The First Disciple

One week had passed since Studio Nangan was absorbed as a subsidiary of Muse Co., Ltd.

The first order of business was growing the company.

The moment the posting went live, the entire industry flipped upside down.

In a field where so-called passion pay had calcified into standard practice, the sudden appearance of a fledgling company offering conditions that rivaled the conglomerates was nothing short of a shockwave.

"Author… we've received over five hundred résumés."

Representative Kang Suk-woo stuck out his tongue in disbelief.

"The server nearly crashed. It feels like every job-seeker in the country poured in at once."

"Good. Let's sort the wheat from the chaff."

I answered at an easy pace, sipping my coffee.

Talent acquisition. It was an essential condition for the Muse Universe I was building. Writing every novel myself and storyboarding every webtoon alone had hard limits. I needed capable staff to serve as my hands and feet — and, beyond that, writers who could absorb my know-how and produce the second and third smash hits.

Representative Kang, hyung, and I gathered in the conference room and began reviewing the résumés.

Shff. Shff.

Nothing but the soft rustle of paper turning filled the quiet room — until Representative Kang's hand suddenly stopped.

"Huh…?"

His pupils were trembling as if an earthquake had hit them.

"What is it?"

"A-Author. Look at this."

He held out a single résumé with shaking hands, as carefully as if he were passing me an explosive.

I took it, puzzled.

The man in the photo looked familiar. Anyone in the industry would have known that face.

For a moment I doubted my own eyes.

"Hanul…?"

Hanul. Until just three years ago, he had casually claimed the number-one spot on Munpia's Today Best as if it were a daily meal — a towering figure in the wuxia novel scene. His recent work, Sword Lord, had serialized for three years and produced countless addicts along the way.

"Same name, different person?"

Hyung chimed in from the side.

"Come on, no way that Hanul would apply here. The man must have made money by the truckload."

"Right? I thought it was a namesake too, until I saw the photo. But…"

Representative Kang swallowed dryly.

"The career history and portfolio are real. It's him. It's Hanul."

We stared at one another. None of it made sense. Why would a top-tier industry author apply as a junior PD at a brand-new management company?

"Maybe he hit a slump? Or cosigned a bad loan?"

Hyung tilted his head.

Rumor had it that after finishing Sword Lord, he had gone dark to prepare his next work. And yet here he was — not writing, but applying to a job where he would review other people's writing.

"We should interview him, shouldn't we?"

Representative Kang asked carefully.

I stared hard at Han Se-jin's face on the résumé. There was a story here. A deep, dark one.

"Let's do it."

I set the résumé down on the desk.

"We'll just ask him ourselves. Why a martial god laid down his sword and came here."

Interview day.

The conference room door opened, and a man walked in. Han Se-jin.

The sharp, high-strung look from the photo was gone without a trace. Dark stubble that looked several days unshaven. Hollow eyes visible beneath a cap pulled low. He looked like a defeated soldier.

But the moment he sat down and lifted his head, I could feel it. He wasn't dead yet. Exhausted by life, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠soaked in defeat — and still, deep in those eyes, an unextinguished ember remained.

"Good afternoon. Applicant Han Se-jin."

His voice was dry.

Hyung and Representative Kang were visibly tense. Interviewers more nervous than the interviewee — a bizarre situation. And understandable. In industry seniority and earnings alike, Han Se-jin was a far more senior figure, a genuine heavyweight.

I was the one who broke the silence.

"Author Hanul."

At my address, Han Se-jin's shoulders flinched.

"I'll be direct. Why would someone of your caliber apply as a junior PD?"

"…"

"The fifty-million-won salary? With your name, the signing bonus alone would be in the hundreds of millions. It's not about the money."

Han Se-jin was quiet for a moment. He looked down at his own hands resting on the table — fingertips trembling faintly.

"I… can't write anymore."

He opened his mouth.

"Excuse me?"

Representative Kang asked back, startled.

"Can't write? Did you injure your wrist or something?"

"No. It's not a physical problem."

Han Se-jin shook his head. Then, slowly, with an expression of pure agony, he began to speak.

"It was two months ago. The day my novel Sword Lord finished."

Ah.

I sighed inwardly. I remembered that day. Ranked among the worst endings in the history of Korean web novels. The protagonist had ground and clawed his way for ten years to become the greatest under heaven — only for the whole thing to turn out to be a single absurd dream born of qi deviation.

"The reaction was… the worst, as I'm sure you all know."

Han Se-jin let out a self-mocking laugh.

"Readers seethed with betrayal. My blog and inbox filled with curses. Give me back my three years. Is the author insane…"

Representative Kang clicked his tongue with a pained look. Ending controversy is a fatal blow for a writer. A mental collapse was more than understandable.

But Han Se-jin wasn't finished.

"Being cursed out was fine. My skill had been lacking. I told myself I could make up for it with the next work. That was how I comforted myself."

His gaze began to waver.

"But that night… a post went up on a community board."

My heart dropped with a jolt. No way.

"The title was… something like Sword Lord True Ending. That was it."

That's right. I wrote that. After getting chewed out by my boss at work, after even the novel I'd been reading for stress relief turned out to have a garbage ending, I'd furiously scrawled a fanfic while drunk.

