Chapter 14

Chapter 14.

"Could there be...... a relative I didn't know about?"

Park Hayan asked in a trembling voice.

As far as she knew, she was utterly alone.

Her only family — her parents — had died in the airplane accident.

But maybe.

A distant relative she'd never met, or an acquaintance of her parents, had heard the news belatedly and reached out.

Why else would someone hand over such an enormous sum just like that?

But the staffer's answer defied expectations.

"No. He gave his name as 'Kim Jeong-seok.'"

"Kim...... Jeong-seok?"

A name she'd never heard.

Different surname, too.

No matter how hard she searched her memory, there wasn't even a passing connection to that name.

"We were surprised too. He was very insistent."

The staffer added.

"He said to make absolutely sure she can walk for the rest of her life. That he didn't care how much it cost."

She went numb.

Was it a dream?

Surely this was a dream.

A sweet fantasy conjured under anesthesia.

She felt certain that when she opened her eyes, the cold hospital room and the reality of clutching her decaying legs and crying would be waiting.

Park Hayan was about to pinch her own cheek.

"Congratulations — truly."

The nurses clapped and beamed with genuine smiles.

It wasn't a hallucination.

The hospital air against her skin, the scent of disinfectant, the warmth of people around her.

All of it was real.

A complete stranger.

Without asking for a single thing in return.

Had saved her life.

It felt like a ray of light breaking through a world that had been nothing but darkness.

That was when.

"Oh, right! I almost forgot."

Another nurse hurried into the room.

She was holding a white envelope.

"The sponsor left a letter. He specifically asked that it be delivered to you."

"......A letter?"

Park Hayan received the envelope with shaking hands.

A plain white envelope.

Could it be from him?

The person named Kim Jeong-seok who'd saved her.

'Why would he do this for me......'

Half dread, half anticipation.

She carefully tore the envelope open.

Inside was a single sheet of stationery, written in neat handwriting.

Park Hayan slowly read the words.

[Dear Miss Park Hayan,

You must be very surprised by this sudden donation.

I imagine you're wondering who I am and why I'm helping, so I'll keep this brief.

I, too, lost family in that airplane accident.

My parents were on that flight.]

Park Hayan's eyes widened.

A fellow bereaved.

A victim of that horrific crash.

[You are the sole survivor of that accident.

You survived on behalf of everyone who departed there — including my parents.

And so, you must walk.

Stand up again. Walk, run, and roam the world to your heart's content.

That is what the departed would have wanted.]

Her vision blurred.

The letters rippled and swam behind her tears.

[Please don't feel burdened. I ask for nothing in return.

I simply want to see you living in good health.

I will always be cheering you on from afar.

You are not alone.

Sincerely, Kim Jeong-seok.]

DRIP.

A teardrop fell onto the letter.

"Ah......"

The tears she'd been holding back broke free.

"Hic, hck......"

It wasn't about the money.

The knowledge that she wasn't alone.

The comfort that surviving hadn't been a sin.

The warm heart of someone cheering for her life — it thawed a heart that had been frozen solid.

Park Hayan clutched the letter to her chest and wept.

It was a cry so wrenching and overwhelming that everyone in the room fell silent.

That day.

The girl resolved to live again.

To live, and to repay this kindness without fail.

***

Through the small glass pane in the hospital room door.

I watched the scene in silence.

Park Hayan was crumpled over, the letter pressed to her heart.

Weeping hard enough to shake the world.

Now I was certain.

'Not a god's avatar.'

That wasn't acting.

That was the raw, unfiltered emotion only someone who'd clawed their way up from rock bottom could show.

A desperate survival instinct and relief that gods could never imitate.

It was no small amount of money, but I didn't regret a single won.

If anything, it was a bargain.

I knew her future.

'Spirit Monarch Park Hayan.'

Before my regression, she'd been one of humanity's final five.

A comrade who'd climbed the tower to the very end.

But I hadn't fully trusted her.

Because of her epithet.

'The White Devil.'

That's what people called her.

On the outside, she looked like an angel in white.

Always smiling, a gentle voice.

But inside, she was rotten to the core.

I remembered the spirits she'd commanded.

Every one of them had lost their light, weeping silently.

To her, spirits weren't friends.

'Tools.'

Expendable assets, slaves to the last.

She'd used wind spirits to eavesdrop.

She'd ordered shadow spirits to carry out assassinations.

At times, she'd forcibly possessed people's minds with spirits, turning them into puppets or tampering with their memories.

She'd even cheated at gambling, swapping cards through spirits.

To survive, to win — she'd used any and every means available.

Evil.

She was unmistakably a villain.

But I couldn't condemn her.

'Because it was all to survive.'

Her starting point had been wretched.

Paralyzed from the waist down.

