Rust - Chapter 29



Only Krnovel

RUST-29

What did you put in this? It doesn’t look like a medical device.

Director Charles Park was shocked. He couldn’t believe what kind of hospital did this. He was just going to take an X-ray, have it checked, and send it away, but he was disgusted by that hospital.

“Could you print out an X-ray of this for me?”

As Director Park turned to Maru and spoke, Maru took out a wad of $100 bills, bowed his head to Director Park, and handed him the printed matter.

[Teacher, it’s not enough, but it’s 10,000 dollars. If we go to the hospital on Monday, can we get treatment right away? Even if there’s an X-ray, it’s not from your hospital. Do you have any proof? Are you trying to get money by depositing it somewhere? And then you’ll ask where the X-ray was taken.]

“······.”

[Teacher. It must have been really hard not being able to speak or hear. I just hope that my wife can be free from her suffering as soon as possible. I hope that you, who heal even dumb animals, can help her. Please help this person who can’t speak and is just enduring the pain. Please, I beg you.]

“······.”

Ms. Kim looked at Director Park with tears streaming down her face, feeling as if she was in a world of sorrow.

Director Park made a complicated expression at that sight. Maru’s words made sense.

That was too much money to ignore, and it was even in dollars. The dollar was soaring, perhaps because of the Japanese earthquake.

Looking at the X-ray and the suture site on Kim Yang’s right arm, it seemed possible to remove the foreign body and suture it after local anesthesia in 10 to 15 minutes. It seemed possible to do it in less than 10 minutes at the fastest.

Director Park sighed deeply after seeing the paper Maru had handed him. Ten thousand dollars every ten minutes… It’s not like I’m doing anything bad.

So, Ms. Kim tore open the sutured area on her right arm and sewed it up again.

Maru wrapped the cast he had removed and the small capsule he had taken out of Kim Yang’s right arm tightly in bubble wrap.

“Search the list of Jeju Island hotels on this app. There’s a remote hotel far from the airport? Book two nights there and have your packed luggage delivered to you now.”

“Uh- yeah-”

Miss Kim listened obediently.

After confirming the reservation address, Maru packed the items tightly and put them in a 20-inch carrier along with recycled clothing, and sent them via quick service to the domestic luggage transportation center in Lounge 1 of Incheon Airport.

Miss Kim mumbled softly.

“Uh- uh um- thank you.”

Although Kim Yang has zero loyalty and is full of survival instincts, she is proud of having some sense of shame, so she said thank you.

If you think about it from the other side, he would have abandoned Maru. That would have been more advantageous. The company would have followed the person who installed the location tracker, and he would have been safer.

‘You little bastard… Even a butcher has loyalty, right?’

Ms. Kim felt a little unfamiliar with this.

Maru must have helped because he had something to eat, but he acted like a disabled woman so well that I felt a little off. The writing on the printed paper was the same.

“Okay. I did it all for my own good.”

Maru responds bluntly to Kim Yang’s small thanks.

Is this the tsundere that sometimes appears in dramas? Is that it? In dramas, kids like that die often. Kim Yang just nodded. In this kind of atmosphere, she felt like she could cry while looking at Maru’s body. She just felt a little uneasy.

Maru was completely exhausted. After seeing something on Kim Yang’s right arm, he realized that these guys weren’t just gangsters. They weren’t drug dealers.

In movies, aren’t there quite a few corrupt cops, drug cartels, and things like that? So when I saw guys like Detective Ahn, I didn’t go crazy or anything.

If my impression was just ‘Oh no, I’m unlucky. Is this poop again?’, then I couldn’t just dismiss this as a simple money-hungry organization when I thought about the device that could blow up an entire workshop, Detective Ahn attaching a location tracker, the kidnapping taxi ride to Samdocheon, and the wiretapping and location tracker on Ms. Kim’s right-hand man.

“So, what exactly does that company do, and how big is it? Is its headquarters in Virginia, USA?”

Ms. Kim had a face that said, ‘Where is Virginia?’

“So, it’s a famous company in Virginia, USA. Don’t you know? It’s a really famous area for such companies.”

