## Chapter 45 – Leisure Time (13)
“It’s decreasing.”
I open the white envelopes my friends bring, counting the bills by hand to confirm that the profits from turning them into prostitutes are steadily decreasing.
I knew this couldn’t last long, but I didn’t expect the limit to come so quickly.
The human body couldn’t withstand the forced brainwashing, and as Chaeyoon said, they were either becoming useless or their physical condition was deteriorating.
“Sigh.”
“Seohee unni, why are you sighing?”
Next to me, Nabi, who is speaking more fluently with much-improved sentences, asks while casually taking a bite of her ice cream.
“Something you don’t need to know.”
“…The unnis who keep coming to our house,
you look like you don’t know how to handle them.”
“…”
I feel bad that she read my mind.
“That’s also part of it, but I was thinking we’re going to run out of money soon.”
“Huh? Are we poor?”
“You were the one who was a beggar before.”
After teaching Nabi, who couldn’t even properly express herself before, how to read Korean, she was able to speak so fluently in just half a day.
I tidied up her messy hair and bought her nice clothes, so she looks like her age now.
Is this what it feels like to raise a daughter?
“That was when I couldn’t even speak properly.
Why are you bringing up the past…”
“That was a week ago, you little brat.”
Feeling the punch coming her way from my raised tone, she quickly clears her throat and changes the subject.
“Anyway, about handling unni’s friends.
I can do that.”
“How?”
“Isn’t it just cleaning them up neatly?
I’m confident in that.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
It’s not exactly out of some noble intention to give my friends a proper send-off, but to avoid leaving traces.
I can already see in my head how Nabi would try to handle things.
She’s probably thinking of grinding them up one by one until they’re unrecognizable.
I’m sure she heard that severely damaging the bodies makes identification impossible, but the guys chasing us know Nabi’s identity.
I can’t do anything that would give those guys a reason to catch us, and more than anything, not leaving traces is probably what I’m best at among me, Chaeyoon, and Nabi.
If I put the poison I used before, which melts the human body into a liquid, into their bodies in advance and detonate it on time, they will melt away without leaving a trace.
Strike while the iron is hot, let’s do it today.
And another worry.
How will I make money from now on?
I could work diligently at a part-time job again, but…
Isn’t there a saying that once your spending increases, your wallet never shrinks back down?
I’m not exactly a big spender, but another mouth to feed has been added, and if I have to give something to Im Chanwoo…
“You look like you’re wondering how to make money this time.”
“Be quiet.”
Should I catch another decent woman and turn her into a prostitute again?
As I was thinking, a good idea flashed through my mind.
“…Drugs.”
“Drugs?”
The aphrodisiac I made at Im Chanwoo’s request.
The first finished product had almost the same addictiveness as a drug, so I discarded it because it was dangerous to use on humans, but if I wanted to make it, I could make it anytime, so maybe I should sell that?
In movies and dramas, that kind of business makes a lot of money.
Once a specific topic comes to mind, a plan is easily formed in my head.
But I know very well that I have to be careful not to stand out.
So I have to ask a smart girl about this and be careful.
The bigger the job, the bigger the earnings, but the risk will be just as big.
“…First, I need to finish up what I’m doing now.”
Nabi, who finished eating the remaining ice cream, tilts her head once and follows me.
Leaving Nabi behind, I call Chaeyoon.
“Hey, what are you doing now? Is school over?”
“Unni is crazy.”
“…”
“…”
Nabi and I are sitting in a quiet cafe in the evening, being scolded.
Nabi is looking at me with a ‘Why me too?’ expression, trying not to get caught by Chaeyoon.
“Unni, stop watching dramas and work yourself.
You leave all the work to others and watch dramas all day, that’s why you’re like this.”
“…Are you in a bad mood today?”
“I don’t know.”
Im Chanwoo must have left her alone again.
Chaeyoon takes a sip of her coffee and speaks in a calmer voice than before.
“Selling drugs is a more serious crime than you think.
In the free democratic Republic of Korea.
Do you know that?”
