Chapter 67

67 The Incident on a Moonlit Night

After neatly taking care of a gang, Cheon Dowoon went up to their office and sat down.

Cheon Dowoon circled a spot on the map laid out on the table with a red pen.

Lee Doo-cheol, the founder of the organization, stood before him, watching nervously.

"Let's start with District 11 here. We'll start lightly, with sweeping the streets. Everyone gather with brooms tomorrow."

"B... Brooms?"

Sweeping the streets with brooms. What could that mean? Was it some kind of slang? Lee Doo-cheol racked his brain.

Sweeping the streets could mean entering enemy territory and wiping out the opposing organization.

If so, the broom was likely slang for a weapon.

"Coming here, I saw a lot of trash on the ground. A lot of broken glass, too. It's filthy."

"Yes? Yes. It is... Yes. It's filthy."

"First, concentrate on sweeping those away."

Lee Doo-cheol rolled his eyes again, working hard to interpret what Cheon Dowoon had said.

"The area is large, so it will take a long time. Well, it'll be fine. Everyone's Awakened, so they can work without rest, right?"

"That's... Yes... Yes?"

"Once that's all done, weed removal. I saw that the sidewalks and roads have been neglected for too long, with grass growing in the cracks. Weed removal is the second thing to do."

"That's... Th-that's, yes."

What am I even hearing right now? Lee Doo-cheol's eyes wavered.

"And after that's all done, erase the graffiti on the building walls. It'll be hard to clean it completely, so it'll be faster to repaint."

Lee Doo-cheol couldn't answer. This wasn't some kind of slang.

He realized that he was really being ordered to clean, and his face became dazed.

"S-so... The cleaning, is that... is that this cleaning?"

"What nonsense are you talking about? Cleaning is cleaning. Is there another kind of cleaning?"

"Ah, no! Th-that's... No! Yes, there's only one cleaning. Cleaning is good!"

Wasn't he really going to wage war on the gang? He swallowed the question. There was no need to stir up trouble unnecessarily.

If he said something unnecessary and Cheon Dowoon changed his plans, thinking, 'There's that use too,' he'd be driving himself into a corner.

'Ah...! I see. It's because he's planning to occupy this area. He's cleaning up the streets to do that.'

Even if you rule over a city, you wouldn't feel good if it was dirty and filthy.

This Coconut Family must be trying to increase the value of the city they were going to take over.

Lee Doo-cheol nodded. He had also thought that it would be nice if the area where the organization was based was clean, so he understood the plan.

However, he hadn't been able to try it because he was blocked by realistic problems in putting it into practice.

The person in front of him was trying to do it.

'That's right. When you think about it, there's no way they'd use us as meat shields. What would people with that much power be lacking to do that?'

They were the ones who had annihilated an organization made up of Awakened without even breaking a sweat.

It was obvious that a gang made up of ordinary people would be no match.

"But cleaning the entire District 11 will take quite a long time. Repainting alone will require a lot of funds."

"Funds aren't a problem, are they?"

Cheon Dowoon looked at the safe in the corner of the office. At that, Lee Doo-cheol's face turned white.

So the necessary expenses were going to come out of his pocket.

"You've been making a lot of money until now, haven't you? You took it from the city's people, so pay it back with city development. You can't return it anyway, can you? You don't have a ledger of how much you received from whom, do you?"

Lee Doo-cheol looked abashed. Because it was a small organization and the money coming in was erratic, it had been run haphazardly.

Instead of going to designated stores every time, they went into places they felt like and extorted small amounts of money.

"You can run away if you don't want to do it."

Cheon Dowoon said, looking out the window.

"Even while I was talking to you, 42 people sneaked out."

"Yes...?"

"I've memorized all of your Mana, so go if you want to go, too."

Cheon Dowoon smiled and looked at Lee Doo-cheol.

"I'll come to catch you."

Lee Doo-cheol had never seen a person's smiling face look so scary.

Half of him was wondering how he was going to catch the people who had already run away. The other half thought that he must have something he was relying on, since he hadn't set up any guards in the yard.

Cheon Dowoon went to the window and looked down at the yard. There, the gang members were huddled together, looking uneasy.

One of them slipped away from the group and disappeared into the alley.

"Another one's going."

Lee Doo-cheol inwardly flinched. In fact, he was thinking of running away as soon as he left here.

But after seeing Cheon Dowoon smile, he cleanly gave up.

"I'm going to catch the runaway workers. You can go now. Tell the kids downstairs what I said."

"Understood."

Lee Doo-cheol immediately left the office.

He had given up on running away. He didn't know the size of the Coconut Family, but it wouldn't be bad to become a subordinate organization if there was someone that strong.

'Besides, that cleaning wasn't that cleaning... I wasn't going to die...!'

Was this what it felt like to come back to life? He ran down the stairs to tell his subordinates this fact.

The siblings, who had been watching the situation, went to Cheon Dowoon as soon as Lee Doo-cheol left.

"You're not really thinking of running an organization, are you? What are you going to do?"

"I'll only come a few times in the beginning to establish discipline. The rest will have to be left to that Lee Doo-cheol guy. He's not rotten to the core, so he'll be useful."

Cheon Dowoon, who was from the slums, knew what gangs were like.

Even though it was a memory from before he was nine years old, his image of gangs was so bad that he hadn't forgotten it.

"It's not easy to set foot in this world and not cross the line. The path to making big money would have been obvious."

Even so, Lee Doo-cheol had never crossed that line. There had been many temptations, but he hadn't done anything that he shouldn't have done as a person.

