## Chapter 143 – 14. Don’t Block My Work
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Even without rain, the air inside the industrial complex was always damp.
The sky was obscured by thick smoke and smog, and haphazardly connected rooftops and makeshift planks. Irregularly arranged power lines and pipes were tangled together, resembling a massive net.
The street scene was no different.
Chaos and disorder.
Illegally expanded buildings leaned precariously against each other, with small shacks wedged in between, filling the gaps. The building exteriors were covered in peeling paint, graffiti, and soiled advertisements, with rusty and corroded metal structures jutting out.
Except for the slightly quieter outskirts, steam, rust, and polluted sewage leaked from everywhere inside the complex, causing all sorts of unpleasant smells and things.
The puddles on the streets were filthy, and even without the countless crawling insects or rat pups the size of human heads, the discomfort index soared.
Hot steam spewed out from the surroundings at any time,
Mud stuck to the soles of shoes with every step,
Rats loitered around the field of vision, making one uneasy,
And there were always those who were on the lookout for pockets.
It was a hellish place where one couldn’t be absent-minded for even a moment.
“I just can’t get attached to this place.”
Lee Gohyangeul looked out at the scenery through a large, cracked, old window.
She could see the industrial complex covered in filthy garbage and rusty pipes that hadn’t been maintained for a long time, overflowing with sewage, and beyond that, the vaguely shining Songdo Innovation Future City, Incheon’s largest downtown area and affluent neighborhood.
Songdo, being far away, naturally looked small.
Even the large buildings, the skyscrapers that easily exceeded hundreds of meters, looked smaller than a single finger from here.
The giant hologram advertisements rising high into the sky and the clusters of light emitting lasers were insignificantly small.
However,
The hope they held seemed to be hundreds of times greater than the entire industrial complex combined.
Lee Gohyangeul wanted to escape this wretched city,
Or rather, this area that was embarrassing to even call a city.
Even a little,
She wanted to shed the grime of the industrial complex that had stained her body as soon as possible and live as a proper human being.
To do that, she needed to have something that could be used outside, not just in this awful neighborhood.
It couldn’t just be something valuable; it needed to be something that those inside wouldn’t covet but would be accepted in the outside world.
That was the only way to protect it in this cesspool.
In her opinion, there was only one such thing.
‘The land deeds of this messed up area.’
As long as this cesspool existed, it was a document that would never increase in value.
That’s because the gangs that controlled each area of the industrial complex created and distributed their own land deeds.
The existing, perfectly good land deeds naturally became mere scraps of paper.
But she saw hope.
Someday, this area would disappear.
Whether it was an external army or the police, they would push in, wipe out those trash gangs, and return the land to its original owners.
So she steadily collected them.
She somehow scraped together the land deeds of the Namdong Industrial Complex, which no one properly valued, and secured a whopping 500,000 pyeong of land.
Of course, no one acknowledged it.
Instead, they laughed at her. A crazy bitch spending her precious money on useless things.
The final touch was when she took on a request from the gang that controlled the southern district, and their boss casually tossed her land deeds equivalent to 10,000 pyeong of the Namdong Industrial Complex, saying, “Isn’t this enough for you anyway?” and chuckled.
The boss’s subordinates all held their stomachs and laughed at her, but Lee Gohyangeul silently held the land deeds. The people laughed even harder.
And from that moment on, she became a Danto.
A seriously crazy bitch
A dagger crazy
A cat (Lee Gohyangeul)
A thief
And so on.
It was a nickname that condensed all her characteristics.
The reason why a cat was mentioned was not only because of her name, but also because her appearance and behavior when taking on requests were similar to a cat.
Because there were so many bad things here, she had to hide her appearance to protect herself properly, so she chose compression bandages, a skin-tight full-body suit, and a cat mask.
In addition, she only worked at night to avoid being conspicuous, and when heading somewhere, she always walked on the rooftops or jumped between buildings rather than walking on the road, so she was treated like a cat from some point on.
That’s why she’s Danto.
“Hey Danto, did you hear the news?”
It was when she entered the neutral zone’s club to get a request, as usual.
The bartender, who always scanned her body despite the compression bandages, suddenly said that.
She was about to ignore it because he wasn’t someone who said anything very nutritious, but she heard something she couldn’t just pass by.
“Looks like there’s someone like you in the outside world.”
“What?”
