Chapter 65 – 65. How to Deal With Cheaters in Zion
‘Shoot aaaaa-!’
Dark cellar.
The man woke up to the shower of ice water pouring over his head. The sudden drop in body temperature made my heart feel like it was about to explode. But now that wasn’t the problem. His hands and feet were tightly bound to his chair. Body temperature returns to normal over time, but records of sins and transactions remain forever. He believed only in the small back, and he stretched the work too far. The idea of profiting from the man was already abandoned when he was arrested. He was thinking of trying to save his life somehow.
“I wrote it wrong… Please keep me alive… Uhh… Please forgive me!!!”
Because of the cold, I prayed for faults even while my upper and lower teeth were clashing. Opposite him was sitting. Eyes accustomed to the darkness could make out its outline.
The man, as always, is sitting cross-legged, holding a cane in one hand and wearing a white fuel jacket with the back split like a swallow.
The first time I saw him, I thought he was just a rookie who was lucky enough to start a business, and the people who looked after him encouraged him to do the same. He is an idiot who only expanded the size of his business in an octopus way without looking at the market.
It was all bluffing in an attempt to filter out the squeamishness. The man over there, that merchant, is literally the shadow of Zion.
“Forgiveness? Of course you should. Consideration and tolerance are the basics of a transaction.”
“Eh?”
“But that’s because the other person came out like that first.”
In an instant, something flew right in front of my eyes. Thin, tough paper. Something was written in small letters, but I couldn’t read the contents. It was because the paper stuck to his wet face quickly choked him. The more the man, whose nose and mouth were covered with wet paper, tried to force himself to breathe, the more it clung to his face and blocked his nostrils.
“Whoop, whoop!! Houuuuu!!!! Choi, Seong Choi… Sorry!!!”
“Please pray the same for the receipt that contains the transaction history with you. It seems like you already do.”
‘Breathe, breathe… !’
Just as he was about to lose consciousness again, the wet receipt from his face fell off. He was close Every time it moved, there was a gurgling sound, the sound of pulling a pulley loaded with a large jade statue in the shape of a screaming demon.
“Do you remember what this is? Of course you will remember It’s something you sold to my store while I was away on a business trip to Zionside. A statue of a lower-level demon sealed! The fact that they boasted that they had been airlifted directly from the Imperial University laboratory.
As he brought the staff he was holding in one hand toward it, the large jewel on the tip glowed red. It was his emotional tool. An object that glows green when the target has a pure magical response, and red when not. I thought I could be fooled.
“It was made by processing a real demonic eye. However, according to this guy’s feelings, the statue you brought is not a demon, but rather an ordinary jade statue with dust on the inside. Can you summon demons with this? I wish I could.
“Sorry… If you give me one chance, then really… “
‘Wow!’
The statue shattered as the man swung his staff. It was an answer to a plea. Even breaking the statue wasn’t enough, so he swung his staff again and again until each scattered fragment was reduced to powder. Every time the staff hit the ground, sparks flew from the tip, lighting up the dark room. There was no emotion on his expressionless face. He really intended to punish himself only through break-and-loss calculations.
After fighting until the statue was completely crumbled, he sighed and wiped his sweat. The cellar was once again plunged into darkness.
“In the old days, there were many ways to deal with scammers like you. We could have suffocated them by sticking wet paper to their faces like before, harvested their organs with their eyes open, and sold them to witches, or sent them to the mine labor department at the borders of the kingdom.”
“Please… Be kind… Please, it was because I had a wife and children to feed and an old mother…!”
“Among them, my favorite was to feed them gender reversal potions, turn them into women, and sell them to brothels or slave markets. I was able to pay as much as I earned and earn a decent amount of money. After slavery was outlawed in Zion, I couldn’t even touch it. So it’s not the only thing I’m worried about these days. I’m really worried about how I’ll deal with those who still see me as chasing a dog and attacking me.”
For a moment I forgot how to breathe. The man who was tied up tried to get out of this place by moving his whole body. I know it’s futile, but I had to do it. Now I knew No matter what he offers or asks for forgiveness, he will never accept it.
From the beginning, the opportunity was once. When he made a deal.
And that was it.
The man pushed his face closer. A glimmer of light from the jewel at the end of the wand illuminated his face.
“Ask me one thing. Do you think I look good too? Tell me. Who am I?”
“No, Hans Reseller… ! I will never make this mistake again!! Please, please, just save me… !”
“Of course it should. But in the future, even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to.”
Hans Reseller.
He is the second-largest executive director in the large merchant association ‘Zion Merchant Association’ and the president of ‘Reseller Sanghoe’, a general store brand based in Zion. He came to sell prostitutes pretending to be a street vendor at the summer festival in Zionside, and almost got involved in summoning a demon. Was one master.
