Those Who Live Without the Law

Chapter 210

Grand GatheringOut of the 250 seats prepared in the hall of the massive cabaret, people had taken their assigned places in 233 of them.

Every single one of them was the kind of person whom the half-baked street thugs of this city would bow their heads to greet just for passing by.

If there truly was something called social class in this city that bred mold like damp bread, then these powerful figures would undoubtedly have been labeled nobility.

“What the hell is this about?”

“If I knew that, I’d already be an Operations Committee member.”

Fine food and alcohol had been prepared atop spotless tablecloths, yet not a single person touched them. Instead, they merely whispered among themselves and exchanged words.

Well, the people gathered here were waiting for someone. Until that person arrived, nobody dared bring food to their mouth.

‘Survivor Kairus.’

That was the name of the one who had invited them here. Though he was an Operations Committee member, unlike the others, he was a man who moved only with a very small number of people.

He showed no signs of wanting to expand his power, nor did he attempt to subjugate other organizations. His actions were bizarre.

“Watch your attitude. If you get on his bad side by mistake, you might lose your chance.”

Most people drew blanks even after carrying out Kairus’s orders, but a select few could receive rewards so enormous they could never have obtained them through their own strength.

That was why he was like a walking lottery ticket of the city.

The people gathered here today might have received lottery slips that gave them a chance at fortune.

Bang!

While people whispered among themselves, someone kicked open the cabaret entrance. The door burst open with a loud noise, and everyone’s gaze instinctively turned toward it.

“....”

Then, without anyone needing to go first, they all lowered their heads to avoid meeting his eyes.

Despite more than two hundred people being gathered inside, silence descended upon the cabaret. Only the footsteps of three people echoed through the hall.

The steady footsteps headed toward the prepared platform. Thud. The sound of someone sitting in a chair rang out.

Kairus Featherwing.

A self-introduction, words of gratitude toward those who came, blessings wishing happiness upon everyone for the day...

“I’m looking for Sopor right now.”

Every single one of those processes and formalities was skipped entirely. The words that came out of Kairus’s mouth the moment he sat down were the very purpose for which he had gathered everyone here.

“If any bastards here know something, get your asses up here now. If you don’t know anything, investigate and report back.”

There was more than enough food and drink. But the atmosphere was not one where anyone could casually reach for them. There wasn’t even any music. This wasn’t a gathering made for eating, drinking, and having fun.

The moment he finished speaking, Kairus pulled the cork from a bottle and poured himself a drink.

“Hey, is it really okay to reveal the objective this openly?”

Irena, who had accompanied Kairus, stood at his right side and quietly whispered to him.

“This is how it has to be.”

There was no reason to dance around the objective. Though countless gangsters of the city had gathered here, they were the ones who needed to fear Kairus.

The reverse was unacceptable. Manners, etiquette, or mutual respect meant nothing here.

The moment you bothered with things like that, you got looked down on.

“What if the guy holding the Sopor starts feeling a sense of crisis?”

Likewise, Nora, standing at his left side, spoke with a slightly worried expression. Kairus scoffed and emptied his glass.

“So what if he does?”

The people gathered here had all come to scratch the lottery ticket called Kairus.

And naturally, if you wanted to scratch a lottery ticket, you first had to pay money and receive the ticket itself.

From the very moment he declared that he was looking for Sopor, the minds of everyone present began spinning rapidly.

A few quick-witted people discreetly scribbled something onto napkins before handing them off to subordinates waiting outside the cabaret. Meanwhile, those who knew even the slightest thing began approaching the platform where Kairus sat.

“Nora, watch carefully. Every bastard in this room is about to become obsessed with finding Sopor.”

The countless skilled individuals who had survived while establishing themselves in the city with every trick and bit of know-how imaginable would now have red warning lights flash in their eyes the moment they heard the name Sopor.

‘44 organizations present here, 155 contractors, and 34 architects.’

And all of their affiliated clients, subordinate organizations, personal connections, and contact networks had just begun moving at Kairus’s single sentence.

So if, in this situation, someone panicked and tried to secretly move it elsewhere or belatedly sell it off?

‘They’d get caught immediately.’

And if, by some miracle, they took action and still didn’t get caught?

Then I’d applaud them, admire their skill, and willingly give up. If someone was truly that capable, then no matter what other method I used to investigate Sopor’s whereabouts, I still wouldn’t find it.

“But they can’t exactly afford not to move either.”

Remaining still didn’t guarantee they would stay hidden. After all, this many people were about to pour in every asset they possessed to search for it.

On top of that, Sopor had once belonged to the now-collapsed Lantern Gang. While investigating related records, there wasn’t a single Operations Committee member these people needed to be wary of.

“Ah, the food and drinks prepared here aren’t decorations, so eat.”

Only after Kairus belatedly told them to eat did people finally begin reaching for the food laid out on the tables.

“As a bonus, the city’s other Operations Committee members are pretty busy right now.”

Everyone here already knew that much through their own channels. These were people important enough to receive invitations to this gathering. It would have been impossible for them not to hear that the Operations Committee members were busy.

“If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t because you had to watch the other Operations Committee members’ reactions, then close your eyes and go wild this time.”

For a moment, everyone threw suspicious glances toward Kairus, questioning his true intent.

Of course, the moment they saw Kairus’s eyes, every single one of them wore expressions that said, ‘Figures.’

You could tell just by looking at his eyes that he wasn’t seriously telling them to do it.

