Mercenary Black Mamba

"Without subordinates, there are no bosses. A subordinate becomes a boss one day. Do as you please. As I said before, it doesn't matter who I am. What I do does. Mere hours ago, you moved stones under a boss who is a young man much to your junior. You are enjoying expensive wine with me, the owner of this vast manor. Who is the real you?"

"Ah!"

Kim Gi-taek emitted a sound that a sloppy monk would utter at the moment of enlightenment.

"It is so. Whether you move stones or enjoy expensive liquor, you stay as you and nothing changed. The laborer at the construction field was also the owner of a fabric factory. You can begin anew here."

"I understand what you say," Kim Gi-taek sighed. "But what can I begin to do at my current state?"

Kim Gi-taek let out a long sigh.

"A peaceful life is said to be a hundred times more difficult to achieve than a successful life. You must have tumbled at a rock to be wary of it the next time. You also learn to evade it. If you live each day to its fullest, you will regain your former glory one day. Until that day, I will protect your family."

Kim Gi-taek's shoulders started shaking. When Mu Ssang gave him his word that he will protect his family, it meant everything to him. What good karma could he have accumulated in the past life to meet a great person like this? Kim Gi-taek began to shed tears at last.

"Thank you! Thank you!"

"The whole world is a spectacle of the most fleeting instant. When you feel like life is taxing, loneliness and lack of fulfillment are often the reasons. A talented chef I know gave up a position at a hotel and cooked simple dishes at a late-night restaurant to protect his young daughter. When you are busy taking care of your lovely family, loneliness and a sense of futility cannot descend on you. Today's joy is not the same 10 years later. Today's pain is the same. You will only remember it nostalgically as a distant memory of suffering. Mrs. Yang shouldn't feel indebted either. My teacher said that the more women in this house, the better. It is becoming so, really. Do not worry at all. Your husband will rebound again. You only have a few more days of hardship to endure."

'Who am I comforting? I have my own issues!'

Mu Ssang felt heartache as he comforted the couple. He still had no way of finding his mother. His first love, once a cause of intense, heart-wrenching longing, was now a distant memory. The burning passion, over time, melted away like ice cream.

"Thank you. I am ashamed of running away in fear. Mi-ja, let's endure a few more days."

Kim Gi-taek firmly held his wife's hand.

"Of course. Who am I ever going to trust, if not you?"

Mu Ssang was touched by the couple who joined their hands together and wept. A man who has a family to protect was bound to be strong.

"Sir, when should my wife go to the temple?"

"There is no hurry. Yeong-hee and Yeong-ji will regain composure faster if their mother stays here for a while. Let's resolve the Pungguk mess first."

"A temple?" Mrs. Yang asked.

"Ah, I had no time to tell you. It's a temple in Mt. Chung Saeng. Mr. Park's teacher is there. You are to tend to him. You are okay with that, right?"

Mrs. Yang's face brightened.

"Of course! If it is tending to Mr. Park's teacher, I would beg to go. I am ready to go whenever. What about the girls' schooling, though?" Mrs. Yang asked with a worried face.

They couldn't go for a walk outside. Going to school was not feasible.

"They will go to school," Mu Ssang answered on behalf of Kim Gi-taek.

"What if they hurt them?"

"Hahaha. Don't worry. I will get them a bodyguard."

"A bodyguard? We shouldn't be such a bother. I feel like cutting my hair and weaving a sandal for you with it!"

Mrs. Yang shed tears. She remembered the nightmarish things they had to endure. She still did not feel that the events of the past night were real. They were hauled from hell directly to heaven.

"Don't say such a thing. Mi-sook took care of me for five years during my most vulnerable years. She helped me a lot. That connection led to this one. Hahaha."

"We are indebted!"

"Thank you!"

Mrs. Yang couldn't answer properly because of her crying. Few people remember and honor such a small connection more than a decade ago like him. He was a great, enlightened person.

"Mi-ja!"

Kim Gi-taek embraced his wife's shoulders. Mu Ssang wordlessly looked at the couple who held each other tight and cried. He was reminiscing about his own father and mother.

"It's not free. I will have the last penny recorded. Don't ever think you will be able to not pay it back."

Mu Ssang mock-glared at them.

"Haha! Of course."

Mrs. Yang stopped crying, covered her mouth, and laughed.

