After finishing his talk with Hye-yeon, Jihyun stepped outside.
He knew well that staying any longer would only stir up strange rumors.
Her parents had collapsed, and she was running the lottery shop alone.
If a young man were seen visiting too often, it would surely cause trouble for her.
The townspeople were already hostile toward Hye-yeon as it was.
Avoiding any burden on her was the best choice.
And if he considered the worst-case scenario, it was all the more reason to stay away.
Instead, Jihyun decided to move quickly.
He had an intuition that if he didn’t act fast, things could go wrong.
The people who came to the lottery shop and caused trouble were merely underlings.
Just disposable tools, harassing others for a bit of pocket money.
They were nothing more than loyal dogs following the orders of their master.
And if things went wrong and the police caught them, that would be the end of it.
Their master would simply discard them like worn-out tools and act as if nothing had happened.
It was always the same.
That kind of thing happened everywhere in the world.
In situations like this, the only way to solve the problem was to strike at the source.
If the dog was the problem, then the owner should be punished.
He would make sure the culprit couldn’t escape, then destroy them.
It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that, so Jihyun felt confident.
He believed he could do it again.
He knew it might sound arrogant, but without that level of audacity, he wouldn’t be here at all.
Telling himself to wait just a little longer, Jihyun steeled his resolve.
But he didn’t head straight for the root of the problem.
That would’ve been like a moth flying into the flames.
In terms of physical strength, Jihyun was just an ordinary man.
There was no need to charge into enemy territory.
If this were business, it might be different.
Sometimes a man had to take risks to make a deal.
But this situation was different—it would’ve been suicide.
Jihyun saw no reason to expose himself to danger when he could solve it another way.
This time, he planned to end things remotely.
Bringing someone down without ever showing his face—that suited him best.
So he walked into a nearby coffee shop.
He would gather information, search the web, and anonymously move the police, prosecutors, and even the media if necessary.
Ordering an Americano, Jihyun sat down and focused his mind.
The thrill of connecting to the online world made his pulse quicken.
He took a sip of the overly sweet Americano and looked down at the smartphone in his left hand.
To others, it might’ve looked like he was just killing time.
But in reality, Jihyun was about to do something far beyond common sense.
He would collect data and set a trap.
The hunt was about to begin.
The first target was the man behind the harassment of Hye-yeon’s lottery shop.
He already had a rough idea of their appearance through the underlings.
But that alone wasn’t enough.
He needed to see them with his own eyes, find their weaknesses.
Focusing his mind, he began searching for personal details and related information.
Before long, he found his target.
And his expression twisted.
“What kind of bastard is this?”
Jihyun couldn’t hide his disgust.
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The man he was dealing with was filthier than he had imagined.
The scammer he’d destroyed before was already human trash—but this one was on the same level.
He already knew the guy wasn’t normal, having planned the hit-and-run that targeted Hye-yeon’s father.
But the rest of his crimes were all equally unforgivable.
“Unbelievable… Maybe being obsessed with money is even worse than being a scammer.”
Jihyun sighed.
A man completely twisted by greed—
The typical kind of villain you could find anywhere in the world, dragging everyone around him into ruin.
For now, he sat in the redevelopment office with a kind smile plastered on his face,
but that was nothing more than a mask.
He used the thugs under him to threaten people and extort money,
and didn’t hesitate to go even further when necessary.
Jihyun found it almost miraculous that Hye-yeon was still unharmed.
He genuinely admired how she’d managed to endure against a man like that.
At the same time, he couldn’t hide his contempt for the townspeople.
They turned a blind eye to Hye-yeon, blinded by the promise of profit from redevelopment.
Hadn’t they known her family for years?
For such people to act this way over a bit of money—no decent words could describe it.
Still, Jihyun didn’t intend to judge them too harshly.
People sometimes commit small evils in pursuit of minor gains.
Maybe that selfish cruelty was just part of human nature.
Their petty wickedness wasn’t worth punishing one by one.
Instead, he would crush the true cause behind it all.
And come to think of it, there was something strange about the whole situation.
“This area isn’t even worth redeveloping…”
He muttered while checking city data.
The man behind all this was probably bragging about knowing someone high up in the city office,
mixing half-truths and lies to make his story sound convincing.
There were always plenty of people who fell for that kind of talk.
But it was all a lie—
A fabrication laced with just enough truth to sound real.
The residents couldn’t have known better; it was far beyond their understanding.
The whole thing was a trap designed to bleed them dry.
If there was ever a word made to describe this man, it was “malicious.”
He manipulated people’s greed,
enjoyed the chaos himself, and left everyone else in ruin.
The lottery shop was just a means to an end—
a convenient focal point for people’s hatred.
By stirring up anger around the shop,
he could hide his true crimes and toy with the townsfolk.
It was a well-crafted scheme—
disgusting, but effective.
People always lost focus when given something to hate.
While their attention was fixed there, he would quietly fill his pockets.
But the lottery shop itself wasn’t really the problem.
Not when the area lacked any real business value for redevelopment in the first place.
Jihyun couldn’t understand what they were even after.
Still, it was too late—the people had already fallen for it.
They would keep harassing Hye-yeon.
The hit-and-run that injured her father wasn’t just intimidation.
It was a calculated move—to pressure her into selling,
all while pretending to ignore her.
It wasn’t personal.
They targeted her simply because she was an easy mark.
It made sense that she didn’t even know who wanted to buy her shop.
People told her to sell, but no actual buyer ever appeared.
Anyone with distance could see the trick.
But for the one caught in it, it was impossible to escape.
“Just like the scammer back then…”
Jihyun laughed bitterly.
He knew the world was full of filthy people,
but seeing it firsthand always made his blood boil.
Of course, he had no intention of forgiving them.
He remembered how close he’d come to being a victim himself.
He wouldn’t let the same thing happen again.
Maybe it was none of his business—
but once someone became his target, they would be hunted down.
A cold smile spread across his face.
At the same time, something else came to mind:
the Tool that disabled CCTV systems.
A miracle that couldn’t exist under normal science.
He needed to find out where it came from—
and who created it.
“What kind of person makes something like that?”
Jihyun murmured quietly.
It was a question that had been haunting him recently.
“Could it be knowledge from the other world that I don’t have?”
If that were true, there could be endless implications.
It might sound paranoid, but caution was necessary.
If someone came after him for his power, that would be troublesome.
He couldn’t risk losing the happiness he’d finally gained.
It was always better to destroy a potential threat in advance.
And Jihyun couldn’t shake a faint sense of unease.
Even after searching on his way here,
he found almost no information about the Tool that disabled CCTVs.
Not even the deep web had much—
just fragments from a tightly controlled distribution network.
That kind of secrecy was unusual.
If possible, he wanted to find out more,
even if it meant tracking it down personally and destroying it himself.
At the very least, he needed one more keyword—
something that could lead him to it.
“Haah… this is troublesome.”
Knowledge brings worry.
The old saying fit perfectly, he thought,
taking another sip of his Americano.
“It’s gone cold.”
Time had passed while he was lost in thought.
Jihyun decided it was time to head home and slowly stood up.
