The Novel’s Villain

8.Luck (1)

As soon as Prof. Kim Dae-jin received the call, he hurriedly formed a team and sprinted to the JW Gate. The road was rough, but the sights he saw left him stunned.

“Ah, aaah…”

He had no choice but to kneel at the overwhelming sight. This was the discovery of the century. Expensive magic crystals of enormous value were scattered all over the place, of a purity that couldn’t be compared with anything on the market.

His research was needed right away. These were the magic crystals that could overturn existing theories.

“T-that’s awesome! This color…! Judging from the wavelengths flowing out, it doesn’t seem like an ordinary magic crystal.”

“Was there ever such a discovery in the history of Gates in Korea?”

Professor Choi Sung-min, who was accompanying him, said so excitedly, and Kim Dae-jin nodded. The reserves were enormous beyond measurement. They would be the envy of oil-producing countries. Korea wasn’t a country with rich resources, but this great spectacle was incomparable with such a trifle as oil.

“It’s not just the magic crystals. These statues and artifacts…will tell us a lot about the beings and civilizations from other dimensions. The Gate characters remain very intact too!”

Another professor said so. All of them were visibly excited as they proceeded with the investigation. Everyone was astonished when they discovered the gold mine. By the time they reached the deepest point, Professor Choi Sung-min had picked up ore from the floor as if he had been possessed.

It had a black gloss and was very light. The material felt like touching smelted steel, yet it was as light as hollow plastic. When he measured the hardness, it was the same as the magic crystals.

‘It’s amazing. It’s worth studying.’

When he thought so…

“Ugh?!”

The excavation team carrying the magic crystal fell, dropping the crystal to the floor and scratching it. His hands were shaking, but this was mainly because if the magic crystal were damaged, the mana would escape into the air. It was the moment when something worth billions instantly turned into just a lump of stone.

Mana boasted tremendous levels of efficiency as alternative energy. Besides that, it was green energy. Rather, mana even protected the environment by decomposing pollutants. A representative example was the Korean mana power plant, which was built on a trial basis under the leadership of the Frontline Group. All kinds of pollution, including fine dust and smog, had disappeared around the mana power plant, and the Milky Way could even be seen there.

However, there were several problems. Magic crystals were difficult to store and process. It was very expensive as well. Besides that, there were only a few natural excavation places, and most were only collected from monsters’ corpses. There had been many theories about how the magic crystal was created, but nothing had been confirmed. There were also difficulties in technology development for one reason or another.

Professor Choi Sung-min approached the scratched magic crystal.

“Huh?”

The ink-colored ore in his hand began to glow blue. As it got closer to the magic crystal, the light became clearer, merging into a single magic crystal.

“U-huh?!”

A scream came out of his mouth. He calmly scratched the surface. Mana escaped briefly before seeping back inside. Choi Sung-min collapsed with surprise, his hands trembling. It felt like he was dreaming.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you all right?”

The research team approached him as he sat on the floor. Choi Sung-min jumped to his feet with an uneasy shaking.

“Hahaha! This is it! This!”

Suddenly, he started screaming and running around like crazy. He, famous for his gentleness, shouted like a madman, and everyone stared blankly at him.

“Uahahahaha! Uwahaha! Kh-kufufu. Heheh! Uwahahahaha!”

He stopped there, raised his arms high, and started laughing. It was the discovery of the century. It was in his hands that he had predicted this existence just by mere theory.

“The General Manager is here.”

When someone from the research team said that, Kim Dae-jin stopped what he was doing and approached the General Manager. The General Manager, who arrived with a high-ranking judge, nodded as if the situation were natural.

“You’re here? Thank you very much for your cooperation. Thanks to that, I think we will be able to start the research quickly.”

“Don’t worry about this. It’s all for the sake of the Master. Well, how much is it?”

Kim Dae-jin explained the findings so far. Then, Choi Sung-min rushed in and spoke enthusiastically. Kim Dae-jin, who heard what he said, was also shocked, and so were the other members of the research team. The General Manager nodded his head again and again, and his eyes became dim.

‘I have no idea how far his great heart goes.’

The ‘The Biography of Great Lee Jin-woo’ was written by intermingling external information. That was why he thought that the evil Lee Min-woo had diminished the master’s greatness. That was the case even with the spectacular level of technique seen at the entrance. According to the maids, it was said that he solved the code that couldn’t be solved by human capacity at once without hesitation.

