Chapter 2

The Envelope

Landlord Kim always puts two periods at the end of his texts.

Mr. Bong please have this settled by the end of the month..

It came in at eight in the morning. I read it three times. The two periods were heaviest on the third read. Three months of back rent, 3.6 million won. That much had already been eaten out of my 20-million-won deposit. If I didn't get through this month, Kim would take the rest of the deposit and tell me to leave. I've brokered that kind of thing in this neighborhood countless times over ten years, so I know the order of events well.

I started a reply, found I had nothing to say, deleted it, and made a coffee mix instead. Cup one.

The letters I'd seen yesterday wouldn't leave my head. Listed grade C, actual grade F. I'd thought about those two lines all night. If they were real, it was huge. If they were fake, I was a thirty-four-year-old realtor so tired he was seeing things. Which one it was, I could find out by checking, and to check, I needed a dungeon I already knew the answer to.

I left my coffee half-finished, went downstairs, and pushed open the glass door on the first floor across the alley.

"Hey, Bong. What brings you over this early?"

The owner of Wang Realty looked up at me over the reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose, newspaper half-turned. He'd hung his sign in this alley twenty years before me, and we'd fought over clients about three times. Both of us remembered the other one stealing first all three times, so we said hello but never offered each other coffee.

"You've got that dungeon next to Bongcheon Park in your listings, right? Could I take a look at it?"

"That one? It's D-rank. Why, you got a client?"

"Just want to study a bit. I'm thinking of learning dungeon brokerage."

Mr. Wang lowered his reading glasses and looked at me. A guy who did commercial property suddenly wanting to learn dungeons—it must have seemed fishy. Then he pulled one key off the ring on his desk and handed it over with a remark attached.

"If you land a client, half's mine."

The dungeon next to Bongcheon Park was a listing Mr. Wang had managed for three years. State appraisal: D. A D-rank hunter party actually went in every month and brought out goblin hides, and every month that record went into Mr. Wang's ledger. A D-rank with three years of records. There was no better answer key.

I stood in front of the hole. Caught my breath, and looked the way I look at a commercial listing.

【Listing】 Bongcheon Park-Side Dungeon (Open-ground type)
Listed grade: D │ Actual grade: D
Deposits: Goblin hide (moderate), low-grade mana stone (small amount)
Defects: None

D and D. Goblin hide, moderate. Exactly the same as Mr. Wang's ledger.

I went on to the next answer key. Sillimcheon Dungeon, managed directly by the ward office. It's a public dungeon, so its appraisal and clear records are all posted on the ward office website. C-rank. Orc hide and low-grade mana stones.

【Listing】 Sillimcheon Public Dungeon (Stream type)
Listed grade: C │ Actual grade: C
Deposits: Orc hide (moderate), low-grade mana stone (moderate)
Defects: None

Both correct.

I sat on the Sillimcheon embankment and watched the water for a long time. I'd left my coffee mix at the office, so my hands were bored. So I just did math.

The dungeon market is five years old. Every deal runs on state-certified appraisals. What an appraiser actually does is thirty minutes with a meter at the entrance, and a dungeon's condition changes in a few months. So everyone knows an appraisal can be wrong. But a re-appraisal costs several million won and takes weeks, and as long as there's a certified appraisal, the bank gets guarantee insurance attached, so the bank never loses. That's why, more often than not, nobody looks again.

In a market like that, if there was one realtor who could see the true grade—

Clients would line up. Buyers would come so they wouldn't get scammed, and guarantee insurers would come to cut down on what they pay out. They'd pay double commission. No—triple.

The 3.6 million won in rent suddenly looked small.

I had lunch at Mrs. Park's. One serving of tteokbokki and one fish cake. The moment I sat down, Mrs. Park started talking with the ladle still in her hand.

"Mansu, honey, you know the new bride in 307? Third floor of the villa."

"The newlyweds?"

"That's them. She signed a dungeon jeonse too, and now she can't get hold of the landlord. Fella who wears a gold chain, she says. I told her from the start it smelled funny."

