Chapter 20. “Who Is That Woman?” The Goddess Becomes Obsessed
Chapter 20. “Who Is That Woman?” The Goddess Becomes Obsessed
LK Hynix Research Building No. 1.
Three people stood there, staring intently at the design drawings created by Ryu Hyesung.
“That student designed this?”
The Center Director kept scanning the drawings as though they made no sense.
“Yes. He just started his senior year of high school.”
The government had explicitly classified the materials as Level 1 secrets, but since the company itself had to manufacture the equipment, senior executives were permitted to inspect them.
“This has gone beyond engineering and entered the realm of art… He must have optimized the product itself around the mass-production equipment too.”
The Center Director could not hide his admiration.
The product and the production equipment had been optimized to the extreme, as though the two had reached a compromise with each other.
“Did you contact him? I told you to bring him to the laboratory.”
The Center Director urged them impatiently.
“Not yet. That student is unbelievably busy. He almost never answers calls unless he is the one making them.”
When Chief Researcher Kim Sangtae gave only frustrating answers, the Center Director turned toward the Vice President.
“Vice President, what are you going to do? I am telling you, we absolutely have to bring that boy here.”
Under the Center Director’s relentless pressure, the Vice President also grew deeply concerned.
“I will try something. But that company the boy runs… might be making far more money than it appears.”
“What do you mean?”
“The accounting looked slightly strange. I cannot say anything for certain. It is only at the level of suspicion.”
At that moment, Chief Researcher Kim raised his head as though he had suddenly remembered something.
“Ah, there was something else unusual.”
“Something unusual?”
“He created some kind of AI… and its performance was monstrous.”
“An AI?”
The Vice President became interested.
They desperately needed someone who could properly handle AI.
Until now, they had outsourced all AI work, and every time they did, astronomical amounts of money disappeared.
The student was becoming more and more desirable.
“Vice President, we absolutely have to bring him in. Absolutely.”
At the Center Director’s insistence, the Vice President nodded as well.
“Yes. If money becomes a problem, I will speak with the Chairman.”
South Korea’s second-largest company by market capitalization had begun moving for the sake of one person.
Office of Jang Seokjin, Second Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service.
He was flipping through a chart with a woman standing in front of him.
“The first person ever to receive a perfect score on the NIAT…”
Rustle.
Another page turned.
“Graduated at the top of the outsourced training course conducted by the 707th Special Mission Group.”
Deputy Director Jang rubbed his brow and groaned.
“Entered the KAIST School of Computing at fifteen as the youngest student ever admitted…”
The dazzling list of achievements seemed endless.
“Fluent in five languages, perfect shooting score, and even a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.”
Jang Seokjin did not like the woman standing rigidly in front of him at all.
“This is the Director’s order, so…”
The woman did not move even slightly.
Her perfectly still posture alone gave off the aura of someone far from ordinary.
It appears Russian agents have placed the VIP under surveillance again.
The urgent voice of an agent who had reported the situation some time ago echoed in his mind.
According to recently acquired intelligence, Russia had once again placed Ryu Hyesung within its sights and begun moving.
You know about the Dr. Lee Whiso incident, don’t you? Make sure something like that never happens again.
(Dr. Lee Whiso / Benjamin Whisoh Lee — Benjamin Whisoh Lee, born January 1, 1935, was a Korean-born theoretical physicist known for major work in gauge theories, weak interactions, and the theoretical foundations connected to the Standard Model. He died in an automobile accident near Kewanee, Illinois, on June 16, 1977. Later conspiracy theories in South Korea linked his death to supposed nuclear-weapons work, but these claims remain unproven and should not be presented as established fact.)
They could not leave things as they were.
An elite operative would remain constantly close to Hyesung, disguising her identity completely and guarding him like a shadow.
That was the judgment of the Director of the National Intelligence Service.
Ryu Hyesung was currently a Level 1 National Security Protection Subject of the Republic of Korea.
“My name is Han Seola. I have been assigned to the VIP protection mission.”
The biggest problem was that she was far too beautiful.
