It Had Become a Different Company
Kang Suk-woo, representative of Studio Nangan, clutched the receiver and pressed a hand to his chest in relief.
"That's wonderful news."
"I'm so glad to hear the funding issues on the author's company side have been resolved. We'd been racking our brains over how we might help — this is truly a weight off our shoulders."
"I'm sorry for putting you through unnecessary worry over something like this, sir."
"It was never unnecessary. If the webtoon does well, the original novel rides that success right along with it. The only thing that still bothers me is that we weren't able to offer more substantial help."
Park Do-hun's voice was bright — a world apart from the strained tone of just a few days earlier, when the cash crunch had been crushing him. There was room to breathe in it now.
"In that case, I'll push the secondary platform deal hard. Leave it to me."
"We're counting on you."
Click.
The call ended.
Kang Suk-woo sank back into his chair.
"Hoo…"
A long, deep sigh of relief spilled out of him. His back was damp with cold sweat.
The truth was, they had been at the breaking point. As a fledgling management company, the support funds they could offer an author had run dry long ago. Operating capital was gone. Every loan they could secure had already been drawn down.
If this one didn't come through either, I was ready to start begging relatives…
Given the nature of the industry, he had been certain the settlement money would eventually cover the shortfall — the work was performing that well. But when cash flow seizes up, even a profitable company can go under. Black-ink bankruptcy was no longer someone else's problem.
And then the author had solved it on his own.
There was no better news in the world.
"Fortune really is on our side."
Kang Suk-woo stood up abruptly and walked to the whiteboard. The words Sirius and Macao Page were written across it in large letters.
"Now…"
He picked up a marker.
"Let's tear them apart properly."
The funding pressure was gone. That meant there was no longer any need to scramble. Meetings with the secondary platform contacts were right around the corner. They already knew about The Regressed Hunter is Merciless. It wasn't an exclusive on their platforms, but it was a monster rookie rewriting the record books on Munpia. The data made one thing clear: land this title, and it had every chance of becoming their flagship work for the second half of the year.
Between the two of them…
Kang Suk-woo's eyes flashed.
All I have to do is show up with a real weapon and win the tug-of-war.
He picked up his phone and called the producer at Sirius.
"Yes, Representative of Nangan. Calling about the meeting schedule?"
There was a subtle air of superiority in the PD's voice. A brand-new management company. A debut author. No matter how strong the numbers, the structure of the industry still cast them as the weaker party in front of a major platform. They were still fretting over the "rookie risk," dangling settlement rates, IP rights, and exclusive periods as leverage.
But.
"PD-nim. I'm sorry, but we'll need to push the meeting back to the day after tomorrow."
"Excuse me? The day after tomorrow? Why all of a sudden…"
"We've updated the materials on our end. And the terms you proposed — I think you'll need to re-examine those."
"The terms? Come on, for a rookie author's work, those conditions are already the best in the industry. We don't even know how much backlog they have, and we're the ones taking on the risk…"
There it was again. Backlog. Risk.
Kang Suk-woo let out a short laugh.
"About that backlog."
"Yes?"
"Our author already has over two hundred chapters secured."
"…What?"
Silence stretched across the line.
"You didn't mishear me. Two hundred chapters. Even if we drop a hundred and thirty right out of the gate, that's more than enough to maintain quality and keep serializing comfortably."
"T-two hundred…"
"So reconvene internally, rebuild your offer from scratch, and come back. We'll be comparing terms with Macao Page as well."
"W-wait, Representative! Macao? We were first—"
"See you the day after tomorrow."
Click.
He hung up.
It was electrifying. His heart hammered in his chest.
This was the same man who used to cling to platform managers' pant legs, begging, Please just run one more banner. Please set up a promotion for us. And now he had been the one to hang up first — on a major platform PD, no less.
"Hahaha!"
Laughter burst out of him. Land the right work, and you could afford an attitude like this.
Kang Suk-woo clenched his fist.
"Best bet of my entire life."
Putting everything on Author Kang Minjun had been the single most perfect move he had ever made.
Of course, he had no intention of crossing any lines. He would never let his own posture damage the work. All he wanted was treatment that matched the novel's performance — not the external factors stacked against them.
Today, I dropped another ten consecutive chapters.
It wasn't just a volume dump. The episodes I released this time covered the Red Dragon Dungeon raid — the climax of Part One. The protagonist unlocking his hidden power, cutting down the traitors one by one: the absolute peak of catharsis. Ten chapters of that pleasure, stacked end to end. Of course the readers exploded.
Every time I hit refresh, the comment section poured down like a waterfall.
Some people were out on communities and social media promoting the novel like it was their personal discovery, desperate to show the world a gem they had unearthed.
And then reactions like this started appearing:
A Commercial Author's Perspective.
A work called a legend in the web novel world. Even I had stayed up all night reading it — one of the rare few that I simply enjoyed without ever feeling frustrated by the plot. Of course, my own head overflowed with imaginations and developments even more entertaining than that…
What an honor.
As a commercial writer, being compared to a masterpiece like that was a joy and a compliment beyond words.
And little by little, talk of a webtoon adaptation started circulating in the communities. I hadn't posted any announcement, but the numbers were so strong that readers had started the conversation on their own.
I clicked the post. Comments were rolling in in real time.
Readers' hopes and fears, side by side. And among them, one claim stood out:
One reader's wild speculation. The replies stacked up immediately.
