A Syndrome
Kang Suk-woo, the representative of Studio Nangan, made no effort to hide the excitement in his voice.
Still, he forced the thrill down and began the briefing with as much composure as he could muster.
"Author, the meetings with both major platforms are finished. To cut straight to the point, both of them put extraordinary terms on the table."
At the voice coming through the speakerphone, I set my pen down in the workshop.
Hyung, listening beside me, swallowed hard, the tension plain on his face.
"Summarize it for us."
"Yes. First, Macao Page. They really showed us what capital tastes like. No ceiling on advance royalties, a guaranteed three-day main banner at launch, unlimited push notifications…."
Representative Kang paused for a beat.
"Conditions a rookie author couldn't even dream of. However…."
"However?"
"They had room to breathe. They already hold mega-hits like Level Up Together that have exploded not just domestically but overseas—especially in Japan and North America."
"So they have nothing to lose?"
"Exactly. They're treating your work like a massive hit, but to them it's still just one of many. Even without our title, they have replacements waiting."
It was a cold, clear analysis.
Macao Page was already a predator seated on the throne. There was no reason for them to stake their life on a single charge.
"Sirius, on the other hand, is different."
Strength entered Representative Kang's voice.
"They're desperate. No—they're desperate. If they don't want to fall behind the competition, they absolutely need a global IP that can flip the board in the second half of the year."
"And so?"
"Sirius took one step—no, ten steps further with their offer. This is industry confidential; if it leaks it could spark fairness controversies, but…."
He lowered his voice.
"They agreed to cut the platform fee to fifteen percent."
"…What?"
Hyung asked again, his face saying he must have misheard.
My own eyes went wide.
Platform fees normally took thirty percent, sometimes as high as forty-five. Factor in the management settlement ratios on top of that, and the author's share shrank accordingly.
But fifteen percent?
This was practically the platform abandoning almost all of its own profit.
"It's the best treatment in history. Even established authors—no, even the so-called Titan-class authors don't get rates like this. The CEO of Sirius signed off on it under his own authority."
"Wow…."
Hyung couldn't close his mouth.
That was how completely Sirius was betting everything on this work—The Regressed Hunter is Merciless.
The three chapters of webtoon manuscript we had shown them.
They had shattered even the solid fee policies of a major corporate platform.
"In exchange, they have one condition."
"Go ahead."
"They'd like you to ease up on the mass releases the way you've been doing them."
An unexpected request. Normally platforms pushed you to row hard while the tide was in and dump chapters.
"I know you have over two hundred chapters stockpiled, but Sirius's strategy is the long run."
He continued.
"Even when the one-hundred-thirty-chapter exclusive period ends, you can't pour out ten chapters at a time the way you used to. Stretch it as long as possible and make readers log into the platform every single day. That's the goal."
I nodded.
I understood. Dumping everything at once would explode the sales numbers, but the work's lifespan would shorten by the same measure.
One chapter a day, teasing the readers and making them wait—that was the best way for a platform to keep dwell time climbing.
"So they asked for seven-day-a-week serialization. Stick to the one-chapter-a-day rule, keep the readers hooked without a single hiatus. From your side as the author, this is also the most advantageous for settlement revenue."
"That's no problem. I've already written plenty."
"And there's one more crucial strategy."
Representative Kang played his trump card.
"Around chapter one hundred fifty, we surprise-announce the webtoon."
"Chapter one hundred fifty?"
"Yes. When the novel launches on other platforms and the initial promo heat starts to cool a little, we light the secondary booster that is the webtoon. At that moment they've promised to pour platform promotions in again—on the largest scale since the company was founded."
It was strategic.
Douse the dying embers with oil right before they go out and make them blaze up all over again.
A true total mobilization order.
"So that's the situation. Macao Page's stable infrastructure, or Sirius's extraordinary treatment and raw desperation."
Representative Kang drew a breath.
"The final decision is yours, Author. Which will you choose?"
A brief silence settled.
I looked at hyung.
He already seemed finished with the math; the corners of his mouth were stretched to his ears. With a fifteen-percent fee on the table, the game was already over. His eyes were screaming Sirius, no question.
I felt the same.
Rather than settling into an already completed kingdom, going somewhere that would make me king and flipping the entire board would be far more fun.
I spoke into the receiver with absolute conviction.
"Let's go with Sirius."
"Understood! I'll move on it right away!"
Joy rang clear in Representative Kang's voice.
After the call ended, I threw myself back into the work.
On the monitor sat the final version of episode four that the webtoon team had just sent over.
"Hoo…."
I drew a deep breath and opened the file.
The screen filled with rich color and densely layered backgrounds.
Over them, the characters moved with explosive energy.
I scrolled slowly, marking every place that still needed my hand.
"Here—make the shadow tones a little darker…."
Scratch, sweep.
"For the effects, push the particle feel further…."
Tap-tap.
The revisions went smoothly. Shockingly fast.
In the old days I would have had to handle every stage myself—roughs, coloring, backgrounds, effects—and a single episode four would have eaten several full days.
Now it was different.
The newly recruited S-rank supporters understood my storyboards and guides perfectly.
The direction of light I intended, the atmosphere, even the way background tones shifted with a character's emotional line—they had rendered it all as if they had looked straight into my head.
