Chapter 36: Church without Missionaries (1)

Inside the restaurant, a low hum of noise drifted in through the open window.

A bustling murmur, like a large crowd of people chattering in the distance.

It was an unusually lively atmosphere for this usually quiet back alley.

Because of this, one of the customers sitting inside the shop looked out the window and remarked.

“Is that sound coming from that cathedral? It was pretty close.”

The shop’s owner, May, answered with a nonchalant expression as she placed the ordered food on the table.

“That’s right. For a few days now, they’ve been busy preparing for some kind of communion or something among themselves.”

The man asked her again as he broke apart his wooden chopsticks.

“Really? Have you ever been to that cathedral?”

“I’m too busy trying to make a living.”

She replied without even looking at him, wiping a nearby table with a cloth.

Though her response was indifferent, the man still seemed interested.

“Still, there’s a pretty interesting rumor going around this street lately, isn’t there? Some weird religious group is giving out free food and daily necessities to people. They even say they’ll heal you if you’re sick?”

“Ha, as if.”

May snorted.

“Only desperate paupers with nowhere to cling to would be swayed by a single piece of bread. There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world.”

As you can see, she was a small business owner with her own shop.

At least she could make ends meet on her own, so she wasn’t easily swayed by some religion that suddenly appeared and acted benevolently.

She frowned, glanced out the window for a moment, and then spat out.

“Besides, who still believes in God these days?”

In this era, those who paraded around as religious groups were ultimately just cults, and their true intentions were all too well known to the world.

Therefore, those who had even a little something to lose did not easily open their hearts to new religious organizations.

Especially self-employed individuals like May, who ran their own respectable shops, had no interest whatsoever in stories about God.

No matter how much charity work they did, it didn’t appeal to those who had already established a foothold here.

The customer nodded in agreement.

“Well, you’re right. In the end, they’ll just ask for money.”

“Well, at least those guys don’t cause unnecessary trouble. There’s one shop across the street with the cathedral’s emblem on it, and they just do their business quietly. They don’t bother anyone, so I don’t really care.”

That’s why most of the people doing business here just watch the newly established cathedral as if they were looking at a cow or a chicken, May said.

The talk about the religious group ended there.

The two people’s conversation quickly moved on to another topic.

“Come to think of it, I don’t know why, but the gang scum didn’t come to collect protection money this month.”

“Really? Those scumbags wouldn’t miss a collection day, no matter what else they miss.”

“I don’t know. If they don’t take it, it’s good for me. Thanks to that, I was able to pay my son’s hospital bills without falling behind.”

“Hmph, I’m jealous. At our shop on 10th Street, they extorted three thousand credits just for last month’s protection money. I begged them, saying I had to pay rent, but they still took everything. Sons of bitches. Because of them, the harder I work, the more I lose money.”

The man let out a deep, heavy sigh.

His words were mixed with deep resignation and anger.

Like this, the gangsters existing in each district were the biggest headache for self-employed individuals and practically public enemies.

They collected a hefty ‘protection fee’ every month without fail, but they didn’t actually protect anyone properly when problems arose.

However, in this place where even the police didn’t do their job properly, an ordinary self-employed person couldn’t confront a violent organization head-on.

So, the back-alley residents, despite being terribly victimized every time, resigned themselves to it, merely despising and hating them inwardly.

May, as if bothered by the noise filtering in from outside, closed the open window a little more and said softly.

“Whatever happens, I hope those scumbags don’t show up for as long as possible.”

===========

The inside of the club was filled with thick cigarette smoke.

Under the dim lights, a man, deeply sunk into a sofa, took repeated, heavy drags from his cigarette before exhaling a long plume of smoke.

“Puha~”

The rugged man’s face momentarily relaxed.

Just then, a subordinate, approaching with cautious steps, whispered something in his ear.

“Boss, I have something to tell you…”

The man, irritated, stubbed out the cigarette he had been smoking in an ashtray and asked.

“What is it, at this hour?”

Soon, the man’s eyes twitched at the information his subordinate brought.

“What? The Ricardo Family disappeared?”

“Yes, sir. For a few days now, the guys in that area have vanished like a lie. Their office is empty, and they’re not answering any calls.”

He slightly lifted his upper body from the sofa.

“What’s the cause? Those guys were investing quite a bit in 12th Street until recently, so why did they suddenly vacate?”

“We haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Then who’s the bstard who took over that area now? Is it the Black Mamba crew? Or is it the Nightfang side?”

The subordinate, with a meaningful expression, lowered his voice further.

“Well, according to strange rumors, all the existing organizations have completely disappeared. Only a strange cult called the ‘Church of Radiance’
is said to be left standing alone.”

“A cult?”

The man snorted as if finding it absurd.

“What kind of bullsht is that? How can a cult take over an entire area?”

The days when corporate-like religious organizations, backed by political power, ran rampant were a story from decades ago.

Cults in this era, in terms of both scale and actions, were nothing more than a gang of swindlers and quacks.

Therefore, the man looked as if he couldn’t believe his subordinate’s report at all.

‘It seems the Ricardo bastards and other riffraff probably wiped each other out while fighting amongst themselves. And those unheard-of nobodies luckily squeezed in during the chaos.’

