The Playground of Fate
Beatrice’s words gave him the courage to take a step.
His footsteps still felt as heavy as if weighted down by frost, but he kept walking.
Like a drowning man, he trudged forward toward his daughter, the daughter he loved—Hana.
“Ah… I see?”
Hana, upon spotting him, stared at him with disbelief. Then, tears streaming down her face, she rushed forward and threw her arms around him.
“Uwaaaah!”
Hana, held tightly against Cheon Seong, sobbed with her round, teary eyes wide open for the first time.
“I’m sorry… I’m really sorry, Dad… Hana… hic… Hana was wrong.”
“Why are you crying, Hana? Dad’s fine, so stop already?”
He could feel Hana’s tears soaking through his clothes, but he paid no heed. He pulled her close and held her tight.
He had meant to comfort her, to make her stop crying, yet Hana, nestled in Cheon Seong’s arms, grew even more frantic with the warmth she felt, sobbing all the more loudly.
“Hana… Hana did something wrong… please… please don’t hate me… hic… uwaaaah!”
“Why would Dad hate Hana? I’m the one who should be sorry for scaring you so much.”
Hana had feared that Cheon Seong would abandon her after she had wounded him, that she would be hated for making him feel unwanted. Yet Cheon Seong had already become so deeply rooted inside her that she couldn’t imagine a world without him.
She was a nine-tailed fox, and the love of a nine-tailed fox ran deep. Even as a young cub, she craved the love of her parents.
But after being taken to the auction house, Hana had never received her parents’ full love—and the love she now felt had been given to her by Cheon Seong. So the existence of this powerful, loving man who had filled her heart was simply too overwhelming.
That was why she feared Cheon Seong, the one who had healed her and become her family, and why she feared she had wounded him so deeply that he might leave her.
When she realized her mistake, Hana tried desperately to grab Cheon Seong’s hand, but the shock had been too much. Cheon Seong had held back, watching from a distance. If Beatrice’s words were true and he hadn’t found the courage, they might have never crossed paths again—and the pain would have been unbearable. But because he had gathered his resolve, he had walked toward her.
That was why their bond, though scarred, had become even stronger than before. And that was why he could finally tell her the truth he had kept hidden.
“Hic… Dad… I love you. I really love you.”
Sniffling through her tears, Cheon Seong lifted Hana from his arms and held her tightly.
With those words, he could finally say it to Hana.
“I love you too, our daughter.”
---
“Ah, this manner of greeting guests is utterly deplorable.”
The blonde young man, Cheon Yu-seong, crossed his legs and looked at the man seated before him with disdain. The man, sipping his tea, answered calmly.
“Insolent doesn’t even begin to describe it. A little whelp trying to borrow the hand of a villain—especially the successor of Cheon, out here begging for Noah’s aid to kill someone.”
The man seated before Cheon Yu-seong was the branch leader of Noah’s Seoul branch, the largest villain organization in Korea that had gathered in pursuit of salvation.
Cheon Yu-seong had come to find the branch leader who had been sought out by countless people who had lost loved ones to Noah.
“You tested me, and I passed the test. I must treat you with proper respect according to Noah’s principles.”
“Oh? Impressive that you know even that. I never expected you to be aware of our rules.”
Noah took its name from the ark it sought to build.
To prevent the flood, Noah had received the command to build an ark from the gods. Just as Noah’s ark had carried one pair each of animals and humans aboard and survived the deluge, those who had joined Noah were those who had passed the test of building the ark—and would be saved from destruction.
One of Noah’s rules was to properly escort those who had passed the test into the ark. And Cheon Yu-seong had passed that very test and was now standing face-to-face with the Seoul branch leader.
“Indeed. So, who is the target you wish to eliminate? Don’t tell me it’s some monster like the Emperor of Poison—we’d be in trouble.”
“It’s not that kind of monster. The person I want dead is this one.”
*Thud.*
Cheon Yu-seong tossed a photograph toward the branch leader. The man caught it and asked with a puzzled expression.
“Just this little brat? You came all this way to ask us to deal with him?”
The photo showed a young man with a completely emotionless face—black hair, black eyes, cold as the frost that seemed to emanate from beyond the image. Cheon Seong.
“Yes. He’s one of the students entering the academy this year. His skill level… at least lower rank.”
“Hmm~ That’s not terrible, but still… using upper-rank power to take out someone like this is a waste no matter how you look at it. But if you pay the fee, we can do it for the right price.”
The person Cheon Yu-seong wanted eliminated in order to kill Seong was an upper-rank expert sought by Noah. In Noah’s circles, such a person would occupy a position of influence if they simply kept working hard.
And the fee Noah demanded for hiring such an upper-rank mercenary was
“Since you’ve passed Noah’s test, we’ll make it a bargain at five hundred million.”
