Chapter 3

Infinite Skill Copying with EX-Grade Interpretation Chapter 3

“The exchange is complete.”

Along with the employee's indifferent voice, a white paper envelope was held out to me.

A substantial weight pressed against my fingertips as I picked it up.

‘Heavy.’

It was nothing more than a bundle of paper, yet its weight felt so unfamiliar.

It was the pleasant weight of a stack of bills, something I had never experienced before in my life.

─Thud.

Through the slightly open gap in the envelope, I could see the crisp edges of banknotes.

Clean bills, neither stained like counterfeit money nor worn and tattered from the grease of countless hands. Even at a glance, there was more money than I could count.

It wasn't an enormous fortune that could turn my life upside down, but the fact that this was something I had earned through my own abilities rather than by picking up someone else's scraps filled my chest with warmth.

“Ha...”

Once again, I was overwhelmed with emotion. All the resentment and sorrow I had endured over the past several years surged up, to the point that I wanted to collapse right there and burst into tears.

I shoved the envelope deep inside my clothes and slowly left the exchange office.

‘First, I should eat a proper meal today.’

My stomach, which had been surviving on cup noodles and cheap triangular rice balls for days, was quietly screaming in protest.

Meat. Not old frozen meat, but proper meat cooked on a grill.

‘I should buy a decent potion to treat my wounds, too. And after that...’

My next plans began taking shape in my mind, one by one.

Pack my belongings and leave the dormitory. Find a cheap inn near the Tower, even if it's a shabby one. And then...

─Grab.

At that moment, a heavy weight settled on my shoulder.

The overpowering stench of stale cigarette smoke assaulted my nose, accompanied by a sticky warmth. I knew who it was without even looking back.

An endlessly irritating connection from my past, a touch that was all too fucking familiar.

“Well, look who it is! Yeonwoo, why haven't you been answering your calls? Your big brother was worried about you.”

It was the loan shark who regularly came to collect payments.

He casually wrapped an arm around my shoulders as though meeting an old friend and led me toward a corner.

But I knew. I knew how quickly that hand could tighten around my throat. And I knew what filthy desires lurked behind that friendly voice.

[Interpretation] displayed his true intentions as text.

[The ability ‘Interpretation’ is activating.]

[Target: Jo Cheolgu]

─True Intention: “I have to make sure the job is done and hand him over today.”

‘True intention? More importantly, it works... on people too?’

This was something I had never seen before.

An ability that originally only provided simple information about objects could now even reveal the true intentions behind someone's words.

‘Who would've thought proficiency was this important?’

But I only had a moment to think about it.

─Grab!

His footsteps naturally headed toward a deserted alley, a gloomy place where sunlight couldn't reach even in broad daylight.

For now, I followed without resisting.

Causing a commotion here wouldn't benefit me.

Besides, there was something I wanted to confirm.

The moment we entered the depths of the alley, his pleasantly smiling face twisted. The arm around my shoulders tightened, beginning to choke me.

“You little bastard. I told you to answer your calls every single time. You worthless piece of shit... Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused me today?”

─Thud.

He shoved me hard, sending my body flying backward.

My back slammed into the wall, and a dull pain spread through it.

The man leisurely took out a lighter.

─Click, click.

Sparks flew, and cigarette smoke washed over my face.

“Sure, calls? Sometimes you can't answer. Fine. So, what about your quota? You little bastard, you remember what happens if you can't pay it this time too, right?”

I silently met his gaze.

I knew how this man saw me.

A rat with nowhere to run. Prey he could devour whenever he pleased.

But.

“What a shame. Once they rip out your organs, there won't even be anywhere to bury you. Such a shame, really. Tormenting you was one of the few pleasures in my life. What am I supposed to do for fun now...?”

─Thud.

Instead of answering, I pulled out the envelope and threw it against his chest.

“Here. Your quota. This should be enough, right?”

“What? You little...”

“If you've got time to talk, why don't you check the amount? I brought enough that you won't have anything to complain about.”

I smiled openly at him, and after frowning for a moment, he slowly checked inside the envelope.

He flipped through the bills faster and faster until his hands eventually began trembling.

Before long, all color had drained from his face.

“What the... How...?”

“Well? Enough, right? That includes all your ridiculous interest.”

No matter how many times he checked, there was no way it could be insufficient.

Handing over my hard-earned money felt like absolute shit, but the thought that I would never have to see this unpleasant bastard's face again was actually refreshing.

More importantly.

“...This isn't supposed to happen.”

Something had clearly been wrong with him for a while now.

He muttered those words quietly.

A man who should have been happy to receive his money was instead chewing furiously on his cigarette, as though his plans had gone wrong.

And that wasn't all.

