The Red Boa's Riddle
The explosion rang out the moment Go Jinseok collapsed.
Ram screamed while clutching between his legs as if he himself were the one who had just been horrifically killed.
It wasn’t just the grotesque way Go Jinseok had died.
[Yu Jihun → Moon Junil]
[Favorability +3]
The fact that Yu Jihun—that cold-blooded ice magic swordsman—had gained favorability toward Julian. That was the truly fatal blow.
“Insane… This is insane!”
Yu Jihun was the most significant member of Kang Hae-il’s party. And yet he was feeling favor toward that leech of a porter?
Something had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong.
Ram was practically spitting fire from his mouth when Sam shouted,
“It’s not over yet?!”
He was right. The problems had only just begun.
You have discovered a hint regarding the World Boss!
That damn porter had even snatched the hint Go Jinseok had been carrying.
Ram’s wings drooped.
“Haa… Everything got stolen.”
Yu Jihun’s favor, the hint, even the experience from the three orc brothers. Everything that should have gone to Kang Hae-il had fallen into Julian’s hands.
The only thing Kang Hae-il had gained from the Gangnam Station Gate was a bit of experience.
“…Wait a second.”
Ram’s deeply bowed head suddenly snapped up. He had found a loophole.
“He hasn’t looked at it yet, right?”
“Huh?”
“The hint. He hasn’t opened it.”
“No. He put it straight into his inventory.”
“Then it hasn’t been ‘narrated’ yet. The pressure is still low. Use coins to raise the difficulty.”
“!”
He was going to make sure Julian couldn’t solve the hint.
* * *
Crinkle.
Junil crumpled the book like it was trash and shoved it into his inventory.
‘He didn’t notice, right?’
Kang Hae-il was incredibly dense, so it was unlikely. Still, he had handled it as quickly as possible just in case.
After that, he casually finished looting the rest of the battlefield.
“Whew… Got everything.”
He turned to Hae-il with a suggestion.
“Should we split the items now? Or should I sell them all for cash and divide the money?”
It was a question with an obvious answer. No matter how much of an S-rank Awakened Kang Hae-il was, he couldn’t possibly carry all these items himself.
“Uh… but can I even turn these into money if I take them?”
Hae-il asked innocently.
“Just have the E-rank production workers run them through once. Give them to an enchanter to refine, turn them into magic stones, then hand those to a blacksmith…”
It was far too complicated for Hae-il to follow, and honestly Junil was just making it up as he went.
In reality, he didn’t go through any of those annoying steps. He just handed everything to the elves and called it a day.
So why was he dragging it out like this?
‘As expected, he’s smart enough to make up for that F-rank.’
First, to earn Hae-il’s trust. Second, to hear exactly this response.
“Well… I don’t really get it. Just handle it however you think is best. I’ll leave it all to you.”
He was leaving it all to him.
In modern society, that was an incredibly rare thing to hear. He didn’t even know how much it was worth or how the split should work, yet he was just entrusting it all?
And yet Kang Hae-il said it without hesitation.
“I trust that you’ll divide it fairly.”
‘What a rare young man these days…’
That fairy really had picked a strangely decent protagonist.
‘The Constellations are probably screaming loud enough for me to hear.’
It must look like the son of his father’s enemy was even being handed economic control.
“Oh, by the way…”
Hae-il paused for a moment. Junil wondered if entrusting everything had finally been too much, but then—
“Let’s give some to Yu Jihun’s party too.”
An even more ridiculous statement came out.
“What?!”
Junil’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He looked like he had just heard something utterly terrible.
“They contributed too. When we were dealing with the remaining trash orcs.”
What the hell are you saying, bro?! Sagosul killed them all!
Unable to say what he was really thinking, Junil simply nodded.
“Ah… Right. Let’s do that.”
The protagonist acting like a pushover. There was no way the Constellations would like that.
So Junil decided to help him with that foolish behavior.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
* * *
The moment Junil got home, he collapsed into bed and fell asleep. He didn’t even have time to think about anything else. His body had simply dragged itself to the bed and passed out.
“Ugh…”
When he opened his eyes again, it was the next day.
‘Jjarururu jjarururu jjapaguri.’
Bang!
The moment he chanted the spell in his head, Ham appeared.
“Did you call, Hero?”
“Uh… ugh… I’m tired. Give me a massage, Ham.”
“…Excuse me? Me? It won’t even reach your liver.”
“I’m kidding.”
The tiredness wasn’t a joke, though.
“Ugh.”
Junil forced his upper body up and met Ham’s eyes.
“Ham. How many Constellations does Kang Hae-il have now?”
Last time he checked, it had dropped to ninety-two thousand.
“About eighty-seven thousand.”
“…What? Why didn’t it drop more?”
He had expected to lose ten thousand, but it had only gone down by five thousand.
“That’s still a lot, you know? It slows down the more it drops.”
“I know that, but… I worked so hard.”
“Kang Hae-il has been working hard too. While you were grinding gold coins, he swept through gates and grew. The graph came out pretty decent. However…!”
“?”
“That’s data with a time lag.”
Swish. Ham waved his staff a few times in the air before speaking again.
“After the statement ‘I’ll leave everything to the porter,’ another three thousand flew away. So eighty-four thousand!”
Three thousand gone in one blow. That meant eight thousand total.
“It seems more beneficial for you to continue gaining Kang Hae-il’s trust.”
The more Kang Hae-il trusted Moon Junil, the more the Constellations would lose their minds.
‘The efficiency is different.’
Because he was his father’s enemy.
“Got it. You can go.”
“Huh? That’s it?”
“What else can you even do?”
Ham’s cheeks puffed up at that.
“Tch! I’ve done plenty for you, you know?! Seriously!”
