CH 213

There were a total of three conditions that I proposed to Lee Soo-jin.

My bodyguards had to accompany me when I drank, so I would receive the drugs first because I didn’t know what would happen if I drank.

“And of course, we have to check to see if there are drugs, right? It would be impossible to tell if it was fake or real.”

“……”

Lee Soo-jin, who was listening to me with her mouth shut, took out her cell phone and tapped the screen for a moment.

“Haa, damn it.”

Rubbing her second cigarette into the ashtray, she spat out her swear words and stood up.

“We accept the conditions. We’re not supposed to, but Doctor wants to see you, okay?”

Anyway, you stupid bastard. There was a feeling of boredom in the murmuring whispers.

“I think you are lucky. If my position had been a little higher, I would have put you down and stuffed the new product into your mouth, regardless of the conditions.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t like rough people.”

“It’s the opposite of me. I like to do it, roughly. Follow me.”

Lee Soo-jin took the lead and walked towards the door. I got up and walked out of the room.

“Hm?”

Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk, who were standing on either side with the door in the middle, looked at Lee Soo-jin as we came out. Park Geon-ho blinked and asked.

“Where are you going?”

“Go get a drink. Let’s go.”

I followed after Lee Soo-jin, who simply answered and walked without stopping.

Lee Soo-jin walked to the end of the hallway and put the back of her cell phone against the wall. Then, with a beep, the thin wall opened and the hidden elevator appeared.

“Get in.”

After we got into the elevator, Lee Soo-jin pressed the button with the number 2 on it. Uung, the elevator that started operating went up, not down.

“Are you using this building itself?”

“That’s right. We’re also using the first and second floors on the ground floor. Doctor told me to bring them myself, so we’ll go straight to the second floor.”

That’s good? It was above ground, not underground. I smiled inwardly at the unexpected situation.

Park Geon-ho, who stood silently at Lee Soo-jin’s explanation, leaned his upper body and whispered.

“What happened?”

Even if we lowered the volume, she would still be able to hear it anyway, so I spoke as usual without thinking of hiding it.

“We’ve decided to make a deal. At each other’s expense.”

Park Geon-ho’s straight eyebrows were slightly distorted as he said ‘master’.

“What do you mean, expense…”

“It’s already been talked about, so don’t nag me.”

I turned my body slightly and tapped the wristwatch towards Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk.

“It’s already past two o’clock.”

“……”

“It’s getting boring, so let’s go out as soon as we get some alcohol.”

Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk, who looked at my smiling face, nodded their heads. It meant they understood.

The elevator door, which arrived on the second floor just in time, opened slowly.

“This way.”

The hallway exposed through the elevator was all white and neat as if reminiscent of a hospital. It was in stark contrast to the narrow and dark underground club.

We reached the innermost room by turning the hallway several times. On the grey iron door was a piece of paper with the words ‘Do Not Disturb’ written in bright red letters. Before opening the door, Lee Soo-jin banged on the iron door with her fist.

“Doctor! Are you inside? Should I go in?”

At that call, the lock was released and the door opened by itself. It didn’t look like an ordinary iron gate.

“Ha, this is our destination.”

Lee Soo-jin, who annoyedly tucked her messy hair back, strode into the room. Inside the darkened room, somehow there was an atmosphere in which it was difficult to enter easily.

“…are you going in?”

Woo Seo-hyuk, who had a bad feeling just like me, asked in a hard voice. I struggled to raise the corners of my lips and stared straight ahead.

“We can’t give up now.”

When I made up my mind and stepped into the room, the iron door slammed shut by itself.

“It’s locked.”

Park Geon-ho, who had pulled the doorknob just in case, said lowly. A trap.

“What are you doing, you’re not coming.”

Lee Soo-jin, who went in first, came back, looked at us, and opened her mouth.

“If the transaction goes well, I will open it, so don’t worry and follow me. You don’t mean to run away because you’re scared, are you?”

“No way.”

Lee Soo-jin, who had been staring at me suspiciously, turned her back first. It didn’t matter because such an iron gate could be easily broken if you used your ability.

The room, wider than I expected, was filled with the sound of heels. Various documents, boxes, and unknown objects were scattered all over the room.

“Doctor.”

In the centre of the room, Lee Soo-jin approached the large man who was standing in front of a large, long iron table. Even though there was some distance, the man’s harsh breathing could be clearly heard.

“Oong?”

“The test subject I contacted earlier. I brought him.”

At those words, the man called Doctor slowly turned his back.

With his smooth, bald hair covering both his nose and mouth with a black, clunky mask with a machine, he had an enormous physique. The thick arm muscles exposed under his sleeveless were the size of my face.

And I felt quite strong energy. At that level, he was much stronger than me, who was an A-rank.

‘Is that… a sanitary apron?’

He was also wearing a waterproof butcher’s apron, full of dark red stains that looked very messy.

“Hm…”

Hearing that it was a test subject, Doctor’s eyes turned to me. As I stood crookedly with my hands in my pants pockets, not avoiding his gaze, he took off his sanitary gloves and opened his mouth.

“It certainly has a lot of energy. A-rank, right?”

“That’s right. He’s barely an A-rank, but he’s a lot taller than I am.”