"Ah, I feel like Yeong-hee has some psychological problem."

"You are right. Her memory is not the same and she obsesses over things like a child. She has a trauma, at the hands of..."

Mrs. Yang couldn't finish her sentence. Mu Ssang could easily guess the unsaid words. She must have been traumatized too at the misfortune her precious daughter had to go through. With this, the Pungguk thugs lost the last remaining prospect of mercy.

"What happened happened. But I should be able to aid with her recovery. There is a world-renowned neuroscientist and psychiatrist in my family. In Africa now. But I shall call right away."

Mu Ssang picked up the receiver and requested an international call. Kim Gi-taek and Mrs. Yang became awestruck yet again. Each seemingly insurmountable problem for them was like moving a pebble for Mu Ssang. They could have never imagined such a person would exist in this world. Nothing in the world could be an obstacle for him. He embodied the phrase "larger than life."

Many events happened over the course of a single night. However, the most important event was happening at Mu Ssang's chest. At three in the morning, Mu Ssang abruptly awoke from his shallow sleep.

"What is it doing?"

His emergency pouch felt as hot as heated iron. If it were not made with the tendons and hide of Bossaurus, it would have caught fire. The heat was that intense. Mu Ssang, startled, sat up and opened the pouch. There was the crystal bottle in which the Rousseloufe was imprisoned, Vajra, the Ami rope, and Ange Sikager. The heat was originating from Ange Sikager.

"Is it hatching? Ouch, it's hot!"

He almost dropped Ange Sikager. It was always warm but never as hot as to scald one's hand. Billion's Water Armor covered his hands.

"What is that one doing now?"

The Rousseloufe imprisoned in the crystal ball thrashed about. He saw it do that several times before but never to the extent that threatened to break the bottle. He put down Ange Sikager on the tea table and closed the emergency pouch. The Rousseloufe calmed down just then.

"This is going to cause a fire."

Ange Sikager was white-hot. The tea table made of oak was being scorched and smoke rose from it. The temperature of the air in the study rose too. Mu Ssang looked down at Mina who was still asleep. Ange Sikager, Vajra, and Rousseloufe were all dangerous objects. If a situation got out of control, it could be disastrous.

Mu Ssang's figure disappeared from the study in a flash. Mu Ssang jumped over the wall of Eungsim-je and sprinted through the air. He employed Fearless Steps to its maximum degree and shot through the trail behind the high school, which was his routine jogging course, and headed for the reservoir. He had a hunch that he would need a lot of water. The river was closer but there were a lot of people camping on the riverbank to evade the summer heat. There would be fewest people near the reservoir near the foot of Mt. Palgong.

The second underground floor of Eungsim-je. The bunker Mu Ssang designed in case of emergency became Kamdoong's abode. Kamdoong could only absorb the elements in the air and sunshine to energize himself in his original form. During the day, he concealed himself and absorbed the elements and sunlight on the raised wooden floor in Eungsim-je. He then turned them to energy at night underground. Only Jin Soon knew the true identity of the mountain-cat-sized cat that showed up occasionally.

"What?"

Kamdoong, sprawled in the most comfortable position in the world, stood abruptly. His scouter caught a familiar signal. His neural network compared the signal through his memory which measured at hundreds of billions of exabytes.

"Heca? This can't be!"

Kamdoong imitated the exclamation humans uttered when they were surprised. It had been 15,000,000 years since the last trace of Concretus disappeared. The sea and the land switched places. The crust was reassembled several times. With coincidences over coincidences, he could survive for eons but to think another being could manage to do it, was unimaginable. Also, Heca was a being whose consciousness and form was separate from each other. Without a certain signal and energy waves, it was basically a lifeless object. There was no way that the signal and energy waves required to awaken Heca would remain on Earth.

Kamdoong rested his chin on his front paw and closed his eyes. His scouter scanned four kilometers around. The signal of Heca that he momentarily detected disappeared without a trace. Mu Ssang had run out of the scanning range with Ange Sikager.

If he were a human, he would have considered his feeling as a glitch but Kamdoong was no human. His scouter could never glitch and detect something that isn't there.

"If the shell of Heca goes on a rampage, the world will be a mess!"

