I, Alpha Male Geum Tae-yang, Intend to Flaunt My Masculinity to That Beta Male Park Do-chul. [Time for Revenge][1]
"Mom agreed too. She said if we do it that way, a lot of what's been bottled up in my chest will finally get washed out — she even offered to help actively."
Park A-young delivered her declaration with a deadpan face, while Geum Tae-yang's eyes went round with shock.
"I'm going to get proper revenge on Dad."
Catharsis — the Growth Motivation tied to Park A-young's Status Window. She had already told Geum Tae-yang that targeting her father, Park Do-chul, would be the most efficient way to fill it. And she had never left that idea as mere talk. She meant to put it into practice. She had even gone to her mother, Kim Min-jung, and secured her permission.
"Auntie actually agreed to that?"
"Yeah."
Geum Tae-yang, still looking slightly stunned, asked as if to confirm. Park A-young answered flatly. But the tone in his voice wasn't pure surprise.
Auntie already knows exactly how deep A-young's obsession with Park Do-chul runs…
And with A-young's happiness index climbing the way it has been lately, she'd want to give her daughter anything she asked for…
In the past, Kim Min-jung had treated A-young's fixation on Park Do-chul as something simple — just the hunger of a girl who had never been loved by her father. But after the freer sexual ethics of the apocalypse had patched themselves into her heart, even Min-jung's newly opened eyes could see the pure, seething desire for revenge living inside her daughter. Once upon a time she would have fretted over how to soothe that rage. Not anymore. Now she wanted to help her girl vent every last drop of that fury.
And Geum Tae-yang, who spent every night making love to Min-jung and sharing her emotional weather, was never going to miss that change in her passion for her daughter.
"Honestly, watching your Growth Motivation stall out during the Park Do-chul secret warehouse hack, then suddenly fill up during that indirect threesome with Yu-mi — that was pretty damn eye-opening."
"After that experience, I figured ordinary stuff wasn't going to cut it."
"Going after Park Do-chul still feels a little greasy from my end… but if it helps us push into the city, then yeah. We do it."
Geum Tae-yang nodded slowly, accepting the situation. Of course, Park A-young had already gotten her biggest catharsis out of her system; the wild, runaway urge to spray her revenge everywhere had mellowed a lot. But they all needed stronger Status Windows now, and every member of the bunker — A-young included — understood that more aggressive use of the Park Do-chul content was required.
"Okay. So how exactly are we going to show Park Do-chul our situation?"
"You planning to call him?"
Once Geum Tae-yang decided something, he never backed down. If they were doing this, he wanted to take the lead himself — so he asked A-young what concrete plan she had in mind.
"No. A call's too timid. He'd just puff himself up even more. I'm thinking we shove a live feed in his face."
She dropped onto the sofa right beside him.
"Video call? Hmm… yeah, that much should be no problem. Basically just show him me loving you and Auntie through the camera, right?"
"That alone would piss Park Do-chul off something fierce."
Geum Tae-yang immediately clocked the exact rage-bait A-young was aiming for.
Before the apocalypse, he had assumed Park Do-chul treated him like shit purely because the man was a piece of garbage by nature. Anything involving Kim Min-jung, he had written off as Park Do-chul's massive inferiority complex making him act like a clown. In other words, he never thought Park Do-chul had any real reason to feel inferior to him. A decent-looking, socially successful guy like Park Do-chul feeling threatened by his own tenant? That had always seemed too ridiculous to be true.
I heard he completely lost his mind when he found out I'd moved into the bunker…
Then, while helping A-young recover, he had finally learned the truth. The push had come from him — he had told her that, since things had already gone this far, she might as well dump every last complaint about Park Do-chul onto him. So she had unleashed the stories she had kept locked in her chest. Tae-yang had managed his expression in front of her, but inside he was reeling — like someone had just cracked him across the skull.
That son of a bitch has been terrified this whole time that a male like me would eat his household alive…
Fucking pathetic beta cuck…
Geum Tae-yang had already known a great deal about Park Do-chul. But one decisive piece of the puzzle had been missing. The moment it clicked into place, he felt as if he finally held a complete map of the man's entire personality in his hands.
Park Do-chul was pure inferiority complex — a walking legend of victim mentality, a bottom-tier beta male. That was why he had been shadow-boxing against a man so much younger than himself. Sure, no human could put a hand on their chest and claim they were completely free of that kind of psychology — not even one percent. But turning that unconscious defense mechanism into real-world behavior? Actually meeting a loser like that had left Tae-yang's head spinning.
He was so eaten up by that fear that he gaslit and tormented Min-jung and A-young to the point of abuse…
His suspicion must have been pouring out of him in rivers.
And that only made Geum Tae-yang hate him more. Honestly, after the apocalypse Park Do-chul had been a giving tree as far as Tae-yang was concerned — so he had figured there was no need to waste emotional energy on the man. But once he learned that Park Do-chul's inferiority complex toward him was the reason Min-jung and A-young had been treated so badly, the whole thing stopped feeling third-party. It became personal. The foundation for genuine hostility was finally in place.