“Haah… Ian really needs to try harder.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Take good care of the VIP.”
Tap.
Deputy Director Jang closed the thick résumé.
Jinseong High School Teachers’ Office.
“Ah, is this printer broken?”
Ignoring the mathematics teacher’s shout from one side of the office, Ryu Hyesung listened to a discreet proposal from his homeroom teacher.
“Hyesung, if you solve this, I will stop nagging you about those extra days you spent away on your field trip.”
The period Hyesung had missed school for the export deal in the United Kingdom had been covered up as a “field experience trip.”
It was a special government instruction intended to preserve secrecy.
On the paper his homeroom teacher handed him was a modified version of a past International Mathematical Olympiad problem notorious for having one of the lowest solution rates in IMO history.
“You really will stop nagging me?”
At Hyesung’s question, the homeroom teacher nodded.
[Problem]
A function f(x), defined over the set of all real numbers, satisfies the following identity for all real numbers x and y:
f(x² + f(y)) = y + {f(x)}²
Assume that the function satisfies f(2026) = 2027. Find f(0).
It was an extraordinarily difficult problem that would force even renowned geniuses to spend one or two hours constructing enough logical steps to derive a single line of equations.
Tossing it at Hyesung and asking him to solve it during a ten-minute break was clearly excessive on the teacher’s part.
Even so, after seeing Hyesung’s increasingly unusual behavior lately, the teacher had become genuinely curious about the boy’s true ability.
“Hmm…”
Hyesung stared intently at the test paper.
He did not move at all, as though he had turned to stone.
Only his eyes moved mechanically and rapidly.
Seven minutes.
Eight minutes.
The teacher hoped he would finally surrender and say he could not solve it, but Hyesung kept his mouth firmly shut and even suppressed the sound of his breathing.
Nine minutes.
Ten minutes.
Ding-dong-dang-dong—
Unfortunately, the bell announcing the next class rang.
“Why are you thinking about it for so long? It was never a problem you could solve in the first place.”
His homeroom teacher smiled awkwardly and was about to retrieve the paper from the desk.
“Wait.”
Ryu Hyesung suddenly reached out.
With his mechanical pencil, he drew a bold X through the condition written at the end of the problem, f(2026) = 2027, then quickly replaced the number with another one.
“The problem is wrong. I have another class, so I am going.”
He stood without hesitation and left for the classroom.
“What? The problem is wrong?”
Since the teachers’ office printer had malfunctioned, the homeroom teacher had copied the problem by hand onto scrap paper.
He had been certain there was not a single incorrect character.
What an inventive excuse, he thought.
However, the moment he returned to his seat and checked the original computer file, his mouth fell open.
“What the hell…?”
The numerical condition really was wrong.
The original file stated f(2026) = 2026.
The teacher had mistakenly written 2027 after confusing the number while hastily copying the problem.
The boy had not spent ten minutes struggling because he could not solve the problem.
Without writing a single line, he had perfectly proved in his head that the only solution to the vicious functional equation was f(x) = x, then identified that the single numerical condition added by the teacher created a mathematically perfect contradiction.
“To figure out that the problem itself was wrong… how deep into the solution did he have to go and come back out…? And he did it mentally?”
Goosebumps rose across the homeroom teacher’s skin, and he could not continue speaking.
After all, he himself did not even understand the problem.
Science Facility Factory No. 1 Office.
“Ah… I mean, this seems extremely overqualified.”
I was baffled.
No matter how versatile HERMES was, it could not clean the office for us.
So I had simply intended to hire one environmental maintenance worker.
“You entered KAIST at fifteen as the top-ranked student, so why…”
I trailed off in disbelief.
“Why are you applying for a cleaning and maintenance position at our factory?”
Just as she was about to answer, Taeju, who was standing beside me, suddenly threw out a completely unrelated remark.
“Hmm. You were not sent by somewhere like the National Intelligence Service, were you? Like some kind of secret mission?”
For a moment, I thought her perfectly still eyes trembled ever so slightly.