Of course, that didn't mean he was a good person, but he was someone who hadn't abandoned his minimum conscience.

"If I make them work for a few years cleaning up as if they're clearing their karma, there's room for improvement."

"You're sugarcoating it. You're just happy that you have a workforce you can use, aren't you?"

Cheon Dowoon didn't deny it and smiled.

He spread his Mana to search for the runaways. The gang members in the yard were horrified by the energy that covered the entire District 11.

"Then I'll be back."

Cheon Dowoon climbed onto the window frame and leaped. It seemed like he was jumping lightly, but his figure disappeared in an instant, leaving only afterimages.

"Wh-what was that? Can a person move like that?"

"What was that Mana from a moment ago?"

"I thought a Gate had opened and a monster had popped out. Is that even a person?"

The people gathered in the yard whispered, their faces pale.

Lee Doo-cheol was also sitting on the ground, startled by the energy from a moment ago.

He had tried to run away from someone like that. He was glad he hadn't tried. He inwardly wiped away his sweat.

* * *

A dark alleyway. A man who had been a low-ranking member of the gang ran through the dark alley at full speed.

"Damn it, don't make me laugh. War with the gang? Who would know they'd become meat shields!"

It had been 30 minutes since he had snuck out while watching for an opportunity. He stopped running after a long time.

He supported his trembling knees and gasped for breath.

"Hoo... Hoo.... I should be far enough away by now."

"Did you run all the way?"

"Eek!"

The man was horrified by the sudden voice.

He looked up and saw Cheon Dowoon standing across the alley.

Why was that person here? Startled, he stumbled backward and tripped over a piece of wood on the ground.

"See? That's what happens when there's a lot of trash on the street."

"Wh-what... Why are you here..."

"I came to pick you up."

Was that when you used the word 'pick up'? The hairs on the back of the man's neck stood on end.

"You're the last of the people who ran away. Do you want to go further?"

"A-aaagh!"

It was the first time he had ever seen a person walking leisurely under the moonlight look so scary. The man turned around and ran.

He was confident in his running. He was a body-enhancing Awakened, and he was good at anything that involved using his body.

'Tha-that's it! I've put enough distance between us that he won't be able to catch up!'

He hid between buildings and gasped for breath.

He had deliberately chosen to run through complex terrain. A place where someone who wasn't a local would get lost.

He also went into a dead end and jumped over the wall to confuse him.

"Good. This should completely throw him o... ff..."

He leaned against the wall and raised his head, freezing stiffly.

Cheon Dowoon was squatting on the wall across from him.

"Did you run all the way?"

The voice was exactly the same as before, not a single word different. The man's spine tingled at the feeling of unreality, as if he had turned on a tape recorder.

"Why... H-how are you here..."

"I came to pick you up."

Even those words were the same. This was terror. He had become the protagonist of a horror movie being chased by a murderer.

The man's legs gave way and he collapsed. He remembered being kicked by Cheon Dowoon and flying out the window.

As he sat down, Cheon Dowoon jumped down from the wall.

"Looks like you've run all the way. Then let's get hit a little now."

"Y-yes...?"

"I can't bring the people who ran away back as they are. It's not fair to the people who waited quietly in the yard."

No, fairness wasn't a word to be used in this situation.

The man hiccuped at the sound of approaching footsteps. Why had he run away for no reason?

He regretted it as he soared into the sky with the sound of an impact.

* * *

The front yard of the Space Gang building. There, about 40 men were sprawled out.

Their faces were all colorful.

Lee Doo-cheol swallowed hard as he looked at them passed out.

When Cheon Dowoon carried the escaped gang members back one by one, he had been skeptical.

How would he find all the people who had scattered in all directions? At most three or four people. No more than ten at most.

That's what he thought. But as he watched the runaways pile up one by one, he realized that he had been mistaken.

"Okay. This is the last one."

Cheon Dowoon put the passed-out man down in the yard.

'Oh, my god. What happened? His face is twice as big.'

'He beat him up that much and nothing broke. That's also an ability.'

'What did he do?'

He was curious, but he didn't want to know. He felt like he shouldn't know.

The gang members turned their heads, pretending not to know.

"It took longer than I thought?"

Yoo-beom said as he came down the building stairs. At that, the people were surprised again.

For them, it was already amazing that he had found all 40 people alone in such a short time.

They doubted the sanity of the person who said it took a long time.

"Everyone was running so desperately that I felt sorry for them. I felt bad, so I waited until they were tired."

The gang members were surprised once again at his nonchalant acceptance of that.

"You waited for them? Isn't that hope torture?"

"Of course not. I just waited for them to enjoy their last freedom."

That's what you call hope torture. The gang members swallowed the words that had risen to their throats.

"Anyway, now that I've caught them like this, they know that there's no point in running away."

No matter how hard they ran, it was just like exercising in the moonlight.

The thought of running away had disappeared from both the people who had been caught and the people who had watched.

"I think that's settled for now. I'm going to go inside the Gate for a bit."

"Why? Did you forget something?"

"I'm worried about leaving Mandragora alone."

He had left her because she was sleeping so soundly, probably because she was tired from visiting the dry cave area.

He didn't think she would be awake yet, but he wanted to go back and check on her before sunrise.

"I don't want her to go into the forest looking for me."

Just in case, he had left the beaker inside the house and piled up luggage in front of the door to block it.

He had also deliberately laid out clothes with his scent on the floor, so even if she wandered around, she could only roam around inside the house.

'Maybe she's wriggling around inside my pile of clothes.'

That would be a little pitiful, so he should go pick her up. Cheon Dowoon thought as he broke the Return Stone.