NOVEL ONLINE FREE C38
#38. Boss, Try Spending a Bit More Money
Cheon Taewoo is the CEO of Cheongang Group and the head of Cheongang Special City.
In the original work, he puts a bell around Last’s neck and manipulates him, adding a whole sweet potato’s worth of complications to the story.
This enraged Nazha, who revealed herself as a first-generation enhanced human and declared war on Cheongang, promising to lay it to waste—that was the beginning of Chapter 2, probably.
Thinking about him somehow made one corner of my heart ache.
Perhaps because Chapter 2 ended with Last killing Nazha by piercing her chest, without realizing her true identity.
[Inner malice feels bitter]
Though I had no reason to feel sad, it was probably because of this guy.
It seemed that her emotions were affecting me as well.
Hmm, yes. You don’t like that person, do you?
Rejoice. I also have a debt to settle with that bastard.
“Excuse me~ Just a moment.”
I cracked my neck once with a series of pops and approached Cheon Taewoo.
Cheon Taewoo was an especially nasty specimen among the opportunists commonly found in society.
He was a merchant who could precisely calculate which trends to ride and when to maximize his profits. Those around him often referred to him by derogatory names like “parachute appointee” or “miser.”
Cheon Taewoo believed these were all slander from people who envied him.
I created my own opportunities, I created my own trends, so why am I called a parachute appointee, why am I called a miser?
They’re just upset that I, who was once merely a board member, have become a power wielder who can control the city at will.
Perhaps because of this, Cheon Taewoo tried to find the causes of recent incidents and accidents in external factors rather than within himself.
In fact, this was somewhat accurate.
He had simply wanted to become a successful businessman and had completed an enhanced human research sample he had picked up by chance.
Who could have imagined that this would snowball to such an extent?
Now that he had handed over the CEO position to his daughter, Cheon Taewoo felt like resting a bit.
Though Cheongang Group received all sorts of contempt and scorn normally, it was indeed Cheon Taewoo’s acumen that had developed the city to this extent in just over ten years.
Anyone would be tired after running nonstop for over a decade.
But why is it that misfortune seems to be continuous? Somehow nothing seemed to go right after quitting as CEO.
His preciously raised daughter, upon inheriting the CEO position, practically kicked him out, saying her father had no business sense and should go kill time somewhere else.
When he tried to attract the attention of young and pretty influencers with his abundant money, they blocked him, saying that impersonating a business executive was a serious crime.
When he tried to make videos himself and accessed Channel Arc, he found his IP address had been coded with access restriction.
When he briefly visited a casino to relieve his accumulating stress, he lost 1 billion won in an instant.
It really wasn’t easy for things to go this wrong.
But as they say, even a mouse hole has its sunny day—wasn’t a beautiful woman with a lovely smile approaching him?
Of course, this woman was Chae Yu-ha, transformed by Nazha’s optical camouflage visual tracker but that didn’t matter to Cheon Tae-woo, whose brain was pickled with stress.
Cheon Taewoo instantly became interested in the woman before him and began to listen to what she was saying.
She was saying that this was her first time in such a place and she’d like to have “someone knowledgeable” beside her to show her around.
Someone knowledgeable! How sweet was the resonance of this simple phrase!
Cheon Taewoo, whose male desire for recognition had been dried up due to continuous stress, immediately accepted the proposal.
The challenge was the slot machine.
She was clearly a first-timer, as her skills were even worse than his own, which were limited to occasional entertainment visits during his executive days.
Just as frustration was creeping up and he felt the urge to give advice…
“Could you perhaps demonstrate for me?”
The smiling woman asked at just the right timing.
Cheon Taewoo promptly sat down and continued spinning the slot machine she had been using.
And what do you know, the jackpot that he had never seen or heard before struck, right after the woman spoke to him!
The woman cheered with a “Wow!”
Cheon Taewoo’s mood improved along with hers.
Yes, days like this should also exist in life!
Playing with less than 500 million won, which was pocket change, but being able to enjoy it this much was a great deal! Dopamine surged in Cheon Tae-woo’s brain.