"At this level…."
I set the pen down and leaned back into the chair.
"The quality gap between this and the first three episodes I did completely alone is almost nothing."
If anything, the background detail that had passed through professional hands felt even stronger.
All I had to touch were the core cuts that absolutely required me—the protagonist's eyes, the impact of decisive action scenes.
Work time had dropped to a tenth. Quality held.
With this system, weekly serialization was a given; if I felt like it, twice a week looked possible too.
"Haha…."
A laugh slipped out.
At the same time, something in my chest gave a sharp, electric tremble.
We're really going in.
A major platform.
Munpia was big, but Sirius and Macao Page—where webtoons lived—operated on an entirely different scale of mass appeal.
Web novels still got treated as subculture. Webtoons did not.
They were the major medium everyone watched on their phones—on the subway, on the bus, in cafés.
My work, my drawings, were about to be thrown into that vast market.
A stage that would judge me not only by web-novel readers but by the general public.
Fear?
More than that, it was excitement.
I wanted to see how far my work would travel, how many people my world could bewitch.
"Chapter one hundred fifty…."
That was when the webtoon would drop.
The day I would deliver a visual shock to the readers who had only imagined the novel—and to the public who had never heard of it at all.
My fist clenched tight.
"Once the webtoon adaptation is finished cleanly…."
Suddenly my parents' faces back home rose in my mind.
Mother, who always asked over the phone whether I was eating properly and whether anything hurt. Father, who was blunt but would toss out, "Come down if it gets hard."
How many years had it been since I came up to Seoul shouting that I would succeed and repay them?
Every holiday I said I'd come this time, next month for sure—then postponed it with the excuse of work, or because I was too ashamed of the version of myself that still couldn't stand tall.
But now.
"I can go."
A triumphant homecoming.
Not in silk robes, maybe, but at least as a son successful enough that his parents no longer had to worry.
Arms full of gift bags, I could open the front door with my head high.
"This is the time to go. Before it gets any later."
The thought put fresh strength into the hand holding the pen.
Not simply to make money.
To show a result I wouldn't be ashamed of to the people who believed in me—and to the family that had waited for me.
I let myself be pulled back into the monitor.
Meanwhile, in the web-novel and webtoon production booth set up on one side of the office, a war was underway.
"Team lead! Episode five background rendering is done! Please check it!"
"Got it—upload it to the server right away. Coloring team, how far are you on the underpainting for episode six characters?"
"Working the hair tones now! We can hand it over within thirty minutes!"
Clack-clack, tap. Click, click.
The sound of keyboards and mice rang out without pause, like machine-gun fire.
Dark circles sat under every staff member's eyes, yet those eyes themselves burned bright.
In truth, the current labor intensity far exceeded industry average.
It was practically crunch mode.
The strange part was that not a single person complained.
If anything—
"Kim, aren't you going home? It's eleven at night."
Even when CEO Park Do-hun came in with a worried face and tried to send them off, it was useless.
"Ah, boss. Just let me finish this shading pass. If I stop here the feel will go cold."
"No, you can take it slow, okay? The author has plenty of stockpile, and we've still got time until launch."
The company was the one pushing them to protect their work-life balance.
They kept insisting the delivered work could be paced more gently, that no one should overdo it.
The staff would not budge.
"Boss, we can't."
The background team lead smiled with bloodshot eyes.
"We just want to see it finished sooner."
"What?"
"When you look at the storyboards the author sends, they're actually insane. How are we supposed to go home without seeing this as finished art? Curiosity keeps us awake."
That was it.
These people were not simply laborers collecting a paycheck.
They themselves were passionate fans of The Regressed Hunter is Merciless—and top-tier creators in their own right.
Every storyboard and art guide Kang Minjun sent shattered their expectations.
Each time they faced that overwhelming talent, they shivered—and greed took root.
I want to finish this with my own hands.
I don't want to leave even a speck of flaw on this masterpiece.
A pure hunger to see the completed webtoon even one day earlier.
And an anxious fear that if their own pace lagged, it might disrupt the author's serialization schedule.
Above all—
"I want to show it to people soon."
The coloring staff gripped their tablet pens tight.
"To the public. To everyone. What kind of work we're making right now."
"Exactly. Just thinking about watching the reactions on launch day and maybe passing out… I'm already getting chills."
They were certain.
The results that made them gasp "holy shit" while working would explode the moment they reached the public.
Normally, adapting a webtoon from an existing original carried crushing pressure—fear of disappointing the original fans, fear of getting roasted.
Right now it was different.
Confidence outweighed fear; joy outweighed burden.
As long as they followed the author's guides, they would not get cursed out.
Beyond that—
"We'll make them call it all-time great."
If most webtoon adaptations aimed merely to be praised for expressing the original well, these people were running to be praised for transcending it.
And when that happened, a work gained terrifying momentum.
The moment the original's success was layered with quality that the production team had poured their souls into—
it stopped being merely a work and became a syndrome. They knew it instinctively.
"All right, into episode six! Late-night snacks are on me tonight!"
"Wooo!"
The office lights showed no sign of going out.
It was not the light of forced labor.
It was the hottest, purest light of passion, poured out by people drunk on the joy of creation.