The Big Hand (1)
Sam’s collar was in her grip.
“Keck······! Keck! I-I swear I don’t know either! How the hell is he pulling off that kind of power······!”
He felt wronged.
He’d designed everything perfectly.
He had no idea what had gone wrong.
“You don’t know? There’s a famous saying in the game industry. If you don’t know?”
“······You’re supposed to tell me?”
“You die!”
Thud!
Ram slammed Sam straight into the floor, still clutching his collar.
“If you don’t know, you die!”
“Hwaaaang!”
Thud! Thud!
Ram’s tiny fists rained down on Sam.
“Die! Die, you bastard!”
Honestly, it didn’t hurt much.
Still, Sam rolled around pretending it did.
“Hwaaaang!”
After a few minutes of taking the beating, Ram finally let him go.
“Haa. Damn it.”
She stared blankly at the monitor.
“B-But I really have no clue how that guy pulled off that power. Ram-nim······ This is seriously a bug. A goddamn bug among bugs.”
Sam stuck to his guns to the very end.
“Huh? So it’s not your fault?”
Ram’s eyes flared again.
“He’s already gone through seven hero lives! Damn it! What did I say!? I told you it wouldn’t be a joke! I should’ve squeezed out more coins!”
Ram fumed with regret, but Sam didn’t agree.
“No. That has nothing to do with it. A hero’s activities in another dimension have limited influence on this one. It might improve combat sense or strategy, but it can’t actually raise mana control or physical abilities······”
It was a fair point.
Yet, as history had shown time and again, loyal retainers rarely lived long.
“You little······!”
Sam was grabbed by the collar and slammed down once more.
Thud! Thud!
“Hwaaang!”
While Ram was pounding away at Sam, cheers erupted from the Fairy Corporation’s prison.
“Waaaaah! That’s our Julian!”
It was Ham and Pam.
Even though it was a prison, they were still Story Fairies, so watching stories was permitted.
They could have watched any story board, but of course they were watching Ram’s.
“This is huge! Pam-nim! W-We haven’t even accepted the request fee yet!”
Ham bounced around outside the bars, overjoyed.
After all, Julian had carried out the request even before the payment came through.
“Julian-nim said he’d never move without the down payment······! He said that’s what being a professional is! But he still did it!”
It was baffling.
In Ham’s eyes, Julian wouldn’t have budged until the money arrived.
In truth, that had been Junil’s original plan, and it still hadn’t changed.
This was just a coincidence.
He’d never intended to interfere with the protagonist in the first place.
He’d simply been clearing a quest when he stumbled upon the black mage.
But then—
“Pa······ Pam-nim? What’s wrong?”
Pam, who had been watching beside him, suddenly fell silent.
“As expected······ Julian······ is trying to······”
Her voice trembled.
She bit down hard on her lips, but—
“He’s trying to save me!”
“Hwaaaang!”
The tears finally burst out.
“He······ he really values our seven encounters······ I-I didn’t even realize! I was being stingy over 2 billion! Just 2 billion!!”
“Pam-nim······”
After crying her heart out, Pam nodded firmly.
“Give it to him.”
“!”
500 Hearts transferred.
“······!”
500 Hearts. That was a massive sum—equivalent to 0.5 Lingering Imagery.
An amount she could only invest because she trusted both Ham and Julian.
“That’s everything I have.”
Pam’s entire fortune.
“Pa-Pam-nim······! Isn’t this too much?”
Spending 2 billion on the human world didn’t require 500 Hearts.
“Promise Julian the 2 billion. Use the rest to prepare items that will be useful to him.”
“!”
Pam wasn’t just paying the request fee—she wanted additional measures taken to support Julian.
“Intervening in another Story Fairy’s board will cost a fortune. Be careful.”
“Ah······ Understood! I’ll go finalize the request right away!”
“······Alright.”
Pam nodded, and Ham vanished like smoke.
Poof!
Once again, Pam was left alone in the lonely prison cell.
She turned her gaze back to the screen.
At times like this, watching the story was still the best.
‘Huh······?’
Julian had run into someone on the rooftop.
‘Is that the protagonist?’