At that moment, a murmured comment reached his ears.
“Since we bet with minimum credits, the payout isn’t that high…”
What? Minimum credits? I’m Cheon Taewoo, I have my pride. Should I be satisfied with a jackpot won on minimum credits? With his competitive spirit provoked, Cheon Tae-woo directly inserted his own money into the slot machine.
The thought was that if a jackpot had occurred once, couldn’t it happen a second time?
Of course, the slot machine did not produce any more jackpots after that.
Whether it was due to machine manipulation by the casino or perhaps a scheme from someone nearby, who knows.
Cheon Taewoo, increasingly stimulated by the woman’s expression of growing disappointment, kept spinning the slot machine endlessly and so the amount that Cheon Taewoo lost at the casino today was a whopping 1.1 billion won.
His daughter, working hard at Cheongang Tower, would have a fit if she knew.
“Damn it!”
-Bang bang!
Cheon Tae-woo, stressed to the extreme, pounded on the slot machine to vent.
The guards approached and surrounded him.
“Let go! Do you know who I am!”
Cheon Taewoo exited the stage gloriously while uttering a common third-rate villain’s line.
At this time, if one were to look at Chae Yu-ha’s expression as she stood still in the same spot, she was smiling maliciously. ‘That’s what you get for making things difficult by causing a scene in court.’
At the last moment, such a voice seemed to brush past Cheon Taewoo’s ear.
Meanwhile, at the detective agency [We’ll Do It] in Cheongang’s downtown area, various requests kept coming in due to Last’s rising reputation.
There were so many trivial requests that they were considering rejecting some of them.
“Find my pet robot…skip. Help me access my game account…skip. Find lost items…skip.”
“No!! I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but we’re not an errand center! Why do they send these kinds of requests!!”
Han Yu-jin and Han Cheol-ho shouted with tired eyes wide open.
At this, Jin Hyun, who could be called the original cause of the detective agency’s trouble, looked out the window at the distant scenery as if avoiding responsibility.
Thanks to his newfound fame, the agency’s previously tight income had become quite sustainable. The crime rate in the downtown area had also decreased exponentially. So, even if things got a bit busy, it seemed fine, but…
Hyun kept his thoughts to himself, thinking that if he mentioned this now, he’d be beaten up by Yu-jin.
Just then, Hyun noticed something familiar outside the window.
It had a similar appearance to an S-class hero whom he had met two weeks ago on Unhwa’s airship.
“Hmm?”
But looking at its movement path, wasn’t it heading toward the detective agency?
Yu-jin had advised that if there was something he didn’t know, he shouldn’t struggle alone but ask those around him.
Following Yu-jin’s teaching, Hyun took out his phone and sent a message to Handsome.
-Knock knock.
A somewhat old-fashioned, crude knocking sound rang out.
In place of the two busy people receiving requests, Hyun, who had prepared in advance, approached the entrance.
“Who is it?”
“…”
There was no sound.
Hyun flung the door open, thinking Athena would be there anyway.
But instead of a 3-meter walking suit, there was a tall, expressionless woman with a slender figure.
“…Who are you, really?”
Hyun asked, quite taken aback.
Then, a small-sized vitaloid peeked out from behind the woman.
“I am Kilos! And this person here is the S-class hero, Miss Athena!”
“…Athena?”
Hyun looked at the woman before him once more.
That massive walking suit had been piloted by this delicate woman?
They say appearances aren’t everything, but this is a bit…
“Who’s there?”
Yu-jin similarly peeked her head out.
After confirming the presence of Athena and Kilos at the front door, Yu-jin blinked her eyes several times before guiding the mysterious visitors inside the detective agency.
“So, what brings an S-class hero from Unhwa to a small detective agency in the downtown area?”
Hyun asked while pouring tea and offering it to Athena.
Then Athena, who had been fixing her gaze on Hyun since earlier, answered in a soft voice.
“I’m…interested in you…”
At that moment, the detective agency was turned upside down.