Hayan.

Finishing the transaction safely, Mister Brown pulled out a fresh cigarette but paused right as he was about to spark it.

“Come to think of it, are those people your party? They’ve been standing quietly behind you for a while now.”

“Pardon?”

“If they’re your party…”

I could feel a turbulent wave of mana beginning to brew right behind my back.

Kim Seong-gon and the Division 5 agents were currently engaged in a heated, hushed debate over whether they should withdraw immediately or murder the man to ensure his silence.

It was a touch-and-go situation where a single loose thread of tension could trigger an all-out war between the Special Unit and Sector 7 of Ground Zero.

“Then we are always more than welcome to have you!”

“Pardon?”

“Step inside, I’ll personally guide you.”

Mister Brown flashed a wide grin—a smile I had never seen on him before—and invited us deep into their hideout.

“Even as someone who has run a business in this sector for over ten years, I must say, this fellow Hayan has a remarkably shameless streak to him.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Should I say his true colors were glaringly obvious from the start? His speech patterns, his demeanor—right from the beginning, he acted exactly like one of our own.”

The reason Mister Brown had escorted Kim Seong-gon’s party into their dwelling without a shred of suspicion was because he mistakenly assumed they were cut from the same cloth as me.

From the very start, he had never believed for a single second that I was actually from the Special Unit.

“When was our very first meeting again? He was trying to snatch away a wheelchair from a disabled person who was merely admiring the mural painted on the wall of the Cult of the Void temple.”

“…”

“To think a guy like that belongs to the Bureau—what a hilarious joke. For about half a year, I genuinely believed that smartwatch on his wrist was stolen merchandise he had looted from somewhere.”

Ever since returning to Earth, I had frequently maintained trade relations with the criminal organizations of Ground Zero, so my reputation among them was fairly excellent.

No, to be precise, it went far beyond merely being excellent; I was essentially perceived as a comrade wearing a different mask.

Inside the pitch-black underground hideout of Sector 7.

As his story droned on, even the agents’ gazes toward me began to shift.

Only Cheon So-baek was giggling away, looking as though she was about to die of amusement.

“There was even a time he hacked into the Bureau’s servers to appoint his own roommate as a candidate for a mission, and he even set up contractors to install a secret base inside the plumbing.”

“Is that truly the case?”

“That blueprint hanging on the wall over there is the layout of the Bureau building I received from him. He handed it over when he commissioned me to install a stray cat feeding station in the backyard.”

“…”

‘This is a wicked criminal’s slanderous plot.’

‘Oh, really? I don’t see any particular reason why that man would go out of his way to plot against you, though?’

‘I love the Special Unit more than anyone, so he’s trying to malign me so I’ll be cast out by everyone. Above all, is there any actual proof that I did such things?’

“Furthermore, the funds for the project to reduce Commander Ha Yeri’s height are still being steadily deposited to this day. Recently, rather than a simple profile modification, he even went so far as to add a warning label to a nutritional supplement called ‘Ten-X’ sold at pharmacies, stating that consuming it would close one’s growth plates.”

“Anyone can see that is glaringly obviously your handiwork.”

“Aaaargh!”

“Hmm?”

“It’s nothing. So? What else did this fellow pull?”

Even Kim Seong-gon, who possessed a disposition that would absolutely never interject carelessly under normal circumstances, couldn’t maintain his composure.

The thigh he pinched throbbed painfully.

To think they would be swayed by a silver tongue intent on driving a wedge between me and my comrades—it left me feeling entirely aggrieved and sorrowful.

After rattling on for about an hour like that, Mister Brown finally cut to the chase.

“I kept wondering, ‘Is this truly alright? Won’t he get booted out of the Bureau if he gets caught?’ but even while I was worrying, he always took things a step further. Truly admirable. I wish the bastards I’m raising would look at that kind of balls and learn a thing or two.”

“…”

“At any rate, since you all are his friends, I suppose there’s no reason I can’t help you out with all my heart, provided the terms are right. What brings you to this place?”

“Ahem, well, the truth is…”

Thanks to that, however, we succeeded in safely infiltrating Sector 7, allowing us to proceed with the mission.

Pushing aside the disciplinary action I would face later for the time being, I decided to focus first on our original objective: recovering the Star Scar.

“Has anything fallen from the sky recently? Somewhere inside Sector 7.”

In response to my question, he gave a silent nod.

“There was indeed such an occurrence.”

“What exactly was it?”

“To the public… it was announced as a piece of debris from a decommissioned satellite.”

If that was just for the public, it meant the reality was a different story.

Just as expected, he slid a single, blurry black-and-white photograph across the table.

Because it was taken from a distance, the image quality was atrocious, making it difficult to clearly discern the shape, but it was the other half of the Star Scar that the Master of the Black Magic Tower had torn away from the Outer God of Judgment.

It bore the shape of a radiant sword, remarkably similar to the one Seona had summoned previously by borrowing the power of an Oath.