He was in a very bad mood right now. It wasn’t just because of this idiot who fearlessly tried to scam his store, but because of that, the switch in his head was flipped.
As he raised his cane, he could better see the desolate face of the crook bound to the chair.
“Oh, and an old mother with a wife and children to feed? According to what I investigated, you were a piece of trash living with other women through straws, let alone married.”
“Oops… Ahhh, Mom… !”
“You should have prepared everything when you cheated on me. In the next life, don’t lie to your family.”
Hans struck down his wand, and several times the lights lit up the dim cellar.
“Whoa…”
I was out of breath from the tiring exercise. Hans wiped his forehead. He sweated profusely. Or maybe it’s the dirty blood of a crook who’s barely breathing here.
He apparently hit the impostor himself, but it didn’t make him feel any better. There was something more Something reluctant and unpleasant was aiming at him. This intuition has always been correct.
At times like these, I needed a family. Someone you can trust and open up to.
“They said they only interrogated you, and they made it out of completely crushed pumpkin. Is it Halloween now? If so, who will do the cleaning?”
The cellar lights were on. Hans glanced around for bloodstains all over his staff and white tailcoat. When I looked up the stairs, a sad brown-haired man came down.
Ernst, his colleague. Starting from port workers, they are practically brothers who have built a business together and overcome all crises together. He also went with his staff to Zion Side last time. They named each other’s sons and daughters and called themselves godfathers.
“It should be assumed that it is the interior. Throw the swindler bastard who’s only breathing here on the side of the road. So that the poor expelled from the city can rob their organs.”
“Yes. I will.”
Ernst pulled the impostor out of his chair. This is a common occurrence in Zion. Everyone wears a good mask, but inside they only think of stabbing each other in the back at any time.
“How much have you lost this time? Including what this bastard did.”
“Over 20,000 gold coins alone. If you include other currencies, it will go further. It’s strange, but the situation is very bad. It’s barely enough to pay the employees’ salaries.”
“As if someone was deliberately trying to oust us. There were five cases of accidents while distributing goods, and there were also recalls due to minor fraud and defective products. I can’t count on my fingers how many large orders came in and were canceled at the last minute.”
“Your position in the Merchants Association is also faltering. At this rate, Dracell might take all of our stake. Could it be that he did something there?”
“It’s too early to make a decision. But one thing is certain today.”
Hans said, wiping the blood off the jewelry with a handkerchief.
“There is a traitor in our family. The Devil Bride of Zionside was also the first information our company asked for, but somehow the warriors of the city council knew about it. Someone inside is deliberately ruining the deal and stealing information. We have to catch that rat first. You know what I mean? Ernst.”
“Sure. But, Hans, speaking of the saintess we talked about last time, do we really have to go through with that? You saw the purging of the monastery priests a few days ago. If you said something like a saint in a situation like this…”
“Zion Rangers, those warriors are completely insane! It’s not enough to shake the city at will, so it’s not enough to touch the monastery, the more Zion needs someone to keep the warriors in check. I saw and felt that nun in Zionside. That is the rope we will ride in the future. Trust me. This will definitely work, because it has to be. So why did you come down here?”
“That… The guests came. The people you have been waiting for.”
Finally! Hans smiled broadly for the first time in a long time. After leaving the white tailcoat covered with blood in Ernst’s care, she put on the same one from among the ones hanging on the wall and hurriedly climbed up. Seeing him like that, Ernst sighed.
If you go up the stairs in the heavily locked basement, it is a large warehouse behind the main store of the ‘Reseller Store’ where Hans stays. Among the products handled by the store, high-end accessories and magic tools are loaded here, and then go out to branch stores throughout Zion and across the kingdom on the main road in front of Zion. Only a handful of people who have known him for a long time know that Hans does some personal business here in the cellar.
Or someone who knows that Hans, a merchant who ostensibly leads the general store brand, also handles various forbidden items behind the scenes, and that his dealings are only done here in the basement of the warehouse.
“Oh, Hans!! Whether it’s a rat or a goat, the beard is still the same! It doesn’t fit!”
When he went upstairs with anticipation, Hans sighed deeply when he saw a familiar face greeting him warmly.
“It’s been a while, Brahms. Your mop-like face is the same. I’m glad Uncle Ham looks healthy too.
“Long time no see, Hans.”
Mercenary Brahms and his servant Ham. It’s been a while since I’ve known him, but I’ve never seen him since Brahms owed him a huge debt a few years ago and said, “I’ll definitely pay it back,” Saying something like an insurance agent.
And there were people sticking their heads out from behind them.
A tall woman wearing a hood and Joshua, the hero I saw in Zionside,
And Sister Asher.
“Oh, hello… Long time no see, Mr. Hans… ?”
Finally arrived The saintess of Zion who will become the stepping stone to turn her life around.
