Return to Everyday Life
"Well, well—so you really came back?!"
"That's right..."
"Hell yeah!!!"
"Seong-min's finally back with us!"
"You have no idea how long we've been waiting for this!"
The moment Seong-min showed up, the whole crew lit up with pure delight. It was only natural. The team had kept rolling and the work had gotten done without him, sure—but never with the same efficiency as when he was around. Finishing on schedule mattered most, so they managed that much, yet they could never wrap things up any earlier. Having Seong-min on the crew was simply better in every way.
From the start he had shown what an ace looked like, knocking jobs out ahead of time, and word of mouth had started to spread because of it.
With Seong-min back, every last team member couldn't help feeling good.
"Alright, alright! Seong-min's here again. Let's all put our backs into today's work!"
Team Leader Jeong Gi-bok's call drew a chorus of energetic replies.
"You got it, hyung-nim~!"
"Seong-min's back, so let's break the record today~!"
"We haven't exactly been sitting around either."
"We can shave even more time off—right, Min-hyeok?"
"Heh heh...! Of course we can. Let's show hyung what we've got!"
They finished hauling the materials that needed moving, completed the interior survey, and started work right on schedule.
Once the job kicked off, Seong-min could see the others carrying materials better than before. Determined not to look like they were limping along without him, everyone had been training hard and packing on muscle. As a result they all showed roughly a ten-percent improvement in stamina and overall performance compared to the days before Seong-min had left.
"Doesn't Seong-min seem even more incredible?"
"Whoa... he's fast."
Seong-min taking the stairs was no different. His Stamina Stat sat at 200, but his Strength Stat had climbed past 300—more than a hundred points higher than before he took his break from Gombang Work. Materials felt that much lighter, the labor that much smoother. Watching him climb with a load on his back, you would have sworn he was carrying nothing at all.
The crew, seeing Seong-min work again after so long, could only click their tongues in awe.
Seong-min had spent a fair amount of money lately—securing a monthly rental for Yoo Ji-ah, paying the information broker—none of it cheap. He needed to work hard again and earn back every won he had put out.
Definitely not hard. Way too light.
A hundred-point gap made a massive difference. Even at 200 he had already felt heavy tiles and materials grow noticeably lighter compared to when his Strength Stat was only 60; now it was even more extreme. Like carrying feathers. At this rate he could have worked straight through the night without trouble. Once his Stamina Stat hit 200 he no longer felt any shortfall. Even back when both Strength and Stamina were at 200 he had been able to keep the same pace right through the afternoon.
So Seong-min and the crew threw themselves into Gombang Work with fresh drive. The result: they finished more than two hours ahead of schedule.
"That's a record~!"
"We beat the previous best by a full ten minutes!"
"See? Everything changes the second Seong-min shows up~!!!"
Finishing early meant more rest. Afternoon work didn't start until one o'clock. Team Leader Jeong called the contractor up, and together they walked the stairs down, checking every stack of materials that had been moved into place.
Morning work done, and with time to spare, everyone sat around resting and wetting their throats. In between they traded stories about how they had been getting by and just shot the breeze. Seong-min kept quiet about anything sensitive, and the crew never pressed. Everyone understood that personal business was personal business.
After the break they headed to a restaurant for lunch, then moved to the next site and started work at one. The scheduled finish was six, but they wrapped earlier than that too.
In a single day Seong-min had earned seven hundred thousand won. Seven hundred thousand a day. Even treating it as a weekly rate—seven hundred thousand every day—added up to three and a half million. Not small money by any measure.
That evening the whole crew went to a sauna together, sweated out the day's work, ate dinner, and finally parted ways. They had properly caught up. Of course no one drank; they all still had work the next day and needed to keep their condition sharp. Everyone held back on alcohol for the sake of stamina and body maintenance.
Before heading home Seong-min stopped by the one-room place where Yoo Ji-ah was living. The moment he arrived she made him a cup of coffee. On the ride back the other day she had finally broken down and cried; he had been worried. She seemed to have steadied her heart in the meantime. Over coffee they talked about how each of them had spent the day, and her condition looked solid enough that he could relax a little.
After seeing Yoo Ji-ah, Seong-min returned home.
"Welcome back~"
Hye-suk greeted him with a bright smile the instant he walked in.
"Have you eaten dinner?"
"Yes, I already ate."
