Black Badger - Chapter 79

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Black Badger ◈

Chapter 79: Happy Halloween! (3)

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I knew at once that we had reached the entrance to the slums.

Walker was standing there, giving off an overwhelming presence. He was wearing a black suit.

That monochrome appearance was really...

I probably should not get too close.

People carefully skirted around him.

“Sir.”

I bowed beside Shu, who was waving her hand.

“It’s been a while.”

“Let’s go.”

Walker did not bother with small talk.

Without a word, we entered a shadowy alley.

I could feel that we had entered a different district. Even the smell was different. A faint smell of urine and drugs. Rusted metal and foul garbage.

Several people sat near the walls, high on drugs with vacant eyes.

We passed them indifferently and wound through the narrow alleys.

I quietly followed behind Shu and Walker. It grew darker, and the smell of drugs became stronger. Signs began lighting up in eye-searing colors. Their flashing lights exposed the filthy ground, laundry hanging haphazardly from metal railings, garbage strewn across the ground, and empty syringes.

After passing all that, we found a brightly lit shop at the end of a dark, narrow alley.

I stared blankly at its neon sign, glowing blue and pink.

[Game Over : restart?]

That was a unique name.

Walker approached the shop on the first floor and opened its door.

“It’s cramped as hell.”

Walker looked like a gangster, and the flashy game shop was a truly bizarre visual match for him.

Still, he bent over and entered. Shu followed right after him, her face a little flushed with excitement as she hurried inside.

I completely understood how she felt. Standing in front of a game shop made my heart suddenly race too.

I should buy that series and take home an armful of other games.

Happily, I entered the shop.

A space where I felt I could be crushed to death beneath all the different games unfolded before me. There was a counter in the middle. The shop owner sat behind the transparent glass counter in a tank top.

A flashy skull tattoo covered his left forearm.

The tattoo’s owner recoiled when he saw Walker.

“Why are you back here?”

We all stopped at the owner’s words.

Walker, who had been staring down at him, answered.

“Who are you?”

“What do you want to know for? I just live around here.”

“What do you want to know why I’m back for?”

The owner with jet-black cropped hair pressed his lips tightly together.

That did nothing to erase the fear in his eyes. Walker seemed to have quite the reputation around here. They had said he used to be a famous back-alley fixer.

The regular beep-beep of game sound effects filled the cramped store.

Ignoring their exchange entirely, Shu walked up to the owner.

“Do you have the From-letter series?”

The owner, who had been hugging himself as he watched Walker warily, turned his head.

He narrowed his eyes at Shu.

“What series?”

“The games titled From, followed by a single letter. I heard you had them.”

“Oh, those.”

The owner picked up the cigarette pack on the counter.

“I sold it a few months ago.”

“What?”

I asked loudly without meaning to.

The owner did not look surprised. He put a cigarette between his lips. His eyes slid toward me without interest.

“I said I sold it.”

“To who?”

“What do you need to know that for...”

Crash!

The glass counter shattered with an enormous noise.

I gaped at Walker, who had smashed it to pieces.

He was looming over the owner. He had definitely broken the counter to threaten him.

Was it really okay to do this to an ordinary person?

“Ba, Ba, Badger...”

“You said you lived around here.”

The owner hugged himself and stammered, but Walker did not so much as blink.

The huge man bent down, curling his body forward.

The owner recoiled, pulling his upper body back as far as he could. Anyone would think a gangster was threatening the owner of a shop in his territory.

Did I not need to stop this?

As I wrestled with myself, Walker spoke in a low whisper.

“You must have some sense if you can run a decent game shop in a place like this.”

“I didn’t do anything...”

“It’s simple.”

He took a bundle of cash from his inner pocket, held it out to the owner, and smiled darkly.

“This is for repairs.”

The shop owner’s eyes went wide.

Walker set the bundle of cash in front of the man, whose mouth was opening and closing soundlessly, then gave his shoulder a couple of pats.

“You do have some sense, right?”

The game that had been sold was titled From A.

It had been sold at the end of August. More precisely, at eight in the evening on August 30.

We huddled around the CCTV footage the owner showed us, now in a good mood after receiving far more than enough money for repairs. Fewer than thirty copies of each From-letter game had been released, and the series was popular among enthusiasts because its storylines were generally solid.

There were five games in total: A, E, I, R, and K.

A and E were the rarest, with perhaps fewer than ten surviving copies each. The owner had put an absurd markup on FROM A. It was so high that even serious enthusiasts would click their tongues, curse, and leave.