“Oppa, there’s something to discuss regarding the activities of the other Operations Committee members.”

While Kairus listened to the various stories brought to him by those approaching the platform and pieced together information, Nora quietly whispered to him.

“Does President Younia dislike the current situation?”

Nora nodded. Kairus had figured Lunaseeker couldn’t possibly have failed to notice.

“I’ll call after this is over.”

“I’ll prepare things.”

The conversation ended briefly. It wasn’t really a topic Nora could discuss much anyway.

‘The logistics moving through the Antaria Grand Canal right now…’

At the very least, they had decreased by around 30%. Most of the reduced shipments had originally been bound for the Aylan Republic.

“The Daeyeon Kingdom must be unhappy too.”

Logistics meant trade. The flow of goods and currency being exchanged. It wasn’t a system where only the buyer profited or only the seller profited.

If the logistics heading toward the Aylan Republic through the Antaria Grand Canal had been blocked, that also meant damage was being inflicted upon other nations that imported goods through the Aylan Republic.

So naturally, the Daeyeon Kingdom was probably pretty irritated as well.

‘But that’s Lukas’s problem to handle.’

I didn’t know how he had connections with that closed-off group, but Lukas would clean it up himself.

“Excuse me.”

“I’m listening, talk.”

After finishing his conversation with Nora and briefly sinking into thought, Kairus spoke to the man standing before him.

“I’m not sure whether it’s related to Sopor or not… but several of my subordinates have gone missing.”

Kairus let out a “Hah?” and stared at the guy. In Bennett City, people going missing and later turning up with their guts ripped out a few days later—or being found in prostitution tents—wasn’t exactly uncommon.

“Were you actually invited here? You didn’t just sneak in, did you?”

To think the guy was reporting such a trivial missing persons case to Kairus. At this point, Kairus was beginning to seriously question who the bastard standing before him even was.

“No, Survivor-nim, I fully understand what you’re thinking. But this is definitely strange.”

Kairus continued staring at him with furrowed brows before motioning with his chin.

“What exactly is strange about it? Spit it out.”

“Some of the guys who went missing returned to the organization. We asked them where the hell they’d been all this time, but they can’t remember.”

Kairus, who had been prepared to throw the bastard out immediately if he started spewing nonsense, relaxed his expression slightly. Only then did some of the tension gradually leave the man’s stiff muscles.

“What the hell are you talking about? They disappeared and then came back?”

Disappearances were common in this city. But returning safely after going missing was rare even in Bennett City. Everyone here had practically mastered the art of kidnapping people, so once you got caught, escaping alive was no easy matter.

“How many?”

“In total, 37 people, including my organization and subordinate groups.”

It was an awkward number—too many to call few, but also too few to call many.

“To begin with, I run a fairly large organization myself…”

“Yeah, which makes it strange that you’d become a kidnapping target in the first place.”

And on top of that, the bastards who had been kidnapped returned unharmed, yet couldn’t remember what had happened to them.

“Any marks on their bodies?”

“None in particular. We stripped them and checked all the way up their assholes, but found nothing.”

He’d heard details that absolutely didn’t need to be shared, but Kairus decided to let it slide. Stroking his chin while thinking, Kairus finally spoke.

“Look into whether similar cases happened in other organizations. Not just organizations either—find every similar case you can, organize them, and report back.”

Assigning additional work meant the odds of winning the lottery had increased. The bastard’s face immediately brightened. If Kairus wanted to make him work even more enthusiastically at this point…

‘And think about what you want from me as well.’

He could have said something like that. But Kairus didn’t. A lottery never informed the buyer in advance that they’d won.

If Kairus made promises like that here, the other organizations would likely refuse to work actively until they secured a promise from him too.

“Understood. I’ll get started immediately! Would it be alright if I leave first in order to carry out Survivor-nim’s orders?”

Kairus nodded. There was no certainty whether the incident the bastard had just described was related or unrelated.

But even if it had nothing to do with Sopor, it definitely smelled suspicious.

‘Amnesia, huh.’

Since there were apparently no injuries on their bodies, it probably wasn’t a case of someone getting hit in the head and temporarily losing their memory. And even if they had gotten their skulls smashed in hard enough to lose their memories…

Thirty-seven people?

Even Kairus, who could practically be considered a world authority when it came to beating people senseless, wasn’t confident he could smash that many heads and make every single one of them lose their memories.

‘Some kind of drug?’

After continuing to think while listening to the others speak, Kairus soon reached a conclusion.

He wasn’t a doctor. But he did know one. Kairus decided that once this gathering ended, he would go visit Tanya Lysand.

‘Though she’s an emergency medicine specialist.’

At the very least, she could probably introduce him to someone with expert knowledge regarding drugs.

People continued pouring out whatever information they knew to Kairus.

But sadly, there wasn’t any information that felt particularly useful. Instead, there were cases like this.

“Kghaaaaargh?!”

Kairus rose from his seat, slammed the bastard who had been flapping his mouth moments ago face-first into the table, then drove a fork into the back of his neck.

With a crunching sound, the man’s cervical vertebrae shattered, and his body twitched violently.

“You fucking piece of shit. Trying to use me like your errand boy.”

The bastard had been trying to use the fact that Kairus was searching for Sopor as an opportunity to eliminate a rival organization.

Kairus grabbed the limp man by the hair and casually hurled him off the platform.

“Clean this up.”

That was the end of it. The man who had tried to use Kairus to scratch his own itch became a corpse right there on the spot.