Chapter 23
Delivery Service (1)
A woman stood in front of the workshop.
A sharp-eyed lady in a white tank top, the hem of her long coat fluttering.
“Hm. So this is where you’ve been living?”
Phantom smiled with interest as she looked up at the entrance of the workshop.
“Ha, you said it would be enough? What gave you the confidence to act so sure of yourself?”
She recalled her meeting with Nam Sehyun.
When he had suddenly proposed a contract to her, she had scoffed at him.
Even at her dismissive reaction, he had only grinned.
— Phantom, it’s because I know why you won’t enter the rift.
Zap—
— What if I told you I could make something to solve that?
As if bewitched by those words, she had accepted his offer, and that had brought her here.
Nam Sehyun.
She already suspected he wasn’t an ordinary man.
Not only had he known about her [Shadow Step] ability upon first meeting, he had matched her on equal footing.
On top of that, he’d even flipped the supposed hostage Chae Inha’s role to strike from behind.
How many moves ahead was he seeing? That guy…
And now he even held the solution to a problem she had never revealed to anyone?
“Interesting.”
Phantom smirked and pushed the door open.
Through the wide iron doors, she saw walls lined with all kinds of weapons.
Had the clanging of hammers been added, it would’ve been the unmistakable atmosphere of a workshop…
But strangely, it was far too quiet.
“Phantom unni!”
Chae Inha came out to greet her.
“What brings you here?”
“Nam Sehyun called me. How have you been?”
“Yes! I even went on a trip.”
Inha beamed as she clasped Phantom’s hands.
Her pure, innocent demeanor with no hint of ill will softened Phantom’s expression.
After that kidnapping incident, they had spoken several times and quickly become friendly.
When Phantom asked if she wasn’t afraid of her—
— I believe you’re a good person. Because Sehyun doesn’t treat you as an enemy.
That had been Inha’s reply.
Was it purity, or simply carefreeness?
Had anyone ever shown her such unconditional trust?
It’s a little worrying, but I guess that guy will take good care of her. Anyway…
Shaking off needless sentiment, Phantom glanced around.
He was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Nam Sehyun?”
“Uh… well… um…”
“…Hm?”
She had barely stepped a few paces inside when an oppressive atmosphere struck her.
In one corner of the workshop, Sehyun sat slumped, looking hollow and drained.
Seeing that, Phantom felt as though the impressive image she’d built of him shattered in an instant.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Well…”
Just as Inha began to explain—
Thud—
“Hm?”
A soft, white furball bumped into Phantom’s leg.
“What’s this?”
She picked it up by the scruff of its neck.
It looked vaguely like a puppy…
“A bear?”
At that instant, Sehyun’s lifeless eyes lit up.
“A bear…?”
Then, twisting his body like a zombie, he shot up to his feet.
“A bear!!! That damned bear brat—!!!”
With murderous eyes, he lunged—not at Phantom, but at the furball she was holding.
— Kiiiuuuung—!!!
The cub whimpered in fear.
Thud! Crash!
Sehyun flew back into the wall after a casual kick from Phantom.
“Ah, sorry. You came at me so suddenly, it was instinct.”
— Kkiwoong!!
The cub rubbed its head against Phantom’s chest like it was being affectionate.
“Wh-what is this thing…?”
A faint blush crept across Phantom’s face.
Meanwhile, Sehyun muttered darkly from where he’d been plastered against the wall.
“That bear brat… I’ll rip out its gallbladder.”
Phantom shot him a look full of disdain.
“What on earth is wrong with him?”
“Beats me…”
Later…
“Hehehe…”
Since returning from Russia, Sehyun hadn’t stopped grinning.
“Is it really that good?”
“Of course! This is a Chaotic Soulstone. This thing’s insane!”
The reason he’d tagged along to Randeloff’s rift wasn’t for the contract itself.
The deal didn’t require him to be there, but he wanted to personally see their raid succeed.
Never had he expected such a harvest.
“To think my luck would swing this far. Hahaha!!!”
After suffering so much in his previous life, wasn’t it about time fortune favored him?
[Chaotic Soulstone].
In rarity, it couldn’t even be compared to something like a Heatstone.
Though it had since fallen to a satellite-tier, it had once reached stellar-tier, even if only briefly.
If I’m lucky, maybe I can use this to partially recreate a black dwarf…
Difficult to achieve right away, but its properties made it perfect as a core material.
While Sehyun indulged in his wild ideas, Inha sat on a chair looking worried.
“But… will Woongi be alright?”
She fiddled with her fingers as she murmured.
“Woongi?”
“The cub.”
…That name. It sounded exactly like something you’d give after feeding it day after day.
She had even named it already—clearly, she was serious.
“He should still be inside the shadow. He must be scared…”
“He’s a bear, even if he’s young. It’s just like a cave in there, nothing to be afraid of.”
Though he nodded as if convinced, Inha kept fiddling anxiously with her hands.
“But still…”
“And it’s not even an animal people can raise. Bears rip people apart.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right…”
Seeing Inha’s saddened expression made Sehyun waver for a moment.
But he quickly erased that thought.
It was his role to sever such misplaced compassion.
Otherwise, she’d end up carrying unnecessary burdens.
