TING! CREE!! CREEE!!

A resounding clang reverberated through the dimly lit basement, akin to the clashing of metal, followed by a low, rusty groan of chains.

Joe panted heavily, taking a moment to catch his breath. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel and made his way to a secure corner of the basement where a safe stood.

At that moment, he couldn’t help but feel like he was announcing, “Here’s the money.” And in some ways, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Shhhaaaa

Joe extracted the raw emotion and wrapped it around his arm. The black suit was still limited to gloves, but the black armor was a different story. Thanks to a lot of effort, he was able to roughly wrap it around his whole arm and he was able to see a tangible effect.

With the armor tightly fastened around his arm, he exerted a force of strength to move a massive 265-kilogram office safe to the side.

Creek…!

A slow creak echoed as the lump of metal shifted and left a mark on the floor, much to Joe’s dismay.

“Ah, damn it… it leaves a mark.”

He gazed at the mark before shifting his attention to the wall behind the safe.

An empty space caught his eye, and upon closer inspection, he discovered several bags of money that appeared to be stage props. However, unlike props, these bags held real money, totaling over 250 million.

For District X, this amount was unimaginable. But for Joe, it was not a substantial sum.

His various occupations in the black market as a security guard, his collaboration with Dave in hunting Kell rebels, his successful capturing of prison escapees, and his participation in illegal martial arts fights allowed him to accumulate a vast sum of money. He didn’t spend much, aside from essentials like food, drinks, work, and payment for the Fighter crew.

With his latest haul in hand, a bag of money containing payment for the Fighter crew this month, Joe returned the safe to its original spot. He wiped away the marks on the floor with his shoes, feeling the need to conceal his tracks later.

As he ascended the stairs, he spotted Sam and Owen cleaning guns on the street.

“You’re here?”

“Did you get it?”

“Oh, what about the payment money?”

“Here it is.”

“I brought some too.”

As if it had been arranged beforehand, Sam and Owen produced a bag of money, which Joe collected in his glutton bag, which was convenient to carry.

With a quick glance at the still-dazed Owen, Joe urged them to move on.

Sam, meanwhile, nonchalantly reassembled his gun and stood up. The weapon, a military-grade coat he had recently acquired from the black market, was heavily modified with bulletproof armor, mana bombs, sawed-off shotguns, and machine guns. It might have seemed excessive, but Sam knew better than to rely on anything or anyone else in this dog-eat-dog world.

In contrast, Owen’s arsenal was made up of simple iron armor and a metal bat. But that was fine. His brute strength alone, combined with Joe’s combat skills and Sam’s firepower, were enough to intimidate anyone in the area.

Joe couldn’t help but think that it would be great if Owen could use black magic like him.

But alas, he knew he was not skilled enough to teach the young man.

Suddenly, a memory of a man who was a skilled practitioner of black magic and teaching came to mind, but Joe dismissed the thought.

‘No, it’s a bit…’

“Where are you going?” a bold, impertinent kid from the neighborhood interrupted his thoughts.

“To work. What about the kids?” Joe replied.

“They’re napping. Will you be back late?”

“I don’t know,” Joe shrugged, and then pulled out some bills from his wallet.

He was earning more money these days, so spending a little more was no big deal. After all, money was power, no matter how dirty the job was to earn it.

“Buy some food with this. Don’t wander alone. Tell the others to come along,” Joe said, handing the bills to the girl from the neighborhood… No, his dead colleague Nico’s sister.

“I heard everyone’s busy?” she responded.

“If you don’t want to get hit by me, stop messing around and do the job properly. What are you going to do these days?” Joe scolded her gently.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” she answered, taking the bills.

Joe ruffled her hair affectionately and continued on his way.

As Joe left his home, the once respectable neighborhood had transformed into a typical District X. It was a perilous and bleak place where crazies, fanatics, human traffickers, mutants, and armed robbers could suddenly spring out of the alleys. In reality, such incidents were not uncommon.

District X had its own ecosystem, but it was also an area abandoned by the city where various attackers pounced on easy targets outside the community living area. Although Joe had been attacked a few times, he hadn’t experienced such incidents since he learned black magic from the boss and made a name for himself.

“Hey, isn’t it the champion?” someone said when Joe crossed the center of District X and reached the loading dock by the Shem River. It was a smuggler who frequently worked in the city, known as Noah. He also served as a part-time taxi driver, occasionally driving people to District X and District Y.

“I bet everything on you in the last game to have some fun. When are you coming out again?” Noah asked.

“I’m not doing it anymore, Noah,” replied Joe.

“Why not? With your level, you could make a lot of money just by coming for one fight.”

“I can make a decent amount of money without doing that.” To demonstrate, Joe threw a fairly substantial amount of money to Old Man Noah. The quick-witted Noah immediately closed his mouth and took Joe’s group aboard with the cost of boat fare and bribe money.

The Shem River was a vast river that flowed through the enormous city, making it easy to cross. Every time they sailed through this dirty, brown river, which seemed to be a blend of animal waste and sewage, Joe felt dizzy. He appeared to understand why children were born as mutants near the river.

This was also the reason why he paid expensive money and boarded Noah’s aged boat. If the boat capsized even once, it could be deadly. Although it was expensive, he preferred a secure mode of transportation. He didn’t want to jeopardize his body to save a few cents.

“Okay, we’ve arrived. When will you come back?” the old man inquired as they arrived at District Y.

He did not give the option to wait, and Joe wasn’t concerned.

Although the chances of attacking smuggling ships, which were the only safe mode of transportation, were low, he still did not feel entirely secure in District Y.

