IBMATG 27

Chapter  27

Darius’s mother was dead.

She had drunk the poisoned tea that had been served for both me and him.

By the time I rushed into the kitchen after hearing the noise, she was already lying there, looking no different than the dead insect floating inside the teacup.

“I’ll definitely… kill every last bastard who did this to Mom… kuh, damn it.”

It was a lethal toxin—ordinary organisms died instantly, their limbs dissolving the moment they ingested it.

The reaction was so fast and immediate that there wasn’t even a chance to detoxify it.

Even I had never heard of such a poison.

If I had, I would’ve used it myself.

Usually, low-ranked Awakened would coat their weapons with poison to make up for their lack of firepower when hunting monsters.

But even when I was at that level, I had never once encountered something like this.

Of course, the reason was obvious—poisons this strong are nearly impossible to obtain or refine.

In other words, unless it’s a large-scale organization, acquiring this poison is almost impossible.

Which means… this is clearly the work of Kalininskaya.

The problem is, there’s no way they were aiming for me.

They couldn’t possibly know when I’d be served tea in this house. Unless Darius himself was bought off.

Judging from the scene before me, it was certain he hadn’t been bribed.

Which means… this wasn’t aimed at me. It was a terror attack targeting Darius.

And they used a poison unnecessarily powerful and expensive to do it.

…A warning, then.

This was a warning to the entire Nikolai Family.

The Nikolai Family could gather information from within the underworld, and I was exploiting that information to toy with Kalininskaya.

They were trying to cut that link.

By using such a rare poison, they made it obvious that a massive organization was behind this.

And they wanted other members of the Nikolai Family who learned of this to hesitate about doing business with me.

Killing with an overwhelming poison like this was far better at instilling fear than brute force.

They knew tricks like this wouldn’t work on me, so they decided to strangle my information source instead?

Blinded and deaf, I’d be forced to sit in a trap, waiting for Kalininskaya’s agents to come for me.

If everything had gone according to their plan, that is.

But you were careless.

The one who died wasn’t Darius—it was his mother.

Touching family only fuels hatred and resistance.

And with me right beside him, I could fan those flames even higher.

“…Darius.”

“Khuk…”

“Let me ask you one thing.”

He was too consumed by grief to answer properly, tears streaming down his face.

I ignored it and kept speaking.

“Are you in league with Kalininskaya?”

“…What?”

His eyes blazed with fury as he grabbed my collar and shouted.

“You bastard! After seeing all this with your own eyes, you still dare suspect me? You piece of shit…!”

“Fine. So you’re not.”

“Damn it.”

“Then I’ll take revenge on them for you.”

“…Revenge?”

“Give me every scrap of information you can about those bastards. I’ll use every means possible to crush them.”

Cruel as it was, I intended to fully exploit his emotions.

Of course, this was exactly what Darius himself wanted.

“…Even if you’re strong, those guys—”

“I can do it.”

I pressed firmly, locking eyes with him.

After staring at me for a long while, he bit his lip, slammed his fist on the floor, and spoke with determination.

“…Are you really confident?”

“This is what I’ve been doing all along. From the beginning, I accepted your request with the intention of destroying them completely.”

“…Alright. Let’s do it.”

With that, I had gained an ally who would never betray me.

Before, our relationship was based on money—fragile, easily broken if profit shifted.

But bonds tied by emotion don’t sever so easily.

This meant I could now share far more intimate information freely.

You tried to shackle me… but instead, you’ve given me wings.

From now on, I planned to dive even bolder into Kalininskaya’s den.

The first thing to do was trace the source of that poisoned tea.

“Anyone nearby who could’ve naturally given your mother that tea as a gift?”

“Well… it’s not like I can narrow it down to just one or two people. I know tons of neighbors around here.”

“Hmm.”

“Is that really important right now?”

“Of course it is. It means Kalininskaya’s poison somehow found its way into your household.”

“…A channel?”

“They know you exist, that you’ve been giving me information, and even where your family lives. That means someone close to you is leaking it.”

Which also meant my safety wasn’t guaranteed.

Since I was acting on intel drawn from him, the fact that their agent had shown up right where we met proved it—there was a leak close to Darius.

“So… you’re saying someone close to me betrayed me?”

I nodded.

“Damn it. No way.”

“If it’s impossible, then what? Are you just going to let the traitor who killed your mother walk free?”

At that, the grief vanished from his face, replaced by trembling rage.

“No. I’ll find them. Whatever it takes. That bastard is the real son of a bitch.”

He clenched his fists tightly.

From then on, Darius and I roamed the slums, meeting with Nikolai Family members.

Here and there, in shabby corners of the neighborhood, mafia members lived disguised as ordinary sons and daughters.

They might look like simple thugs, but in truth, they were formidable Awakened—eyes and ears collecting information from both the surface and underground, things ordinary people couldn’t even imagine existed.

“Bro!”

“Been a while!”

Darius embraced a towering black man, thumping each other’s backs hard.

Then he introduced him to me.

“This is Bogdan. My buddy from way back. Say hi.”

“Nice to meet you, bro.”

Thunk.

We knocked our fists together.

His hand was surprisingly heavy.

Whoa, he’s strong.

He was an Awakened with a rare guardian spirit—so strong that even I could feel the weight in his punch.

