Chapter 72 – The Vault

In my previous life, I worked at a construction company here in Daejeon.

Though not a major corporation, it was regarded as a solid local company.

While I learned the company’s reality over time, when I first joined, I thought it was an ordinary construction company.

However, that ordinary work life changed as time passed and I got promoted.

Working too hard for promotion caught the president’s eye.

As a result, I got called to directors’ and president’s work, and learned the truth about this company.

The company known as a local business turned out to be a yakuza organization that had gone legitimate.

The president was a gang boss, and some directors were gang executives.

They told people who learned this that they’d cleaned up and were no longer involved with that side, but having been dragged into work multiple times, I knew otherwise.

Rather, the company was deeply connected with gangsters.

The new gang boss was the president’s brother who met him weekly, and money and information from the back alleys kept flowing.

Being able to win contracts steadily even when other construction companies struggled was due to the organization’s power controlling the region,

And passing every regulatory inspection safely was due to the entertainment and money they provided.

Of course, I wasn’t directly involved in such things, but I saw the dirty side.

Naturally, I thought about quitting several times.

But I couldn’t quit easily.

I hadn’t directly participated in crimes, and the company itself was an ordinary construction business.

Moreover, when I considered changing jobs, I was already too old to get hired elsewhere.

It was impossible to work in the same field here in Daejeon.

Actually, the most important reason was the good salary.

Though I later learned why the salary was high, I couldn’t give it up and start over when I was thinking of marrying Seo Eun.

I spent several years thinking ‘just a little more, just a little more.’

I eventually quit before dying in an accident, but without the accident, I might still be working at this company.

The president who seemed so scary then…

The president growling before me now looked scary in a completely different way.

Come to think of it, like the zombified president, the suited corpse holding a pistol was Director Ahn.

He was the smartest and most capable among the gangsters coming to work, so the president trusted him most.

I did many tasks he assigned because of that.

He was gentlemanly for a gangster, perhaps why he died in neat attire even as a gangster.

And another, the one who died holding a rifle was the gangster brother to whom the president handed over the organization when starting the company.

Even when I quit the company due to an accident, they didn’t seem to get along well…

Could they have actually shot at each other here?

But seeing inside the vault, it was worth shooting over.

The vault visible through the cut wall gleamed golden even in this gray world.

Grrrk, grrrk.

The president was trying hard to approach me with my sword stuck in his neck.

Though waving his hands and moving his feet earnestly, it wasn’t easy to move against this thick greatsword.

“Still, he’s getting closer bit by bit.”

I quietly clicked my tongue watching the president’s approaching hand.

On the president’s arm reaching toward me were bite marks.

Seeing the teeth marks on his arm, I could understand what had happened.

When the zombie outbreak occurred, the president must have rushed here with his brothers to take the gold.

But they must have fought after reaching the vault.

Either the gang boss got greedy, or the president struck first.

Either way, they ended up shooting at each other, and zombies must have swarmed in hearing the gunshots.

Then while fighting the incoming zombies, the president got bitten, and thinking only of his own survival, must have fled into this vault.

Though my thoughts could be wrong, knowing the president and gangsters, it probably wasn’t far from my guess.

I greeted the president I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Good to see you. Though there were many hard and painful things, I don’t have major complaints since you didn’t press responsibility for the accident and handled workers’ compensation well. Well, even if I had complaints, it’s already been decades for me so I’ve half forgotten.”

When even feelings of love had been erased, small grudges weren’t even memorable.

Besides, even if such things happened, I planned to forget everything from today.

“As expected, you were right, president. This much gold bullion isn’t an amount one person could gather alone.”

The gold bullion piled behind the president wasn’t an amount a normal jewelry store, no, even a normal wealthy person could gather.

From the mountain of gold bars to the neatly stacked gold bullion beside it.

It wasn’t tens of billions but hundreds of billions, possibly reaching a trillion won worth.

“With the market in chaos now, it can’t be converted to money.”

Seeing the gold piled behind, I could understand why the president entered the vault alone and locked the door at the last moment.

“Finding this place was all thanks to you, president. Though they were just fragments dropped in drinking sessions, when pieced together, it was quite remarkable information.”

The people the president met back then weren’t just company business partners and his gangster brother.

He frequently met with Daejeon’s influential figures.

Though I only accompanied him a few times, I could pick up bits of conversation each time.

Combining those collected stories, I learned the president’s real job.