“Well, someone’s scraping up land deeds around here.”
“Scraping up land deeds… here?”
“Yeah!”
The bartender, with his short blonde ponytail, dark, freckled, ugly skin, horn-rimmed glasses, and a gold front tooth, grinned.
“They say they’re paying 1,000 won per pyeong! Hahaha!”
“…”
1,000 won per pyeong.
Of course, it was much more expensive than the current value, but that wasn’t the price she wanted.
“Let’s see, our Danto, you have about 50,000 pyeong, right? Then let’s see… how much is that? Wow! That’s 50 million won?? You could buy a run-down villa!”
He made an exaggerated reaction as if he was surprised.
Of course, he was teasing her.
Everyone in the store burst out laughing when they heard his words.
“Wow~ Our cute stray cat has finally reaped the rewards after working her ass off for years with half-price promotions!”
“…Shut up.”
Danto was someone who offered up to half-price discounts on requests depending on the pyeong of land deeds provided.
Of course, if it was a considerably large pyeong, she would perform the request for free in exchange for the documents.
Even so, the only reward she got was 1,000 won per pyeong.
But did he know?
Danto, or rather Lee Gohyangeul, had been collecting land deeds much more persistently and busily than they thought.
She didn’t just receive them in exchange for request fees or buy them separately; she didn’t hesitate to steal them if she had the chance.
‘If it’s 1,000 won per pyeong, 500,000 pyeong is 500 million won.’
So she pretended to be upset but was interested in his words.
It was definitely a much cheaper price than she had expected.
But what was important wasn’t the current price, but the fact that a price was being formed.
It’s hard to go from 0 to 1,
But going from 1 to 10 isn’t that difficult.
‘Is this the end?’
If what he said was really true,
It was time to hide.
Until now, she was left alone because there was no value,
But it wouldn’t be the case anymore.
If the land in Namdong Industrial Complex was really being traded for even 1,000 won per pyeong, and most of the people living here knew about it?
And if the scale of the land that Danto had was properly known?
‘No, the boss-level people might already know.’
If it was about 500 million won in total, it wasn’t enough for the boss-level people to move.
If they moved, the other bosses would move too, and then the hard-won order could be disrupted again.
500 million won was still too little to bear that risk.
But what if the land price rose to 5,000 won per pyeong?
10,000 won?
What if it went up to 100,000 won??
‘It’s like a dream… but even if it’s only 100,000 won per pyeong, 500,000 pyeong is…’
A whopping 50 billion won.
Even if she was born in the Namdong Industrial Complex and didn’t even have an ID card, she could do anything with this much money.
If she got the proper value, that is.
“Is it real?”
“Huh?”
“Is it really only 1,000 won? No, is it a lie? Is it a lie that someone’s buying it?”
“Hahaha! What lie? You can’t avoid reality just because you don’t want to believe it. Huh?”
It seemed to be a somewhat credible fact.
Judging by how much he was laughing at her.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
So she decided.
Let’s go into hiding after today’s request.
And let’s get out of here when we get the chance.
It costs a considerable amount of money just to escape the Namdong Industrial Complex,
But now that she’s confirmed that the land is starting to have value, it’s worth it.
‘Go out and start making an identity and finding a place to live… Prepare to start a new life.’
In the first place, the fact that the land deeds of the Namdong Industrial Complex are starting to have value means that this town will be wiped out.
There’s no other way for it to have value.
In a way, she has to leave to survive.
“Give me today’s request.”
“Tsk, tsk. Look how cold she is. That’s why you’re treated like a stray cat.”
“Shut up and give me the request.”
“Yes, yes.”
The bartender clicked his tongue and handed her a piece of paper.
4-2-3-1-4-2
Then he pointed behind him with his thumb.
A door that one person could barely pass through was covered by a curtain. Simple requests were obtained through the bartender, but important or high-value requests, or cases requiring absolute secrecy, were handled through such secret places.
And in that case, it was always expensive.
‘Perfect for the last time.’
She coldly brushed past the bartender.
And walked endlessly down the hallway that was revealed after passing through the curtain.
As the bartender told her, she turned right at the fourth, then turned left at the third road, and so on, until she finally opened the door to the room where the client was.
There, there were several beauties who would make any woman’s eyes widen.
“Ah~, you’re Danto? Nice to meet you. I’m Team Leader Im… no, just call me Team Leader Lee.”