Since he had just had coffee, Hye-suk poured him a cup of green tea instead.
"How does it feel, going back to Gombang Work after so long?"
"Manageable. Everyone welcomed me with big smiles."
"It wasn't too hard?"
"Not really."
Hye-suk already knew how good Seong-min was at Gombang Work, yet she had still fretted about him returning after a stretch of time off. Looking at him now, though, the worry seemed needless.
"How is Ji-ah...?"
"She seems to be holding herself together pretty well."
"That's a relief...."
The night before, Seong-min had finally told Hye-suk why he had stayed away from work for a full month and what had happened in between. She already knew about his childhood through the lucky charm drawing; the story she heard last night had still hit hard—shocking, and heartbreaking.
"Even if she looks fine on the outside, inside it won't be the same. You take good care of her, Seong-min."
"I plan to. More than anything, Noona Areum's help made a huge difference."
He mentioned that Areum had stopped by again today. Over coffee Yoo Ji-ah had told him what had gone on with Areum.
"I was surprised myself when I heard the story yesterday... but Areum stepping up so willingly—she's got real depth...."
"You'll feel it the moment you meet her, Auntie. She's the kind of noona who just makes you smile just by being around."
"Is that so?"
"How do I put it... she has this pure quality that brightens everyone near her? Once you see her you'll understand exactly what I mean."
"The way you talk about her, I almost want to meet her sometime."
"There'll be a chance. Same as with Min-hyeok."
Seong-min spent the rest of the late afternoon talking with Hye-suk about his first day back on Gombang Work and about Yoo Ji-ah's condition.
That night, as he lay down to sleep, one thought settled over him: he was lucky.
If I hadn't had this ability, I never could have fixed any of it.
He understood with absolute clarity just how enormous and extraordinary the power given to him truly was. Without it, even now the whole mess would still be nowhere near resolved. So he felt genuine gratitude for the ability he had received. And using that power to settle her affairs and help her felt almost natural—because maybe the reason such an incredible gift had come to him in the first place was the lucky charm she had once given him.
Seong-min had returned to Gombang Work and earned seven hundred thousand won in a single day. After work he had soaked with the crew at the sauna, washed off the fatigue, eaten dinner, and properly caught up before they parted. He had stopped by the one-room again to check on her, and seeing her look better than the day before had brought him real relief. On his first day back, Seong-min felt he had spent a surprisingly decent day. Now that he was back on the job, he intended to work hard and pull in more than three million won this week alone. Even if he only made seven hundred thousand a day like today, the weekly total would hit three and a half million—no problem at all.
And so Seong-min spent the first day of his returned everyday life well.
The next morning he rose early as always, ate the breakfast Hye-suk had prepared, and headed out. She walked him all the way to the front gate and watched his car disappear with a smile.
Another day just like yesterday began. He drove to the construction site Team Leader Jeong had given him, exchanged greetings with the crew members who had arrived first, and simply picked up the everyday rhythm again. Two jobs were lined up today just as they had been yesterday, and Seong-min handled them without difficulty. The volume of materials was a little heavier than the day before, so the morning job paid three hundred fifty thousand. That was only compared to the same morning slot; yesterday afternoon had brought in four hundred thousand, so nothing special. By the time he finished the afternoon job he had again earned seven hundred thousand—three hundred fifty in the morning, three hundred fifty in the afternoon.
Today he skipped the sauna and went straight to see her, stopping at a café first to pick up drinks and dessert. Yoo Ji-ah greeted him looking no worse for wear, and they spent the time over coffee and sweets. Then Noona Areum showed up carrying shopping bags—she had been to the market. Seong-min already knew that these days Areum often bought groceries and cooked dinner so the two of them could eat together.
"I'll handle the chopping, unni."
Beside her, Yoo Ji-ah worked the knife on the cutting board. Watching the two of them cook and chat, Seong-min felt a quiet happiness. They seemed to have grown noticeably closer. Moments like these felt precious to him, because he knew this kind of everyday life was never something to take for granted. He hoped it would keep going just like this.
A complete fog. Was there any phrase that fit the current situation better? That was exactly where the Gangil-hoe stood. On Chairman Jang Yong-hwan's orders they had poured every effort into hunting down the culprit, yet the man remained impossible to find. Somehow the bastard left no clear trail. They scoured for any scrap of a clue he might have dropped, but nothing turned up. The stalemate dragged on, and right now even a single lead was hard to grasp.
