Sinuiju Free Market (4)

‘Nemesis, come out.’

The moment she stepped into the mall, Hyeonseong tapped the pocket holding her phone. A message from Nemesis—waiting for commands—appeared.

‘Check the locations and security levels of every surveillance camera inside this mall building. If something is hard to penetrate or likely to trigger detection, don’t force it.’

At the command, Nemesis immediately began scanning. While data streamed in, Hyeonseong checked the floor directory posted behind the information desk.

‘Looks like they mainly deal in general goods, accessories, and cloth-gear types.’

The directory listed broad categories of merchandise by floor. Judging by the inventory types and store names alone, it felt very far from a grim black market.

‘Well, that’s how criminals are too. Who walks around advertising that they’re a criminal?’

Only two kinds did that—amateurs who couldn’t hide it, or people who didn’t need to hide at all.

“Where do we start?”

Hyeonyeong asked in a low voice.

“I’m still thinking.”

Hyeonseong answered while glancing at Nemesis’s incoming results.

The camera data was still pouring in. Since each shop had its own cameras too, it seemed to be taking a while.

‘Standing here doing nothing until it’s done would look weird, wouldn’t it?’

It was probably better to walk around like normal shoppers for now.

“Let’s just casually browse the first floor.”

Hyeonseong said to Hyeonyeong, then turned to Haesu.

“Can you introduce the inside of the mall too?”

“Ah…… yes! I can.”

Haesu—restlessly scanning the mall with anxious eyes—jumped and answered.

“……Do you have something to feel guilty about?”

Hyeonseong looked at Haesu suspiciously.

“I don’t!”

Haesu reflexively raised their voice.

“If you don’t, then why are you yelling…….”

“Well, you know how it is! I just heard ‘Heukwol’ a second ago…… and if there’s someone connected to them here—”

“Even if there is, that has nothing to do with you, does it? It’s not like you have some kind of relationship with those people.”

“That’s true, but…… the rumors are just…….”

“Yeah…… the rumors really are bad.”

Hyeonseong could understand Haesu’s fear to a point.

‘Selling creatures that are obviously monsters, or even selling people on top of that…….’

Two separate nasty rumors clung to the place. Unless someone had nerves of steel, it was normal to be scared of a reputation like that.

“Do you really have to go there? If it’s a black-market auction house, there are other ones too…….”

“I said this earlier. The thing I’m looking for is specifically there. I don’t have a choice.”

At Hyeonseong’s firm answer, Haesu let out a resigned sigh.

‘Camera info…… is it mostly in now?’

Hyeonseong checked Nemesis’s data again. The volume had increased during their small talk. Since the top-floor results were updating, collection looked close to finished.

‘From here on, I’ll have to confirm things while moving.’

Hyeonseong asked Haesu to guide them around the mall again. Haesu agreed and led the way, with Hyeonseong and Hyeonyeong following behind.

“Honestly, places like this don’t really need a guide. If you look at the directory, you can tell what’s where pretty quickly. If you do need a guide, it’s usually because you want to know which spots are good…….”

Haesu started rambling again. One store had a decent reputation, another was overpriced for the quality—those kinds of backroom comments.

This time, Hyeonseong half-listened while closely studying each shop one by one.

At a glance, they were all ordinary general-goods shops. No merchants used suspicious code words or hand signals. Customers browsed normally and left.

‘If someone said something random, or slipped into a secluded corner and never came back out, I’d have been suspicious…….’

But for as long as she checked roughly half of the first floor, she didn’t see anything like that even once.

‘Well, if they were going to do that, it’d be somewhere you can’t see well from outside. Or maybe nobody’s here right now looking for black-market dealings, so nothing’s happening.’

On the way back to the central information desk, Hyeonseong checked the surveillance camera list Nemesis had brought back.

Nemesis had successfully investigated most of the cameras in the mall, but there were a few it couldn’t obtain data for—meaning their security was too high for a light intrusion.

Still, it had at least identified their existence, because she could see where those unpenetrated cameras were installed.

‘Two on the fourth floor, and one on every other floor.’

Since the mall was five floors, that meant six high-security cameras in total. More than she expected.

‘And they’re in shops that don’t look like they’d need to be that sensitive about security.’

The stores whose cameras Nemesis couldn’t penetrate sold ordinary goods—accessories, clothing, that kind of thing.

Some of them did carry special items, but even then, it still felt excessive.

‘So for now, I can assume the six locations most likely tied to the black market are those six shops.’

Of course, it was possible one or two owners were just paranoid and overdid their security.

But it was still worth checking. There was no way she could inspect every single shop in this building.

“Hey, Mr. Haesu. Can you guide us to some stores I name?”

Hyeonseong asked.

“Which ones?”

“In this order.”

Hyeonseong pulled out a notebook and wrote down the store names she’d just confirmed, arranged from the first floor upward by floor order.

“One per floor…… no, two on the fourth floor. That’s all you need me to guide you to?”

Haesu asked while looking at the note she tore off and handed over.

“For now, yes.”

“Alright. Follow me. The one on the first floor is that sign over there……”

Haesu replied, pointing at one of the signs ahead. It was one of the shops Hyeonseong had requested.

