Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

The first place I headed to in the black market was the currency exchange.

It was best to exchange cash for tokens right away when coming to the black market.

Not only were there no thieves quite like the ones here, but carrying around the bulky cash was extremely inconvenient.

Of course, the tokens weren’t completely safe from thieves either, but they had built-in tracking devices, and without an identification code, they couldn’t be exchanged back into cash at the currency exchange, making them far safer than cash.

It was packed with people like me who had brought money from the outside to exchange. After lining up for about ten minutes, it was finally my turn.

I placed the money bag on the table.

The woman wearing sunglasses behind the wire mesh looked up at me.

“Would you like to exchange everything?”

“Yes.”

“What denominations?”

“Ten sheets of the middle denomination. Thirty sheets of the small ones.”

I exchanged all the 130 million won I had brought for tokens.

Taking the money from me, the woman fed it into a money counting machine. She didn’t forget to periodically take out bills to check for counterfeits.

It wasn’t for no reason that the woman wore sunglasses. The artifact blocking psychic skills might look ordinary, but it was a precious item worth tens or even hundreds of millions of won.

The brief thought crossed my mind – what if the loan sharks had given me counterfeit bills? But fortunately, seeing no issues, the woman handed me the tokens.

“The identification code is C-198.”

After receiving the tokens, I exited the currency exchange.

With the money exchanged, it was time to properly tour the black market.

The stalls near the entrance of the black market sold hunter-related goods that could commonly be found outside as well.

From recovery potions with mysterious but decent effects, to weapons and armor frequently found in regular equipment shops.

Surprisingly ordinary items for a place called the ‘black market’. But why had I come here and paid the expensive fees?

Well, the routes through which these items were obtained were quite unsavory.

Seeing a man pick up an armor piece with what looked like dried bloodstains still on it and frown, I inwardly clicked my tongue.

Those were definitely stolen goods, 100%. Whether from the deceased or the injured, they were items that should have been handed over to the families, but had been embezzled instead.

Only awakeners could enter gates. The saying ‘what happens in the gate stays in the gate’ didn’t arise for no reason.

Families who couldn’t even enter the gates had no way to assert ownership over those items.

That’s how such stolen goods came about.

They would feed some excuse to the bereaved families while lining their own pockets.

I too had disposed of such stolen goods several times before.

At the resurfacing memory, I quickly moved my feet onward.

Heading deeper inside, stalls with an atmosphere more befitting of what people imagined a ‘black market’ to be started appearing.

First, the atmosphere was completely different.

Unlike that alley over there with the stench of people, this area was deathly silent to the point of being suffocating.

But this atmosphere was actually more familiar to me.

I readjusted the baseball cap I was wearing. From here on, I had to stay fully alert.

I looked around the stalls. Unlike the stores over there that openly displayed their wares and accepted haggling, this area had a closed-off atmosphere.

I also spotted a few shops with tall walls set up around them. The place I was headed was even more secluded than the shops present here.

The moment I set foot on the path leading there, a man blocked my way.

“Looks like you’ve taken the wrong path.”

Glancing at my face, the man said that with a slight curl of his lips, as if a youngster like me couldn’t enter this place. In response to the man’s words, I calmly continued speaking.

“Oh, really? What about someone who was introduced here?”

“By who?”

“Director Baek.”

At my words, the man’s brows twitched. A look of disbelief that a small fry like me would know that name.

So even in this era, that name still held weight, huh.

“He said there was a problem solver here who could handle my issue.”

Although the man’s eyes were still filled with doubt even after I said that, I brazenly held my head high.

Giving me a displeased look, the man obediently opened the path for me.

If I had been Seol Rok-jin’s lap dog barking in the open, then Baek Do-san was the hunting dog following Seol Rok-jin’s orders in the shadows.

He might still be walking his own path without joining Seol Rok-jin’s ranks yet, but it wouldn’t be long before he became Seol Rok-jin’s one and only dog.

In any case, not many people knew this name.

At the name I had uttered, the man had obediently opened the path for me. Since there was signal jamming inside the black market, the man couldn’t use his phone to inquire about my identity with others.

A lie that would be exposed in a matter of hours, but for those few hours, it was the truth that mattered.

Unlike the other shops lined up stall-style, this place could only be reached by following a completely walled-off corridor.

Meaning it was a location difficult to access even within this black market.

The one who greeted me at this hard-to-reach place was a man with curly hair and thick-rimmed glasses, looking like a cartoon character.

“Oh, a customer.”

Styling himself as a ‘professor’ researching technology should, the man had quite a bizarre taste.

