Location: An abandoned warehouse, two blocks from Jinwoo's apartment. Once a loading dock for delivery trucks, now a rusted-out shell with shattered windows and a half-collapsed roof.
The real estate agent, a bald man in a wrinkled suit and a perpetual look of existential dread, hands over the keys.
Agent:
"Just… don't die in there. And if the rats start worshipping you, No Refunds."
Jinwoo (deadpan):
"Perfect. I like my minions submissive anyway."
[PROPERTY ACQUIRED – 'RAT'S NEST' TITLE UNLOCKED (TEMPORARY)]
Jinwoo enters the creaky warehouse. Darkness clings to the walls like rot. Cobwebs stretch from corner to corner like parasitic art. He snaps his fingers.
A subtle wave of orange heat vaporizes every speck of dust, mold, and rat dropping in a wide radius. Smoke escapes through shattered windows, but no fire escapes. The Logia control is perfect.
"Heh. No leaks. No witnesses."
The flames retract into his fingers like a gentleman tucking in his gloves.
------
The system pops up in bold red, now with a comic font like it's mocking him on purpose.
[SYSTEM CLEANING MONTAGE INITIATED]
[OBJECTIVE: TURN TRASH PALACE INTO MADMAN LAIR]
[WARNING: DO NOT BURN THE FOUNDATION, DUMBASS]
Jinwoo: "You gave me fire powers, what did you expect?"
System:
[To expect intelligence from you is to expect a cactus to be cuddly.]
Jinwoo sighs and pulls out some brooms from the infinite inventory. He wields one like a naginata.
[You have obtained: "Sweeper Style – Assassin's Grace"]
Cue a few fast-paced montage panels:
Jinwoo air-flipping and sweeping mid-spin.
Flames neatly vaporizing rat corpses.
A cockroach running, only to get flicked into another dimension.
System (mocking):
[Congrats. You managed not to set yourself on fire. Here's a treat.]
[SYSTEM STORE OPEN – 10 MIN WINDOW]
Jinwoo scrolls fast through the interface and suddenly freezes. His eyes gleam.
[Item: Shadow Corps – Jackie Chan Adventures Variant]
Duration: 10 Hours
Cost: 10 Coins
Effect: Summons shadowy ninja constructs capable of silent construction, demolition, and assassination if needed.
Jinwoo's balance: 50 coins
Jinwoo's brain: Time to go full cartoon villain.
"Purchase."
From the floor shadows rise Five hundred humanoid figures, faceless, rippling like black ink with glowing crimson eyes.
Jinwoo had spent all remaining coins on this purchase. Now time to reap benefits.
Jinwoo (to Shadows):
"I need a lab. Thirty meters down. Big enough to park an airplane.
Jinwoo uploaded his mental blueprint of the lab—every detail, every vision, down to the future upgrades.
"Split into task forces," he ordered.
And they moved.
---
Group Alpha (50): Structural Reinforcement.
Installed titanium-aluminum alloy(Stolen... No no Its Borrowed ) supports looted from a discarded aerospace project.
Reinforced underground walls with mana-infused concrete.
Group Beta (100): Excavation Division.
Dug 30 meters down, building a wide subterranean facility with reinforced compartments and layered mana shielding.
Installed retractable hydraulic lifts and secret tunnel exits.
Group Gamma (80): Resource Retrieval.
Slipped into shadows and infiltrated corrupt conglomerate's private stockpile of rare alloys, mana processors, quantum relays, and reinforced plastics.
Jinwoo justified it with a smirk:
"Steal from the rich, build for the devil. I'll donate to the poor later. Balance, right?"
Group Delta (60): Equipment Handling.
Reassembled, resized, and installed high-tech equipment—mana calibration fields, energy stabilizers, dimensional scanners which jinwoo had craft using his[ ADVANCED COMPUTER AND TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE], a full med-bay, and even a mini forge.
Group Epsilon (50): Monitoring & Security.
Designed surveillance systems that tracked everything within 100 km.(A/N:Basically half of Seoul Ig)
Set up anti-teleportation fields, mana signature dampeners, and 4D shadow cloak tech to mask the entire location.[Developed By Various Guilds-Abroad]
Remaining Corps (160): Floaters.
Assisted wherever needed. Drilling, transporting, welding, wiring, building automated arms, elevators, you name it.
One of them even drew Jinwoo a doodle of a bat-helmet for the control room aesthetic. Jinwoo kept it.
The lab was becoming real. Not just an idea—but a fusion of Batman's tech paranoia, Stark's wild genius, and Reed Richards' mad curiosity. A high-tech sanctum clad in deep mana-steel walls, humming with shadow-forged energy and powered by stolen, purified mana cores. And it wasn't even done yet.
------
Jinwoo took one last look, then glanced at the time.
1:20 PM.
Still had something left for the day.
---
The Viper X-09 purred to life as he sat astride it, the soft roar of its mana-powered engine blending with the afternoon buzz. His AI voice hummed in.
"Destination, Master?"