Mana Punch
Achievement: ★
Potential: C+
Description: A skill imbued with someone’s memories. Gathers mana and strikes with great force.
Junil was looking at the skill window with a satisfied expression when—
“You killed him?”
A voice called out.
‘What the—’
Someone had already climbed onto the rooftop.
‘When did he get up here?’
The man was tall and solidly built.
He would’ve looked pretty cool if not for his clothes being torn to shreds and his face smeared with black soot, making him look like a complete beggar.
‘Ah······’
Junil remembered—the fireball he’d seen from above earlier.
“Killed him, you say······ You mean that guy?”
Junil asked, guessing the man was referring to the black mage he’d just killed.
“That guy? He was a person.”
The man pointed at the corpse with a gaping hole in its chest.
‘Ah······’
There seemed to be a slight misunderstanding.
“He’d made a contract with a demon. I had no choice. He’s the one who trapped everyone here and summoned the goblins.”
“What? A human summoning goblins? Contracting with a demon······? You expect me to believe that?”
Fair enough. It was hard to trust anything coming from a guy wearing a cat mask.
Also, why was this bastard speaking so casually?
“Yeah. Believe it.”
Junil dropped the honorifics and nodded.
But right at that moment—
Clang!
The goblins freed from the black mage’s control began rampaging.
“Crap.”
The man rushed to the railing and looked down.
The residents trapped in the semi-basement were screaming.
“A-Aaaaaah! H-Help us!”
“Kieeeek!”
Clang!
The goblins were smashing windows and even battering the security bars.
Thud! Thud!
The bars were slowly bending.
“You······”
The man glared at Junil again.
Whoosh!
“You did this, didn’t you? You’re the one who summoned the goblins, right?”
“What? No. What the······”
This guy had just said he couldn’t believe a human could summon goblins, and now he was accusing him?
Junil was dumbfounded, but—
‘Huh?’
When their eyes met, he felt something was off.
‘How old is this guy?’
He couldn’t tell his age at all.
His voice sounded like he was in his twenties.
But his face gave nothing away.
The sharp jawline and fierce eyes made him look like he could be in his thirties, yet in some ways he seemed like a teenage boy.
Ultimately, it came down to his expression—or rather, his eyes.
There was something childlike in them.
Innocence?
Or perhaps, foolishness?
“You’re not the black mage, are you? Who the hell are you?”
He couldn’t figure it out.
“Me······?”
Junil hesitated for a moment, then struck a pose.
He had to do what needed to be done.
Thud.
“4th Line Goblin Slayer.”
“?”
Junil glanced at the Constellations’ reactions.
The reactions were good.
But there were other reactions too.
‘Huh?’
‘The protagonist?’
Junil’s eyes behind the cat mask wavered.
‘It was you?’
That guy was the protagonist.
The true hero of the world Ram had created.
Kang Hae-il.
“You’re the 4th Line Goblin Slayer? Sagosul?”
And on this side was the nameless masked man.
The 4th Line Goblin Slayer.
“Yeah.”
“You······ You······”
Kang Hae-il’s expression twisted sharply.
“Sagosul, huh? That 4th Line’s······”
His reaction wasn’t good.
Killing intent boiled up.
Did he have some kind of grudge?
‘What the—’
Fwoosh!
Flames erupted around Kang Hae-il’s body.
Even from a distance, the heat was palpable.
The crimson flames shot up more than five meters high.
‘I can’t even guess what his class is.’
It was probably some unique class he’d made up on the spot.
“Go get judged, you murderer.”
Fwoooooosh—
Kang Hae-il charged forward like a streak of flame.
The urethane on the rooftop floor melted into black lava from the sheer heat.
That heat, that speed, that power.
Everything converged on a single point.
Toward the man in the cat mask.
A blazing fist of fire was launched.
BOOOOOOM!
The sound was so loud that—
“K-Kieeeek!?”
“Kk······!”
The goblins smashing the security bars below looked up in shock.
But—
‘He’s gone······?!’
When the smoke cleared, the cat-masked man was nowhere to be seen.
“There’s a saying for this.”
Only the voice remained.
‘Behind?’
