Chapter 5: Hand Over My Money (3)

Translator: miraclerifle

However, Ju-Heon didn’t care whether they stomped their feet or got frustrated.

He was just...

“Sir. This is probably not worth any more than 50,000 won.” [1]

“Excuse me?”

“You should just keep it at home. I don't think any fine arts dealer will buy something like this.”

Placed in a very awkward situation.

“.........Ho. They were acting like it was worth millions of won.”

Ju-Heon who had come to an experienced fine arts dealer to appraise and sell the item started to frown.

It was very weird and put him in a complicated situation.

He had taken this Buddha statue and justified it by saying it was for his overdue pay and compensation package, but...

‘Damn it, it is only worth 50,000 won?’

Park Kyung Tae had turned pale and tried to take it back vigorously that he thought it was worth a lot more.

He wondered if the appraiser had lied, but he had seen people like this quite often. Forget showing no interest in the item at all, he seemed to treat Ju-Heon like a peddler.

That was why Ju-Heon could only click his tongue after coming out of the shop.

‘Tsk. Did those morons get this appraised incorrectly to start?

They were trying to be the middleman for something like this?’

He would not be able to get any money even if he sold this. He needed that money to go looking for artifacts.

Of course, it was his fault that he did not thoroughly look at this statue before he took it. But his instincts had told him that this would be worth a lot.

‘......This is weird.’

Ju-Heon had a sharp instinct especially when it came to money. He had gained an unbelievable instinct after touching so many artifacts with the Archeology ability.

That instinct was telling him that this statue was worth a lot of money.

‘Why? Why is my instinct telling me this cheap statue is worth a lot of money?’

Ju-Heon thought about it for a while before deciding to let it be.

“Well, it’s not even an artifact; my instinct might not work on regular artwork.”

It happened as Ju-Heon was about to go back in to at least get the 50,000 won for it.

“Huh?”

A weird message appeared in front of his eyes.

[Activate Spy skill.]

[A suspicious substance is being detected inside the Buddha statue.]

𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

‘Oh, would you look at this?’

Ju-Heon started to laugh at the completely unexpected message.

‘A suspicious substance?’

Ju-Heon’s eyes curled up like a sly fox. It would not be wrong to say he also looked like an excited child.

He believed this was a message from the < Spy > skill, one of the basic Tomb Raider skills. It probably changed to be like a search skill in a video game.

‘But there is something on the inside?’

There was no way something like a diamond sarira was inside it. [2]

Ju-Heon decided to take a closer look at the statue. He even tried to shake it but could not feel anything weird about it.

‘Just what could be inside?’

Ju-Heon had not cared about this item before but he was extremely focused on it because of the Tomb Raider skill.

Park Kyung Tae had not been a broker for a day or two, so there was no way he was so antsy about him taking a 50,000 won statue away.

That meant that their goal was not this outer shell but the item inside.

‘......They hid something inside the artwork.’

Something that would make them a ton of money.

‘In simple terms, it could be laundered money ...... Cash to avoid taxes ... jewels...’

A lot of things came to mind but he didn’t think any of them fit.

Ju-Heon thought about what else there could be before quickly realizing it.

‘These bastards, are they really?’

The corners of his lips soon curled up slyly.

Ju-Heon who had rolled around in this business for a long time had figured it out. There was generally only one thing they would trade like this.

‘But do they really have the balls to do this?’

As they say, seeing is believing. Ju-Heon quickly took the artifact knife out.

Once the artifact activated, the statue was sliced in half with god-like movement. The glue had been cut with the knife.

A small liquid vial was located inside. Ju-Heon started to chuckle after seeing it.

‘As expected.’

The substance inside was a clear liquid. It was a drug.

It looked like it could be confused with a saline solution, but it was a liquid drug called Tears of God (TG), made with a synthesis of hemp and XLR-11. Instead of using needles, you dropped a few drops onto a cigarette to enjoy the high.

And they had imported this to distribute inside artwork!

“Look at these brazen bastards. 100ML of this would sell for quite the price.”

No wonder Park Kyung Tae had tried so hard to take it back.

This was something he had not noticed when he was younger. Ju-Heon then started to think while looking at the vial.

‘Now that I think about it, these bastards had hundreds of artwork they dealt, right?’

If all of them had drugs inside?

Ju-Heon thought about this before putting on an evil smile and taking out his phone.

He figured out a way to quickly generate his initial funds. With this method, he would not have to think about his tiny pay and his compensation package that would at max be a couple million wons.

Of course, he was not interested in a dirty deeds like selling drugs.

He just needed to..

“Oh, hyung. It’s me. Sorry for suddenly disappearing like that earlier. You're not busy right now, are you?”

He knew very well that the reward for helping to catch drug dealers was at max 100 million won.

“No, not at all! Chairman-nim. It is not that that goods are not ready. Yes, yes sir! As I mentioned earlier, we need to delay the deal for a bit because there are some eyes watching us......yes sir. Yes sir. I understa...ugh!”

8 pm the next day. Park Kyung Joo received a lot of flack as the goods did not show up on time as they planned. The ones making the complaints were the people who had requested the stealthy deals.

However, Seo Ju-Heon taking the statue with the hidden drugs was one thing, but the morons she tasked to get it back had not contacted her either!

She needed to know it was taken care of so that she could make more deals in peace!

“It’s been a whole day since then so what the hell are they doing?!”

The office door burst open at that moment. Park Kyung Joo who thought it was her lackeys jumped up and started to speak in anger.

“Hey! Do you know what time it is? Do you really want to jump into the ocean in this weather?!”

However, she heard an unexpected voice respond back.