In fact, he felt as if the mutants and destitute bandits were observing him from the mounds of rubbish and shanties surrounding him.

Joe, Sam, and Owen had a few discussions. “First, come at six in the evening once. If I’m not there, come again later around ten o’clock at night. I’ll pay extra if we have to move at night.”

Old Man Noah immediately nodded his head. Since District X was also a district belonging to Landa, everything would be fine as long as the conditions were met.

After Old Man Noah had safely departed for District X across the river, Joe, Sam, and Owen visited a restaurant inside District Y.

Joe thought it was time to get used to it, but he just couldn’t get used to it.

There was a crazy human being who opened a restaurant in District Y, which was nothing but a lawless place. But what was even scarier was that the business was doing surprisingly well.

“Hey… look over there. The gunsmith of District Y and even the zombie weapon salesman and mutation trainer are here?” Sam whispered. All of them were reputable dealers trading with the Crime Firm.

From privately-made guns to zombies, even living mutants trained and modified by people were sold not only in Landa but also outside Landa.

“What are you doing here?” a restaurant employee with an X-shaped scar on his face stood in front of Joe and asked.

He was wearing a classy restaurant uniform, but it didn’t suit him at all. Rather, it gave off a deformed atmosphere.

“Did you come because of the scouting job our boss asked for last time?”

“There is that too. I’ve come to pay the Payments too.” Joe held up a thick money bag.

It wasn’t always necessary, but in order to join the Fighter’s Crew and learn black magic, one had to pay a fee. Otherwise, they had to do the requested job well, raise their reputation, or increase the value of the Fighter’s Crew’s name.

Seeing this the scar-faced man spoke, “Give me the money and report to me about your mission. I’ll let the boss know.”

“What nonsense. When did you start sitting on top of my head?”

Joe and the scar-faced man exchanged a war of words.

Even though the fighter crew was an organization with relatively no hierarchy, the members of the organization were also humans, so if they thought their skills were similar, they had no choice but to confront each other.

Their leader did not pay much attention to this, and he even encouraged it at times.

Anyway, Joe and the scar-faced man stared at each other without saying a word, then the scar-faced man sighed and spoke again. “There seems to be a misunderstanding, I said that because Boss is meeting with someone right now and doesn’t want to meet anyone.”

Joe frowned as it was the first time such a thing had happened. When he saw the scar-faced man, he realized he wasn’t lying.

“Who is he meeting with?”

“I don’t know, but I saw a foreigner entering.”

“A foreigner?”

“Yes, a foreigner. He seemed like a Galos guy.”

⏩ ⏩ ⏩ ⏩ ⏩ ⏩

Oliver’s day at the Magic Tower had come to an end, and he made his way home as usual.

His mind wandered as he considered the prospects of an evening with little to occupy him besides leisurely reading. The rumors of bullying relayed by Kevin held no basis in truth.

Despite the fact that he was being paid to make use of the school’s Elemental Library, a pang of regret nagged at him. The reality was that the workload was meager, consisting mainly of menial tasks such as cleaning the staff room and assisting a female student with basic scheduling inquiries.

To be precise, he only told her that he hadn’t received any detailed information yet.

And, when he told Kevin about the girl, he only showed a vague emotion.

“Well, there must be a reason.” Speaking to himself, Oliver completely pushed the events of the Magic Tower off the side of his head.

It was Oliver’s first job as Zenon, and as a gratitude for letting him into the Magic Tower, he planned to work hard, but as expected, Oliver’s work was the most important.

Now that he had done his job anyway, Oliver decided to focus on his work instead of wasting his time on unanswered questions.

For instance, The Book about Demons.

Oliver read the book in his spare time, enduring the pain in his eyes and head, and was reading it without realizing it.

The book was divided into three parts: an overview containing general information about demons, a main section that described the demons in more detail (only a couple of pages long), and a final section with strange and unrecognizable words.

Although he had gleaned some knowledge from the text, he found it somewhat lacking.

Except for the fact that there are 72 monarchs, one demon king, and the information about the Old man on a horse.

Suddenly, a notion struck him. Perhaps there was a secret hidden within the book, just as Merlin had discovered a hidden meaning within Audrey’s journal. Determined to investigate, Oliver attempted to imbue the tome with mana and emotions, but to no avail.

After numerous attempts, Oliver became convinced that there was no hidden mechanism in this book, but then he had a sudden idea and decided to try it out.

Oliver sat in the basement and focused the energy on his eyes.

He was trying to see through the warlock’s eye, which weakens normal vision and penetrates emotions.

Nothing happened.

But Oliver did not give up and concentrated more energy on his eyes and flipped through the book.

His eyes hurt and he had a headache, but he did not give up.

It may be a waste of effort, but he wanted to give up after trying to his heart’s content.

FLAP FLAP.

Oliver’s sight suddenly changed to a dark one where he couldn’t feel anything but emotions, and he only looked at the book in front of him.

It’s been a long time since he used his eyes like this, so it was quite awkward and tiring.

The burden of turning the pages grew with each turn.

Somehow, seeing through the warlock’s eye made him feel even more exhausted.

When Oliver’s eyes started to hurt as if they were being pricked with a small needle, he felt a small change…..

-Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

The beeping sound of the communication device pierced his ears.

Oliver looked at Forrest’s communication device, and without realizing he had relaxed his concentration.

Oliver blinked in confusion, feeling as though he had just emerged from a trance. Though he was unsure what had just occurred, he felt a sense of relief nonetheless.

“..Mr. Forrest? …Yes, I’m here. Right now? …No, no. I was a little busy, but it’s okay now. …Yes? Okay, I understand. Then, I’ll come right away. Yes.”

(To be Continued)

OR

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