Sometimes, one had to be firm.
Well, that aside—
“Hmm~ Where’s Phantom’s dagger again~?”
Humming, Sehyun slotted the dagger into his pocket watch cartridge and opened the shadow space.
But then—
“Wha—what the hell!!!”
With a shout close to a scream, he grabbed the cub by the scruff.
“Sehyun! What are you doing to Woongi—huh?”
Inha tilted her head when she saw the cub.
It was chewing on something.
Sehyun flipped the bear upside down and shook it roughly.
“Spit it out!! Spit it out, you brat!!!”
Gulp—
But the cub swallowed whatever it had been chewing.
The priceless Chaotic Soulstone of the Kraken.
“You… you damn bear brat!!!”
“Stop right there, you brat!!”
— Kkiwooooo!!!
As Sehyun chased the cub around in a frenzy, Phantom just stared with disbelief.
“…So that’s how he ended up like this?”
Anyone would think he’d gone insane, watching him hound the cub, only to collapse in despair when it squeezed itself into a corner.
“That bear brat… I’ll catch it if it’s the last thing I do… grrr…”
No, maybe he hadn’t despaired—maybe he’d simply given up being human.
“Enough of this nonsense. You called me, so state your business. I’m busy.”
“Phew… Fine. I’ll grill or boil that thing later.”
With a heavy sigh, Sehyun trudged over and held out his pocket watch.
“Charge it, same as last time.”
“So I can use my power through this, right?”
“It came in pretty handy.”
Phantom’s shadow-space ability was exceedingly useful.
Especially now, when Sehyun lacked soulstones to craft high-grade artifacts.
Right now, his best option was to mass-produce makeshift artifacts using his awakening power, then overwhelm with sheer volume.
For that, he needed a storage space.
He couldn’t just keep piling weapons into a car forever.
“Just when I thought I’d gotten some decent material…”
He glared at the corner where the bear cub hid.
“…a certain bear brat had to eat it.”
“Unfortunate, isn’t it.”
Phantom waved it off like it was none of her concern.
Sehyun growled.
“You think this is someone else’s problem? This seriously delays your contract fulfillment.”
In exchange for borrowing her power, he had promised to craft artifacts for Phantom.
Not that he’d ever intended to use that rare soulstone for her artifact, but still—the fact remained that valuable materials had been lost.
“Contract, huh… Do you remember the exact terms?”
Phantom took the pocket watch and infused it with stellar force.
The hand moved, and the cartridges for shadow-space filled one by one.
“I said, in exchange for lending my power, I’d take that fascinating item of yours.”
“Right, so the artifact—”
“I’m curious about that too, sure, but my real interest lies elsewhere.”
She finished charging and pressed the watch against his chest.
“What I want… is you.”
“…What—what did you just say, unni?”
Before Sehyun could react, Inha let out a shrill cry, eyes wide with shock.
Was it just his imagination, or was there a strange wariness in her flustered expression?
Meanwhile, Phantom smirked and set a file folder on the desk.
So that’s what she meant by “want”—she was talking about cooperation on a job.
“Don’t say things that cause misunderstandings. That startled me.”
With a sly grin, she patted his shoulder.
“Really, would I be stealing you away from Inha for any other reason? Dream on.”
“Yeah, I’d better. Definitely a nightmare.”
Sehyun chuckled dryly in reply.
Whack—!
He ignored Phantom’s light jab to his side and flipped through the file.
The client was a fairly well-known courier company figure in Korea.
Specifically, the manager in charge of their delivery automation project. Recently, they had attempted to deliver a package via self-driving vehicle.
But during transport, it had been hijacked by unknown assailants.
[I’d like it recovered intact if possible. But if not, ensure it does not fall into others’ hands.]
“…”
While Sehyun skimmed the documents, Phantom asked:
“What do you think?”
“What do I think? Clearly…”
Sehyun set down the file with a flat expression.
“This ‘package’ isn’t an ordinary package.”
“…If you realized that, there’s no need to explain further.”
Phantom was called a hitman in the underworld.
She wouldn’t be hired for something as trivial as ‘retrieving a parcel.’
The real question was—what was this package?
“It’s a person.”
“…What?”
“Just a hunch, of course.”
Sehyun reopened the file and studied the details carefully.
Nowhere did it explicitly say the cargo was a person.
But if he assumed Phantom’s guess was correct, little oddities began to stand out.
And if Phantom’s seasoned instincts said so, odds were high it was true.
“You could handle this on your own, so why drag me in?”
“If it was about destroying, I could. But I intend to save them at all costs.”
“Didn’t know you were so humanitarian.”
“Shut up.”
Well, even if it was strange, the terms weren’t bad.
All he had to do was help with the job.
But then—
“Wait a second.”
Something about Phantom’s confident tone nagged at him.
If she claimed she could destroy, that meant her powers weren’t entirely blocked.
Assuming the package was human, the only thing she couldn’t bring through shadow-space… was someone with stellar force.
Which meant she was certain the target was a Player.
“You… already know who the target is, don’t you? That’s why you’re set on saving them.”
“…”
This was exactly why she hated dealing with sharp guys.
Her eyes seemed to say as much.