The man twisted his lips into a smirk.

“Isn’t this a complete windfall?”

The man’s mind began to race.

In truth, aren’t most disputes between violent organizations ultimately about how much protection money can be extorted within a territory?

But now, the owner of the vast 12th Street area, which the Ricardo Family had occupied, had disappeared?

This was a golden opportunity to rapidly expand their influence.

“Get the boys ready immediately!”

The man shot up from the sofa and exclaimed.

A greedy glint flickered in his crescent-moon-shaped eyes.

“Let’s go. Before any other b*stards smell it, we’ll plant our flag first.”

=============

May, with trembling hands, hastily closed the restaurant window.

‘Why, why are they suddenly doing that?!’

After even bolting the shutters, she gasped for breath and turned the sign in front of the shop.

From ‘Open’ to ‘Closed.’

As she turned off all the lights in the shop with trembling hands, darkness descended in an instant.

Holding her breath, she carefully peeked outside through a crack in the window.

The scene beyond the visible crosswalk was nothing short of a hellscape.

CRASH! Tinkle~!

Gangsters, appearing suddenly from somewhere, filled the street with the noise of their rampage and the screams of their victims.

CRASH!

As the shop window of the building next door shattered, May, startled, unknowingly clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Hic….!”

The sight of gangsters, their bodies grotesquely modified with hideous cybernetics, occupying the street.

They were smashing shop fixtures and assaulting people on sight.

“Old man! Aren’t you gonna hand that over?!”

“Aaaargh!”

Under the faint streetlight, reddish-black blood could be vaguely seen splattering on the ground.

It was an utterly horrific sight.

Yet no one could stop them.

Everyone here knew that reporting it to the police would be useless.

It would be fortunate if they even came strolling around to survey the scene after everything was over.

It was a common occurrence in the back alleys.

The powerless were tormented by all sorts of atrocities and trampled upon at will.

But they couldn’t escape.

The life of the weak was the same everywhere.

Despair and helplessness weighed heavily on May’s heart.

In the midst of it all, May vaguely recognized the viper-shaped tattoo engraved on the gangsters’ forearms.

Her heart sank.

‘That mark… it’s the Viper gang. Why on earth did they come all the way here?’

She had heard of the notoriety of the Viper gang, based in 10th Street.

There were stories that they mercilessly extorted money under the guise of protection fees, and if they judged there was nothing left to take, they would forcibly turn people into debtors and even sell off their bodies.

They were truly human scum.

Doing business in the back alleys, one naturally encountered such ominous rumors, so May’s hands and feet trembled unknowingly.

At that moment, her son’s anxious, whimpering voice came from the small room inside the shop.

“Mom, is something wrong?”

May swallowed dryly, feeling her heart plummet.

“Shh! Go inside, quickly….!”

May pushed her son into the small room with a hushed voice.

She tried to ignore the anxiety in the child’s round eyes and gently closed the door with a trembling hand.

And just as she shifted her gaze back to the crack in the window.

“Hic….!”

May unknowingly let out a short gasp.

It seemed she had just made eye contact with one of the gangsters across the street.

She prayed it was a mistake, but she clearly saw the man nudge his companions and gesture towards her shop.

They were approaching.

‘No…..!’

Her heart pounded as if it would burst.

Those heinous thugs would find breaking down the door child’s play.

But she couldn’t think of how to deal with it.

Just as her mind went blank, and she was staring at the approaching dark shadows, trembling in fear.

BOOM!

A tremendous roar, as if to tear eardrums, shook the entire back alley.

At the sound, even the group of gangsters heading towards the shop, startled, turned their heads in unison.

“Wha-what was that?!”

The roar… It was the shop across the street.

May, peeking out again to see what was happening, noticed the emblem hanging on its glass window.

‘Church of Radiance…?’

The shop run by the cathedral people she had talked about with a regular customer earlier that day.

It was a business she hadn’t paid much attention to, as it usually operated quietly.

But then, the shop’s door burst open as if shattered, and gangsters were sent flying out, screaming.

“Aaargh!”

“Keoheuk!!”

They rolled on the ground, battered and bruised, and collapsed.

Some of them crawled out pathetically, their limbs seemingly broken.

“R…. Run…! It’s a monster…!”

The gangsters outside, seeing the spectacle, their faces contorted menacingly, rushed into the shop, yelling.

But they soon ended up in the same state as those who had entered first.

They staggered to their feet and began to flee frantically.

The ferocity they had shown towards the merchants moments ago was gone; they were all running for their lives like cornered rats.

Among the crowd, the figure of Venom, the notorious leader of the Viper gang, was also vaguely visible.

“?”

May, dumbfounded, stared blankly at the scene.

Presently, a person walked out of the shop.

It was a man, neatly dressed in a black cleric’s robe, his hair tidily arranged.

He glanced around once, then lightly brushed his hands together a couple of times as if dusting off his clothes.

Then, as if nothing had happened, he picked up one of the shattered, fallen door panels and calmly began to fit it back into place.

May, unable to comprehend the unbelievable situation before her eyes, couldn’t close her mouth.

“What…. the hell…?”