A penniless orphan.

After the Great Cataclysm, a girl in a wheelchair wouldn't have had many options for survival.

To avoid being exploited, she had to exploit first.

To avoid being trampled, she had to trample first.

Her malice had sprouted from the desperate thrashing of survival.

Having survived that way, she wouldn't have known how to stop.

Even after gaining power, she was still anxious, and she squeezed others all the more viciously.

In the end, her talent had grown deformed, shackled to the chain called 'survival.'

But this time would be different.

I looked again at the girl beyond the glass.

She would have her legs healed.

She would stand on the earth with both feet.

No drowning in poverty, no need to grovel before anyone.

I'd planted 'hope' in her.

The belief that someone was watching.

The reassurance that she wasn't alone.

That would change her roots.

'Don't go crooked.'

She didn't need to become a devil.

Not the ruler of some dank back alley — a monarch standing tall under the sun.

If Park Hayan treated spirits as partners instead of tools.

If she let that overwhelming talent bloom in the right direction.

'Spirit King.'

And not just Spirit King.

She might even be capable of commanding something beyond that.

I was convinced.

My investment wouldn't fail.

She'd grow into an ally far stronger and more dependable than she'd been before my regression.

"Grow well."

I murmured softly.

There was nothing more to see.

I turned around.

My steps through the hospital corridor felt light.

'I can always make more money.'

I knew how.

Where to go, what to do.

And exactly what would happen there.

'An unforecasted blizzard hits Daegu.'

In two days, a blizzard would fall.

A staggering seventy centimeters of snow would pile up.

After that, monsters would appear.

In other words.

'There's another god's avatar there.'

***

Daegu, Icheondong Antique Street.

Hot. Unbearably hot.

Every breath drew scorching air deep into my lungs.

Heat haze shimmered above the asphalt, and the road was like a frying pan moments from boiling point.

People called this place 'Dafrica.'

A self-deprecating joke about it being as hot as Africa.

I wiped my sweat and looked up at the sky.

A blazing sun. Not a single cloud in the clear blue sky.

'Two days from now.'

Who could possibly imagine it?

That a blizzard would fall in the middle of this sauna.

That over seventy centimeters of snow would pile up and cripple the city.

This wasn't natural.

A clear 'disaster.'

Proof that a god's avatar with an ice or frost attribute had set up shop nearby.

Before going after it, there was somewhere I needed to stop first.

I walked the street, scanning left and right.

Faded, decrepit signs.

Stone statues and ceramics piled haphazardly in front of shops.

To ordinary eyes, it would look like nothing more than a junk dealer's row.

But my eyes saw differently.

'A treasure trove.'

The world had flipped.

It wasn't only living creatures that had changed.

Objects that had endured long years — antiques steeped in stories and history — had mutated in response to mana as well.

Among them were 'relic'-grade items imbued with special power.

People didn't know yet.

How immensely valuable these old trinkets were.

In two weeks — a month at the outside.

The instant the awakened realized what relics could do, everything here would be worth whatever you asked.

I stepped into a worn wooden building.

JINGLE.

A wind chime sounded, but no one greeted me.

The shop was dim and reeked of musty dust.

"Welcome."

From the back, an old man in an undershirt fanned himself and replied flatly.

He glanced at me and looked away.

A young guy in a hoodie.

Clearly decided I wasn't a paying customer.

"Just look around. Don't touch."

Dismissed.

Didn't matter. Easier that way.

I scanned the display shelves slowly.

Fake Goryeo celadon, crude wooden figurines, tarnished brass bowls.

Most of it was junk.

But gems were always mixed in with the rubble.

I stopped before a dusty shelf tucked in a corner.

A palm-sized bronze mirror.

Corroded to the point of being useless as a mirror.

'This is it.'

I discreetly reached out.

At an angle outside the owner's line of sight.

I channeled the faintest thread of mana through my fingertip and let it flow across the mirror's surface.

HUMMM.

A response.

A tingling vibration traveled through my fingertips.

Not a dead piece of scrap metal.

Mana was breathing inside it.

Confirmed.

I picked up the mirror and brought it to the counter.

"How much for this?"

The old man stopped fanning and peered at the mirror over his reading glasses.

"That? A hundred thousand won."

Marked up.

Normally it wouldn't fetch 30,000.

But I didn't haggle.

I pulled a few crumpled bills from my pocket.

"Here."

"Take it."

The instant payment landed, the old man lost interest again.

I tucked the mirror away and left the shop.

The moment I stepped back into the blistering sun.

DING!

A system message appeared.

[You have discovered a hidden relic.]

[Exceptional eye for appraisal.]

[Skill 'Appraisal' has been generated.]

Just as expected.

The act of detecting mana and recognizing an object's true value.