Thanks to that, it had remained unsold in the shop for quite a while.

Then, two months ago, it had been sold to a mysterious person caught on CCTV.

The buyer wore a hood and mask, curled up like a cat. They did not speak. They typed messages on their phone and showed them to the owner to communicate.

Suspicious.

“Probably a woman. Their hair was long.”

“Looking at the build, I think it was a man...”

“Gender doesn’t matter.”

Walker cut off the owner and Shu’s muttering at once.

He narrowed his eyes at the screen, then straightened from his bent posture.

“We can’t identify them from this. I’ll keep their distinguishing features in mind. That way, if we run into them, I’ll be able to pick them out immediately.”

“Ah, thank you.”

I had not expected him to care about the game.

I had thought he would just watch us buy games and then get to the point.

We had not even properly explained to Walker why we had come to the game shop. Shu said she had never told Walker about the From-letter games. He did not know why the games were unusual.

So why was he helping us search, even smashing the counter and paying out of his own pocket?

Anyway, I bowed and thanked him. Walker looked down at me, moving only his eyes.

Meeting his gaze, I explained.

“I didn’t think you would pay this much attention to something that isn’t important.”

“It is important.”

Walker objected in a low voice.

His eyes glinted in their deep sockets.

“To you.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I like games, and I want to collect this series... But why did you call for me, sir?”

Seeing him help like this, I could not hold back the question any longer. Shu, who had been watching the CCTV footage, turned toward us too.

A few steps away, the shop owner hummed as he swept up broken glass.

Walker was quiet for a moment before he spoke.

“The Old Spider knows you.”

The shop owner dropped the broom and dustpan.

But Shu and I did not understand Walker’s words.

“A spider?”

“That’s a strange nickname.”

“That information broker?”

The shop owner explained in a hoarse voice.

Still frozen in the pose of having dropped the broom and dustpan, he stared with wide eyes.

“That legendary information broker is still alive?”

“The Old Spider is an information broker?”

Shu asked in the same tone someone would use to ask about the company lunch menu.

“Why would a famous back-alley information broker know my junior?”

Exactly.

I was touched that Shu had called me her junior, but I blinked at the questions crowding my mind. Judging by the shop owner’s reaction, the Old Spider seemed famous.

No one came to mind. Maybe it was because I had heard a nickname instead of a real name.

Walker watched my expression closely.

“Is the Old Spider looking for me?”

I met the unreadable gaze of the former fixer.

“I have no idea who that is, though...”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

There was a strange metallic note in my senior’s low voice.

“Since we can’t find the game for now, today we’ll go see the Old Spider...”

Thud.

A strange sound rang out.

Everyone in the shop turned toward the bulletproof window looking out into the grimy alley.

Blood and pieces of flesh were smeared across the glass.

Eyeballs and organs too.

“What?”

I stammered as I looked at the corpse, shattered as if it had been hit by a grenade.

“What is this...? What...? There wasn’t even any particular sound...”

“A creature?”

Shu sprang up from her chair.

But Walker and the shop owner were not surprised.

They did not even move. They only looked calmly at the window. Amazingly, the owner’s eyes were indifferent as he looked at the corpse plastered across the glass.

The shop owner cursed at the window, which was covered in an eyeball, shredded skin, blood, and part of an organ.

“Half-baked bastards.”

“They have an unofficial enhanced body.”

Walker explained bluntly.

“Sometimes people can’t withstand an enhanced body, and their bodies burst like balloons.”

Ah.

Was that what Ro had meant by illegal surgery on my first day?

Stunned, I stared at the window as the remains slid down it.

The corpse was gruesome. If we opened the shop door and stepped outside, the reek of raw flesh would hit us.

Even now, the fishy scent of death was drifting inside.

Why would people get illegal procedures when the side effects were this severe? Unable to stand it anymore, I frowned at the corpse. It was clear that neither those performing illegal procedures nor those receiving them were thinking normally.

Later, I should ask Yoon or Ami about this.

And about that back-alley information broker too...

The moment I thought that, heavy footsteps shook the shop.

Thudthudthudthudthud!

Countless people ran through the dark alley.

Urgent footsteps battered my ears. I watched terrified people run past the alley beyond the game shop, scattering in every direction.

They were all dressed alike.

Pale-faced, they were fleeing from something.

What now?

Judging by their expressions and clothes, this did not seem like a Halloween event.

And why were their footsteps so heavy?

Before the terrified crowd disappeared from sight, Walker moved first.