“Who are the guys behind him?”

“The dogs that our subject Oppa raises. I said everything through text earlier, didn’t I?”

I looked around Doctor calmly. On the iron table, an unidentified body with blood was placed on it as if it had been operated on and next to it was full of syringes. It smelled so bad that it made my eyebrows frown.

Doctor, who was watching me quietly, asked at once.

“Hey. Are you going to drink it?”

“Then what?”

“Why? All you have to do is let the dogs you bring in drink. If you’re going to feed the dogs, give them two bottles.”

“……”

At Doctor’s question with a genuinely ignorant expression, I felt a surge of displeasure.

“We need A-rank or higher, so it doesn’t matter if the dog drinks instead.”

“…ha.”

An annoyed smile broke out. It made me feel dirtier because I felt Doctor’s intention to make such a sound out of the blue.

“What the fuck are you, greedy for other people’s things.”

Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk, who had been listening quietly without interfering in the harsh reply, looked back at me with a slightly surprised expression.

I continued to speak, barely suppressing my burning inside.

“That’s not the basis of a deal. What kind of crazy guy is saying this shit right before the deal?”

“Wait a minute.”

As the atmosphere quickly became harsh, Lee Soo-jin hurriedly intervened.

“Calm down, I’m sure Doctor just said something out of curiosity. As I said in the beginning, Se-hyun-ssi is the only one who needs to drink it.”

“Yeah. I was naturally curious. That’s why we make this and that.”

Doctor, who had been silently listening, took out the box lying below and laid it down roughly on the iron table. The box was full of wine bottles.

“Then you can only take one. Ah, did you ask for the original one?”

He took out one blue bottle and one green bottle.

“The blue one is the one I used before. Green is the new one. Even though the effect is stronger, we still don’t know what side effects it will have.”

“How are you going to make sure it’s the alcohol I want?”

“There’s a way.”

Doctor, who giggled and let out a laugh shallowly, put down the two bottles and walked behind the iron table. Compared to his enormous physique, his movements didn’t seem too slow.

Doctor, who walked without hesitation in the darkness where there was no light and couldn’t see anything, pressed the switch on the wall. A white light shone through the dusty incandescent lamp, revealing that it had been obscured by darkness.

“……!”

The first thing that caught my eye was a small, square-shaped cage built with iron bars. And…

“Wings?”

Shining in the pale light were huge bird wings. The woman with it on her back was wriggling with her face and hands and feet tied in a cloth. It was an unrealistic sight, reminiscent of a cage in which a bird was caged.

“Aren’t you curious? I can’t give it to you even if you want it. I barely made it.”

“…you made it?”

“A monster’s wings were implanted on its back. Most of the transplanted ones rot or die from poisoning with monster blood.”

Shh, hiss, the harsh breathing Doctor exhaled out of the mask disturbed my ears. Hearing the conversation, the cloth wrapped around the woman’s eyes began to get wet with water.

“Even though it’s a C-rank, it has self-healing ability and is alive. Hm, I’ll try changing its eyes tomorrow… A new monster eyeball just came in.”

Doctor opened the blue bottle and poured it into a messy glass with I had no idea what was in it. He walked over with a half-full glass and opened the door.

“Uh, up. Uh…”

The woman shrugged her shoulders at the sound of the rattle and cried. Either way, Doctor grabbed the woman’s hair with a large hand, released the gag, and forced the drink into her mouth.

It was a cruel touch toward an animal, not the same human.

“Cough, uh, gasp, hu…!”

“Usually it takes 10 to 20 minutes for a reaction to appear, but this will appear immediately since it hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday.”

Doctor, who had emptied all the glasses, put the gag on the woman again and locked the door. As I stood still and watched the whole process, the blood in my body became cold.

‘Different.’

A terrible smell that couldn’t be compared with Lee Soo-jin came from a man named Doctor. I had a strong feeling that he might have a deep connection with Praus Cult.

“Uu, huk, gasp, ugh…!”

The woman inside the cage began to struggle. Lee Soo-jin, who was looking at it intently, turned to me.

“How is it? I think we’ve verified this properly. Do you want me release the gag if necessary?”

“No. That’s enough.”

“Good, I like your calmness. Here you go. Take it.”

Lee Soo-jin grabbed a blue wine bottle placed on the iron table and held it out. Slowly reaching out the bottle that was handed to me, I immediately used my art inventory.

“Oh my, it wasn’t a tattoo but an inventory on the neck?”

When the bottle turned into smoke and disappeared, Lee Soo-jin, a little startled, saw the shining pattern on the back of my neck and smiled.

“We did all the conditions Se-hyun-ssi suggested. Now it’s your turn.”

This time, Lee Soo-jin was holding a green wine bottle.

“Drink the whole bottle. Don’t let me down.”

“……”

The light from the lamp glistened on the bottle. Looking at it, I looked down and checked the time on my watch.

“It was past two o’clock because the talk got too long.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. Let’s do it right away.”

“What are… ugh!”

Lee Soo-jin, who had frowned at my sudden words, staggered in the wind that came out of my body.

I said calmly, feeling the energy of Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk flowing from behind.

“I will take all the people involved here.”