Then the thing Jang Yong-hwan least wanted to happen arrived: people dispatched from above. The ones who came down were fixers sent by the Central Association in Seoul. It was galling, but Jang Yong-hwan had no choice except to cooperate with the Seoul fixers. They received full briefings on every circumstance and headed straight for the Yonggol-pa. Nothing like this happened without a reason, and the whole mess had started with the Yonggol-pa. Failing to settle it within their own ranks stung Jang Yong-hwan's pride.
"What do you mean by that?"
Jang Yong-hwan's brow furrowed.
"On whose orders?"
"It's presented as the Chairman's, but it appears His will is behind it."
"Is that true?"
"It seems so."
"Hrm..."
At the word "His," Jang Yong-hwan let out a quiet breath.
"Then we have no choice but to give full cooperation."
In the end he nodded. This matter was no longer something he could close out on his own level.
"Tell them to cooperate completely. Issue an official notice."
"Understood."
Once the executive secretary withdrew, Jang Yong-hwan leaned deep into the back of his chair.
So He has taken an interest.
Thinking about it, it made perfect sense. After the war a year ago the underworld had been pacified with the Central Association at its center. Five major organizations had ruled their respective regions across the country: the Central Association dominating Seoul and Gyeonggi-do; the Gangil-hoe holding Daejeon and Chungcheong; the Haewang-hoe controlling Busan and Gyeongsang; the Sugwang-hoe ruling Gwangju, Jeju, and Jeolla; and finally the Gangwon-hoe, formed when the various factions of Gangwon-do banded together. Those five were the big organizations representing the entire nation. Naturally the strongest was the Central Association—holding Seoul and the capital region, its power and influence towered over the rest. The Gangwon-hoe in particular had been a defensive alliance born of crisis, yet after watching the Gangil-hoe collapse in a mere ten days during last year's war, they had voluntarily folded into the Central Association. The Haewang-hoe of Busan and Gyeongsang and the Sugwang-hoe of Gwangju, Jeju, and Jeolla had eventually submitted as well. The Central Association had risen to become, without question, the supreme organization not only of Seoul and the capital but of the entire country. That had all happened last year. Seo Gang-sik, who had surrendered in that war, stepped down from the chairman's seat and left the underworld entirely. Jang Yong-hwan had taken the chair.
The mere fact that the Central Association had sent fixers meant full cooperation was mandatory. That was simply how things worked.
After arriving at the Yonggol-pa the fixers began their investigation from absolute zero—why such chaos had erupted there in the first place, and what the real reason was. Starting over from the beginning, things that had stayed hidden until now began to surface. The ten men who had been hit this time were all Yonggol-pa VIPs. Digging into everything connected to those ten, every odd detail, they uncovered that shortly before the Yonggol-pa disaster a woman who had been entertaining those VIPs had escaped with someone's help. The Yonggol-pa had moved to recapture the runaway woman, only for everyone involved to be taken down by the person who helped her. Before they could take further measures, twelve executives and even Boss Yang Ik-soo himself had been taken out, leaving them no room to focus on anything else.
Grasping at straws, the fixers looked into the woman. The one who had used the alias Yu A-ran turned out to be Yoo Ji-ah. And not long ago there had been the incident that forced Yoo Ji-ah into the Yonggol-pa in the first place—the ringleader who had driven her father to his death, Yun Jong-gyu, had been found at home reduced to a vegetative state. Once the fixers had traced the trail that far, they did not report to Jang Yong-hwan of the Gangil-hoe. They went straight back up to Seoul. These were men who moved under secret orders; they answered directly to the Chairman. They were far more than ordinary fixers dispatched by the Central Association.
"They returned to Seoul?"
"Yes."
"Did they find something?"
"It appears so."
"Hrm..."
He was curious, but they had conducted the entire investigation strictly within their own circle and had gone back to Seoul that very day.
"In any case, this matter has left our hands."
That was all they needed to know. Push any further and they might bring disaster down on themselves.
"What do you make of it?"
A man with a refined, middle-aged presence—somewhere in his fifties—asked the man seated to his right.
"The outline is clear now, so we'll know who it is soon enough."
"So in the end you're saying you'll move yourself?"
"The things that culprit did at the Yonggol-pa..."
The man curled the corner of his mouth into a smile.
"...are more than enough to catch my interest."