Chapter 1 – Awakening

It was said that when people got scammed, they reacted with anger first.

My definition of justice was simple. It was not about who was right, but who earned more.

I did the math first.

When would I be able to make up for the scammed money with the attorney fees I earned?

One day, when I returned from completing litigation work.

Father spoke to Geum Nae-yeong with a bright face.

“Nae-yeong, you said you wanted to study abroad, right? No need to worry now!”

It was a comment Father made completely out of the blue.

He remembered Geum Nae-yeong’s words about wanting to go to an American law school and study.

Then, he proudly held out his phone screen.

[Balance: 2,000,000,000]

···Huh?

I thought I saw it wrong. Something was strange about the numbers.

Even looking at it again, it was 2 billion.

“H-how did this··· could it be the lottery?”

Pat, pat.

At my words, Father brushed his pants with his palms.

The dried wallpaper paste scattered like powder.

“No!! Investment!!”

Father’s voice was full of energy.

“Now our family can live taking it easy.”

···Something was strange.

Suddenly 2 billion through investment.

I took the phone and pressed the screen.

[Air Coin Current Price: 1,230 won / Investment Return: 500%]

Even I, who did not know much about coins, felt that this was wrong.

“···Father. Can you withdraw this as cash right now?”

“Withdrawal? Yes, of course.”

“Then try making a bank transfer.”

“···Ah, transfer? That doesn’t work right now. This is··· they said we need to get permission to connect the server with the bank.

Once the permission is granted, it will work right away···”

Permission.

At that single word, there was no need to ask further.

One hundred percent scam.

And Father was talking about that fact excitedly, as if it were nothing, in front of his son who had graduated from law school and become a lawyer.

“···How much did you put in here?”

“Well, at first I put in fifty million from my savings. But that turned into three hundred million in just a few days!

So I even pulled out the house deposit. We changed from a lease to a monthly rent, but well, isn’t this much better than paying a few months of rent?”

Seeing my stiff expression, Father, thinking that the investment was too small to satisfy his son, spoke even more excitedly.

“Why? Should I put in a bit more? Since you’re a lawyer. You know well about loans and stuff, right? You look into it for me.”

The moment I heard those words, my strength drained away, and I barely caught the phone in my hand with my fingertips as it slipped from my arm.

Father, in that way,

poured all of his lifelong savings and lease deposit into a fake coin investment called Air Coin, and

our family became penniless in an instant.

“This won’t do. I’ll go to that office or whatever it is myself. I don’t know if we can recover even a little bit···”

Hearing Mother’s deep sigh, Father, perhaps feeling frustrated, got up the next day and put on his coat.

I stared at Father silently and quietly opened my mouth.

“I’ll go with you. Just in case.”

Just in case, with the hope that maybe, just maybe, something might come out, I followed Father out the front door.

***

“Hey, you fucker, tell the boss to come out!”

“Open the door, you sons of bitches!”

“My money, my money!!”

When Father and Geum Nae-yeong arrived, the front of the office was already in a state of chaos.

Scammed people gathered and occupied the front. Anger and despair were written on their faces, and the impatient ones hung onto the glass door, rattling the handle to see if they could open it.

Some even poked their eyes into the gap of the door to peek inside and see who was there.

Even in the eyes of a rookie lawyer with no experience, the answer was obvious.

Investment fraud. A sophisticated white-collar crime.

There was almost no possibility of getting the money back here. They must have already squandered it or diverted it to coins that could actually be traded.

Father pushed through the crowd and stepped forward.

“Give me my money back! That money is my entire fortune!”

The face of Father, who was shouting at the top of his lungs, turned red.

Next to him, another man pounded on the door with his fist.

“Open the door! Open it!”

There was a slight sign of presence inside, but the door was closed like an iron fortress.

“I’m going to smash this!”

Watching Father who was about to roll up his sleeves, Geum Nae-yeong cut him off dryly.

“You cannot do that. Destruction of property, obstruction of business. Later, it might become a legal issue for you instead.”

Father’s eyes went blank.

‘What legal method is there to enter?’

Geum Nae-yeong turned his gaze to the side.

Next to the office door, there was a flowerpot taller than an adult.

And in front of it, a man who was shouting curses.

“Hmm··· this will do.”

I approached him and spoke calmly.

“Excuse me, mister. You want to go inside, right?”

His confusion at my sudden words was brief. Looking at Geum Nae-yeong’s father shouting, the man realized his situation was not much different.

“Uh··· well, yeah.”

“Then please push this flowerpot hard toward my side.”

“The flowerpot··· why?”

“I will let you enter legally.”

The man looked me up and down.

‘Ah, he is suspicious. But he will be convinced soon. What is there that a person who has lost at least a hundred million won cannot do?’

“Don’t worry. I will take responsibility.” The man, hearing the answer ‘responsibility’, soon replied.

“···Okay, got it.”

And the man pushed the flowerpot toward where I was standing with all his might.

Slid—swish.

As the flowerpot was about to fall, I quickly took off the jumper I was wearing and wrapped my right hand with it. Then, I reached into Father’s pocket and took out a Tajima wallpaper knife.

Holding the back of the wallpaper knife rather than the blade, I pretended to fall due to being pushed by the flowerpot and struck the glass door with all my might.

Crash!

The glass door shattered into pieces.

“It’s open!!”

The gathered people shouted in unison and poured into the office.

It was then.

A group of men rushed out from the inside, shouting.

“What is this!!! You people!!”

As the investors broke the door and barged in, their eyes widened at the unexpected situation.

It seemed they did not expect them to push in to this extent.