“But that place doesn’t really have any notable rumors……”

Haesu muttered, baffled.

“We’ll see.”

Hyeonseong replied lightly as they approached. At the same time, she glanced at Hyeonyeong—if there was something suspicious, Hyeonyeong would notice faster than she would.

‘And…… I’ve got more investigating to do.’

Hyeonseong called Nemesis again. This time, she asked it to analyze footage from cameras installed in places like cafés, convenience kiosks, and restroom areas.

‘If someone suddenly disappeared, or went in and didn’t come back out for a long time, or passed suspicious slips of paper back and forth…… bring me everything you find. Records from within the last week.’

Older footage had a high chance of being useless right now. And if she set the time window too wide from the start, the search would take too long. So she planned to search week by week.

“What do you think of this store?”

After giving Nemesis the instructions, she realized they were already right in front of the shop. Hyeonseong asked Hyeonyeong in a low voice.

“I don’t think there’s anything weird.”

“Do you sense anything like the owner being strangely strong, or some weird defensive item inside the shop?”

“Not really……. Why?”

Instead of answering out loud, Hyeonseong pulled out her phone and typed a quick message.

After reading it, Hyeonyeong looked the shop over again.

“Still doesn’t seem weird to me.”

“What about the customers?”

“The ones we can see right now.”

If nothing looked suspicious at a glance, they couldn’t just loiter here forever.

‘Should I ask Nemesis to check the hallway cameras later too?’

Hyeonseong glanced off to one side of the air. Videos—visible only to her—were piling up from Nemesis’s processing. It looked like she’d need to wait a bit longer before it finished.

“Then let’s go up to the second floor.”

At Hyeonseong’s words, Haesu resumed guiding them. They continued like that until they’d checked the first shop on the fourth floor.

‘Hyeonyeong said everything except the first floor felt a little off.’

As she headed to the shop across the corridor, Hyeonseong thought.

According to Hyeonyeong, the second floor, third floor, and the left-side shop on the fourth floor all had mana flows that seemed related to concealment. Each one was different.

‘She said the second floor and the place we just saw felt like something was “coating” the shop itself, and the third floor felt like it was “coating” the owner.’

Different types, but both suspicious. It was obvious someone wanted to hide either what happened inside, or who the owner really was.

‘We didn’t see customers doing anything weird…… but either way, it’s highly likely these aren’t normal shops. Haesu also said he’d heard odd rumors about the ones we passed.’

“Next is that shop, right?”

Haesu asked, pointing at the next destination sign. It matched one of the names Hyeonseong had written.

“Have you heard anything strange about it? Like it sells suspicious stuff, or it’s connected to the black market?”

“No. I haven’t really heard anything like that. I mean…… if it’s truly doing pitch-black work, there’s no way someone like me would know. The places I said I’d heard rumors about were more like… half-and-half places? If the rumors are true.”

Haesu scratched at their hood.

‘I wish I had a better way to verify the rumors…….’

Hyeonseong paused. With a sideways glance at the air, she confirmed that Nemesis had finished collecting and organizing the footage she’d requested.

From the organized videos, she pulled up a group from a café on the first floor.

There weren’t many clips. In a way, that was obvious—most people wouldn’t do suspicious things in a spot covered by cameras.

‘But if someone’s inexperienced, or their fundamentals are sloppy, they sometimes don’t think that far. And…… if it’s information that’s okay to be a little exposed, they might not care much about cameras.’

Hyeonseong immediately played the group.

‘There they go again. The moment there’s a chance to squeeze me for coins.’

Constellations that sounded connected to information trading or the underworld sent messages, but Hyeonseong didn’t react. In her experience, “information” sold in that tone was never reliable.

‘Should I tell Hyeonyeong to ask her Constellation?’

That thought crossed her mind after seeing their messages. But she didn’t expect much from it either.

‘Hyeonyeong’s Constellation isn’t the type specialized in intel work. And asking other Constellations won’t be any different from my own results.’

If buying intel from a Constellation seemed plausible, Hyeonyeong would’ve tried it long ago on her own.

‘There’s no point whining about what I don’t have.’

Hyeonseong dismissed the now-useless café group, then pulled up the remaining groups to check.

Several groups became worthless in an instant. The footage only looked suspicious by coincidence—nothing meaningful.

‘So everything from the café is a bust. That leaves one convenience store and the restroom-entrance cameras.’

She pulled up the convenience store interior footage next. While scanning quickly—

‘Wait. That’s strange.’

Hyeonseong’s eyes stopped on a clip where someone with their face hidden slipped a hand into another person’s jacket pocket.

At first she assumed it was a pickpocket. But what happened afterward was odd—after the hand withdrew, something like paper was sticking out of the pocket.

Hyeonseong zoomed the footage as far as possible, then rewound and played it again. Even zoomed in, she couldn’t make out exactly what the item was.

‘The way they pull it out so naturally… it’s definitely something that needs to be passed quietly.’

She returned the zoom to the original scale and watched again. From how the pocket owner took it out and unfolded it, it looked like a paper note.

‘And in this convenience store footage, nothing else stands out…….’

Hyeonseong deleted all the other convenience store clips, leaving only that one.

‘Now I need to trace what these two people did before and after the moment this was recorded.’