Ms. Dori Dori Kim shook her head.

“It’s a group of American kids in Virginia. They usually call themselves company employees and call their place of work a company. They specialize in espionage, disruption, assassination, smuggling, and drugs. They have wiretaps and location trackers installed, so I thought of that company. You called yourself a company, too. At first, I thought it was just bad luck, but thinking about what’s happened so far, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence, and the size of the problem is also like that.”

Ms. Kim started the story with an expression of “I don’t know.”

“It was just a large company in Asia… Manager Hong said they were going to expand into South America and North America, so I scouted them and said it was time for the company to go global, just like its name suggests, but it didn’t go well until Virginia, USA….”

Is the Asian branch plotting a rebellion? Is it trying to take over the headquarters? No, this is too much. If it were a real Virginia company, they would have used a smaller device. Didn’t they say that there are even chips the size of a grain of rice these days?

If you really set your mind to it, you can even use satellites on an American scale. Isn’t that right? An ordinary person like Mr. A wouldn’t have used a satellite just because he was holding a knife.

So it can’t be a company headquartered in Virginia. It shouldn’t have been. But even so, judging by what’s happened so far, it’s beyond the scope of a simple gangster.

‘The incident blew up into such a big deal.’

Maru turned on the midnight news.

With so many major incidents, including the World Livestock Fire, the Seogang-ro taxi overturning fire, the semi-basement murder, and the shooting incident that left more than 15 gangsters dead, something is bound to come out.

Contrary to Maru’s expectations, the main news was about the great earthquake in Japan.

[···Currently, Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures in Japan are virtually in a state of anarchy. Fires have broken out in over a thousand places, and dozens more have spread into large-scale fires due to the dry autumn weather and winds. Roads and railways have been destroyed, so even the 119 rescue teams cannot move, and even the 119 rescue team buildings have collapsed, effectively destroying many areas’ disaster prevention capabilities.]

[···In areas where damage was relatively minor, reports are spreading through social media that vigilante groups were organized to forcibly detain and assault outsiders and foreigners···]

[The atmosphere of unease continues as rumors circulate that foreigners are the cause of the great fire and that Koreans poisoned the well. With terrorist attacks against foreigners continuing, the provisional Japanese government said that relief and assistance from the international community is needed.]

[Earthquake experts have warned that aftershocks from the Great Tokyo Earthquake could strike at any time, and that people should evacuate from the greater Tokyo area. Some experts have warned that the Great Tokyo Earthquake is likely to trigger a chain reaction of southern float earthquakes, or Nankai Draft earthquakes.]

[I heard that today, the National Assembly failed to agree on measures to support victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and to prepare an emergency relief budget?]

[Yes. There was an argument that Japan should accept refugees without any conditions. This was after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, when the then president···]

[There is a claim that apartment prices are skyrocketing in Busan, the metropolitan area, and other large cities due to the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Is this analysis true because foreigners are trying to purchase real estate in places with well-developed infrastructure and obtain permanent residency in Korea?]

[The timing is not right, but this is the current situation. For example, in Busan, an apartment with an area of ​​84m² was traded for 400-500 million won in 2018-2019 for a 30-pyeong apartment. Now, it is listed at 1.5 billion won. It is said that this is due to the redevelopment boom, but experts say that the reason behind this is that foreigners have been buying strongly since before.]

[So, are you saying that the market is reacting by predicting that foreign buying will become even stronger after the recent earthquake, even though foreign buying was already strong before?]

[Yes, that’s right. Almost all of the properties have been sold since the news of the Japanese disaster was first reported, and the remaining properties are also raising their asking prices.]

As I watched the special broadcast on the Japanese disaster for almost 20 minutes, Maru couldn’t tell if this was Korea or Japan. Even on the Internet portals, most of the articles were about the Japanese disaster.

More than 15 gangsters were killed by guns in Seoul, and there wasn’t a single article on the main page. I wondered if this was really true.

Or maybe the organization had ties to the media or the government. Or maybe the organization was the dark side of a big company or the government. Like a company headquartered in Virginia, USA.

What the fuck

I started swearing on my own.