“I am joking, haha. But seriously, this job only pays 2.1 million won a month. Are you really okay with that? You went to KAIST…”
“I am doing it as a part-time job.”
She answered stiffly, like someone who did not even know the meaning of the word “joke.”
“Are you sure? You will have to clean the men’s restroom too.”
She answered with the determination of someone interviewing for an executive position at a major corporation.
“I can do not only cleaning, but laundry, coffee preparation, meal preparation, and even high-precision equipment repair!”
Her response was so forceful that I was the one who became uncomfortable.
“No, I mean… why would someone this capable apply for a cleaning position?”
I had naturally assumed a middle-aged woman in her fifties would show up.
How had someone like this ended up here?
“How old are you, by the way? It was not written on your résumé.”
“I am twenty years old this year.”
She was only one year older than us.
“Yes… Anyway, please take good care of our factory.”
“Thank you. I will do my absolute best!!!”
As she began seriously preparing the cleaning equipment, Taeju and I quietly slipped out of the office.
“Hyesung, that woman… seems like some kind of robot.”
“I know. She feels like someone who would not understand a joke at all.”
Something deeply strange had joined our company.
She was openly suspicious, so I did a light background check.
However, her records were unnaturally clean, as though her identity had been professionally reconstructed.
I assumed she was probably some kind of National Intelligence Service surveillance operative and decided not to worry about it any further.
A popular tteokbokki restaurant.
“Wow, is she a celebrity?”
“She is seriously beautiful.”
Ian ignored the whispering around her and stared only at my face.
“Haven’t you been ignoring my messages too much lately?”
Ian pouted as she spoke.
“Sorry. I have genuinely been a little busy.”
Recently, I had been overwhelmed by the factory automation equipment design and the export deals involving the United Kingdom and Ukraine all at once.
“Hmm…”
Ian silently stared at my face.
When our eyes met, my mind suddenly went blank and my cheeks grew hot.
The situation became increasingly embarrassing.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Bzzzt, bzzzt—
[Warning: Increase in heart rate is abnormally high.]
HERMES displayed a red warning notification on my smartwatch.
[Shall I call an ambulance? If you do not answer within four seconds, I will call automatically. Four… Three…]
Crazy bastard!
I frantically hammered the cancel button.
This thing occasionally activated functions I had never asked for.
I had allowed it to rewrite its own code and become smarter, and apparently it had gone as far as adding these intrusive features on its own.
“I-Ian. Is there something on my face?”
“Are you stupid?”
“Huh? Why suddenly?”
Ian suddenly threw out the question with an incredulous expression.
“My mock exam score is around Grade 3, but…”
Why was my throat so dry?
I picked up the cola beside me and took a drink.
At my completely irrelevant answer, Ian sighed briefly in disbelief.
Then she said something I could hardly believe.
“Ryu Hyesung, do you want to go somewhere with me this weekend?”
“Pfffft—”
The drink in my mouth sprayed everywhere.
“Cough, hack! Ah, s-sorry. I was just really surprised.”
“Was asking you to go somewhere with me that strange?”
“No, no! Not strange at all!”
With Ian?
Just the two of us?
Bzzzt—
[Your heart rate is abnormal. Shall I call an ambulance? Answer.]
Screaming internally, I once again smashed the cancel button as hard as I could.
Then I hurriedly spoke.
“But I have something I need to do at the factory this weekend. After I finish that…”
It was related to the urgent request from the British side for drone measurement data.
“This weekend? More work again?”
“It will be quick.”
“You are seriously suspicious. Did you get a girlfriend or something?”
We were not even dating, yet she kept questioning me about whether I had a girlfriend.
“What girlfriend would I have?”
“Then why are you so busy?”
At that moment—
Bzzzt—
The screen of my phone lying on the table lit up.
[Han Seola]
<Boss, I will go to the factory this weekend. The work you assigned me is still not fin—>
The notification entered Ian’s line of sight.
“The factory… this weekend?”
Ian seemed to have misunderstood something.
“No, this is—”
“Hyesung…”
Ian’s expression turned cold.
“Huh?”
“Who is Han Seola?”