Gold chain. I thought of the stock stamp on the contract Cheolho showed me yesterday. Cha Gapdon.

"How much was the deposit?"

"Sixty million, was it? Everything the two of them saved getting married. Yesterday she was standing in front of my shop crying into her phone."

I ate my tteokbokki. The rice cakes were spicy and sweet. Ten percent of sixty million is six million. Add Cheolho's eight and it's fourteen. My head did that math first. I disliked myself for it a little, but disliking it didn't stop the math.

At twenty-four, I'd stood in front of some shop holding a phone too. On the other end was the sales agency, and all they kept saying was that the person in charge wasn't at their desk. I didn't cry. I didn't have the energy to.

"Honey, are you listening?"

"Yes, I'm listening. Ma'am, could I get that bride's number?"

Mrs. Park put one more fish cake on my plate. In this neighborhood, a free fish cake means go get 'em. That cheer embarrassed me a little. Mrs. Park probably thought I wanted to help the bride, but the first thing in my head was the number six million.

I finished the fish cake down to the broth and saved the number Mrs. Park had written on the back of an order slip. In the name field, I put only 307.

Bongcheon 2-8 Dungeon was on the first basement floor of a commercial building, where a karaoke bar had gone under. Glow-in-the-dark star stickers were still on the walls.

Gap-dol was already there, in a checkered jacket with gelled hair and a gold chain as thick as a ballpoint pen around his neck. His face was gentler than I expected. Scammers usually have gentle faces. If they didn't, nobody would fall for them.

"Oh, the boss from Mansu Realty! Cha Gapdon."

His handshake was warm and damp. I smiled and shook it.

"First time doing dungeons? I heard you did commercial."

"Yes, I'm here to learn a lot."

"Glad you came. Dungeons are the same as commercial property. Location is everything."

Gap-dol spread a hand toward the hole. C-rank, state-certified appraisal, goblin hide and low-grade mana stones, jeonse at 70 million won for two years. He said five inquiries had come in just yesterday. I pretended to be impressed and crouched in front of the hole.

【Listing】 Bongcheon 2-8 Dungeon (Underground type)
Listed grade: C │ Actual grade: F
Deposits: Goblin hide (small amount)
Defects: Grade appraisal forgery history ×1 / Same appraiser as Cheolho's contracted listing

That made three answer keys right. Gap-dol's listings were fake, and my eyes were real.

"What do you think, boss?"

"Nice. Really nice."

I stood up and brushed off my knees. Keeping a straight face is the first thing you learn in this job.

Gap-dol perched on the karaoke sofa and looked me up and down. Behind the gentle face, he was measuring something. Then he pulled a white envelope from his inside jacket pocket.

"Boss, I'll be straight with you. These days everyone brokering dungeons has latched onto the big corporate firms, so it's hard for an individual like me to get clients. Someone like you, who's been in the neighborhood a long time—that's exactly who I need."

"I'm not sure what you mean..."

"Bring me clients and you get double the legal commission rate. In cash. This is just to say hello."

Gap-dol pressed the envelope into my hand. From the thickness, about 500,000 won. The flap was slightly open, and half of Shin Saimdang's face from the 50,000-won note peeked out.

Bring clients, get double. We both knew who those clients would be. People like Cheolho. People like the bride in 307.

"No pressure. Think it over. I'm sure the rent on your office isn't easy either."

I held back a laugh. How did this man know my rent was overdue? He probably didn't. He just knew that every second-floor realtor in every neighborhood is behind on rent. And that was mostly true.

I needed to give the envelope back.

Giving it back was the right thing. But my hand moved slower than I expected. Five hundred thousand won could erase one of Kim's two periods.

"...I'll think about it."

I put the envelope in my inside jacket pocket. Gap-dol grinned. A gentle face.

On my way up the karaoke stairs, my phone rang. Cheolho.

"Boss! How'd it go? Did you meet him?"

The envelope in my inside pocket was resting against my chest. It didn't weigh as much as a single sheet of paper, and it was strangely heavy.

"...Still looking into it."

That was all I said, and I hung up.

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