The Story That Couldn’t Be Broken

In the early part of Goddess Saga, having your home taken away was part of a set story the player couldn’t change. Maybe, if you earned a high-grade license and graduated from the academy, you could alter it. Especially if you reached A-grade; by the setting, people like that were talents the country practically rolled out the red carpet for.

At the start of the game, there had been players who tried exactly that, only to fail. They confirmed that the highest rank you could obtain in the academy arc was A, but they still couldn’t change the story. Even after becoming a national-level rookie A-grade hunter, the plot still moved ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toward having the house taken away.

The method changed a little. No matter what, a local thug gang couldn’t just beat down an A-grade awakened one, even if they were barely worth calling chicks. But they could do it indirectly. Which meant Sunwoo had to watch that infuriatingly ugly version of the house-theft story play out.

At first, the complaints had been simple enough: how could a B-grade-or-higher protagonist possibly get bullied by nobody local thugs? Later, once the game progressed to the middle and revealed that Sihyeok Group was backing them, the logic finally held up.

Sunwoo knew the story that hadn’t been revealed to the world yet.

So if he wanted to change the story of losing the house, he had to account for Sihyeok Group too. It wasn’t enough to deal with the surface layer; he had to consider the enormous force operating behind the scenes.

This had started as a story about finding a place for the first son of a rapidly growing mid-sized company and guild to indulge in his hobbies. But it was connected to the most important matter in Sihyeok Group. If he thought about it carefully, even from Sihyeok Group’s perspective, there was no benefit in making an enemy of a “national-power-level rookie.” That was because it was tied to a secret that could never be exposed.

Because of that background, the first son, Bang Hyeong-seok, could mobilize a significant portion of Sihyeok Group’s power. And with Sunwoo’s current strength, there was no way he could handle it.

As if to insist that a little growth was nowhere near enough, the success probability for changing the story remained exactly as it was. Or so Sunwoo thought.

Of course, that didn’t mean he planned to give up.

Even knowing all of that, he still intended to “solve” it, and the plan for doing so was already in his head.

“Grandma.”

“Yes, Sunwoo?”

“I know someone who can help with this kind of thing. I’m going to meet them and talk for a bit.”

“Who is it that you’re going to see right now?”

“Yeah. These people are thugs, after all. This won’t be the end of it.”

“...That’s true.”

The grandson had already understood what she had deliberately left unsaid, because she didn’t want to make her worry.

“So I think I need to go tell someone I know about it now.”

He said there was someone who would help even knowing the situation.

“There’s someone who’ll help?”

Sunwoo nodded without hesitation and answered, “Yeah. I know someone through the academy.”

It was such a clear answer that Grandma simply replied that she understood. Someone like that wouldn’t be strange ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at all if it involved Seoul Hunter Academy. It was a convincing explanation, and besides—

“Then I’ll be back.”

The solid back of her grown grandson inspired trust.

“Ah! Grandma.”

Just as he was walking away with that dependable back, Sunwoo paused and called out to her.

“Hmm?”

“Starting today, I’m going to be a dependable grandson.”

Grandma’s eyes widened.

And then—

“Yes. My grandson.”

She smiled.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Sunwoo dragged the three thugs from Beomho Development along as a single bundle. Their suits were being scraped raw across the ground, but naturally, that was something he had no reason to care about.

As Sunwoo walked, towing three broad-shouldered thugs in suits by a rope—

……

There was no one watching.

The Gate connected to the pocket dimension where Sunwoo’s family lived stood on the outskirts of Seoul. And the surrounding area had nothing worth noticing, so there wasn’t a single passerby on that holiday morning.

Shhhk—

In that quiet road, Sunwoo kept walking, dragging the three thugs behind him.

He had even deliberately planned a route that passed through areas with CCTV.

Sunwoo had completely memorized the layout of the neighborhood cameras, which ordinary people would never have known.

In the middle of Goddess Saga, there had been a “sneaking in” section during the process of reclaiming the house. If you identified the CCTV positions here, everything became far easier. The difficulty itself had been built around the assumption that you would locate the cameras and avoid combat.

When he was a child, Sunwoo had spent a month stuck on that part because he didn’t know.

Later, when he’d become a so-called veteran, he had memorized every camera completely.

And even here, while thinking ahead to the future, he had decided it would be good to memorize the nearby CCTV positions—and he’d acted on it.

At first he had gotten lost several times, but eventually he had obtained a map with a great deal of useful information about the area. That included the CCTV positions for this very time, far earlier than the middle of the story.

In other words, following the route he had prepared without issue, he arrived at a more secluded spot where no cameras were present and set the three thugs down.

Kuk.

He pressed a sleeping point.

The very kind that puts someone to sleep the moment it is struck.

Acupoint striking.

A technique that targeted specific points along the meridians through which qi flowed inside the body, bringing about a particular effect.

In Goddess Saga, you couldn’t use it no matter how strong you were unless you had properly learned it.

Even here, where it had become reality, only a properly trained martial artist or physician could do it—and Sunwoo accomplished it with absurd ease.