Kamdoong was beginning to worry. Heca's shell, with its collective intelligence, has a limited ability to learn but without its consciousness, only the hostility was amplified maximally. After Monk Dae Woo's severe disciplining, Kamdoong was now able to feel concern for social unrest. He was becoming human.

"Could it be?"

Kamdoong lowered his scouter's parameters to a human level. No one knew what Heca's shell would look like after eons had passed.

'What is this?'

There was a human attached to the wall of Eungsim-je. Three a.m. Wall. Human. Unstable brain waves. Kamdoong's neural network considered all variables and concluded the being to be a thief. A thief, at Eastern Swordsman's abode? Kamdoong was no human but still could feel anger. Kamdoong melted into the atmosphere.

"Did he save three thousand heavenly maidens in his past life? Why are there so many women? Also, why is his house so vast?"

Jang Pal Soo, with a night goggle on, complained. It has been a fortnight since he snooped on "the French Cultural Institute." He was ordered by Jeong Pil-su to snoop on the building. Jeong Pil-su had told him to do the task on his own and report when something suspicious happens. In organized crime, "on one's own" was the most maddening phrase. It didn't mean "I trust you." It meant "You are responsible if anything goes wrong." To avoid such a fate, he needed to be careful.

"He joined the syndicate much later than me!"

Jang Pal Soo sneaked around the vast manor for a fortnight as his clothes got soaked in dew. The one who orders only needed to move their mouth. The one who carries out the order needed to move their brain and limbs. Jeong Pil-su joined the syndicate 10 years later than him. Jeong Pil-su, toiling in the field, had to feel resentful. He felt like showing his spy ID and investigating them properly but this house was under the protection of France, which was a powerful country. If things got messy, his own life was at peril.

There were two kinds of spies. Officers weaved the intelligence network and analyzed the gathered information. Agents carried out the officers' orders in the field. Someone like Mu Ssang, who worked as both officer and agent, was called a consultant.

In the National Intelligence Service, officers had tenured positions but agents had to get their contracts renewed. Jang Pal Soo was an agent. If he didn't get bribes during the protest at the Sabuk coal mine, he wouldn't have ended up as an agent. He wouldn't have had to endure night dew when others were fast asleep. Jang Pal Soo didn't like many things about his current situation.

"It's not a cultural institute! That's a guise! It's a palace for that young bastard."

Jang Pal Soo took off his night goggle and rubbed his eyes. He had been monitoring them for a fortnight, but there was nothing extraordinary going on. In the building, there were only Councilor Park Mu Ssang and live-in "superintendents." There weren't that many Westerners paying visit either. The young bastard who still smelled of his mother's womb must be having the time of his life among the beautiful young women. An agent tasked with the national security of Korea, himself, was toiling in the dark. This was not a fair situation.

"It really is my friend's palace. On the other hand, you are in quite a pickle."

A low voice hit his eardrums from behind his back.

"What?"

Jang Pal Soo, startled, reflexively attempted to strike the source of the voice with his elbow. He was in his mid-40s, but his body was still versed in martial arts with daily practice. His elbow missed its target. At that precise moment, his temple was hit with a great blow.

'He's quite a hairy bastard!'

That was the last thought Jang Pal Soo registered before his consciousness faded.

"My sleeping friend shouldn't be disturbed. Humans need sufficient sleep to recharge. You shall be my toy tonight."

Kamdoong wound his tail around Jang Pal Soo's waist, lifted him up, and leaped elsewhere.

Mu Ssang had placed Ange Sikager on a rock near the perimeter of the reservoir and was waiting now. The heated Ange Sikager vibrated. Something interesting was going to happen. Mu Ssang, full of anticipation, didn't move and kept starting at Ange Sikager.

- Hey, friend! Where are you?

Kamdoong's telepathy resonated in his head.

- Why are you even asking? You can locate me.

- A force field is interfering with scanning. It's urgent.

- There is a reservoir six kilometers away, north by northwest of the house. I am on the upper right side of the reservoir.

- I got it.

The atmosphere vibrated. Kamdoong dropped from the thin air. Kamdoong hurled Ange Sikager into the reservoir. A stone was bound to sink in water.

"Is it something dangerous?"

Mu Ssang wasn't surprised at Kamdoong's sudden action. Mu Ssang's voice was calm. If Kamdoong had to act suddenly, he must have had his reason.