The General Manager’s eyes softened. As a high-ranking judge handed him a fancy handkerchief, he wiped his eyes. He remembered their first meeting when he was living a miserable life. He hadn’t trusted anyone. The Magic Eye Observation, like a curse, showed the horror of a person in detail. No matter how good a person was, there was also a dirty part within.

It was disgusting. The world was so ugly. He suffered from anxiety and insomnia because he couldn’t stand his soaring nausea. He even got his hands on illegal Gate drugs to deal with it. There was no way that a low-rank competent person with such a history could live properly. He owed a huge debt to the underworld of America and suffered from hallucinations and paranoia as a side effect of the drugs.

It was an employee of the Frontline Group who came to him at that time.

‘…Young Master told me to find someone who looked like the butler of Batman…’

He pondered what that meant until his debt was reimbursed and he arrived in Korea. It was only when he first met Master, who was still young, that he could tell. He realized for the first time that the Magic Eye of Observation was a blessing; it was all for this great encounter.

The Master was different. It was as if the origin of his existence itself was different. It was dark, darkness where nothing could be seen, without even a hint of light. Was that what the abyss was like?

‘Ah, aaah…’

Darkness that no one could handle seemed to burn his brain. Behind his small body, a huge darkness was emanating. It obscured the light of the sun and colored the world black. For the first time in his life, his mind became clear. No, perhaps he was even crazier. But none of that mattered.

The line between dream and reality disappeared. The Master had taken away his pain before his eyes. He chewed through what the Frontline Group employee said. It meant that he should become almighty like a character in a cartoon and assist the Master.

From that day on, the General Manager stopped drugs and trained like a madman to pay allegiance to the Master! When he was sent to the empty JW Gate, he killed the monsters there with his bare hands and waited for the day to come.

No one could stop his passion. Neither monsters, chivalry, physical limitations, or any fate that may exist.

“Aah…”

The General Manager trembled. It had finally begun. The first step was an achievement of the scale to be called the discovery of the century. But it was only the first step.

‘It has finally begun.’

Everything would be dyed with his master’s color. The General Manager approached Choi Sung-min, who was very excited. And he quietly handed him a luxurious book. It was made with the Gate resources and looked very expensive. When Choi Sung-min glanced back at him, the General Manager smiled kindly.

“It’s a book of truth. Read it. The truth is always obscured in the fog. Hahaha.”

But the fog would clear up one day. The General Manager handed out The Biography of Great Lee Jin-woo to all of the research team, holding extraordinary content that would make Jin-woo faint if he had known it began to spread among the researchers. A drug-like ability to attract people, vivid descriptions, creepy storytelling, and spontaneous production were better than any other best-selling novel.

People couldn’t help but believe it was true when they read it. There was plenty of evidence to support it, of course. It was the moment when the novel became a work of true history.

* * *

Kim Dae-jin held an official press conference and made a presentation. There was an uproar, the reaction going beyond an explosion to color the whole world with surprise.

[Korea goes beyond oil-producing countries]

[Magic crystal mine? How big is it?]

[Lee Jin-woo’s effect on the Korean stock market]

[A morning of cheers that open a new world]

[Warren Gates, ‘When you invest in magic crystal…’]

The media rushed to report. With the magic crystal as the main topic, it was also mentioned that a new substance had been discovered with sufficient research value. The eyes of the world were flocking to JW Gate.

‘Everything will work well.’

Jin-woo didn’t have to hide and grumble like the main character. The Future Strategy Office and its staff weren’t there for anything. There was nothing for Jin-woo to do since everything would be taken care of by them, even if he didn’t pay attention to it.

Some competent experts solved the problem perfectly, even if they worked like dogs. Jin-woo only had to give approximate direction and focus on what he had to do. Could it be any more comfortable than this? People came from all over the world to meet Jin-woo, but he rejected them all.

Key of Greed. It was early this morning when it was activated, so Jin-woo wanted to focus only on that. He reached level 50 by drive-hunting until he left the Gate. The leveling up was slow because the monsters weren’t that strong, so it seemed he hit the limit for the hunting grounds that had been found so far. Still, it was a great achievement for how quickly it had been.

‘Has all the information been organized now?’

He realized that his body’s ability was changing even as the information was being organized. He felt that there were no more changes, so he thought he could finally see it. Jin-woo looked at his ability information with the Magic Eye.