Back and forth. It was the kind of argument that only happens when expectations run too high — readers building their defenses in advance, just in case the real thing let them down.
I read those comments and felt the corner of my mouth lift.
Kimchi soup, huh…
That kimchi soup. I was gulping it down by the bowlful myself, just on the off chance.
I turned my eyes to the tablet screen. The manuscript for webtoon Chapter 3 was already open on it.
The moment I finished writing the novel, I had picked up the pen without resting. Fatigue? There was none. If anything, the brain that had been burning hot from writing had found a new outlet in drawing — and was blazing even hotter.
"Hoo…"
I steadied my breathing and set the pen tip against the screen.
Scratch. Scratch.
It was a digital pen, but in my ears it sounded like friction against paper.
This panel was the highlight of Chapter 3: the moment the protagonist came face-to-face with the guild master who had killed him before the regression. Neon signs reflected off rain-slick asphalt. The guild master's shadow stretched long across it. And the protagonist's eyes, looking up at him — hatred, killing intent, and a madness that could not be held down.
"The eyes need to look more dead."
I adjusted the pen pressure and layered black into the pupils. Not simple black. An abyss whose depth you couldn't measure. But at the center of that darkness, a red gleam had to sit like a single point of light.
Tap.
The moment I placed the dot, the protagonist on the screen came alive — an overwhelming presence that felt ready to punch through the monitor and seize me by the throat. A scene I had once written in a single line as killing intent rose from him had returned as visual violence: thousands of lines and colors.
"Good."
A shiver ran through me. Even I got goosebumps. What would the readers feel?
Japanese manga? The Western market?
Bring it all on.
It wasn't baseless confidence. The world inside my head was vaster than any comic, and the art I produced with Muse's hand was more precise than any master's.
I picked up speed. I poured my soul into every raindrop scattering through the background.
Tap-tap-tap. Swish. Slash.
Left hand on the shortcuts, right hand dancing with the pen — like playing a piano, or performing a sword dance. Inside the studio, only the rhythmic sound of the pen striking the tablet filled the air.
One hour. Two hours. I didn't even notice time passing. Before I knew it, the Chapter 3 manuscript was finished.
I scrolled down slowly.
It was a film. Every single panel could have passed for a page from an illustration art book.
"Haha…"
A hollow laugh slipped out. What kind of judgment would the readers who had fallen so deep into the original novel pass on this webtoon I was about to deliver?
The ones who had fretted, Please don't ruin it. The ones who had held each other back, saying not to get ahead of themselves.
When they came face-to-face with this overwhelming quality… imagining how their expressions would change felt like dopamine pickling my brain. They would drop their phones, or rub their eyes and look again.
"In the end, it always comes down to one thing."
I leaned deep into the chair and muttered.
"Just being good is everything."
If it's fun, that's enough. If it's overwhelming, that's enough. Then every worry turns into praise, and every wild speculation becomes prophecy.
With a light heart, I saved another bomb to deliver to the readers.
Filename: The Regressed Hunter Webtoon — Chapter 3.
It was being prepared, steadily and carefully.
The Ad Like office.
Three days had passed since Park Do-hun took over as CEO. The employees had spent those three days in a transformed environment. Overtime was gone. Managing Director Choi's shouting was gone. In their place sat a single twenty-minute feedback session each day with Director Kang Minjun.
In front of the large monitor at the center of the office, Manager Kim and the staff were gathered around the data.
"Honestly…"
One employee swallowed hard and spoke.
"Looking at the deliverables alone, I figured things had improved to some degree."
"Right."
Manager Kim nodded.
"Design and copy are subjective. Something that looks good to us might not land with consumers at all."
That was true. No matter how polished something looked, the essence of marketing was numbers. Click-through rate. Conversion rate. Purchase count. If those cold figures didn't prove it out, it was just pretty garbage. This industry spoke in results.
"So we collected three days of data."
Manager Kim took hold of the mouse.
"It's been exactly two days since we started running ads with the revised materials. Take a look at the results."
Click.
A graph filled the screen.
"Huh…"
"Holy…"
Gasps broke out. They had been stunned for days already, but this shock was different again. The slope of the graph was abnormal.
Click-through rate up 300% over the previous ads. Purchase conversion rate relative to traffic up 250%. The red ascending curve was climbing as if it had no ceiling.
"Is this… even a possible number?"
"Is it an error? Try refreshing."
But no matter how many times they refreshed, the result was the same. The numbers were still climbing in real time.
"Ha…"
Manager Kim let out a hollow laugh. The thrill he had felt three days ago, the first time he saw the revised version Kang Minjun had sent — the data was proving that thrill had not been wrong.
"He really was a genius."
It wasn't simply good instincts. Kang Minjun instinctively understood what people wanted, which phrases they responded to, which images made them open their wallets. And he had done it in twenty minutes. That was the part that sent chills down their spines.
"Manager."
An employee spoke in a trembling voice.
"A client just called. They say inventory is completely wiped out — they want us to pause the ads for a bit."
"Same here. So many inquiry calls that their operations are grinding to a halt."
Happy screams poured in. The office was swept up once more in shock and joy. It looked similar to three days ago, but the weight of the air was different. Back then it had been astonishment. Now it was certainty — the certainty that they were working alongside the best talent in the industry.
Manager Kim muttered to himself as he drafted the report for CEO Park Do-hun.
"At this level… we shouldn't just be thinking about going back to how things were. We should be considering expansion."
Ad Like had become a completely different company.