Maru turned off the TV and stood up. He had to meet Ki-sun as soon as possible and make plans.

“If anything happens, escape. You stop trying to find the ship. All of our conversations were tapped and there’s a chance that the organization is waiting for you.”

“Then what about the boat?”

“I’ll go out and look for the ship. You rest here for a while and then move to another place. I think it’ll be okay if it’s an unmanned motel or something. I’m a bit worried about what to do since I’m wearing a mask, but if you have glasses or a wig, wear those.”

Miss Kim nodded. She seemed somewhat innocent, and Maru felt a little uncomfortable.

‘She’s not that kind of innocent girl.’ She already had an innocent and innocent face, but because she was innocent, she seemed even more foolish.

“Okay, let’s go. If anything comes up, text me. I’ll do the same.”

“huh.”

Well then, yes

Maru chuckled at Kim Yang’s short answer.

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When I escaped from Japan, I hid it from Ki-sun as much as possible. Even though he was my closest friend, I couldn’t really tell him about the person I was catching and running away from. However, after coming to Korea and experiencing a series of terrible things, I thought it was right to tell him to some extent.

He said he was doing his best. He mostly used public phones to make calls so that Ki-sun wouldn’t be exposed. But he couldn’t erase the record of Ki-sun helping Maru while being quarantined in Japan for 14 days. If that crazy organization caught Maru and investigated him, Ki-sun would inevitably be exposed.

‘Gisun is also in danger.’

Who would have thought it would turn out like this? I was just trying to escape from the Japanese drug yakuza, but as soon as I got to Korea, things got messy…

“It’s really so dirty?”

“okay.”

“The World Livestock you worked for started pecking at you?”

“Ha- Yeah. That’s why I thought you were going to die today.”

Ki-sun’s expression crumpled.

“Ah- this is fucked up.”

“That’s right. You’re absolutely right. The gangsters aren’t just kids in movies. They’re high-tech organizations. I thought I was looking at the Korean branch of that Virginia company.”

Ki-sun’s face turned yellow.

“That Virginia? When American brothers get constipated, they often use it?”

As expected, Ki-sun understood right away. Maru nodded heavily.

“Wow- Let’s go- the gangsters you’re involved with right now are working at that Virginia company? Really? Honest?”

“Didn’t you also have an inkling that I was screwed?”

“I had a rough idea. When you told me to bury my cell phone in the neighborhood playground and go to the PC room wearing the clothes you usually wear, I had a feeling. Wasn’t that to create an alibi? When you told me to hide cash in the playground, I guess I was really involved in something dirty. That’s what I told you. Don’t ignore the gangsters. I told you not to look down on them like in the movies, where they just swing clubs and sashimi!”

Maru was worried about how much he should say and how he should say it, but he decided that he should say that he boarded a ship to Japan and reestablished his identity. That way, it would be easier to talk to Ki-soon about reestablishing his identity in advance.

“I thought it would just pass, but the organization kept getting tangled up, and set fire to the world livestock industry.”

“What? You set fire to the place? I told you it felt like a place run by gangsters and that they were laundering money there.”

“Yes. It just so happened that I had to get on a ship and run away to Japan right away.”

“Hey, you crazy bastard, you burned down a yakuza business in Japan too, right? You’re going to do it again? Is burning down something your natural instinct? Whether it’s a gangster or a yakuza business, do you get itchy and want to set it on fire? If you came to Korea, you should’ve just quietly disappeared. Why are you doing that shit in Korea too?”

Ki-sun’s face, which had been pale, turned bright red. Maru tried to calm Ki-sun down first.

“No. I didn’t set it on fire because I wanted to.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? You made an alibi with the intention of setting fire to me. Right? Right? Oh my- This crazy kid is my friend! He buried my phone and locked me in a PC room. He made an alibi and then went down there and set fire to me. This fucking punk! If you said he was a dirty gangster, you should have just locked yourself in quietly and said, ‘I’m dead.’ Why did you set fire to that place again?”

In response to Ki-sun’s outburst, Maru sprayed a special medicine.

It’s a matter of the account.