“…”
“Prostitution is also a crime, but compared to drugs, the police don’t look for it with their eyes burning.
And more than anything, if it’s ‘much stronger and better than what humans make’ as unni said, wouldn’t that attract more attention?”
“I should have stopped Seohee unni.”
“You’re dead later.”
Tired of Chaeyoon’s nagging that didn’t seem like it would end, Nabi sells me out and tries to leave her seat alone, but I grab her hand and sit her back down.
“…Okay, then I’ll find something else…”
“No, I’m not saying you should stop.”
“Then what the fuck do you want me to do?”
I couldn’t help but swear at Chaeyoon, who kept changing her mind.
Chaeyoon makes a gesture of stroking her chest as if to calm down and waits for me to calm down before continuing.
“Why are you trying to sell a finished product from the beginning?
You’re not trying to do business honestly anyway.
You said it’s easy to make it strong, so you can make it weak too, right?”
I get a headache from hearing incomprehensible sounds.
“Then what if you get caught? Who are you going to sell it to?”
“…You really came here without thinking about anything, huh?
I’ll help you, so wait a little.”
“How are you going to help me?”
Letting out a small laugh of disbelief, Chaeyoon takes a small laptop out of her bag.
“How else would I help?
If you don’t know, you have to study.”
Chaeyoon takes out glasses from her bag and types diligently on the keyboard.
Unable to contain my curiosity, I turn my head and look at the laptop screen, and she is buying a lot of books from an online shopping mall.
“…What are you doing?”
“I bought things to study.
How to do business, how to use a computer.
They’re all books with good content, so if you can do the opposite of what’s written in them, wouldn’t it help unni’s bad deeds?”
The books Chaeyoon bought are all ordinary books.
Advice for running a business or books about computers.
To be able to do such a thing just by reading these books,
we’re both parasitic on humans, but why does it feel so unfair?
“The books I ordered will arrive in about 3-4 days,
and give me just one day to read them all.”
The intelligence to learn that in one day.
I’m so jealous.
Awkwardly drinking coffee, I became curious about Chaeyoon, who took off her glasses and put her laptop away.
“By the way, where do you make money?
I’ve never seen you working part-time or anything.”
“Huh? Didn’t I tell you my family is well-off?”
…Damn, it’s really unfair.
“…That’s okay, why are you suddenly helping me?
You always nagged me whenever I tried to do something, but this time you’re helping me so actively.”
“Well, someone keeps bullying me, so I’m bored.
It seems like it would be perfect as a pastime until that person finishes all their work.”
…What should I do about Im Chanwoo, she seems a little sulky.
“But, what do you mean by that person’s work?”
I’ve only been apart for a week, but so many things I don’t know have happened?
He told me not to cause trouble, but I don’t know what he’s been doing.
“He said he’s going to boxing, that person.
I guess he found another new woman there.”
“We’ll have another of our kind soon.”
While we were talking about that, Chaeyoon asked in a slightly excited voice as if something had come to mind.
“That’s right, speaking of our kind.
Unni, did you notice anything strange when you gave birth to your seed?”
“W, why are you suddenly saying that…”
“Don’t be embarrassed. What happened was…”
Then Chaeyoon started telling me about the strange seed.
About the flower that bloomed in a short time in the pot I planted after leaving the house,
and that the flower had a different color from the flowers we were born from.
“…You haven’t seen it either, right?”
“Don’t you know either?
If it wasn’t in the ‘Memory of the Root,’ then our ancestors haven’t seen it either.”
Memory of the Root.
It is like a warehouse of memories that stores all the things that all of our kind have experienced, emotions,
and pain.
The appearance of a blue flower that wasn’t even in such a place.
“I thought you might know something since you gave birth to it.”
“Sorry, I don’t know anything.”
“I didn’t really expect anything anyway.”
“You little bitch.”
Chaeyoon jokes and laughs a little, but soon becomes quiet again.
And after thinking for a while, she said to me in a serious voice this time.
“…Unni, could Chanwoo oppa be the ‘King of the Root’?”