Judging by his stats, his raw strength was quite high, regardless of spirit rank.

And from the tattoos covering his arms and legs, he’d clearly been a rough character even before awakening.

“Almost dinner time. What brings you here, bro?”

“Well…”

“Why don’t we head inside first? Looks like this’ll be a long talk.”

When Darius hesitated, I stepped in and suggested we go inside.

Better than letting anyone nearby overhear.

“Y-yeah, let’s do that.”

Bogdan’s home was empty.

We sat down and shared everything that had happened.

Darius broke into tears again when recounting his mother’s death.

“Shit.”

Hearing the story, Bogdan’s usually low energy snapped—he clenched his fists with fury.

“Which bastard did it, bro? If I catch him, he’s dead, man!”

He spoke with a strange mix—Russian accent trying to imitate African-American slang.

“Those Kalininskaya bastards… damn it.”

“Let’s crush them right now, bro!”

He leapt up.

I raised a hand to calm him, gesturing for him to sit.

“Not yet.”

“Stay out of this, man! This is between me and my bro!”

“What if the one who killed your bro’s mother is someone close to us?”

“What?”

I fixed him with a piercing stare.

“We’re hunting for that traitor right now.”

“Ha! What’s with those eyes, man? You doubting me?”

“Hey. This guy’s like a brother to me. My mom was his mom too.”

My suspicion put both of them on edge, turning against me.

I took a step back.

“Don’t get worked up. I just looked, that’s all.”

“Hmph.”

Bogdan snorted, sitting back down.

Then, after some thought, he asked me a question instead.

“But why are you trying to root out our traitor, man? You could just pay us and get information like before.”

A fundamental question.

The answer was simple.

“Because that traitor is a direct threat to me too.”

To devour Kalininskaya, I needed the Nikolai Family’s intel.

And to use that intel, the traitor had to be removed.

There were no other mafia groups left in Moscow worth dealing with.

And I had no intention of stopping the hunt now.

So, for my sake too, we needed to find the betrayer who poisoned Darius’s mother.

“Hold up. Dasha should be arriving any minute.”

Suddenly, Darius pulled out his phone.

“Dasha? She’s coming here?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

Bogdan didn’t look thrilled.

“Who’s that?”

I asked Darius.

“My girlfriend.”

Right then, the door opened, and someone walked in.

A petite white woman with short hair dyed bright pink. Tattoos and a nose piercing marked her as unmistakably mafia.

“Dasha!”

“Dasha!”

They hugged tightly.

Darius explained.

“My girlfriend, Dasha… I mean Daria. Same name as me, funny right? Don’t misunderstand—we’re not siblings.”

“Hi.”

Darius. Daria. Both nicknamed Dasha.

She wrapped one arm around her boyfriend’s waist and extended the other for a handshake with me.

I clasped her hand.

“Ah! Ow! Ugh…”

She suddenly pulled away, wincing in pain.

“Hey, man! My girl’s not an Awakened. Don’t grip so hard. You okay, Dasha?”

“Ugh… yeah, it’s fine. Don’t blame him, it was an accident.”

…

Once she seemed to recover, Darius introduced her further.

“Dasha may not be Awakened, but she’s great with computers. Just the kind of person we need.”

“…Is that so.”

“But anyway, why’d you suddenly call me here, Darius?”

So he repeated the story again.

This time, Daria burst into tears.

“Huuuhh… sob sob…”

“I’m fine, Dasha. Really.”

“But your mom… it’s so sad…”

Bogdan broke the silence by changing the subject.

“So, what’s the plan now, bro?”

Darius told them what he’d prepared in his head from the start.

“I called you two because you’re the ones I trust most in what’s left of the Nikolai Family. The four of us will track down the traitor, and then we’ll smash Kalininskaya. You in?”

“Sniff… yeah…”

“Of course, bro! I’m with you no matter what!”

They clasped hands and bumped shoulders.

He did the same with me—accepting me as part of the family.

That night.

The four of us stayed at Bogdan’s, preparing various things.

The others fell asleep quickly, but I didn’t.

Something was nagging at me.

“Daria.”

“Eek!”

Clack!

In the middle of the night, she was typing away on her laptop in the living room, but quickly slammed it shut in panic.

“Wh-who’s there? Bogdan?”

“No.”

“Shinwoo? Ah, you scared me.”

I walked right up beside her, sitting so close that I could reach out and touch her.

She instinctively leaned back, trying to put distance between us.

“W-what are you doing? Don’t… Darius is here too…”

From the moment I first saw her, suspicion had gnawed at me.

Now, I pressed her directly.

“I know everything. You. You’re Kalininskaya’s spy.”

“W-what? That’s absurd!”

I had no proof.

I was simply probing her reaction.

If she was the traitor, denial was inevitable—and then I’d have no way to confirm.

But I added something that would corner her, a fact she couldn’t possibly explain away.

“I know your guardian spirit is the legendary Fionn mac Cumhaill.”

It had bothered me since earlier.

She was clearly an Awakened with a legendary guardian spirit, yet she pretended otherwise.

Even during our handshake, I hadn’t squeezed particularly hard. Even a non-Awakened wouldn’t have been hurt so badly.

Anyone else might’ve doubted themselves—Did I misjudge my strength?

But my eyes saw it for what it was: a legendary Awakened putting on an act.

“…Ah, damn.”