“Let’s go. Hurry up, finish this quickly and clear out. This place isn’t my style.”
Interrupting Doyeong’s thoughts, Ihyeon took the lead.
At the dungeon entrance, the village chief NPC ‘Meyer’ stood unsteadily, leaning on his staff. A yellow exclamation mark hovered above his head, signaling the start of a quest.
[System: Listening to the village chief ‘Meyer’s story.]
The screen zoomed in and forcibly switched to a cutscene mode. Character control was locked, and black letterbox bars appeared at the top and bottom of the screen.
[You… are outsiders? Our village has been cursed… cough, cough…]
The village chief’s dialogue sped along slower than a turtle. Each character of text popped up with a tick-tack sound, grinding down Ihyeon’s patience perfectly.
“Ah, this is driving me crazy.”
Ihyeon clicked the mouse irritably.
Click-click-click-click.
“Skip. Skip. Where’s the skip button?”
But there was no [SKIP] button anywhere in the corners of the screen.
“Hyung, can we skip this? I’m about to get dizzy.”
“This is an old quest. No skip, I think. I had to watch it all.”
“Hyung, what generation user are you?”
“Me? First generation.”
“I’m a sixth-generation user. I cut through everything with skip tickets and started from max level.”
Ihyeon flapped his wings irritably.
“Geez… old games are about feeling it out.”
“How long does it take?”
“Hmm… From what I remember, about 10 minutes.”
Ihyeon’s character froze like it was playing freeze tag.
“10 minutes? You want me to spend 10 minutes watching some old guy coughing?”
Ihyeon’s voice sharpened.
“In 10 minutes on the stock market, 10 million won goes back and forth. You think that text garbage’s gonna pay for my opportunity cost?”
Forced to watch for 10 minutes wasn’t just boring; for him it was a clear ‘loss.’ For someone obsessed with efficiency, it was torture.
“This isn’t gonna work.”
Ihyeon started pushing his character toward a crack in the wall.
“Hyung, step aside. I’m going to use a glitch to get through.”
“What are you doing?”
“It’s a wall clipping bug. System forcibly shuts down and ignores coordinates, so you skip it. I saw it on YouTube.”
Ihyeon was the embodiment of efficiency. He would break through maps and override code to get an advantage. That was his way. But in front of him stood only a shabby rabbit.
“Don’t do it.”
“Step aside. Don’t you see money leaking out?”
“What if you get banned? Then how will I earn a living?”
Doyeong clicked his tongue.
“Follow me. I know a ‘legit route’ that’s faster than a bug and won’t get you banned.”
The rabbit stopped beside a ‘dried-up well’ overgrown with weeds at the corner of the yard.
“A well? Why there? It’s blocked.”
“You don’t know the quest story, do you?”
Doyeong asked blankly.
“Why the village chief is crying like that. What the curse really is.”
“What do I care? It’s just an excuse to kill monsters. What’s the point of reading dumb text?”
“The village chief’s daughter went missing. Ten years ago.”
Doyeong’s rabbit character entered the well without hesitation.
“When monsters invaded the village, the chief tried to save his daughter by hiding her favorite doll inside this well. The daughter died while running away, but the doll stayed here. Back then, it was just passed as info, but now we can use it.”
Ihyeon blankly stared at the screen. When Doyeong’s character entered what he’d thought was just background—the well—an interaction key activated.
Doyeong clicked on the pile of stones at the well bottom.
Rustle.
[Item Acquired: Old, Wet Teddy Bear]
“This is the ‘Hidden Piece.’”
Doyeong returned to the village chief, who was still crying, “My daughter… my daughter…” That tedious dialogue sounded different the moment he saw the doll.
Doyeong took the [Teddy Bear] from his inventory and handed it to the chief.
Then.
[Ah… no, this is…?]
The chief’s eyes opened wide. The dull ongoing dialogue stopped abruptly, and with trembling hands, he took the doll.
[This is my daughter Mia’s doll… You found this for me…]
Thick tears streamed from the chief’s eyes. The ten-minute-long lament vanished, replaced by a grave expression. He was no longer a feeble old man.
[Thank you… thank you so much… I can trust you all. Please avenge my daughter’s death. I will show you the secret passage I have kept for ten years.]