“Ten A-rank mana stones.”
The current value of an A-rank mana stone was forty million won. Even if you sold all ten, that would be four hundred million—short by one hundred million. But the branch leader accepted it.
*This isn’t a bad deal.*
Why? Because he had just received information that the value of A-rank mana stones would soon rise.
He wasn’t a merchant who would lose money, but Yu-seong knew better.
*Idiot.*
Soon, in the original novel, an upper-rank mana stone mine would be discovered, crashing the price of mana stones dramatically.
Unlike mana stones, which could only be obtained from monsters, mana stones were ore that absorbed mana from underground veins and transformed into the same shape as mana stones—perfect substitutes.
While A-rank mana stones required killing A-rank monsters and carried enormous risk, mana stones did not. That was why most mana stones were sold, and especially the A-rank ones, their prices had plunged.
Cheon Yu-seong was the only one who could know this, because he was a transmigrator who had entered the novel. The Seoul branch leader, unaware of the truth, had accepted the request. In the shadows, Yu-seong smirked at the branch leader.
---
“Fuck!!”
*Bang!*
Cheon Seong had reconciled with Hana and was happily wandering the amusement park when the deputy general manager of the hotel called him away for punishment.
Lee Jin-han, Cheon Seong’s legal father, had slammed his fist on his desk in his office, grinding his teeth.
“How dare you humiliate me in front of other people!!”
At the time, Lee Jin-han had come within a hair’s breadth of death at Seong’s hands. He had thought that no one as trash as him could ever be that strong, and he had wondered what kind of trick Seong had pulled to justify this humiliation. He was already plotting how to get revenge on Seong.
“Goddamn… damn it! Why the hell does that old bastard keep raising such trash?! And he’s leaving everything to not his own son, but to some piece of garbage! If it weren’t for that old man, I would’ve—!!”
*He really hasn’t changed at all.*
But the person listening to those words was not just Lee Jin-han.
Before leaving the scene, Seong had decided to kill Jin-han. Yet even while recovering from the shock of what Hana had witnessed, he had secretly cast a communication magic spell on Jin-han.
That was why he could only cluck his tongue at Jin-han’s selfish, blame-shifting attitude.
When Jin-han had called complaining that his grandmother’s body ached and asked him to come over, he had always found an excuse to avoid visiting.
Later, when Jin-han’s grandmother died and the inheritance was all supposed to go to Seong, the “busy” excuse had been that he was gambling or doing other things at the casino.
Every single time, he insisted he was innocent, that the fault lay with someone else—ugly human nature that Cheon Seong had come to accept without too much surprise. But he had decided to let Jin-han keep talking until he was tired.
He could kill him right now.
But
“Dad! Dad! Let’s ride that one together!”
“Okay, Hana.”
Killing the brat wouldn’t take more than a minute at most. A teleportation mark had been stamped on his body.
But one minute spent with Hana was worth more than a minute spent eliminating the brat.
Time with Hana was happy. But that bastard Jin-han made him sick just looking at his face. Why waste a minute he could have used with Hana?
“Hurry up, Dad!”
“Hana, you’ll fall if you run like that. Walk slowly.”
As he walked, watching Hana run ahead, Seong stopped in his tracks.
“…So that’s it, Hwa-yeong. When I was… huh?”
“Why are you staring at me like that, Hwa-young… ah?”
It was because he had run into the two women—Hwa-young and Hwa-ran—standing right in front of Hana.
“… … … … … … … … … … … …”
A heavy silence fell between the three of them.
“You… why are you here…”
“Daddy didn’t come, what are you doing?”
“…Dad?”
Seong’s expression darkened as Hwa-ran’s face fell when she finally asked why he was here, the question interrupted by Hana’s cry.
“You… you’re married?!”
“…Mind your own business. Come on, Hana.”
Seong hadn’t expected to run into Hwa-young here. He scooped Hana into his arms, slipped away before Hwa-young could keep lecturing him, and pretended not to hear the voice calling his name from behind. Instead, he returned to Yuna with his presence concealed.
“Huh? Seong-ah, why are you running so late?”
“…I ran into Hwa-young.”
“…You ran into Hwa-young?”
Yuna, who hadn’t expected to meet Hwa-young here either, stared at him in surprise. When Seong added that Hwa-ran had been there too, she asked, “Did you come all this way just to see Hana?”
Seong sighed and nodded.
“Ah! Here you are! Why are you running away?!”
“…You’re really persistent.”
Seeing the very person he had been trying to hide from finally catch up, Seong looked at Hwa-young with utter disgust.
“Why do you always glare at me like that?! And what about that girl over there?! Is she Yuna’s daughter? Are you even speeding?”