Bang!
With that, he vanished.
* * *
After finishing his shower, Junil sat down at his computer as usual and checked the news first.
Sagosul’s fame was directly tied to his own strength, so it was important.
‘As expected, it’s flooded with that incident.’
Every news outlet’s main page was dominated by the Gangnam Station Gate.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the entire country’s attention was focused there.
It was the first Gate explosion in downtown Seoul, the first Named monster appearance, and the Awakened who had gathered there were all top-tier elites. It was literally an all-star match.
That was why articles like these were everywhere:
Heroes Gathered at Gangnam Station — Lowest Rank A?
Half of Elite “Yu Jihun Party” Wiped Out
Named Monster Appears, Named Awakened Respond
Netizens were terrified by the orcs’ combat power, which was on a completely different level from goblins.
This was a trial South Korea had never faced before. Naturally, attention turned to the ‘heroes’ who had appeared.
Many articles deliberately targeted that keyword.
However—
Gangnam Station’s Hero “Kang Hae-il” — His Goal Was “The Safety of Citizens”
The Man of Flames at Gangnam Station is S-rank Kang Hae-il
The Flame Beauty Who Fought Kerak Alone?
Almost everything was about Kang Hae-il.
“Why is it all Kang Hae-il?”
Honestly, the coverage should have been flooded with Sagosul based on actual performance, but the reality was the opposite. There were far more articles about Kang Hae-il.
It was probably partly because Ram had pulled some strings, but this was a very common occurrence when working alongside the protagonist. It happened all the time in sports too. No matter the actual performance, the popular star takes all the spotlight.
‘Well, I expected this.’
Junil had more or less anticipated it. That was what being the protagonist meant.
That was exactly why he had prepared.
‘Let’s check the popularity chart.’
4th) Orcs? “One-shot for me” — Sagosul Makes His Appearance
This article, written with a deliberately provocative title, had broken through countless Kang Hae-il articles to claim fourth place.
[Reporter: Do Juhye]
It was Do Juhye’s work.
Junil smiled with satisfaction.
“Worth giving her that exclusive shot.”
There was a photo of him striking a pose among the scattered orc heads, plastered right in the middle of the article.
…In reality, it was Sagosul who instantly killed two orcs with a single slash and then cut off the remaining Kerak’s head…
The article itself heavily emphasized Sagosul’s performance. The comment section was going wild.
It seemed more people were starting to feel that the flood of Kang Hae-il articles was strange.
Perhaps because of that, the top post on the EachSalBeop community was this:
1st) Kang Hae-il Viral Marketing Is Disgusting
The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. As Kang Hae-il gained massive popularity in major media, EachSalBeop was expressing strong backlash. They seemed to feel that this phenomenon of pushing Kang Hae-il was unnatural.
It was actually quite fascinating.
‘Even though they’re inside the story, they can sense something’s off.’
This world pushed Kang Hae-il because he was the protagonist. Everyone else was just an extra or supporting character. And yet the people who were supposed to play those roles were feeling a sense of incongruity.
‘Or maybe this is exactly the role they were meant to play.’
This too could be part of Ram’s design. Perhaps he wanted to create a narrative of ‘Kang Hae-il overcoming malicious hate and earning recognition.’
Either way, after the Gangnam Station Gate incident, the number of Sagosul supporters on EachSalBeop had increased significantly.
That was because Sagosul had displayed overwhelmingly convincing strength that anyone could accept.
However—
Even so, half of EachSalBeop was still Kang Hae-il supporters. Thanks to that, the comment sections were full of bloody fights.
Some even said things like this:
The prediction that Kang Hae-il would kill the World Boss the moment he reached level 30. It was just speculation, but—
There was no one who could claim their prediction was wrong. Based on everything Kang Hae-il had shown so far, he would definitely react that way.
‘We can’t let that happen.’
Of course, Junil planned to stop it.
Whoosh.
‘Time to take a look.’
The small, crumpled book was taken out.
It was the hint about the World Boss that he had learned about through the hidden message.
[Where Did the Red Boa Go?]
That was the title of the book. It was the hint item regarding the World Boss that he had obtained yesterday. He had fallen asleep immediately after getting home, so he was only now taking it out.
‘A fairy tale?’
It was indeed a children’s storybook. It had cute illustrations, large text, and short sentences. However, the content was quite brutal.
The red boa kept swallowing something, and swallowing, and swallowing again. The boa continued to swallow until it had devoured the entire world. Even then, its desire was not satisfied. It swallowed its own tail, then its body, until only its head remained in the world.
‘As expected of Fairy Corporation, they made the hint into a story.’
Most of the Constellations seemed unable to understand it.
But Junil’s eyes were already moving busily across the pages. He had solved things like this more than once or twice. He immediately knew where to start looking.
‘The page numbers are different.’
What caught his eye first were the numbers. While reading the content earlier, he had noticed the page numbers were placed randomly. Instead of page one having a 1 and page two having a 2, they were scattered however they pleased.
“Hmm…”
Junil tilted his head.
* * *
“Kiriri! Do you really think that guy can figure it out?!”
Ram laughed as if he had already won.
“I set the difficulty to the highest level!”
“He’ll probably be stuck on it for at least a week. What a perfect waste of time!”
Since he already knew it was a hint, Julian wouldn’t be able to give up. He would waste time and ultimately fail to obtain the World Boss hint.
“Kiriri! Look at him clutching his head!”
* * *
‘What should I do?’
Just as Ram had said, Junil was clutching his head in thought.
‘What music should I play?’
He was debating what background music to use while showing off his deduction show.
‘This is it.’
He spent a long time scrolling through the shop before picking a song.
Genius BGM