Click-click-click!
The chief pointed his staff at the fireplace. The fire went out, and an old iron door hidden behind it opened.
[System: Hidden Route Unlocked!]
[Proceed directly to the ‘Boss Room’ via the village chief’s secret passage.]
Ihyeon’s eyes widened. His mouth dropped open involuntarily.
This was a perfect, ‘legitimate shortcut’ that skipped not only the ten-minute cutscene but the long, complex mid-boss section in just 10 seconds.
“…Wow.”
Ihyeon stared dumbfounded, feeling foolish for rubbing his body against the wall and making a fuss.
“See? No need for dirty tricks.”
Doyeong entered the passage casually.
“Developers are salaried too. They don’t want to work overtime, so they leave a backdoor like this. We just need to read the ‘intent.’ If you know the story, the way appears.”
Ihyeon gazed at Doyeong’s back blankly. He’d thought him just a veteran with decent control. But no, this guy was reading the bigger picture.
Ihyeon took off his glasses and set them on the desk. His heart pounded.
It was like thinking he’d bought a worthless broken house, but when tearing up the floor, he found gold bars buried underneath.
Reading the true value of things—that was Ihyeon’s forte.
But even he faced something that didn’t work.
The powerful conglomerate, Hyesung Group, of South Korea.
Inside those massive walls, Ihyeon was a complete ‘outsider.’
As the son of the chairman’s illegitimate child, he had grown up hearing so many times from relatives on holidays, “Don’t be greedy; just take the money they give you and live like you’re dead.”
If only he’d been normal, it might’ve been considered luck. But he wasn’t.
“If you stand out, your life won’t be guaranteed. You’re smart, so I’m sure you get that.”
He was born with a brilliant brain, but had to stay quiet because he intimidated his direct siblings.
That’s when Ihyeon realized: people can’t be trusted. Blood, family, loyalty—all lies. Only numbers and capital were the single truth that never betrayed.
When he turned twenty, the family threw him 5 billion won as hush money, telling him to study abroad. It was basically an exile order to never return to Korea.
But Ihyeon didn’t use that money to buy a plane ticket. Instead, he threw himself into the stock market.
Revenge was simple. Using the ‘money’ the family ignored, he aimed his attack straight at their heart.
Four years later, he turned 5 billion into several hundred billion, slowly swallowing shares of the Hyesung Group until he secured a seat there.
It was a victory, but also the start of endless war.
Grandfather and cousins who had ignored him now hated and feared him. They endlessly attacked to keep management rights.
Surveillance, checks, reports, even threats of forced sales at the upcoming shareholders’ meeting.
Ihyeon stood alone in the middle of this muddy battlefield. In a world where money solves everything, he had to sacrifice humanity to protect that money.
Because around him were only swindlers who smelled money and schemers ready to stab him in the back. No one came sincerely—he’d never lived in that kind of environment, so it was natural.
He did win, but there was no one left. Money overflowed, but sleep vanished.
That’s why he chose this game.
At least here, if a knife flew from behind, he could dodge.
The system doesn’t lie.
But then.
Who is this guy?
Ihyeon’s gaze tracked the shabby rabbit’s back on screen.
A man risking his life for an amount of money that was pocket change to Ihyeon.
Yet refusing the easy path (the bug), deliberately choosing the hard and foolish ‘proper’ route by reading the intent.
It was a variable he’d never experienced before.
The most stimulating error code dropped into a dull life that duplicated money just by breathing.
“…Hyung.”
“Why aren’t you coming?”
“Just admiring.”
Ihyeon couldn’t help pulling up the corners of his mouth.
“Wow… I thought you were a 50 million won rust bucket, but inside was a supercomputer.”
“What did you say?”
“A compliment. I’m saying the cost performance is ridiculous.”
Somehow, this man kept lingering in his mind. Ihyeon’s eyes shone with the certainty of an investor.
“I only picked you for your skills, but your brain suits my taste too.”
Ihyeon opened his inventory to check the contract.
And silently added one more clause in his heart.
[Special Clause: I alone will exclusively hold this prime stock until it is delisted.]
The most dangerous bet of Cheon Ihyeon’s life was beginning.