“Thanks to the hilt, moving it was simple enough. Though a few vagrants who touched it out of curiosity ended up dead.”

“Was there any specific danger attached to it?”

“It’s just your run-of-the-mill demonic sword. It seems to drive its possessor into a frenzy, so it’s not an item just anyone can pick up.”

“We aren’t looking for it to use it ourselves. How can we obtain it?”

“You wish to possess that?”

A man of Mister Brown’s caliber could get his hands on anything within Ground Zero.

No matter how perilous that sword harboring the Star Scar might be, anything could be traded in this place as long as you had the coin.

However, the moment I asked for the sword’s current whereabouts, he shook his head without hesitation.

“Regrettably, it’s not an item I can sell to you.”

“Why is that? Is it not going to appear on the black market?”

“No. Our boss has his eye on it.”

“Mister Brown’s boss…?”

The boss he was referring to was the ruler of Sector 7.

Furthermore, it meant the owner of the Black Serpent’s Shedded, who could practically be called the ruler of the entire Ground Zero except for Sector 0.

“In the black market, no one bids on an item the boss wants.”

“Why is that?”

“Because even if you successfully receive it, you’ll end up dead before you can even leave this place.”

“…”

In an instant, a face I hadn’t forgotten despite ten years having passed flickered through my mind, and I asked him cautiously.

“Exactly who is this boss person? Even just a name…”

“If you were in my shoes, would you tell? Especially to someone from the Special Unit.”

True enough. To a merchant, a customer’s information was classified.

Particularly when the subject of that information was the boss of the very organization he belonged to; keeping his mouth shut was the correct choice if he harbored any desire to keep his head attached to his shoulders.

“If you wish to participate in the auction, I’ll give you a ticket so you can at least spectate. But as a friend, not a customer, I advise you: never lay a finger on the boss’s property.”

In the end, we left the hideout bearing only the token of the black serpent, which granted us free passage throughout this area.

Entering a safe house we had secured in advance within Sector 7 along the alleyway, Kim Seong-gon stripped off the artificial skin mask he was wearing and turned to Cheon So-baek.

“What’s the plan?”

“About what?”

“The auction. Do you intend to participate? If we can just lay our hands on that demonic sword, escaping will be a walk in the park.”

The Special Unit wasn’t the type to back down simply because Mister Brown threw out a warning.

Our current force—comprising two Division Commanders and a Light Mage—was an elite vanguard that wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call the strongest line-up.

Even if the criminal organizations of Sector 7 joined hands and lunged at us, they would be swept away like autumn leaves before a storm.

If the boss of the Black Serpent’s Shedded was that fellow I knew, it might be a different story, but there was no way that was the case.

She had already died, leaving neither a corpse nor a soul behind.

“True enough. It’s not like we’re going to negotiate with a criminal organization anyway… but why are you leaving the decision to me?”

“…”

“Hello?”

“Ahem, our budget for participating in the auction is a bit…”

When Kim Seong-gon shifted the topic, Cheon So-baek scowled deeply.

Now or in the past, the operational funds provided to the Special Unit were an abysmally small amount, barely enough to buy a single Choco Pie off the street.

To recover the demonic sword and escape, we had to participate in the auction and place the winning bid first.

He said no one else would bid, but obviously, the Black Serpent’s Shedded would place their bid.

Whatever that amount might be, it wouldn’t be a small sum.

“So you’re telling me to buy it with my own money?”

“The situation is urgent, so why not execute it with your private funds first and log it in next year’s budget sheet?”

“You do realize this year has only just begun, right? We have the flower festival, and rookies will be joining soon.”

“Ahem, who knew things would turn out like this…”

From Cheon So-baek’s perspective, the amount required to win the bid for the demonic sword probably wasn’t an astronomical sum.

However, opening her wallet with a joyful heart was an entirely separate matter.

Since I was also being drained of money every single month for things like companion fees, cat food, and savings for a joint dating account, I could fully empathize with her.

For her sake, as she clicked her tongue in grievance, I cautiously stepped forward.

“Um… I have an excellent idea.”

“You stay out of this. How dare you interject when the Commanders are speaking…”

“Do we strictly need to participate in the auction?”

“Hmm?”

I was well-acquainted with the characteristics of the criminal organizations in Ground Zero.

Storing an item that was targeted by others or a dangerous object that could go into a frenzy at any moment inside their own territory wasn’t their style.

“Why don’t we just steal it first before it ever goes out for display?”

“What?”

On a beautiful day, when you want to pick a pocket, the easiest method is to empty the pocket of a pickpocket.

That way, a single job is enough to earn a full day’s wages.

“Do you know where it’s being stored?”

“I have a few suspected coordinates in mind. Since I’m intimately familiar with the geography of this vicinity, I can map the area before the auction begins.”

“…”

“Uh… Commander Kim Seong-gon?”

It was undoubtedly a brilliant idea that someone from the Special Unit would never have conceived, but the people who heard my words subtly widened the physical distance between themselves and me.