Lv. 50

Name: Lee Jin-woo

Age: 21 years old

Physical Ability: C

[Strength: C+ / Agility: C / Durability: D]

Mana Rank: A

Charm: A+

Luck: S

Waste Stacks: 20

Rank: F+

*Increases technique power and efficiency by 20%

Jin-woo tilted his head. He, of course, had great physical abilities, but it wasn’t as high as he thought it would be. His potential rank was so high that he expected it to be Rank C+ at least. It was an unexpected result, although he could have been treated as a semi-Knight with only his pure physical ability.

The Durability reaching Rank D was enough to defend against pistol bullets with his bare body. If he manipulated his mana to protect himself, modern weapons would be of no use except for the most destructive. There were very few competent people with equal development of physical abilities, and there were many high-ranked ones with extremely low physical abilities. Considering that fact, even such stats were staggering. However, Jin-woo was aiming for Rank B or higher, called the Knight level.

Jin-woo sighed and looked at his ability window again. He could see that there was another item there besides physical ability.

‘The mana was originally there, so even if that’s the case…’

It was fortunate that his mana was Rank A. The world’s best magic-related competent people, the Archmage and the Great Sage, were still at Rank C. It was widely believed that human limits were that much. Rank A was an amount of mana far beyond humanity. Jin-woo looked down. He quickly knew where the stat points were invested.

“Ah…”

He sighed automatically. His Charm and Luck were strangely high. Most of the stat points must have been invested there. How many stat points did Luck take to reach Rank S? Or, for that matter, for Charm to reach Rank A+. How the hell was Charm supposed to be useful? A sigh came out.

It was impossible to fight with Charm, and he didn’t want to be a celebrity. Jin-woo clasped his forehead.

“I can’t even reset this…”

If it were a game, he would have wiped the cache and reset it right away. Somehow, he thought things were going well. If he had been able to move all the points from Luck into his physical abilities, his Strength would be at least B, if not even higher. He couldn’t figure out exactly how far the concept of Luck went. Was it enough to prevent misfortune from affecting him? Or was it about the probability of receiving a critical hit like in a game?

‘Shall I test it?’

Jin-woo thought for a moment, then he nodded and picked up his phone. He recently played a game called Luna 5. It introduced a very vicious reinforcement system, but it was like any other game to reinforce equipment with reinforcement jewels. The problem was that the reinforced jewelry was very expensive, and if the enhancement failed, the equipment evaporated just like that. The rates were also extremely dire.

There were up to twelve reinforcement levels. Up to Level 5, it was possible to enhance with reinforcement jewels, and from Level 6 onwards, rainbow jewelry, which cost 10,000 won apiece, had to be applied. Of course, the chances of successful reinforcement were terrible. The best sword existing on the server was the Sword of Judgment +10. There were even people willing to buy it for billions.

No one had succeeded in reaching Level 11, let alone Level 12, yet. It was right not to try at all. The rates were low, and it was so expensive, so who was going to try it? Moreover, the Sword of Judgment +10 was the only item of its kind, which resulted in ugly rumors that the management team created it by manipulation.

‘Well…it’s already far from a normal game.’

It was in its own league, a stone that didn’t roll but gathered moss and became solid. It was called a game of losers, but there were quite a few who played it. However, some things set it apart from other games.

The point was that other people could spectate when reinforcing. The thrill of successful reinforcement and the pleasure of making fun of others’ failures were popular factors that drew people to it. It was like gambling in the guise of a game.

‘I was so pissed off that I tried to take it over.’

Jin-woo was also fed up with it after failing to reinforce it dozens of times. He even seriously thought about blowing up the company building after the takeover. It would have been worthwhile if his Waste Stack increased by even one.

Jin-woo turned on Luna 5. He was out of the rankings since all his major equipment was lost while being reinforced. When Jin-woo logged in, whispers poured out.

Giant Tree Warrior: LOLOL Bro, you came back? You said you wouldn’t touch it again.

Princess Purity: Did you come here after earning some money? Kya~, there was a rumor that you went on a deep-sea fishing boat.

Mangame Terminator: Here comes the black pig.

Jin-woo’s ID, which evaporated hundreds of millions of won at once, was PayToWin. He paid in cash right away and bought reinforced rainbow jewelry.