Whoosh!
When Kang Hae-il turned his head, the cat mask was right there.
“Too slow.”
“You bastard—”
The moment Kang Hae-il twisted his torso to throw a punch—
“Whoa there.”
—Click.
A box cutter was already at his eye.
The blade and his pupil were nearly touching.
“······!”
“Move even a little and your eyeball’s gone.”
Mana rippled with killing intent so thick it felt like it would pierce straight through.
Kang Hae-il’s body froze solid.
Gulp.
Only his Adam’s apple bobbed carefully.
Junil calmly observed the frozen Kang Hae-il.
‘So this is the protagonist.’
He sniffed the air.
‘The concentration is thick. He’s strong, alright.’
The mana density in the atmosphere was considerable.
‘If I’d taken that hit earlier, it would’ve been fatal.’
His firepower was definitely strong.
Junil had felt the killing intent too—he’d really been trying to kill him just now.
‘But he has no technique.’
He didn’t know how to use that firepower.
All he had in his head was crushing the enemy in front of him with raw power.
Even with lower firepower, Junil had no intention of dying to this guy.
Current Viewing Constellations: 205
After clashing with the protagonist, the number had nearly doubled compared to when he killed the black mage.
On top of that, Junil excelled in psychological warfare, tactics, and deception in close combat.
A guy who only had raw power like this could be sliced up like sashimi.
But—
‘No.’
Killing the protagonist wasn’t his goal in the first place.
It was the opposite.
The protagonist had to stay alive.
Since there was no way to keep him alive while fighting, he had to avoid combat altogether.
He needed to redirect this guy’s inexplicably burning fighting spirit elsewhere.
What would work?
Junil thought back to his first playthrough.
‘Probably······’
That would do it.
“Weren’t you here to save people? Are the others on this rooftop not people to you?”
Other people’s lives.
Kang Hae-il blinked at those words.
“Other people······?”
“Down below. Aren’t you going to save them?”
“!”
Hae-il’s eyes wavered.
‘As expected, he’s obsessed with saving people.’
His weakness had been identified.
Junil delivered the next line in a mocking tone.
“Do you have time to be doing this? If you leave them like this, they’ll all~ die, you know?”
Crunch.
Kang Hae-il ground his teeth.
“You······ You really are exactly the kind of bastard I thought you were.”
He alternated his gaze between the goblins below and Junil, then radiated an overwhelming killing intent.
“Don’t ever show up in front of me again. You’ll die if you do.”
Fwoosh!
Surrounded by flames in an instant, he leapt down to the ground.
Thud!
With an incredibly crude landing, he began burning through the goblins as he advanced toward the trapped residents.
“Whew.”
Junil finally let out a sigh of relief.
‘That could’ve been a bad fight.’
Junil couldn’t kill him, but the guy had come at him with killing intent, so it would’ve been annoying in more ways than one.
‘If that had happened, the Constellations’ reactions would’ve been terrible.’
Their beloved Moon Junil getting beaten up for no apparent reason.
Was there anything more frustrating than that?
Since nothing annoyed the Constellations more than frustration, they probably would’ve all hit the unsubscribe button.
Then Junil would’ve grown even weaker.
In the worst case, he would’ve died.
But now?
The Constellations cheered.
Current Viewing Constellations: 231
The number of Constellations kept exploding upward.
Junil was absorbing the protagonist’s Constellations.
Grin.
A smile naturally spread across Junil’s lips.
But then—
“Huh?”
Suddenly noticing something, his expression crumpled.
“No way, is this an EXP bug? Why isn’t any of it filling up?”
He’d taken down a black mage, which should’ve been difficult.
But his EXP hadn’t moved an inch.
His level was naturally still the same.
‘If I don’t hit level 10, I’m out.’
Apparently, Awakened didn’t give EXP.
You had to hunt monsters or complete quests.
Fortunately, Junil had a quest that only he could see, didn’t he?
‘So in the end, I have to do this?’
Hidden Quest
📍 Objective: Rescue the VIP
🎁 Reward: [Corrupted Text]
The reward wasn’t listed, but EXP was usually included by default.
Completing it should raise his level.