"Hyewon Medical Center. Seoul."
The AI paused, calculating traffic patterns.
"Understood. Estimated arrival time: 1:28 PM."
He didn't answer, eyes distant.
----
By 1:30 PM, he stood at the hospital door.
His mother lay in her bed—peaceful, unmoving. The monitors beeped gently. She wasn't dying. Not in pain. Just… trapped in silence. Jinwoo stood there for a long while, watching her chest rise and fall like clockwork.
In his past life, he never knew what a mother even looked like. He'd lived in the cracks of the world—alone, hungry, and too proud to beg. But now, these memories… Sung Jinwoo's memories—they'd bled into him, rewriting pieces of his soul.
He sat by her side, fingers brushing lightly against her hand.
"…Mom," he whispered.
That word burned on his tongue. He had never said it before. Not once. Not in that old life where the word meant nothing, and certainly not when all he ever saw of parents were gravestones or scars.
"I… don't really know how to do this," he said softly, voice cracking at the edges. "Talking like this. Sitting still like this. Feeling like this."
He closed his eyes, drawing a slow breath.
"Everything's new. So damn new. This room, this city… this feeling."
His grip on her hand tightened gently.
"I never had this before, Mom. I never had someone waiting for me. I never had a reason to slow down, to come back to something. But when I saw you, lying here like this… I felt it. Something I've never felt in my life."
His eyes shimmered, his jaw clenched.
"It's not fair. You're here but not really here. And I don't even know what your voice sounds like when you call my name. But still… somehow… I miss it. I miss something I never even had."
His thumb gently traced her wrist.
"…Is this what it's like? Loving someone?"
The monitors beeped softly, oblivious to the storm behind his eyes.
"I don't know how to fix this yet. But I will. I swear it. I'll give you and Jinah a life that doesn't have pain or fear in it. You don't have to fight anymore. You've done enough. Let me carry it now."
He swallowed hard, then stood.
"Appraise."
A translucent screen appeared over her body.
---
[STATUS: Park Kyung-Hye]
Strength: 2
Agility: 1
Vitality: 7
Mana: 0
Status Effect: [Eternal Slumber – Unknown Origin]
Root Cause Analysis: …Searching… …Analyzing…
Identified Link: Ruler's Ritual Sequence Detected. Attempting Decryption—
[ERROR: INSUFFICIENT LEVEL ]
Appraisal Failed.
---
His warmth vanished.
The air in the room grew cold, despite the sun outside.
"Rulers?" he muttered.
"If you're behind this… I'll burn your wings off one feather at a time."
He stood up slowly, letting her hand slip from his fingers like a secret.
"I'll come back soon. And next time, I want you to say something. Anything. Even if it's to scold me."
He gave a small smile, the kind that trembled on the edge of grief and hope.
"I'll be waiting, Mom."
He walked to the nurse's desk, paid off the remaining dues—50,000 won—then handed the transfer documents to the director himself. No more shared rooms. No more dim lights and understaffed departments. She was moved to the top private ward in less than 30 minutes.
By the time Jinwoo walked out into the sun again, it was 3:00 PM.
His shadows were still hard at work.
His lab was forming.
His heart was steel again.
-----
As Jinwoo stepped out of the hospital room, the last lingering warmth of his mother's presence still pulsing in his chest, he found himself colliding with someone.
A soft gasp escaped the figure as she stumbled back—only to be caught, firmly, effortlessly.
His arm wrapped around her waist in a reflexive motion honed by countless battles. Her hand instinctively landed on his chest—strong, solid, and very, very unfamiliar to her.
"Oh—! I'm so sorry, I—" Her voice faltered as she looked up.
He met her gaze, calm and composed, eyes laced with amusement and something gentler underneath.
"You okay?" he asked, voice smooth like silk yet warm like a fireplace.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
"…Wait. Do I… do I know you?" Her eyes narrowed slightly, lips parting in subtle disbelief. "You look—familiar. But…"
Jinwoo tilted his head, letting a small smirk tug at the corner of his lips. "I think I'll be getting this a lot."
-----------
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Congratulations, dear reader—you've just witnessed the birth of a secret villain Plot about those chicken winged bastards, an emotional family moment, and the most romantic hospital collision since K-Dramas discovered slow-motion. All in one chapter. You're welcome.
Our boy Jinwoo went from "homeless fire hazard" to "techno-shadow overlord" in under an hour, and still had time to make you cry at a hospital. If that ain't character development, I don't know what is.
Also, let's take a moment to appreciate:
The Assassin's Sweeper Style.
The stolen—but "borrowed"—aerospace materials.
And the fact that one of the shadow minions gave him a bat-helmet doodle. Iconic.
But now... she's here. Johee. And she doesn't recognize our upgraded murder-simba yet. Ohoho, the next chapter's gonna be a flirty, tension-packed, emotionally chaotic mess—just how we like it.
So don't vanish, reader. Comment, scream, ship, theorize, or just drop a rat emoji if you're vibing with the lair.