Zzzing-
The lightning sparks sizzled.
“Ugh.”
Ryusei exhaled a brief, painful breath and turned pale when he saw the small bolts of lightning bouncing in front of his eyes.
“You can scream as loud as you want,” I said.
All the yakuza on this floor had either died or been severely injured. When these two turned their heads to look outside the open door, all they saw were collapsed gang members on the floor. I took my hands off their shoulders.
The silence remained for a while after I removed the lightning. Then suddenly, Ryusei began to giggle and laugh.
“Keukeukeuk… I think you got the wrong person. The boss is such a secretive person that I don’t know his whereabouts, but Hiroshi and Ukeda in Yamaguchi-gumi would know.”
“The Suzuki sisters are dead. Hiroshi and Ukeda have a similar fate as them. Do you get it now? I’m here to see you, Takeuchi Ryusei, the leader of Ryusei-jo and the fund manager of Yamaguchi-gumi,” I said firmly.
The fake smile on Ryusei’s face vanished instantly, and he looked up at me while grimacing.
“Did you… kill those girls…?”
I sat on the couch next to the table without answering. The two guys must have been planning a huge project before I came in. The documents on the table were about targeting the conglomerate Charles Group which was famous for Charlia, Charles Department Store, and Charles Hotel. Koreans believed it was a Korean conglomerate group, but in fact, it was a Japanese company that Jeon-il had failed in securing a controlling stake.
When I skimmed through the file, Ryusei’s subordinate looked uneasy. The plan was obviously created by the yakuza. Rather than manipulating stock prices, they intended to cause confusion at the general shareholders’ meeting and force people to purchase their shares at a high price. In addition, the name of Inagawa, another yakuza group that had Korean-Japanese members at the center, was frequently mentioned on the file. Just before the war of ten billion yen broke out, I appeared.
Ryusei’s subordinate trembled with a fretful face. Ryusei tried to stay calm, but his expression stiffened as I became more interested in their plans.
Ryusei said, “If you want to take those girls’ spots, we will help you.”
“Those girls’ spots? Was there such a thing in Yamaguchi-gumi? Those sisters didn’t have any real power.” I smirked.
“What are you talking about? Our entire members served them as bosses. You can be our boss now.”
“Hey, Ryusei. Use your brain wisely before I change my mind.”
He widened his eyes so much that it looked like his eyeballs would pop out any moment. He must have understood what I meant.
As expected, he’s a smart guy.
“Now we can have an actual conversation. Tell me. How much can you give me if I ignore your plans?” I asked.
“It depends on how much of your story is true,” he replied.
“I’m not interested in you or the yakuza’s business. It’s none of my business who becomes the boss of Yamaguchi-gumi.”
Ryusei’s subordinate was about to open his mouth, but Ryusei dismissed him with a sharp glance. Then, he looked at me with a calmer look, and he was still on his knees.
“Fine.”
“First, I want you to follow my orders when needed. That’s what you had done under the Suzuki sisters, so nothing would change. I promise it’s not about your business.”
“What’s next?”
“Don’t tell me that Yamaguchi-gumi doesn’t have Swiss accounts. I know everything.”
In the past, they had distributed large-scale funds to Swiss banks through Hong Kong. It would happen a few years later. They wouldn’t know now, but the U.S. government had tightened sanctions against the world’s violent gangs, and Swiss authorities had cooperated with them.
Ryusei frowned in agony, and it was natural because at least a billion dollars of the group’s slush funds would be blown away.
“Is there anything more?” he asked.
“Evacuate the lenders that you have placed in Korea. By doing all of that, you will become the next leader of Yamaguchi-gumi, Takeuchi Ryusei.”
Money was never enough. However, the yakuza’s criminal proceeds from drug and weapon selling became harder to launder as years went by. The decisive factor was the ‘War on Terrorism’ that the U.S. was waging. This wasn’t related to my morals. Anything related to black money would grab my ankle one day, so I had to prevent it in advance.
“I’ll take that deal,” Ryusei finally said.
“Did you think this was a deal, idiot?”
I really didn’t care about the yakuza organization.
“W…Wait!”
Smash!
He was too late. Blood splattered in all directions as I punched his face multiple times. His screams poured out.
“Aaaaah!”
***
People began crawling out of the dungeon entrance.
“Ah…”
They were filled with joy since it took them nearly one month to come outside into the world. However, contrary to their lively expressions, their conditions were at their worst. They were still crawling on the ground and looking up at the dazzling sun as if they were worshiping it.
Only seven out of thirty pre-Awakened had survived. Meanwhile, the leader among them was not Lucas as he had died in the beginning. The fact that a girl had been recognized as the leader of the survivors and succeeded in conquering the dungeon was testament that she was qualified to be an excellent leader. I had wanted to find such an Awakened from this dungeon conquest. Her name was Aoki Yuria, and she was a young lady who used to be a member of the Suzuki sisters’ group.
