The next day, Lee Heewoo, who woke up late, left the battleship saying he had to go to work at that damn soup restaurant. Only after dressing him warmly and safely escorting him to work did free time return to Heichi. Naturally, it wasn’t the free time he wanted.
Dressed entirely in black—a suit, vest, and thick coat—Heichi felt like a model at first glance due to his exotic appearance and tall height. However, because of his eyes that didn’t feel a single human-like emotion and his threateningly large build, he looked more suited to working in the underworld than as a model.
Heichi took out the black leather gloves he’d prepared, put them on his hands, and walked through the middle of the downtown area. He felt the Earthlings’ gazes falling on him but didn’t give them a single glance. All Earthlings—no, all life forms except Lee Heewoo—were outside Heichi’s interest.
The sign before his eyes was translated by Link’s civilization translator and entered Heichi’s pupils.
<Gold Capital>.
He entered the building like a shadow melting into darkness. The unique damp and musty smell of a building erected on the underworld touched his nose. Standing in front of the elevator, Heichi scanned the floor directory attached to the side and confirmed the Gold Capital text written next to 5F.
Soon, instead of pressing the elevator’s up button, he turned his body and headed for the stairs. The sound of heavy footsteps echoed up the stairwell at regular intervals.
Jingle.
Of Gold Capital’s double doors, only the inner thin glass door was closed. When Heichi pushed the door, a cheerful sound rang from the bell hanging on the entrance door. Soon a voice came from inside.
“Welcome, oh my! A handsome gentleman has come? What brings you here?”
The woman who had been sitting stood up abruptly and approached Heichi, rapidly rolling her eyes. Having scanned him from head to toe, she smelled the scent of wealth coming from Heichi and raised the corners of her mouth to the fullest. Soon after, with her original skin color covered by thick makeup, she stuck closely to Heichi.
“Did you come to get a business loan? It’s your first time here, right? How much have you looked into?”
While doing so, she coquettishly hugged Heichi’s arm. Miss Kim, the Gold Capital accountant, had been brought and hired by loan shark Lee Pilsu from an establishment she originally worked at, and because of that, she couldn’t break her old habits and sometimes acted cutely toward those who came here. Most men found Miss Kim’s coquettishness cute, so there was no particular reason to fix it.
Heichi rolled his inorganic pupils to look at Miss Kim clinging to him, then said quietly.
“I don’t recall permitting contact.”
“What? Ah, oh my, yes…”
Heichi’s voice without inflection felt emotionless, like a machine speaking. As Miss Kim awkwardly pulled away, Heichi turned his pupils again. Where his gaze landed was the place with a nameplate saying ‘Office’ in the back.
“Shall I… call the director…?”
Though the voice she’d just heard had clearly only felt like a quiet command without emotion, Miss Kim shivered her shoulders as a chill came over her for some reason. Instinctively realizing this wasn’t a problem she could handle, Miss Kim slowly backed away, trying to pass this matter on to Director Lee Pilsu.
“No.”
I’ll do it myself.
The noise and smell unique to Earthlings flowing out from inside the room had already been poking at Heichi’s nerves. Heichi approached the door with steps neither fast nor slow.
Originally, stopping a visitor trying to enter the director’s office without permission was something Miss Kim should do. However, for some reason Miss Kim didn’t dare touch him and only pouted her lips. Click, the doorknob Heichi grabbed turned to the right.
“Huh, what’s going on? Miss Kim, did a customer come?”
“Yes, yes… Director, a customer did come but…”
Before Miss Kim’s voice, which had instinctively answered the voice looking for her, could cut off, Heichi entered the office. Heichi, who entered inside, moved his hand behind him and locked the office door with a clunk.
“…Who are you?”
Lee Pilsu, who noticed a strange sensation from the unfamiliar visitor, stopped what he was doing and looked up. No emotion could be felt from Heichi’s expression, and his pupils didn’t even have the common gleam of light that people usually show. Watching that appearance, Lee Pilsu got goosebumps for some reason.
“Gold Capital, debtor Lee Heewoo, creditor Lee Pilsu. Correct?”
“Lee Heewoo? It’s true that he’s our customer…”
The dialect that would have normally come out swaggeringly was strangely completely gone. Lee Heewoo. A sucker who struggled with his father’s debt, seemed to barely escape, but this time got caught by the ankle by his mother. That was the only extent he was remembered in Lee Pilsu’s mind.