That was the trigger for skill generation.

I immediately cast the skill.

"Appraisal."

SWOOSH.

A translucent information window materialized.

[Item: Mirror of Truth]

[Grade: Rare]

[Description: A mirror once used by a priestess of the Silla dynasty. When mana is injected, hidden things become visible.]

[Effect (1): Detects invisibility and stealth within a 10m radius.]

[Effect (2): Increased resistance to illusion-type magic.]

Success.

Rare grade.

Top-tier for an item obtainable this early.

The 'stealth detection' option in particular was a capability money couldn't buy.

A piece of scrap metal worth 100,000 won had just become a treasure worth hundreds of millions — in an instant.

'Not bad.'

I pocketed the mirror.

This was only the beginning.

Remaining funds: 500 million won.

The reserve left after donating one billion to Park Hayan.

A fortune for an ordinary person, but in the awakened world, barely enough to outfit a single piece of gear.

But here, on this antique street where values hadn't been established yet, it was a different story.

'I can spend like a king.'

I swept through the street.

I went into every last shop.

My eyes never stopped moving.

'Appraisal.'

[Normal: Counterfeit celadon.]

Pass.

'Appraisal.'

[Normal: Factory-produced wooden figurine.]

Pass.

Digging for jewels in a mountain of trash.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred were duds, but I didn't give up.

Whenever a blue glow filled my vision, I opened my wallet.

"How much for this?"

"Fifty thousand."

"Here."

[Item: Jade Ring of Vitality]

[Grade: Uncommon]

[Effect: Slight increase to health recovery rate.]

"And that one?"

"That's a bit pricier. At least two hundred thousand......"

"Keep the change."

[Item: Old Bodyguard's Sword]

[Grade: Rare]

[Effect: Maintains sharpness until durability is depleted.]

I swept them up.

Rings, hairpins, hanging scrolls, weathered swords.

Outwardly, I looked like a walking junk shop, but my inventory was filling with prime relics.

The merchants treated me like a sucker.

They whispered that the young idiot must've gotten heatstroke, collecting garbage.

I laughed inwardly.

These items they'd sold for 100,000 or 200,000 won.

In just one month, they'd fetch tens of millions each.

I'd reached the far end of the street when.

CLANG— CLANG—!

Rough bell sounds rang out.

People buzzed.

"Huh? Is today an auction day?"

"Is it that time already?"

"Let's go! Think anything decent will come up today?"

Merchants and onlookers flocked to a single spot.

A fairly large gallery at the center of the street.

'An auction?'

My interest was piqued.

An auction held in a place like this was predictable.

Stolen goods, or unappraised items being offloaded cheap because their provenance was unclear.

In other words, a gathering place for items that were either jackpots or total busts.

I slipped into the gallery with the crowd.

The air-conditioned breeze was refreshing.

On the stage, an auctioneer in a tuxedo gripped a microphone.

"Right, right! It's hot out there, so let's kick this off nice and cool!"

The auction began.

The early lots were unremarkable.

Practice pieces by a famous painter, late-Joseon white porcelain.

Artistic value, perhaps, but not mana-infused relics.

I crossed my arms and swallowed a yawn.

Just as I was considering leaving.

"Next item up! A real oddball."

A staffer wheeled out a cart.

When the black cloth was pulled away, snickers rippled through the audience.

"What is that?"

"It's a rock."

"Did someone fish that out of a riverbed?"

Sitting on the stage was a fist-sized blue stone.

Its surface was rough, crusted with moss — the spitting image of a worthless piece of rubble.

But.

"......!"

I narrowed my eyes.

My heart clenched.

That looked familiar.

Not just "I've seen something like it" familiar.

That was something I knew very well.

'Appraisal.'

I activated the skill.

[Item: Pandora Cube (Sealed)]

[Grade: Unknown]

[Description: A toy box left behind by the God of Fortune. Not even a daughter-in-law, not even a god, knows what's inside.]

Pandora Cube.

Among the tower's veterans, it was called the 'Devil's Gacha.'

The odds were truly nightmarish.

A 99.9% chance of pulling trash.

A rotten egg, a goblin's loincloth, or a slip of paper that just read "MISS."

But.

'There was exactly one time a legendary weapon came out of it.'

A memory from my past life flickered.

A ranker breaking through the tower's 30th floor had pulled a 'Legendary'-grade piece of gear from this cube — or so the rumor went.

That equipment had actually launched him into the top ten rankings.

"Who'd put a piece of garbage like that on display?"

"Who's going to buy that?"

The audience saw it as nothing more than a mossy rock.

But to my eyes, it was a once-in-a-lifetime windfall.

No — it looked like a guaranteed Legendary-grade piece of gear.

Because.

'I'm a man blessed by fortune.'