Combined with the Interpretation I'd seen earlier and the trembling look in his eyes, a silent conviction gradually began solidifying in my mind.

The fact that they'd started demanding much higher interest than usual some time ago. The fact that they'd personally come looking for me because I wasn't answering my calls. And now, the anxiety he showed even after I'd repaid the money.

Every circumstance pointed toward a single conclusion.

‘These bastards are hiding something.’

Something deeply ominous and filthy involving me.

I placed my hand on my dagger, preparing for the possibility that they might attack.

However.

“Ha. You'd better consider yourself lucky.”

He quietly walked out of the back alley.

His departing figure only made him seem even more suspicious.

Normally, I would have returned to my lodging with nothing but an uneasy feeling, but things were different now.

“Shadow Step.”

[Using the skill ‘Shadow Step (A).’]

____________

─Clunk.

“Boss, we're fucked.”

On the third floor of an old building three blocks away from the Tower.

A blond man burst in, breaking the silence of the loan shark's office.

The men sitting around a pot of ramen on a portable gas burner all turned to look at him.

“What's with all the fuss?”

“No, it's... It's that bastard Lee Yeonwoo.”

“Yeonwoo? Oh, the bastard whose parents supposedly left him with their debts and ran away? Why? Couldn't he meet his quota again?”

“No, that's... That bastard... He paid his entire quota this time. Even the principal.”

A strange silence settled over the office.

The employees who had been slurping noodles exchanged glances. Then Ryu Hanyeong suddenly burst into a crazed laugh.

“Puhaha!! Haha... You've got to be kidding me.”

Only then did the other employees begin chuckling and making a racket. The blond man alone continued stammering anxiously.

“No, but Boss... That bastard wasn't supposed to pay off his debt, was he? We were going to set him up. That's why we raised the interest to such a ridiculous level.”

“So? What's your point?”

Ryu Hanyeong set down his chopsticks and added coldly.

“If he pays, he pays. And if we're going to sell him off, we sell him off. We raised the interest to finish things quietly, not because we were planning to do something only if he couldn't pay, right?”

The others let out hollow laughs at his naivety, as though he were proving himself the youngest member of the group.

There were only two possible outcomes for people caught up in their business. Either they were exploited and stripped of everything over a lifetime, or they were stripped of everything right now.

“Actually, it's good that we got the money too. Let's get started right away. Those important people said they needed the corneas of an awakened person this time.”

“Exactly, exactly. Got that, rookie? Once you've fallen into our hands, there's no way you're getting out with your life intact.”

“Ah, yes. Understood. But... What exactly do those people do that makes them need things like that regularly?”

“Tsk.”

At that moment, Ryu Hanyeong glared sharply at the youngest employee.

Then he spoke in a cold voice.

“If you want to keep working in this business for a long time, remember this. If you go poking your nose into things like that, you might find yourself becoming the merchandise the very next day. Understand?”

“Ah. Yes, yes! Understood, Boss.”

He chuckled at the sight of the rookie answering in terror.

“Good. Let's be careful. Anyway, hurry up and come eat some... What the hell?!”

─Click!

At that moment, all the lights in the office suddenly went out.

“Hey, what's going on?!”

“Is it a blackout?”

“Ah, shit... Don't tell me we didn't pay the electric bill—Aaaaaagh?!”

─Stab!

A piercing scream erupted from within the darkness that had descended.

The employees hurriedly turned on their phone flashlights, gradually illuminating the office.

“Huh...? Ch-Chundeuk?”

“Guh, guh...”

Blood was gushing like a fountain from the throat of the employee who had been eating ramen.

Steam still rose from the blood.

And that wasn't the end.

“Gack... Grrrgh.”

“What the hell is happening?!”

A thin red line had appeared across the mouth of the man beside him, and bloody foam began bubbling out.

He coughed and choked as the overflowing blood blocked his airway, slowly dying.

Everyone was thrown into confusion by what had happened in an instant.

There had been no footsteps, not even the sound of a door opening. There was nothing there, yet their comrades were dying one after another.

─Drip...

─Drip...

“Right.”

A cold voice came from behind them.

Everyone turned their heads.

It was Lee Yeonwoo.

The man whose name they had been laughing about just moments ago was looking down at them, holding a bloodstained dagger.

His eyes were different. He was no longer the pushover they had always dragged around and exploited.

Yeonwoo was the first to speak.

“Ha... If I'd known this was going to happen, I should've just killed all of you from the start...”

“Shoot! Kill that son of a bitch and hand him over to the doctor today!”

The employees immediately drew pistols and knives from their waists.

They certainly tried.

“Weakening.”

[Using the skill ‘Weakening (B).’]

