89 — Sinuiju Free Market (7)

‘The format’s the same as the other coordinate note I saw earlier, but…….’

The moment she checked the contents, Hyeonseong folded the slip back up and put it into her pocket.

“The coordinates?”

Hyeonyeong asked as soon as they came out of the convenience store. Hyeonseong took out the slip and handed it to Hyeonyeong.

“If it’s numbers and an alphabet letter, then the format is the same as what we saw earlier. The problem is that it looks a bit hard to know the meaning for sure…….”

“I think the number part is probably three-dimensional coordinates. Look.”

Hyeonseong covered the alphabet letter with her fingertip.

“Ah, you’re right. Without that, it really is coordinate notation.”

“Right?”

“Then these numbers probably indicate a place somewhere inside the Free Market?”

“Probably. And with this style of number notation, then it’s probably…… somewhere underground in the first quadrant if you divide the Free Market into four.”

“Then is the problem the letter B attached at the end?”

“That too…… and there’s also the question of whether this is closer to the center of the market or the outskirts.”

It was easy enough to tell that the numbers were coordinates. The problem was what the limit values set for the coordinates were.

‘Because the limit could be 50, or it could be 100.’

Hyeonseong’s gaze turned to Haesu.

“Mr. Haesu, can you interpret coordinates?”

“Well……. It’s not like I know the coordinates they use over there.”

“Even so, take a look first.”

Hyeonseong showed the coordinate slip to Haesu as well. Haesu stared at the slip and thought for a moment.

“Umm…… I still don’t know. Like you two said, it does seem like it’s somewhere in the first quadrant……. Ah?”

While answering with a troubled look, Haesu suddenly widened his eyes as if something had occurred to him.

“Why?”

“Oh, well…… if you take the axes as east, west, south, and north, I think I can roughly tell what this is referring to.”

Haesu took out his smartphone and pulled up a guide map of the Free Market.

“Here, underground around this area, there’s a kind of shopping district that’s exactly what you’d think of when someone says black market. I’ve never actually been there myself, but…….”

Pointing to one area in the upper-left section of the guide map, Haesu continued his explanation.

Hyeonseong looked at the place Haesu indicated. It was a place that would fit if the upper bound of the coordinate values was assumed to be 100.

“If you’ve never been there, then I guess you don’t know how to get in either?”

“No, I do know that. What I mean by never having been there is, to be exact, that I’ve never actually looked around inside. I’ve looked for the entrance, and I’ve gone in and come back out before.”

“So you’re saying you confirmed that the underground market really exists.”

At Hyeonseong’s words, Haesu nodded.

“Is it an easy method? I mean, the way in.”

At Hyeonseong’s question, Haesu thought for a moment before answering.

“The method itself is simple. Like opening the basement door of some shop at a specific time, or finding a hidden portal tucked away somewhere in an alley. Stuff like that. But which of those can actually be used today…….”

“So the entrances change every day.”

“Yes……. And randomly too.”

That much was not really a big problem. They simply had to look for all the known entrances.

“Then please tell me everything you know for now. One of them should be a usable entrance.”

At Hyeonseong’s request, Haesu nodded with a dubious expression.

“Then follow me.”

Haesu started leading the way again.

“But if the numbers are coordinate values, then what’s that B?”

On the way to look for an entrance to the underground market, Hyeonyeong asked Hyeonseong.

“Well. I still don’t really know either.”

“It’s not a basement-floor indicator, is it?”

“You can already tell it’s underground just by looking at the coordinate values, so there’d be no reason to add a basement-floor marker too.”

At Hyeonseong’s answer, Hyeonyeong fell back into thought. But she soon shook her head. It seemed nothing suitable came to mind.

So they put off further guesses about the place for a moment and focused on finding the entrance to the underground market.

“Um, for now, the closest entrance I know of is around here.”

Before long, Haesu showed them one of the places where an entrance was located. It was a narrow gap between buildings, too tight to really be called an alley.

Haesu went into the gap and felt around both walls. Soon afterward, he shook his head and came back out to the main road.