“It’s not that. She’s an adopted sister.”
It didn’t matter if she saw it—Hana would see it at the academy anyway. And if Hwa-young ran into Seong later, it was better to clear the air now. Seong told her the truth without hesitation.
“You… adopted sister…? Ah… I’m sorry.”
Hwa-young had met Seong only a few times, but those few encounters had been more than enough for her to understand exactly what kind of man he was. She quickly realized something was wrong with Hana and apologized.
“That’s fine. Since you’re not curious anymore, you can leave.”
But why had things turned out this way?
“So, Hana. How is Dad at home?”
“Hm? He’s kind! And strictly loving!”
“Really? You… I mean, Dad really said that?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Hwa-ran, try this.”
“Ah. Thank you.”
He had clearly told her he was leaving, yet why was she still with him?
“Yo. Treat me like you treat Hana at home.”
“…Don’t talk. Just go.”
“Aww~ Yuna said it was okay, and a kind and gentle Dad like that would never do that, right?”
That damned Hwa-young had realized Seong couldn’t do anything wrong in front of Hana, so she kept nagging at him. It was infuriating.
His words were infuriating too. It felt exactly like talking to pre-regression Hwa-young.
“Haa…”
*Smack!*
“Ow! What the hell was that for?!”
Seong sighed and delivered a hard smack to Hwa-young’s back. The woman glared at him and shouted.
*[Hey you bastard. When I was being nice, you should’ve just left.]*
“What… what? Yuna! Seong called me a bastard!”
“Huh? I didn’t hear anything.”
Hitting Hwa-young wasn’t just to relieve anger—it was also to inscribe a teleportation mark on her.
*[Die. Tell her. See what you can do.]*
“I… I!”
There was nothing Hwa-young could do.
Even if she became a Transcendent in the future, right now she was still barely stepping into the upper rank.
Her skill level was simply too low to touch the flow of Seong’s mana.
“I… I…! Haa… I give up! I surrender, you bastard!”
Hwa-young finally gave up trying to break the telepathic connection and declared her surrender.
“Then let’s go, Yuna.”
“Why so sudden? Come on, let’s stay with Hwa-ran and Hwa-young a little longer…”
*Boom!*
Just as Yuna was about to say she wanted to stay with the others, a massive explosion ripped through the air. Screams erupted from the crowd.
“Kyaaaah!”
“Call… the hero! Terrorist attack!!”
Upon checking the emergency radar, two people carrying strong auras had been trapped inside the building.
*Both are at least upper rank.*
“Yuna, run!”
Seong lifted Hana and told Yuna to escape.
He could win against upper ranks, but he would have to reveal everything. And he couldn’t teleport with the two women and the others watching.
*[Beatrice. I’ve detected two upper-rank presences. How about you?]*
*[This humble one is the same. One of them seems to have reached a decent level of completion even among upper ranks.]*
He asked Beatrice if there was anyone he had missed. Thankfully, the two he had sensed were the only ones. But the problem was the warning that one of them was almost completed.
Almost completed meant they were already looking toward the highest rank.
No matter how strong Seong had become, he could not guarantee victory against that kind of opponent. He had to escape.
“So, let’s go, Yuna.”
“Wait!”
Seong tried to grab Yuna’s hand and sprint toward the exit, but Hwa-young blocked his path.
“In times like this, we should help the people!”
“I… I agree.”
Seong’s face darkened at the foolishness of the words.
“Don’t spout nonsense. Your skills would only get you killed, and I have no intention of leaving Yuna and Hana in this dangerous place.”
Even Seong, who couldn’t promise victory against one of them, and the other who was sure to get seriously injured, faced only Hwa-young and Hwa-ran—still barely stepping into the upper rank and still near the middle rank, respectively.
That was why he had planned to slip away with Yuna and Hana, but he couldn’t.
“Uwaaaah! Mom! Dad!”
“Please help my husband! Please save my husband!!”
“Seong-ah…”
It was because Yuna, standing beside the man pinned under the rubble and the woman sobbing beside the boy who had lost his parents, was sending him a desperate look that asked if he would help them.
“Haa… I understand. Yuna.”
“Thank you, Seong…”
“But on one condition.”
Yuna would help if he asked. But he wasn’t leaving Yuna and Hana in this danger.
“Yuna, stay with Hana. You two help them too.”
Even if their skills were still lacking compared to his, objectively speaking, they were among the strongest in Korea.
He couldn’t fight upper ranks, but he could protect Yuna and Hana from casual attacks.
“Otherwise, I absolutely will not agree.”
This was the only condition under which he would help the people.
*[Beatrice. If Yuna and Hana are in danger, teleport us together.]*
Of course, he had no intention of risking his life.
---
*End of Chapter*