He was the real gang boss and president of a solid local construction company, but he had an even more important role.

As it turned out, the president was the private vault for Daejeon’s influential figures.

He was the vault keeper who laundered and managed underground funds of influential figures avoiding taxes and legal nets.

Of course, even knowing this in my previous life, there was nothing I could do.

I couldn’t report something involving all of Daejeon’s influential figures, nor could I go around digging for where the vault was.

Even knowing, I couldn’t have done anything.

It was something I’d erased from memory and hadn’t recalled until coming to this world, but after being left in this world, it came back to mind.

Actually, a significant part of why I insisted on coming to Daejeon was wanting to find the vault.

“Honestly, I didn’t think I could find it. Even after luckily getting government documents, I just planned to look while doing other things. But there it was, this pawnshop building.”

A building still registered under the president’s name who had erased his gangster past.

Plus, the building was renovated at the time the president said he’d found a storage place.

“If the renovated building hadn’t changed from before, that would be strange. If planning to hide a vault, you should have expanded instead.”

If the world hadn’t ended, there’d be no need to worry, but in this world, someone unexpected like me ended up finding it.

Grrrk, grrrk.

Perhaps angered by my words, the president struggled more than before.

Thanks to that, his outstretched arm came right up to my face and finally touched it.

Thwack!

I clicked my tongue softly looking at the president’s head resting on the sword.

“If you charge like that, you’ll only get cut off. I was enjoying talking with someone I knew from my previous life after so long… What a shame.”

Perhaps because I could talk comfortably after so long, I spoke like my previous life personality.

My speech pattern returned to the old days and it was fun, but still felt strange.

Maybe because I’d changed from my previous life personality, it felt like acting in a play.

I shook my head and placed the zombie head on the body lying on the floor.

It was time to return to reality. I cleaned the sword and entered the vault.

Though it was a gray world without light, I could feel the gold shining.

I could have just put the gold in my pouch right away, but I stood there waiting for my companions to come down.

Having found the vault, it was time to tell my companions.

Shortly after, my companions came down with makeshift torches and were greatly surprised seeing the gold bullion and bars in the vault.

Unlike Zahina who was just amazed at the amount of gold, Hoffman and Yerim gaped at the piled gold.

“Good heavens. What is all this? Did back alley pawnshops have this much gold?”

Of course not.

After a moment, the companions who were surprised at the gold all looked at me.

“Are you going to tell us now how you found this place?”

“I’m ready to hear it too.”

Zahina’s eyes sparkled looking at me after Hoffman’s words.

Unlike the two looking at me with expectant eyes, Yerim asked me with both hands on her ears.

“But am I allowed to hear too? If it’s something I shouldn’t hear, I’ll keep my ears covered. By the way, how do you block sound with mana?”

Though she said that, she probably wanted to hear too.

I made her lower her hands.

I was planning to tell everyone anyway.

However, I wanted to get one promise.

“Still, I’d like you to keep it secret for safety. Everyone please swear on your mana to keep the secret.”

“Must be quite an important story. Let’s do that.”

“I’d keep the secret even without mana binding, but I’ll swear on my mana.”

Unlike Hoffman who showed no outward change, Zahina’s whole body briefly glowed with a soft light when swearing.

Seeing that, Yerim seemed scared.

“Um… What happens if you break a mana oath? Do you die or lose your mana? Then I don’t want to hear.”

Hoffman laughed loudly at Yerim’s words.

“Haha, it’s not like that. You just feel uncomfortable with mana sometimes if you break the promise. Like mana making you remember breaking the promise? They say clerics used to prevent breaking contracts with holy power in the old days, but that’s closer to legend.”

That’s all I knew too.

Before coming here, that’s all I had used it for too.

But after coming to this world, mana oaths became something slightly different for me.

My enhanced mana detection became able to determine if someone broke their oath.

However, since I hadn’t confirmed this, I couldn’t say it yet.

“Be careful, I might be able to tell if you break the oath.”

“Haha, if that’s true, Sir Knight could become this world’s lie detector.”

I brought it up like a joke instead, but Hoffman didn’t believe me.

I couldn’t tell what Zahina was thinking, and Yerim didn’t seem to care.

“Then I’ll swear on my mana too. I’ll keep Sir Knight’s secret!”

The moment she finished speaking, Yerim’s body glowed too.

“Wow… Amazing, mana really moves.”

After everyone made their oaths, I told others my secret for the first time in this life.

I told them about my previous life, my life before dying.