"Then the collateral will be the SH Soft headquarters building. The credit review raised no issues, so we'll proceed with the ten-billion-won loan as planned."
"Thank you."
As I picked up the documents from the desk, the branch manager offered a genial smile and dipped his head.
It was almost comical—watching a man grin as he strolled into the abyss—but I returned the smile without letting a trace of amusement show. No doubt it was the same expression he had worn every time he pushed another victim into the fires of purgatory.
"Then I'll be on my way."
"Safe travels, sir!"
Escorted all the way to the entrance by courteous farewells, I stepped outside at an unhurried pace.
This one had paid well.
Even after deducting the money spent on information, operational costs, and the bribes handed out to collaborators, I would clear seven billion won. A respectable margin.
Not that I was elated. I'd made profits like this many times before. I was long past the stage of riding emotional highs and lows over a single job.
Outside, I checked three separate times to ensure I wasn't being tailed, then pulled out a burner phone.
As always, the man who handled the laundering answered in a buoyant tone.
"Oh, I was just thinking you'd be calling soon. Everything go smoothly?"
"About seven billion. Take your usual cut and process the rest."
"Damn, you're something else. How do you squeeze that much cash out of people without raising a single eyebrow?"
"They're built that way. They spend their lives feeding off other people's money. It never crosses their minds that someone might feed off them."
It was a simple truth—one that had never failed me.
There was no point dressing it up. Call it what it was: fraud. I'd been in the game ten years now. After the fumbling early years when I'd been little more than a rookie, I had never once let a marked target slip through my fingers.
And every target I marked shared one trait without exception.
They were swindlers themselves—greed swollen to their throats.
Call it cannibalism among the same species. Garbage devouring garbage to grow larger.
"I'll handle it like always. Check the designated accounts later. Withdraw on schedule."
"You think this is my first rodeo?"
There was no grand moral justification behind targeting other con men or legal sharks skating along the edge of crime.
I was an orphan from the start. No tragic backstory about parents ruined by fraud. No vigilante fantasy about making the world better. I knew what I was. I had no desire to dress it up as some Dark Knight crusade.
The reason was simpler.
All I had to do was dangle the right bait—something that looked like easy prey—and they lunged without hesitation, eager to skin me alive.
So I skinned them first.
And when their money disappeared? They couldn't go crying to the police. How would they explain that the funds they'd obtained through fraud were stolen through fraud? They'd end up in handcuffs themselves before anyone listened.
Private retaliation was a risk, of course. But I took meticulous precautions. Identities compartmentalized. Faces concealed. Layers upon layers of indirection.
In truth, aside from the man on the other end of this call, there was hardly anyone who could even reach me.
"So who's next? Got someone in mind?"
"I do. Chairman of a private school foundation. Built his fortune through some pretty vicious schemes."
"So you're going to deliver righteous justice?"
"Righteous justice, my ass. Call it mirror therapy."
"Mirror therapy? The way you do it sounds more… creative."
I couldn't deny that.
Even the greediest con artists avoided targets that looked even slightly suspicious. Making yourself appear like the perfect mark—so convincingly that they lowered all defenses—required mastery of the craft.
Boasting aside, there wasn't a trick in this field I hadn't studied or practiced. From sleight-of-hand worthy of a professional gambler to phishing, Ponzi schemes, stock manipulation—every major discipline. I'd reached a master's level in all of it.
There had been times I'd posed as a naïve professional—an accountant, a lawyer—so I'd studied finance and law thoroughly. Once, I'd even needed to impersonate a history professor, so I memorized modern history front to back.
Fortunately, I had a memory that rarely forgot anything I'd seen. Memorization was the easy part.
With skills like these, I could have built an honest career and lived comfortably.
But once you step into a swamp like this, there's no clean way out. And truth be told, I had long since stopped wanting one.
I ended the call and was about to celebrate at my usual cocktail bar when his voice crackled through again.
"Hey, before you go drinking—how about a job I picked up? Guy stirring up trouble in China. Big one. We could carve him up properly. Ten percent info fee."
"How big is 'big'? Minimum."
"Two hundred billion, at least. You speak Chinese and English like a native, so blending in won't be a problem."
