Black Market

So this is the Middle Zone’s black market…

The black market had been built into a converted neighborhood park, and there were far more people in it than I’d expected. Exactly as Scorpion had explained, the Outer Zone, the Middle Zone and the Inner Zone had emptied their people into one heaving crowd. Sidelong stares came at me from every direction, and I walked on anyway.

“What’s the hurry, Squirt? You get lost in here and you’re a dead man.”
“They’re selling masks over there.”
“Masks? Ah, right, right. I forgot you were a celebrity. Gwahaha!”
“…”

Scorpion’s words went in one ear and out the other. I stopped in front of one of the traders. His goods spread out on a mat before him, like a street hawker. I pointed at a mask with a bird’s beak on it, the kind a plague doctor wears.

“What’s this?”
“Plague doctor mask. Put it on and it blocks foul air, toxic gas, plague… the lot. Easy enough to breathe in, too, for what it is.”
“I’ll take one.”
“Three million won.”
“…”

Three million won for a single mask. Black market or not, that was highway robbery. Scorpion had been listening in beside me, and he frowned.

“Three million won, my ass. Do I look like an easy mark to you?”
“H-hey, it may not look like much, but there’s proper magical work gone into this!”
“Magic? Bullshit. One look tells you that’s not worth more than a few tens of thousands.”
“I’m telling you it’s real! Go on, check the sigil inside! That’s an Artifact, made by an Artifactor!”
“An Artifactor?”

Scorpion picked up the plague doctor mask without a word and checked the inside. Still saying nothing, he ran a finger over the sigil carved there, and slowly, surprise worked its way into that serious face.

“…It’s real. I know the bastard who made it.”
“See? Told you it was real.”
“An Artifactor… is what, exactly?”
“Huh? You don’t even know what an Artifactor is? First time in the Villain Special City, is it, young man?”

The black-market trader sneered openly, and I had nothing to say back. He wasn’t wrong; I hadn’t been in the Villain Special City long. Scorpion answered in my place, explaining what an Artifactor was.

“Among Gift awakened there’s a rare few who make things. What they make has a Gift bound into it, literally. We call those rotten bastards Artifactors, and what they make, Artifacts.”

So a crafting-type Gift awakened was an Artifactor, and the special things they made were Artifacts. Neither was a name I’d ever heard outside the Villain Special City. Only then did I understand why the black market was this packed.

They’re all here for Artifacts.

The reason the black market had formed in the Middle Zone of all places, the one zone every last person in the Villain Special City could pass through. The reason Scorpion had told me to bring plenty of money. If it all came down to getting hold of Artifacts, then every piece fit.

“So are you paying the three million or not? Quit blocking my business — if you’re not buying, clear off.”
“…What does that Artifact actually do?”
“I already told you! Blocks toxic gas, plague, fine dust¹, the whole lot, and you can still breathe fine. And it won’t so much as scratch under an ordinary attack. A Gift attack, now, that’d be another matter.”
“…All right. Give me your account number.”

I transferred three million won to the black-market trader’s account. With the mask on, the beak was a nuisance, but I could breathe as freely as if I were wearing nothing at all. The view wasn’t much obstructed either; the glass across the face was fairly wide.

“Pfft. Like some squirt playing at being a Villain. You definitely need to put some size on you.”
“…You planning to build my stamina by beating me up again, like last time?”
“I keep telling you, it’s the fastest way. Anyhow, your face is covered now, so let’s walk around a bit more comfortably.”

The black market was packed so tight that even keeping to Scorpion’s side took work. Now and then a trader would raise his voice to hawk his goods, or a child caught picking pockets would be given a thorough beating. Not that pickpockets were any worry of mine; everything I had on me was the phone in my hand.

“Why’s the liquor this expensive? It’s all the same alcohol.”
“W-well, that’s because it’s liquor you can’t get anywhere outside.”
“I know what this stuff costs. You’re really going to sell it to me like that? Eh?”

Scorpion worked his way through the black market picking up liquor. The bar he ran in the dormitory basement had to source its stock here, he said. There were peddlers who ran in and out of the Villain Special City, apparently, but the black market was far cheaper.

By the time Scorpion and I had made it around half the black market.

“There’s less good stuff here than I expected. A weapon I could use for protection, or some gear…”
“Gwahaha! Of course there isn’t. Goods that good are rare even in the black market. And it’s crawling with con artists, so keep your guard up at all times.”
“Do I have to check the sigil, the way you did?”
“That’s right. Artifactors always carve their own sigil into what they make. It’s the only way the value holds.”

I looked over five or six Artifacts that seemed usable, and every one of them was a dud. Scorpion went so far as to say that eight out of ten Artifacts that turn up in the black market are fakes. A lower hit rate than I’d expected, and the disappointment ran deep.

“Don’t you worry, though. Even the black market has one place that vouches for what a thing’s worth.”
“Then let’s go there first.”
“Quit nagging, Squirt. It’s about to start any minute now.”
“Sorry?”
“Follow me.”