One of them, a pot-bellied man with tattoos all over his arms, stepped forward after quickly assessing the situation, glaring at the people.

‘Ah, I guess he’s the main character’s appearance.’

“What, you broke the door and entered?! This is trespassing, and obstruction of business! Do you guys want to go to jail?!

Hey, call the police!”

His voice carried a sense of familiarity. This meant it was not his first time in this situation.

People flinched at the word ‘police’ and looked at me.

I emphasized my words and spoke clearly.

“This is not trespassing, but··· ne.ces.si.ty.”

“What···?”

“It’s true that I broke the glass door, but the flowerpot you illegally stacked in the hallway fell and almost hit me.

I had no choice but to crash into it to avoid it. Necessity, Criminal Act Article 22.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Who do you take for a fool? You broke the door on purpose!”

“Do you have evidence? CCTV, perhaps?”

Silence.

‘···There won’t be one. There’s no way a scam coin company would install CCTV.’

I slowly turned my head toward the crowd.

“Everyone. They say··· there’s no CCTV.”

At Geum Nae-yeong’s words, the people blinked.

“If you want to recover even a single penny, take the office equipment here. You won’t get back the invested money anyway. That’s already over.”

A brief silence.

In that gap, I did not forget to add one more word.

“And whatever you take out, we are people who have never seen each other here.”

As soon as those words were finished, someone shouted.

“Hey! Grab the monitors at least!”

With that sound, people scattered here and there inside the office.

They began to grab whatever was in sight, from desks, chairs, keyboards, to coffee pots.

At that time, the tattooed pot-belly, sensing the atmosphere, secretly backed away toward the exit.

At that moment, I stuck out my toe.

Crash—!

The pot-belly tripped over Geum Nae-yeong’s foot and tumbled headfirst onto the floor, screaming as if he had hit something hard.

“Argh!”

Looking down at him with an expressionless face, Geum Nae-yeong said.

“This is neither assault nor bodily injury by negligence, but self-help.”

***

Ten years ago.

Thud, thud, thud.

“Hey, keep laughing. Thud, thud.”

“Oh? You’re digging your own grave today? I’ll make sure you can never make that face again.

I didn’t like your laughing face from the beginning.”

Park Ki-on, the school bully. He chose a target today.

Geum Nae-yeong.

A bookworm ranking near the top of the class.

But that guy was always unpleasant.

He was smart, so the way he talked was also cocky.

Therefore, the nickname ‘super cocky’ followed him around.

He also hated that the teachers shielded him, saying he could enter a SKY university at this rate.

Wanting to see that guy cower, he demanded some money, and Geum Nae-yeong replied with a smile.

“Money is earned by labor.”

At those words, Park Ki-on lost his reason.

“Smile again, you retard. Your face looks like a girl’s too.”

Did he get beaten up for a long time?

As Park Ki-on caught his breath for a moment, Geum Nae-yeong lifted his blood-covered face.

Tap, tap.

Picking up the vocabulary book that fell from his pocket, he muttered in a small voice.

“Coward.”

“···What?”

“Coward. It means a scaredy-cat. Don’t you know? It’s a middle school level word.”

Even after being beaten like that, there was not a shred of fear in his eyes.

Looking at Geum Nae-yeong’s face speaking without hesitation with a face dripping with blood, Park Ki-on felt a strange displeasure.

“···What did you say? This bastard really···”

His eyes rolled back. Just as he was about to raise his fist again,

“Hey, hey, hey! The student dean is here! Hey, the mad dog is here!”

At someone’s shout, Park Ki-on lowered his hand and grabbed his bag.

Then he disappeared somewhere down the alley.

“Ugh··· it hurts.”

Familiar with it, he slung the dusty bag over his shoulder again and walked toward home as usual.

···Just as he was about to do that.

Thump.

A dull impact striking the back of his head.

Something hard hit his head.

“Agh.”

His vision shook and he collapsed.

What he saw at the end of his blurry vision was Park Ki-on’s face.

Held in that hand, a red-stained brick.

“Did you think I ran away? Fuck, you piece of shit!”

The voice piercing his ears echoed faintly.

In his head, as if a single line had snapped, only a ringing ‘beep—’ sound echoed.

That was the last of it.

His eyelids slowly closed.

Beep··· Beep··· Tap, tap···

A machine sound familiar to the ear.

And···

“Here! Our child is awake! Over here!”

Mother’s urgent voice.

Nurses’ footsteps, and the doctor’s words.

“Now, are you conscious? Can you tell me your name?”

“···Geum Nae-yeong.”

The sound of Mother’s breath releasing.

“The surgery went well. Let’s monitor him.”

The doctor calmly left the hospital room.

A thick bandage wrapped around his head.

Mother gently strokes his head.

“That bad guy··· how could he do that to our precious Nae-yeong··· Nae-yeong, your dad is coming soon too. Don’t worry.”

“···Yeah.”

Ugh.

His stomach churned.

And a thought that suddenly came to mind.

[···Why is the hospital like this?]

Was it my thought? Or someone else’s?

In my ear··· what was this sound?

···An auditory hallucination?

[What do you mean auditory hallucination, the hospital quality is not good at all. If I had known, I should have gone to a higher-level general hospital.]

···What is this?

[The ego is not fully attached yet. You’ll get used to it soon.]

Park Ki-on.

That guy who couldn’t even memorize a middle-school level word did accomplish one thing after all.

Awakening.

Potential? Such a word is insufficient.

Just··· a genius who remembers even the trajectory of a single speck of dust floating in the air?

Yes. From now on, let’s live the way we want.