“I came to pay off the debt.”
“Ah, aha. But already? It hasn’t even been a week since he borrowed it. Well… anyway.”
Lee Pilsu rustled around and took out Lee Heewoo’s IOU he’d been keeping and placed it on the desk. At that sight, Heichi, who had been standing at the door, strode over, and Lee Pilsu flinched and lowered his head without realizing it.
“Principal of one billion, plus daily interest, total… But you’re going to pay all this back at once?”
Heichi, who had been scanning Lee Heewoo’s father’s and grandmother’s names written on the IOU, slowly nodded his head. Lee Pilsu tried not to show his nervousness and spoke in a smooth voice.
“Wow, so our Heewoo really caught a good one. Paying all this back at once. That… is he really a guide or whatever that is?”
Only briefly feeling inexplicable fear, Lee Pilsu’s mouth started blabbering without knowing limits.
“Esper, they say that’s like a psychic or something. Still, they’re aliens, so where does the money come from that it keeps gushing out like this?”
Lee Pilsu couldn’t contain the laughter that kept flowing out as he organized Lee Heewoo’s IOU. Even if this debt was all paid off, anyway Lee Heejeong, that stupid bitch who was Lee Heewoo’s mother, would be unable to resist and come borrow money from him if he just poked at her a little. The interest he skimmed off bit by bit every day from doing that alone was an enormous profit.
“Guide, I don’t know what it is, but is it really that amazing…”
“Amazing.”
Heichi, who hadn’t even made a breathing sound until now, briefly said while looking at Lee Heewoo’s name in the IOU.
“Because to an Esper, a guide is an entire universe.”
“…What?”
At that moment, Lee Pilsu’s face was buried in the desk above the IOU. Literally ‘buried’. Even though Lee Pilsu’s desk was specially made of high-grade mahogany to create atmosphere.
Even though his forehead was broken and his nose was fractured, Lee Pilsu still couldn’t grasp the current situation. That made sense, because Heichi before his eyes was looking down at Lee Pilsu without moving a single finger. If he had moved to press down his head, he could have somehow dealt with it, but Lee Pilsu had been pushed by some unknown pressure and slammed his head hard enough to break the mahogany desk.
“Without them, even if we’re alive, it doesn’t feel like living.”
“Ah, ah…”
“That’s why Espers charge in even with their limbs cut off. Because losing their guide is more painful than having their limbs severed.”
Even if they had to crawl around without limbs for their entire life, Espers would choose their guide. Espers were a race born that way from the beginning. To an Esper, a guide was a lifeline, a universe, and everything.
Before Heichi’s words even ended, Lee Pilsu’s head was slammed down once more onto the mahogany desk. The orbital bone that had already been broken completely collapsed, accompanied by great pain. Lee Pilsu tried to escape from this pain somehow, but it was strange.
His limbs wouldn’t move. Lee Pilsu, terrified, rolled his eyes to look down at his arms.
“I cut your core muscles, so don’t think about moving. If they completely rupture from that, you’ll have to crawl around for life.”
His limbs were convulsing eerily. Body fluids including saliva began dripping from Lee Pilsu’s mouth and nose. The voice begging to be spared was utterly worthless.
“Let me continue the explanation. The reason Espers are born strong is to protect their guide. Because it’s my lifeline that I found by searching the entire universe. Do you understand what this means?”
“Save me, urk, save me.”
Heichi, who slowly bent his waist, grabbed and lifted Lee Pilsu’s hair with his leather glove. Heichi, meeting eyes consumed by fear, said quietly.
“It means you touched my universe.”
Pop.
As Lee Pilsu’s two eyes burst out, Heichi threw it away carelessly. Heichi, who took off his blood-splattered glove and threw it on the floor, picked up the blood-splattered IOU. And he turned his body to leave the office.
Then, sensing the signal that came to the back of his ear, he raised his hand and touched his ear. As soon as Link connected, AJ’s voice was heard.
-…tain! Captain! Can you hear me?!
“What is it, AJ?”
Unlike AJ who was unusually extremely excited, Heichi’s voice was quiet as usual. It was when he was checking Lee Heewoo’s quitting time while confirming the time with the clock hanging on the office wall.
-Dumor has escaped…!