Right before my eyes was the Professor Geum I remembered from my old memories. This crazy machine maniac who insisted on being called ‘professor’ had an uneducated side that made you wonder if he had even properly attended school, let alone obtained a doctoral degree. But when it came to these kinds of tasks, he was certainly a professor.

“What brings you to see me?”

“I want to remove this.”

I tapped the identification tag on my neck as I looked at the professor. At those words, a glint appeared in Professor Geum’s eyes.

“Oho, an interesting task has come in. Is that one of the new 3rd generation leashes?”

“Not a leash, it’s an identification tag.”

“That’s just the way non-awakeners see it. The government has put a leash on you guys to keep you from running wild. So they can rein you in if you do.”

Professor Geum’s words were precise. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Living with this thing on must really suck, but either way, it’s the government that put it on you. Kid, do you know what will happen if you remove it?”

“Well, at the very least, I won’t be able to go out into the world with my original name, right?”

Professor Geum snickered at my words. He still saw me as a youngster, but oh well. The current me really was a youngster.

“I heard you provide follow-up services here too.”

“That service is expensive.”

“I was prepared to become a criminal, but not to be socially buried as well.”

At my words, Professor Geum chuckled with amusement.

“Well, that’s true, but this has become a bit troublesome. The guy who usually handles that just happened to be away.”

“Even a pre-made one would be fine.”

In any case, I planned to keep changing my identity. A single identity wouldn’t be enough for what I had planned.

“What if it’s a different race?”

“Hmm, that would be a bit…”

This wouldn’t work.

“Hand me over something temporary to use, and in return, I’ll have to come back here in a week.”

A week later. Enough time for the people here to see through my lie about Director Baek. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told that lie?

But if not for that lie, I wouldn’t have been able to enter this place at all.

In any case, what was important now was removing this identification tag, this ‘leash’ as Professor Geum called it.

“Follow me.”

Professor Geum led me into an inner room, which had dozens of machine-like devices lined up that looked like torture equipment. Among them was a terribly designed iron chair that I wouldn’t want to sit on even if I was about to die.

The chair, with a design resembling tangled snakes, even had iron chains attached to restrain the hands and feet.

‘Terrible taste as always.’

The chair’s grotesque design was simply due to that eccentric professor’s preferences.

The first time I had come here, I had trembled in fear, thinking Seol Rok-jin would torture and kill me in this very place.

“Sit there.”

At Professor Geum’s words, I quickly went and sat in the chair.

“Unexpectedly fearless. Everyone usually trembles the first time they see this place.”

“I guess those people lacked guts.”

“Haha, I like that answer.”

Saying that, Professor Geum brought over a machine from the corner.

The machine, covered in rust here and there with the wiring exposed, looked decades old at the very least.

Especially the blade at the end of the machine – it was so caked with some unknown substance, be it blood or rust, that the blade itself was barely visible.

Though I seemed to recall the machine being in better condition the previous times I had come here on Seol Rok-jin’s orders.

Noticing my furrowed brow at the state of the machine, Professor Geum let out an awkward cough before quickly taking out a towel from his waist and wiping the blade clean.

“Aren’t you going to sterilize it?”

“The blade won’t be touching your skin.”

“What if it does?”

“Have you had your tetanus shot?”

Giving me a look of disgust, Professor Geum said with an embarrassed expression, “It might look like this, but it’s still a cutting-edge machine.”

I wanted to immediately retort, but as the professor said, it was indeed a rather sophisticated machine.

Pushing up the goggles hanging around his neck, Professor Geum stood behind the machine. As the professor pressed the intricately arranged buttons, the machine started moving.

Simultaneously, the blade attached to the machine began spinning madly.

“Insane.”

It was such a mesmerizing sight that the curse slipped out involuntarily.

“Keep your eyes forward.”

Although Professor Geum said that, it was harder to keep my eyes forward. No matter how prepared I was, having that sharp blade approach my neck was an ordeal I could barely endure.

If that machine deviated even slightly here, it would be the end for me.

Awakeners with physical enhancement abilities might be completely unfazed, but for someone with mediocre abilities like me, there was no choice but to cower.

I grit my teeth.

Please let this end quickly.

Like a child whining at the dentist because of a cavity, only whimpering sounds came out of me. Yes, please let this end quickly.

Unlike me, drenched in cold sweat from the tension, Professor Geum calmly scraped off the insulation and removed the wires with a solemn expression.

Tick, tick, as soon as the insulation was stripped away, a strange sound came from the signal device inside. The moment that sound occurred, Professor Geum quickly inserted a signal jammer between the wires.

The instant the wires were cut, the signal being transmitted to the central headquarters was blocked.

Having come this far, half the battle was already over. All that remained was cutting off this damn sturdy leash.

“Damn it.”

Seeing the massive blade approaching me, I squeezed my eyes shut.