When Woo Yeon-Hee healed her, her dull eyes revived. Since the tragedy in the dungeon had been terrifying, her rebellious intent toward me was noticeable. However, Woo Yeon-Hee’s skill had also erased it to a considerable extent. She began talking about what had happened in the dungeon.
The reality was different compared to my assumption that the yakuza would have been used as human shields. She had promoted the idea of symbiosis by taking care of the yakuza who were basically blind in the dungeon. Well, none of them managed to survive, unfortunately…
The more we talked, the more I liked her. Of course, she hadn’t won a worldwide reputation in the past, but her fate was changing, just like the future was changing day by day. I started telling her about the Day of Advent.
“I’m preparing for that day. Be my party member, Yuria,” I said.
“Do I have an option? Also, it’s impossible to proceed further with our current number of people. Only seven out of thirty are left.”
“The seven of you are the elites of the thirty. I have secured your profile list. If there’s a Chaser among you guys, you will be able to recruit more.”
“But the yakuza won’t sit back. They will be looking for you and the seven of us. Do you know that the Suzuki Sisters you killed were their boss? They are scary in a different sense from you. They will do anything for revenge.”
The girl who had fought against Grafs was worried about the yakuza. Since she had to live in reality, she would have had no choice but to fear the monsters on the ground more than those underground.
“You won’t bump into yakuza from now on. They live only in their world, so they shouldn’t be involved in our business. If they don’t want to die,” I replied.
Yuria responded, “Really…? I need time to think. I should ask team members’ opinions, but some of them would want to go back to society.”
“What about you?” I questioned.
“Pardon me?”
“Do you want to return to society?”
Yuria’s eyes shook, but she already had the answer in her mind.
“I can’t give up on my life just because of a situation that I don’t know when it will happen. Odin, if you let me go, yes, I’ll go. But I know you won’t let me.”
“You said you were a secretary in society, right?”
“Yes. I was in the Yamada Group.”
She was slender and had clean-cut features, so she perfectly fit the image of a secretary working in the Japanese conglomerate Yamada Group.
“Then you must know about our world,” I said.
In Revolucion, Joshua also paid his group members salaries, and he promised an enormous amount that could only be gained if someone succeeded in society. The documents I pulled out at that time were also dealing with the same issue and were written in Japanese and English. It was similar to the contract I had given to Woo Yeon-Hee, but unlike hers, this was a real contract that had legal effect.
“Tomorrow Corporation…?”
She read the name attached at the end of the contract. It was the name of the firm I had established while waiting for them to come out of the dungeon for the past month.
“I’m not saying not to go back to society. I just wish you would take this as another career. I promise you’ll have an affluent life until the Day of Advent. You guys will be even richer after that day,” I said.
“Does this company actually exist?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yes, if you guys become employees. You asked me if you had a choice, and my answer is yes.”
I handed Yuria a pen, and she stared at the contract while holding it.
That evening, Yuria brought a contract signed by all survivors to my hotel room. She also reported that those who used to be in Suzuki’s group like her had no difficulty overcoming the tragedy of the dungeon, but the others who had no experience, like the Korean guy from Mokpo, were acting like they had lost a part of their body.
Anyway, I transferred the down payments on the spot. I sent at least fifty million yen to everyone’s account, which was around five hundred million Korean won. Only after that did Yuria finally seem to believe me. People often said that a company thrived only when it had talented elites. It was the perfect phrase for startup Tomorrow Corporation.
“Forget about the Day of Advent, and enter the mindset that you are running a company, Yuria. It’s a dangerous and secretive job, but things in society are as risky as the job in the dungeon.”
Yuria stared at me and slowly bent her waist.
“I misunderstood you, Odin. It’s late, but I sincerely apologize.”
When she left, Woo Yeon-Hee asked, “What did she say?”
“She said she misunderstood me and apologized,” I answered.
“Her voice and impression are very cold. Is she trustworthy?”
“We should keep an eye on her, but those guys usually don’t betray others as long as they earn reasonable rewards. I have been looking for such a person. Also, she seems smart.”
I patted Woo Yeon-Hee’s shoulder and took out my phone. She was also overcoming the tragedy of the Osaka dungeon, where many had died.
Now, it was time to put an end to the system’s prank.
<Seon-Hu: Mick.>
<Mick: Yes.>
<Seon-Hu: I just sent you a picture. Retrieve it from the cats.>
Meanwhile, the voice of a news announcer was coming out from the hotel television.
“The head of Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest gang organization in Japan, has been replaced for the first time in fourteen years. Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest organization with thirty thousand members and had the inaugural ceremony in Kobe, their headquarters. The new leader is Takeuchi Ryusei, and more than one hundred executives from all over the country attended today’s ceremony. To prevent a possible hegemony fight in the group, they had deployed eighty police officers around the headquarters. Therefore, tension remained throughout the entire event. Meanwhile, the police authorities had been investigating the mysterious disappearance of former boss Watanabe Gogori and the recent mass disappearance of Yamaguchi-gumi members, and they had stated…”
Ryusei appeared on the screen, and the wounds on his face must have recovered.