“The ocean is too cold but how about a cell? I'll even add on a seolleongtang as a special service.” [3]

“......Gasp!”

The ones to burst in through the door were not her lackeys but the police. No, her lackeys were with them. They were just in handcuffs with the police.

Park Kyung Tae who was caught by Inspector Kim was grumbling and sniffling. After being stabbed by Ju-Heon, he was mercilessly beaten by Inspector Kim.

“Noonim, we're finished......”

Park Kyung Tae's sister Park Kyung Joo could not shut up after hearing his comment.

“W, what the hell?! Who are you?!”

“We received a report of possession and sale of illegal drugs.”

Park Kyung Joo got angry after hearing that.

“Drugs? We are art dealers! What are you doing to an innocent citizen!”

“Wow, all criminals always say the same thing before they’re caught.”

Inspector Kim took the Buddha statue and the liquid drugs out of his pocket as he started to laugh.

“Your tail has been caught. We are currently searching through the reported gallery as well.”

“G, gallery?”

Park Kyung Joo gulped after hearing the word, gallery. They did have a gallery where they kept the artwork. Of course, the artwork with the drugs were all inside storage room safes in the name of security.

‘It’s fine. They all have different passcodes so these idiots can’t get in.’

“Don’t pester the innocent without any proof! Even the police can’t just burst into someone's business......!”

A voice could be heard coming from the walkie-talkie in Inspector Kim’s pocket at that moment. It was the narcotics squad that came with him.

[We received assistance to check all 600 pieces of artwork in the gallery storage room. Drugs were found in every art piece.]

[There seems to be a total of 8000mL smuggled in. This is probably worth about 800 million won on the market.]

Park Kyung Joo's face turned pale. This made no sense at all.

“Who opened the safe for them?!”

Inspector Kim started to laugh as he took out a pair of handcuffs.

“Thankfully, we had assistance from one of your employees.”

However, Park Kyung Joo was going crazy for a different reason. Assistance was one thing, but each safe had different passcodes!

There were so many that nobody would be able to open them without looking at the list of passcodes. Park Kyung Joo was the only one who had that list of passcodes.

So who would have been able to tell them over 600 different safe passcodes?

Inspector Kim who had picked up a call looked toward Park Kyung Joo.

“Ah, the person who helped us begged me to hand the phone to you.”

He then put his cellphone by Park Kyung Joo’s ear. The mischievous voice coming through the phone was very familiar.

[Old lady. This is why you don’t make people work for no pay.]

Park Kyung Joo's eyes almost rolled over in shock after hearing that voice. She finally realized who had provided the information. Park Kyung Joo started to shout into the phone.

“Seo Ju-Heon, you motherfucking bastard! You! You!”

[Ah, I was going to ask you something, but never mind, you probably don't know. Oh, by the way. You should really change your passcodes once every six months.]

Park Kyung Joo was going crazy from his cheeky comments. ‘You pay back my benevolence with betrayal?!’

“Hey! Seo Ju-Heon! You stole the passcodes, you damn thief!”

[No? I never stole it. I just used the ones I remembered to open it for them.]

Park Kyung Joo could not believe what she heard.

“What? Are you crazy? You really expect me to believe you remember over 600 passcodes?”

She received an unexpected response back.

[Are you an idiot? Why wouldn’t you be able to remember that?]

‘What did he just say?’

“Hey! Seo Ju-Heon!”

Park Kyung Joo started to jump up and down in anger with a flushed face.

“You bastard, you won't get away with this. You better stay there. I'm going to get there and......!”

Inspector Kim didn’t care as he smiled with pity.

“I'm sorry. You’ll have to come with us first.”

[The 100 million won reward will be sent to your account in a few weeks. Don't waste it all, make sure to save it! Don't put it in a regular savings account and tie it up as a certificate of deposit! Promise me!]

It was now 7 pm.

Ju-Heon started to laugh while looking at Inspector Kim's concerned messages.

“Gun Woo hyung always worries too much about me.”

The reward was at the max, probably because they were able to catch the dealers and the supplier.

‘It’s a good thing I didn't forget the location of the safes and the passcode patterns.’

Although it happened fifteen years ago, Ju-Heon was someone who did not forget most things he had seen at least once. That was how he was able to tell artifacts apart without looking through a list.

The passcodes to the safes were pressed by the thugs each time but it was enough to have snuck glances at them.

Of course, he was disappointed that he didn’t remember any stock information or winning numbers for the lottery, but that could not be helped.

“Anyway, it looks like I don't need to worry about the initial funds anymore.”

Now that he thought about it, he should have done this in the past as well. He probably didn't because he was either scared or didn’t know much about the world.

Oh well, it didn’t matter anymore.

He found a useful artifact for now, his skills were slowly building, and everything was going according to plan. The only thing left was to find the location of tombs and grab them before Chairman Kwon.

‘Although there are probably some artifacts already floating around.’

That was why Ju-Heon was planning on asking Park Kyung Joo if there were other suspicious artworks. It was because Park Kyung Tae had an artifact on him. However, he didn't think that that woman would know about artifacts.’

‘It's fine. Let’s go home and start searching.’

He needed to plan for the future as well.

It happened as Ju-Heon was about to walk toward the villa complex where he lived. His spy skill sent another message that made him stop walking.

[The aura of a suspicious tomb is coming from nearby.]

‘Huh?’

An unexpected situation was visible in front of him. He could see lights from many residences and company buildings in front of him. They looked very pretty.

Everything was fine, except...

“......What happened to my place?”

Ju-Heon’s jaw dropped in shock.

His apartment that should be right here had disappeared.

1. About $50

2. A Buddhist relic.

3. stock soup of bone and stew meat