The protagonist had only pretended to lose his memory.

The moment the Demon Cult leader let his guard down, the heart-sword honed over ten years pierced straight through his chest.

"The second I read it…"

Han Se-jin's voice trembled.

"It felt like I'd been hit over the head. More precisely — like I'd been stripped bare."

"…"

"It was perfect. The rhythm of the sentences, the character dialogue, the payoff of every planted seed. Everything ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd agonized over across three years of serialization was captured more perfectly in a single fanfic."

He covered his face with both hands.

"I saw the readers' reactions. This is the real one. Didn't the author write this? Better than the original…"

Agony. It wasn't simple jealousy. It was the raw, crushing defeat an artist feels when someone else understands and completes the world you created more perfectly than you ever could — the self-loathing that follows.

"From that day on… I couldn't write."

Han Se-jin lifted his head. Bloodshot eyes fixed on us — no, precisely on me.

"The moment my hands touched the keyboard, those true-ending sentences flickered in front of me. The terror that anything I wrote would fall short of it. The thought that my writing was fake, and that was the real thing…"

The yips. The psychological condition that suddenly freezes a golfer's swing or a baseball player's throw. Writers get it too — when conviction in their own work collapses.

"So I was ready to break my pen. But then… a few days later, that nickname showed up again."

Han Se-jin stared straight through me.

"The nickname RottenWater. And the new series that started under it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— The Regressed Hunter is Merciless."

Silence settled over the conference room. Hyung and Representative Kang were blinking, still not fully grasping the situation. I sat with my arms crossed, meeting his gaze head-on.

"I knew the moment I read it."

Han Se-jin spoke with absolute certainty.

"The prose style, the rhythm, that overwhelming ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠command of the pen. It was the same person who wrote that fanfic."

A kind of will was visible in him now.

"I desperately wanted to meet them. To have even a single conversation. But I had no idea how. So I came to the one place that seemed to offer even a slim chance."

He had come looking for me. Clutching at straws. If he approached a management company, he might at least get a contracted author's contact information.

There was no reason to hide it.

"I'm RottenWater."

"Ah…"

A sound escaped Han Se-jin's lips. Resentment? Rage? But when he raised his head, the emotion on his face was something entirely different. It was the desperation of a man begging for salvation.

Understanding or acceptance of the situation didn't seem to matter. He simply took it in — and laid bare his desperation.

"I came because I want to learn."

"…"

"My writing was fake. I wrote for ten years and still produced the worst possible ending. No matter how long I wrestled with how to close that story, nothing came. So I threw it away in despair. Better to just let go than finish it halfheartedly. But you proved it in a single piece."

Han Se-jin's eyes reddened.

"I don't need money. PD, assistant, personal secretary who handles your chores — I don't care. Under you… I want to learn how to write something real."

A martial god. A man who had once stood at the summit of the wuxia novel world was kneeling before me, a junior so far beneath him it was almost absurd. Pride had been discarded long ago. All that remained was a pure hunger, as a writer, to write something better.

I felt a strange thrill. The Muse inside me seemed to whisper: take this man in. He had slipped once, but his craft and his depth were genuine. Point him in the right direction, dress him in the current trends, and he would soar again. And above all — a master who could admit his own shortcomings and bow his head.

I wanted him.

I picked up his PD application from the desk. And tore it in half.

Riiip—.

The sharp sound of paper tearing cut through the room. Representative Kang gasped, but Han Se-jin didn't so much as flinch. He simply stood there like a condemned man awaiting judgment.

"Author Hanul."

"Yes."

"We're not hiring a PD."

Han Se-jin's shoulders sagged. He thought he'd been rejected.

"I see… Forgive the intrusion."

He turned to leave — and my voice caught him.

"Instead."

"Join us as an exclusive author under our management."

"…What?"

Han Se-jin froze and looked back. I pulled out a blank sheet of A4 paper and scrawled something across it with a pen.

I held the paper out to him.

"That wall you couldn't climb — I'll get you over it."

"…"

"But there's a condition. When I set the direction for a plot, you agree to seriously wrestle with it at least once and work to make it your own."

Han Se-jin took the paper. His hands were shaking hard.

"Can you do that?"

At my question, he bit down hard on his lip. Life began to return to his eyes. The dead ember caught oil and flared into open flame.

"I will."

He took the pen. Signed without hesitation.

"Whatever you tell me… I'll follow all of it. If I can write again, I'll sell my soul to the devil."

I snorted a quiet laugh and held out my hand.

"Not a devil. Just a somewhat strict teacher."

Han Se-jin clasped my hand. His palm was hard with calluses — the mark of a man who had lived fiercely without ever setting down his pen.

"Welcome, my first disciple."

I winked at Representative Kang.

"Representative, looks like we'll need to reprint the contract. Not a junior PD agreement — a main author contract for Team Muse."

Representative Kang beamed and nodded.

Another piece of the puzzle had locked into place. A martial god of genius-level craft who had lost his way — and me, to light the path for him.

"This time, there won't be any dream endings."

At my words, Han Se-jin ducked his head, almost shy.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Sunlight poured in through the office windows. The moment Han Se-jin's stopped clock began to tick again.