Chinese and English—and passable French and Spanish for everyday conversation. If someone dug deep enough, cracks would show, but on the surface I always looked impeccable. That was what con men did best: sell a flawless exterior.
I'd done overseas jobs before. If the number was that large, there was no reason to refuse.
After reviewing the materials he sent, I found no obvious red flags. I sent confirmation.
Three days later, unaware of what awaited me, I boarded a flight to China.
They say the greatest cause of a successful man's downfall is complacency.
Even the most cautious grow lax after repeated victories.
I never imagined that cliché would apply to me.
"Yoon Sun-woo. That right?"
Three men approached me the moment I exited the airport.
The instant I heard my name, I tried to bolt without looking back. They were faster.
The flat tone. The cold eyes. Their purpose was obvious.
But who had sent them?
I couldn't recall fleecing anyone powerful enough to pull something like this. Unless…
If I'd had just a few more seconds to think, I might have figured it out.
Instead, strength drained from my body. My consciousness blurred.
I'd never experienced general anesthesia, but I imagined it felt something like this.
When I opened my eyes, the airport was gone. In its place stood a desolate, abandoned mine—chill and cavernous.
I tried to lunge to my feet and run. My body refused.
As I struggled to force sensation into my legs, a familiar Korean voice echoed.
"Oh, looks like the bastard's awake."
The same man who'd called my name earlier.
They had clearly brought me somewhere remote. Which meant what came next—
"Listen, you've got the wrong guy. I'm not Yoon Sun-woo. I'm Lee Hyun-woo—"
"You think we didn't check your passport, idiot?"
"Then there's been a misunderstanding. Let's talk. Who sent you? Let me speak to him."
"You? Don't be ridiculous. If we rile up the Vice Chairman any further, it won't be you taking the fall. It'll be us."
Vice Chairman?
I had never knowingly touched anyone with a title like that.
Was this truly a mistake?
No. Anyone capable of orchestrating this wouldn't act on a simple misunderstanding.
"…Did I unknowingly touch the Vice Chairman's money?"
The man smirked.
"Sharp. The 15 billion you skimmed last time? The idiot holding the Vice Chairman's slush funds moved it without permission. Caused a real mess."
"I didn't know it was his! Fine—if I return it with interest. Twenty billion. Let me call him—"
"You're missing the point. You think twenty billion is the issue? Because of that idiot, the paper companies were exposed. The slush funds parked there are about to evaporate. Can you repay all of that?"
How was I supposed to know the man I targeted had backing like that?
I could guess what had happened to the fool who lost the money.
The problem was that the fallout had splashed onto me.
"Still, you hid yourself well," he continued. "We only found you because we dragged your laundering guy in and squeezed him. Otherwise, we'd never have seen your face. Do you know how much heat we took for the delay?"
So they hadn't traced me—they'd broken someone in my chain.
I should have been more careful there.
I had assumed I was fleecing a harmless mark, not drinking from a poisoned chalice. But no matter how I spun it, this was my lapse.
Success dulls the senses.
And here I was, realizing it far too late.
"Wait. Let's think this through. I can't repay everything—but I have something better. Do you know how much I've accumulated? Fully laundered. Hundreds of billions, clean. I'll give you all of it. Report that the matter's settled."
"You think we wouldn't want that? If we took your deal, what do you think happens next? We'd be the ones kneeling here, begging the next guy for mercy."
"You idiots—no, listen. I can arrange identities. Clean slates. You don't understand what I'm offering. If I die, that money disappears!"
"We'll collect it from your laundering partner. The Vice Chairman has a temper. We don't have a choice."
I wanted to scream, Who the hell is this Vice Chairman? but darkness crept over me again before I could.
"At least we have a bit of conscience. We'll anesthetize you before we finish it. You won't wake up again. Try to live better in your next life."
To think that at the very end I'd be lectured by hired killers about morality.
If this was karma for stealing from other swindlers, then why were they all still alive?
Even if I'd been caught and tried, it wasn't a capital crime.
Was I really going to die because some conglomerate heir's slush fund got exposed?
I tried to bite my tongue to stay conscious, but the darkness swallowed everything.
Without even a proper final word, my last stray thought in this world dissolved into nothing.