“I don’t think this one’s open today.”

They headed straight for the next entrance. But every place they went to was a bust.

“This is already the fourth failure. Is this really okay? At this rate, it feels like there won’t be many entrances left.”

Hyeonseong asked Haesu.

“Oh, it’s okay. There are more entrances than you’d think……. Just counting the ones I know, there are six. So in reality, there are probably even more than that.”

Hearing Haesu’s answer, Hyeonseong could not help thinking that this market really ran quite smoothly.

‘Even if it’s basically the same as tacit approval, they still seem to have left the doors open awfully blatantly.’

But Hyeonseong soon changed her mind. Facilities in the underground market that could truly be called the abyss would surely have hidden their route of entry one layer further.

Facilities that were easy to access were, if anything, probably treated like unlicensed street vendors—not exactly legal, but not worth the effort of cracking down on either.

‘Places they agreed to leave alone as long as they didn’t sell anything too dangerous or cause incidents that crossed the line……. Something like that, probably.’

Thinking that, Hyeonseong began to vaguely guess what the B attached beside the coordinates meant.

‘It’s probably not a shop you can see the moment you enter. Either it’s hidden further inside, or it’s an abyssal area concealed with an extra layer altogether.’

“Then where’s the fifth entrance?”

After finishing her thoughts, Hyeonseong asked Haesu.

“That one is…… wait a moment.”

Haesu checked the current time.

“We’ll have to wait a bit for the remaining entrances. If we go now, we won’t be able to get in…….”

“Are they the kind of places set to open only in the evening or something?”

At Hyeonseong’s question, Haesu nodded.

“It’s still a long way until evening…….”

“Yeah. Should we look for another entrance then?”

Hyeonyeong responded to Hyeonseong’s muttering.

“There probably are other entrances…… but the only ones I can tell you about now are the two doors that open in the evening.”

Haesu said with a troubled face.

“We’ve got time to spare anyway, so let’s just think of it as taking a walk and make a full round.”

Saying that, Hyeonseong took the paper with the coordinates written on it out of her pocket.

“You never know. We might find a new entrance we didn’t know about.”

Haesu did not look very willing, but he soon agreed with Hyeonseong’s opinion.

The three wandered through the streets of the Free Market again. While walking around the streets, Hyeonseong checked the coordinate slip from time to time.

‘Come to think of it, it’s strange for them to just hand over this with no explanation. Just by looking at this, there’s no way to know exactly what place it points to or what the method of entry is.’

That was why Hyeonseong guessed that this slip itself probably also served as a kind of compass.

And she was soon able to confirm that guess was true.

‘Huh? This thing is suddenly trembling.’

Hyeonseong felt the paper she was holding shake like a smartphone set to vibrate mode. She could tell instinctively. It meant the right answer was somewhere nearby.

‘Isn’t there a more specific hint?’

That was when Hyeonseong stopped in place and looked around her surroundings. This time, she felt as if someone were tugging at the paper.

Hyeonseong checked the direction in which the paper seemed to want to slip away. It was one of the narrow passageways between buildings.

Just then, inside that passage, someone was feeling along the wall. The person feeling along the wall seemed to throw their body toward it, and then disappeared in an instant.

“Looks like we found the right answer after all.”

Hyeonseong started walking in the direction the paper was pointing. Hyeonyeong and Haesu followed behind.

Entering the narrow passage, Hyeonseong lightly felt along the wall where the person had just disappeared. She felt nothing at all.

Next, she placed her palm against the wall and pushed. This time, it felt as though her hand went inside.

‘So that’s why they charged into it like that.’

Hyeonseong slammed her body into the wall without hesitation. Instead of the sensation of striking a hard wall, she felt a bizarre sensation that was difficult to describe in words.

Having stepped toward the wall like that, Hyeonseong opened the eyes she had unconsciously shut. An unfamiliar indoor shopping district greeted her.

“I didn’t know that place had an entrance too…….”

Haesu, who had followed after her, looked around with curious eyes.

“Is this the underground market you mentioned earlier?”