"Should we go on a date? We've cleaned up the whole area around us — there might actually be somewhere the three of us could go out and play."
He was already actively brainstorming events that would wreck Park Do-chul.
"That's not bad, but…"
A-young hesitated for a beat.
"It's not enough. I want a bigger impact. I want to shatter that bastard's mental state."
Then she fixed him with a look full of resolve and stared straight into his eyes.
"Chief Executive Choi Sung-jun's complexion has been pretty rough lately. Is it because of that cousin of his, by any chance?"
In the luxurious lounge of the vast underground bunker, Park Do-chul sat drinking tea with someone and fired off the question with a carefully blank face, as if he knew nothing at all.
"You could say that. Given the current climate, you can't exactly ignore the influence of the front-line commanders."
"And those front-line commanders are following Director Choi Seo-yeon's word more than his — so of course his mood is foul."
The man speaking with Park Do-chul answered at a measured pace, coffee cup still in hand. His name was Oh Il-man, an executive-level director in the Goryeo Special Police. Park Do-chul had also been specially appointed as a director under Choi Sung-jun's patronage — but he was aiming higher, which was why he was currently bowing and scraping to Oh Il-man, a man of the same rank who was even younger than him.
"Remarkable… that they'd follow Director Choi Seo-yeon in the field more than the charismatic Chief Executive Choi Sung-jun himself…"
Hearing Oh Il-man's answer, Park Do-chul carefully floated his own opinion. In truth, the word woman had been sitting right behind his teeth. His misogyny ran deep enough that it nearly slipped out — but he forced it down. She was the youngest granddaughter of the Goryeo Group's chairman. One verbal slip and he could end up completely screwed.
"Ah? Director Park, you've never actually met Director Choi Seo-yeon?"
Oh Il-man, who had been wearing a fairly serious expression thanks to his place on the Choi Sung-jun line, tilted his head slightly and asked.
"No. I don't know much about Director Choi Seo-yeon."
Nod… nod… nod…
Park Do-chul had no idea what that tilted head meant, so he answered with careful little nods, reading the room.
"Well, fair enough. Unless you're practically pure-blood aristocracy, it's hard to know much about Director Choi Seo-yeon. She attended the Goryeo Special Police Academy in complete secrecy under the chairman's influence. Anyway — she's a hundred and eighty-three centimeters tall, built with real muscle. Even at the Goryeo Special Police Academy, where every cadet is a monster, she stayed at the absolute top of the rankings. And her personality is no joke either. The chairman trusted her completely right up until the day he died."
Oh Il-man's confusion had come from the fact that Park Do-chul — a man who had done a fair amount of work with the Goryeo Special Police — somehow knew almost nothing about Choi Seo-yeon. But once he thought it through, it made sense, so he immediately laid out her formidable specs.
"Ah… I see! She has that kind of insane ability?"
Park Do-chul slapped his knee. Choi Sung-jun was one of the true power brokers inside both the Goryeo Special Police and the Goryeo Group — and even he had to watch his step around Choi Seo-yeon. Park Do-chul had been curious about her. Now that the curiosity was somewhat satisfied, his eyes lit up.
"And she's Awakened, too. Her father — the chairman's youngest son — and her mother both died early, so her attachment to family runs unusually deep. For a chairman who had gone soft in his final years, she was someone he could lean on. He'd lived a barren life his whole existence, after all."
"Ah! So she's warm-hearted?"
"You could classify her that way. Thorough to a fault, but also the type who takes excellent care of her subordinates."
Park Do-chul had a gift for drawing stories out of people — a remarkable social skill. Hearing even about Choi Seo-yeon's personality, he reacted with genuine-looking interest.
Somehow… those specs remind me of that bitch Kim Min-jung.
Tall, charismatic, and yet warm-hearted and good at looking after people. That combination had made him think of Kim Min-jung.
Hmm… a woman of that type… there might be a workable angle of attack…
The word bitch had spun through his head so fast it soured his mood. But Park Do-chul was so obsessed with climbing the ladder that Choi Seo-yeon was a line he could never afford to miss. So he began drafting an approach strategy for the young virgin Choi Seo-yeon, drawing on all the data he had accumulated with the similar-seeming Kim Min-jung.
Fuck, and why the hell has that bastard Do Min-chul gone completely dark??? Is he going in or not???
Step. Step. Step.
After finishing his conversation with Oh Il-man, Park Do-chul returned to the private maintenance room prepared for him inside the Goryeo Special Police mega-bunker. The whole way back, he kept working his phone. The moment Kim Min-jung floated into his mind, his irritation at the currently laying-low Do Min-chul surged up on its own.
With a face full of that irritation, staring at his phone screen as he walked into the maintenance room, Park Do-chul's ears suddenly caught a voice.
"So right now, this is being shown to Park Do-chul — is that what you're telling me???"
Geum Tae-yang's voice came through.