[Reducing the strength and endurance of hostile targets within range.]

─Clink! Clink... Clink.

─Thud.

─Clatter.

The hands holding their weapons dropped helplessly toward the floor.

Then their legs began trembling like those of old men on the verge of death, and they collapsed to the floor one by one.

“Huh?”

“Wh-why is this happening?”

“My arms have no strength... Gugh, what's wrong with my body...?”

Mere back-alley thugs couldn't resist a B-rank skill.

The positions of predator and prey had already been reversed.

“Y-Yeonwoo.”

For the first time, Ryu Hanyeong's voice trembled.

“W-we can talk this out. Okay? It was just a joke. You know, the kind of joke we make in this business.”

I didn't even pretend to listen. I simply tightened my grip on the dagger, lowered my gaze, and.

“Fuck off, you morons.”

Swung it.

Their screams didn't last long. The blade followed red lines through the air, gradually covering the office floor in fresh blood.

_____________

“Ha.”

I felt more relieved than ever before.

The feeling of liberation that came from severing the chains that had bound me for years with my own hands.

I pushed Ryu Hanyeong's body aside with my foot and headed deeper into the office.

“These bastards must have some slush funds stashed away somewhere.”

My gaze naturally settled on a particular spot.

[CEO Ryu Hanyeong]

A desk bearing that nameplate.

It was a place Ryu Hanyeong had never once left unattended. I searched beneath the desk.

─Thump.

“As expected. So this is where you hid it.”

I dragged out the heavy safe concealed beneath the desk.

It was relatively small, but it weighed quite a bit.

Forcing it open with brute strength would be difficult. But there was nothing to worry about. I placed my hand on the safe's dial.

[Activating the ability ‘Interpretation.’]

[Interpreting the combination engraved upon the safe.]

An illusory trail of light appeared before my eyes.

Through [Interpretation], the friction marks left by Ryu Hanyeong's fingers on the dial and the minute differences in wear between the numbers were visualized.

Thanks to that, I was spared some unnecessary trouble.

I entered the numbers that appeared before me in sequence.

“30... 10... 50.”

─Clunk!

The safe clicked open.

However.

“Tsk, this is less than I expected.”

There wasn't as much inside as I'd hoped.

It wasn't a small amount, but I'd expected piles of cash and gold bars stacked inside. If loan sharking only brought in this much money, I couldn't understand why these bastards bothered living the way they did.

Had they hidden the rest somewhere else?

Just as I was about to search the surroundings further, a strange object resting atop the stacks of cash caught my attention.

“What's this supposed to be?”

It was a crudely shaped gemstone.

No, calling it a gemstone wasn't quite right. Its shape was far too perfectly spherical.

[Unable to Interpret]

─Special Characteristic: Mana density exceeds that of an ordinary mana stone by more than 1,000 times.

‘Unable to Interpret?’

It was the first time I'd seen those words since awakening this ability.

Anyone could tell this was no ordinary object. It even made me wonder whether they might have spent all that money obtaining it.

‘I'll take it for now.’

I stuffed the gemstone and stacks of cash into my pockets, then began the final task.

I poured oil throughout the office.

I'd followed them inside using stealth, so there were no witnesses. All I had to do was erase the evidence.

These bastards had made plenty of enemies anyway, so if I scattered some money around, it would probably be treated as an ordinary crime.

“Goodbye, you motherfuckers.”

I took out a lighter.

Now all I had to do was light the fire...

─Click.

─Click...!

I heard the sound of a lighter.

But I wasn't the one making it.

The sound came from behind me, leisurely and unhurried.

“...!”

I instinctively threw myself aside and turned around.

At the office entrance, where the blood-red light of the setting sun seeped inside.

A massive man dressed neatly in a white suit and wearing sunglasses stood there, exhaling cigarette smoke.

I hadn't heard so much as a footstep announcing his arrival.

“Inhale... Hooo...”

The man exhaled a long stream of smoke and slowly surveyed the office.

The corpses scattered across the floor. The overturned pot of ramen. The smell of oil.

“What the hell happened here?”

His tone conveyed neither admiration nor shock, merely annoyance.

In this space saturated with the smell of oil, that man alone seemed to possess an entirely different density of presence.

He tilted his head slightly before asking.

“Did you do this?”

At that instant, every hair on my body stood on end.

The chilling gaze I felt from behind his sunglasses completely changed the atmosphere of the room.

─Crackle!

Sparks flashed before my eyes, accompanied by an intense pain.

[The ability ‘Interpretation’ cannot identify the target's information.]

[There is a difference in level.]

[An intense killing intent has been detected from the target.]

The dagger in my hand trembled.

‘This bastard...’

He's a hunter.

And a genuine one at that.