Hyeonseong asked Haesu.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then our guess that these coordinates pointed somewhere in the underground market was correct.”

Hyeonseong looked down at the slip that still seemed to want to spring off somewhere.

If she had known that such a carelessly scribbled-looking slip had this kind of pathfinding function, there would have been no need to wander around from the start.

‘It looked too simple, so I didn’t even think of it.’

Come to think of it, it was only natural for them to include such a function. Not everyone who wanted to find the auction house would know the coordinates of the Free Market by heart.

‘If I’d guessed it, I would’ve asked Hyeonyeong whether she felt anything from it……. Well, since we got in anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter.’

Now all that remained was to find the exact point the coordinates indicated. Once again, Hyeonseong started walking in the direction indicated by the slip.

They turned several corners and went down two more levels. Around the time Hyeonseong really began to feel that the scale of the underground shopping district was far larger than expected, they arrived at their destination.

“Here?”

“Seems like it.”

At Hyeonyeong’s question, Hyeonseong checked the coordinate slip. It no longer seemed to want to spring out of her hand, nor was it trembling anymore. That probably meant it had finished its job.

‘From the outside, I really can’t tell what kind of place this is.’

This time, she examined the appearance of the destination. Both the door and the walls were opaque, so it was impossible to see inside, and there was no signboard either.

‘Well, I guess it’s one thing that room numbers aren’t attached, since that seems common for the shops and offices on this floor…….’

Even the surrounding atmosphere was gloomy. Anyone looking at it would surely feel it was suspicious. But they could not just choose not to go in.

‘All this over that damned entry pass.’

At this point, there was no way to start looking for some backdoor route into the auction house, so there was no helping it. Hyeonseong opened the door of the room that could have been either a shop or an office. The door opened without any particular resistance, and she stepped inside.

Inside the space, there was only a counter, one person guarding the counter, and three doors leading elsewhere. There were no signs or labels attached to the doors in the room either.

‘I wonder if Hyeonyeong is sensing anything.’

Hyeonseong briefly turned her gaze toward Hyeonyeong. Hyeonyeong was looking at the person guarding the counter. It seemed she was trying to gauge the other person’s identity and level.

‘No idea what kind of person this is. For now, I should probably think of them as a gatekeeper.’

“Welcome. Is there something you’re looking for?”

The gatekeeper spoke first to Hyeonseong’s party. After exchanging a brief glance with Hyeonyeong, Hyeonseong took out the paper with the coordinates written on it.

“This.”

The moment the gatekeeper checked the paper Hyeonseong had taken out, the corners of his eyes twitched. After quickly looking over Hyeonseong’s group, he lifted the corners of his mouth.

“So that is your business here? In that case, you may enter through the door behind me.”

The gatekeeper pointed to the second door behind the counter.

“Isn’t there some kind of request or anything?”

Hyeonseong asked.

“You’ll find that out once you go inside.”

The gatekeeper answered in an extremely polite tone. At the blatantly fabricated attitude, Hyeonseong unconsciously furrowed her brow. It was fortunate her face was hidden by her hat and hood.

In any case, there were no other choices this time either. Hyeonseong headed for the door the gatekeeper had pointed to.

When she opened the door, an old stairwell leading downward appeared. She continued all the way down along the stairs. After descending for quite a while, they came upon a single door.

A noisy sound leaked out from beyond the door. The sounds were muddled, so the exact contents could not be made out, but it was clear enough that people were shouting something at the tops of their voices.

“……I think I know what kind of place this is.”

Hyeonyeong looked somewhat displeased.

“Huh? What kind of place is it?”

“You’ll know when you see it.”

In response to Hyeonseong’s question, Hyeonyeong opened the door. Then the cheers, shouts, and all kinds of noise that had only been faintly audible stabbed clearly into Hyeonseong’s ears.

Claaang—

“Hey! What are you doing! Fight back!”

“Yeah, that’s it!”

“Kill him!”

Along with that, Hyeonseong realized what kind of place this was.

‘It’s an arena?’