If you know acupoint striking, you’ll find plenty of uses for it, my disciple.

That was thanks to the fact that it had been one of the things he’d learned across 300 years of training. It had taken countless trials and errors, but because of that experience, he could do it without a single misstep even in an unfamiliar body.

With that, the three thugs who’d been dumped here wouldn’t wake up until tonight, unless someone came looking for them.

After putting them to sleep, Sunwoo returned home once.

More precisely, he made it look as though he had.

He took the same route back to the Gate, then returned by a camera-free path to where the thugs were waiting. By making that “alibi,” Sunwoo took the phone from Lee Maeng-ho’s pocket.

He wore gloves so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints.

Then he unlocked the phone using Lee Maeng-ho’s fingerprint and switched it to a pattern lock.

After that, he changed locations, and his destination was the Beomho Development junk shop.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Beomho Development had started as a thug organization known to the police as the Beomho Gang. And the Beomho Gang’s beginning and base of operations had been a junk shop on the outskirts.

Since it was their headquarters, the junk shop should have had members of the gang stationed there—

Whoooosh—

But it didn’t.

There wasn’t even the slightest sign of anyone behind the firmly shut door.

And in fact, there really was no one inside.

By this point, Beomho Development had become a private organization that handled the dirty work for Sihyeok Group in earnest. At the same time, they had abandoned the junk shop, but that alone wasn’t the reason it had gone empty.

[That junk shop of yours. It’s about time you shut down that little hole-in-the-wall, isn’t it?]

[Yes, Head Director.]

[Good. Then we’ll use it as a warehouse for a while.]

[...Yes. Understood.]

[That’s right, that’s right. Just that. Don’t ask questions—just keep your head down. Let’s keep doing things that way from now on.]

[Understood.]

[From now on, we’ll be the ones managing it, so don’t worry about it.]

[Yes.]

The reason was Bang Hyeong-seok, the first son of the Sihyeok Group chairman, who had taken it over for his own use. That was why Beomho Development’s thugs had completely disappeared.

Sunwoo had come here knowing that.

There was no one inside right now.

Just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be sure, he looked around as carefully as possible and checked again. The only thing to watch out for was the CCTV, and even that was just for show, so avoiding it wasn’t difficult. He had also memorized this side’s camera layout through repeated failure, so he could enter without being detected by any variable.

Once he was inside the junk shop, Sunwoo took out Lee Maeng-ho’s phone.

Then he began taking photos of the various places among the scrap piles that couldn’t be seen clearly from outside.

Click—

The horns of Ghirgis stacked in one place.

Click—

The venom sacs of Venok piled up in another.

Click—

And sacks filled with the essence of Bemersh, and so on.

Things with poor commercial value, the sort that commonly piled up in junk shops.

Unless you were one of the few researchers who knew what they were, no one would buy them.

Most of them were treated quite literally as “junk,” after being refined in order to extract even a small amount of mana.

In an age like this, it wasn’t strange for even things like that to end up in a junk shop.

At least, not when viewed in isolation.

But if several specific byproducts that were normally treated as junk were gathered together—

They came to mean something else to people with the right knowledge.

Click—

After taking all the photos, Sunwoo sent them together with a short message to a number stored in his memory.

Then he also pasted a note with equally short wording onto the office wall, just outside the CCTV blind spot.

If Sunwoo’s prediction was right, this would solve the immediate problem.

With just this, not only Beomho Development but even Sihyeok Group would no longer be able to focus on Sunwoo’s family.

“...Holy crap.”

And exactly as he expected, that was what happened.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Kang Han-na was a girl famous as the youngest daughter of Changseong Group, a representative guild and conglomerate in South Korea.

She was the youngest granddaughter of the Changseong Group chairman and the youngest daughter of the vice chairman. That background alone was enough to make her one of the country’s most prominent celebrities.

And then there was her naturally beautiful face.

But as Kang Han-na grew up, she made her name known not just through her looks and background, but through her talent and skill as well.

She had entered Seoul Hunter Academy and never once lost her place in Class A.

That meant she was one of the top talents even among the geniuses gathered from across the country.

And with her graduation approaching, it was confirmed that she would receive a B-grade license, making her a talent being watched as a future S-grade hunter.

When a veteran hunter accumulated enough years, becoming B-grade meant they could work for a major corporation.

But here was a sixteen-year-old girl, barely about to graduate from the academy, being recognized as an ability user on the same level as those B-grade hunters.

That was no different from the record set by active S-grade hunters treated as national assets, so it was only natural that she drew immense expectations.

She was being watched as the possible birth of another S-grade hunter.

Buzzz—

Her phone vibrated.

It was not her public-facing phone, but the one she used strictly for private matters. So when she picked it up lightly, she—

“……Huh?”

The face that appeared on the message and photo had become that of someone from the direct line of Changseong Group, which made sense given the content.

And then, a few hours later—

“...Holy crap.”

There was a man in an office, unable to hide his emotions as his hands trembled. His name was Lee Beom-ho.

The president and boss of Beomho Development, a man who had become one of the shadow forces of Sihyeok Group.