Scorpion led me to the clock tower at the center of the neighborhood park. The tower was broken and gave off a dank, gloomy air, and yet a fair crowd had gathered around it. Right in front of it stood a man holding a microphone.

Scorpion got a paddle out of one of the attendants. A round paddle with ‘37’ written on it. Wedged in among the crowd, he snorted.

“If you want a piece that’s the real thing, the auction’s the only way. The auction house sources straight from the Artifactors, so there’s no worry about getting stabbed in the back either.”
“Really? Then what’s the point of the black market at all?”
“The auction’s expensive, is the trade-off. Hunt properly out there and you can pick up something good and cheap, like that mask of yours. Beginner’s luck — count yourself fortunate.”

I fiddled with the mask and nodded. Fair enough. Getting hold of something with a Gift bound into it for a few million won might have been a miracle to begin with.

I took a paddle marked ‘38’ myself and waited for the auction.

With an exaggerated flourish, a staff member pushed a cart up onto the stage. The veil came off, and underneath lay a ring. A ring with the sigil that marks an Artifact carved into it.

The auction ran smoothly. The ring that made its wearer look charming went for twenty-five million won. Double the price of the ordinary goods traded out on the black market. Even so, the people taking part raised their paddles without hesitation.

“That’s seriously expensive…”
“Anything in the tens of millions isn’t even expensive. Just wait. Once the headline lot comes out, it’ll run to a hundred million.”
“A hundred million…”
“That’s right. A hundred million.”

Scorpion grinned and looked around the auction floor. Every eye was nailed to the auctioneer. In that scene of madness I held my breath and waited for something usable to come up.

Several pieces of jewelry, the sort only the upper class would care for, came up and went down again. Then something huge was wheeled up onto the stage, hidden under a veil.

The auctioneer flung his arms wide, as though the moment had come.

— Whisk!

He pulled the veil away, and behind it stood a square glass display case. Inside was a mannequin of a human torso. At a glance it looked to be wearing nothing but ordinary black thermals, but…

The garment had the sigil that marks an Artifact carved all over it.

“Midas… that’s Midas!”
“That sigil’s Midas’s?”
“I’d heard Villain Corporation made Artifacts, but…”
“Well now. No wonder they call it the headline.”

The people who’d made out the sigil all started talking at once. The name Midas was one I’d heard as well. The head of Villain Corporation, one of Korea’s three great Villain organizations.

From what I’d heard, Midas is supposed to have some absurd Gift.

Nothing but rumor attaches to the name Midas. That every Villain under Midas has been remade into a machine; that modern robotics owes its entire present level to Midas alone. The stories had no clear source, but for the head of Villain Corporation, they were plausible enough.

And now an Artifact made by Midas’s own hand had appeared on the auction floor.

A rise in physical ability was worth buying even with a few flaws attached. What I needed was gear that could protect my body, and protect it right now. A top that thin, I could wear under a suit without any trouble.

“Number 29, fifty million won!”
“Number 3, fifty-five million won!”
“Number 49, sixty million won!”

The raised paddles showed no sign of coming down. The bidding climbed like something demented and blew past a hundred million won in moments. The auctioneer watched the spectacle with a beaming smile.

“…”

“Number 38, one hundred sixty million won.”

— Shff.

I raised my paddle as though I’d been waiting for it.

After watching quietly, I had jumped into the fight, and now my eyes met Number 49’s. Curiously enough, she wore a mask too, a wolf’s face made of paper. Her body was hidden under a robe, but anyone could tell at a glance that she was a woman. Her voice, likewise: light and sweet. She seemed to be hiding her face for reasons of her own, like me.

“Number 49, one hundred seventy million won.”

“Number 38, one hundred eighty million won.”

For all the clowning from the microphone, Number 49 and I went on quietly driving the price up. The only man grinning from ear to ear was the auctioneer, the one taking the money.

When the price passed two hundred fifty million won, the auction floor went dead silent.

“Number 38, three hundred million won.”

“…”

I could feel Number 49’s gaze. The mask made her face impossible to read, but she was clearly weighing it up. Since I’d been raising without a pause, she might well have thought I’d keep coming.

Any higher and I’m out too.

As Number 49’s silence stretched, the auctioneer belatedly cleared his throat.

“…”

— Rap-rap-rap!

He rapped the gavel with a comic flourish, and the people on the auction floor stirred. In the applause pouring down, I let out a breath of relief. The hollow feeling of having spent the price of a decent house weighed less than the reassurance that I could finally protect myself.

Number 49… I feel bad about it, for no good reason.

I dipped my head to her in a slight bow. Number 49’s gaze stayed on me. Even as the next lot was brought in and everyone’s attention swung to the new piece. She went on looking at me in silence, and then at last she rose from her place.

Was she leaving the auction floor, having failed to land what she wanted? I had my three-hundred-million-won piece and no intention of bidding on anything else, so where she went interested me more than the lots did.

And in the instant she turned aside to leave. Through a gap in the paper mask, a little of her profile showed. It gave me a start.

“Huh…?”

The face of the woman who had fought me so fiercely over that lot. It looked remarkably like the face of Yang Hayun, from my own intake.