[Chapter 7 – Section 10] A Good Start
Anyone living in this era cannot escape P’s Aptitude Test.
“Damn it! Damn it!”
Park Hyo-man had often been told he was so stupid that even parents—who normally favor their own children—had given up on him. Because of that, he never had any expectations when it came to academics.
Instead, he’d been physically strong since childhood. When he got into fistfights with kids his age, he won nine times out of ten…
I thought it’d be something sports-related!
No matter how much he denied it, the aptitude result sheet in his hand didn’t change.
Aptitude: Construction Industry Practitioner
The government had chosen its wording carefully to reduce prejudice—but Park Hyo-man wasn’t dumb enough to miss the meaning.
Translated plainly:
A construction laborer.
The P Aptitude Tester was basically shouting at him to go sweat it out on construction sites, where his physical strength would be put to use.
“…Ah. I don’t even want to live.”
“I got fisherman…”
“Fisherman? I got farmer!”
Like Park Hyo-man, many students around him were dissatisfied with their results, grumbling and venting.
Was aptitude determined by genetics?
By childhood environment?
The debate still hadn’t ended—but one thing everyone agreed on:
The results of P’s Aptitude Test are never wrong.
An unquestioned truth.
“Hyo-man! What’d you get?”
“…Here.”
He tossed the result sheet to his friend.
“Oh! That’s not bad. Construction practitioner. I heard the pay’s really good since there aren’t enough workers.”
“But the workload’s insane.”
“So what, were you planning to keep living off your parents’ allowance forever?”
“……”
It annoyed Park Hyo-man that this idiot—who ranked just as low as him academically—was suddenly talking sense.
Swish—
He snatched the aptitude sheet back irritably and demanded,
“Let me see yours.”
“Sure.”
Aptitude: Pet Trainer
That only made him more irritated.
“That’s way better than mine!”
“How so?”
“You get paid to hit dogs and cats whenever they make noise, right? You relieve stress while working and make money—best aptitude ever!”
“…Are you serious?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Tsk. Arguing with someone who just blurts out whatever comes to mind only makes my mouth hurt.”
“Hey! Where’re you going?”
“Home. Look up the average salary for pet trainers before you talk, idiot.”
“……”
What Park Hyo-man later learned was that his friend’s aptitude was far worse than construction work.
Extremely low pay.
24-hour animal care.
Accusations of animal abuse.
How many people would pay to leave their beloved pets with someone else? Some even accused trainers of abuse and demanded compensation.
Pet training was a job only someone who genuinely loved animals could endure.
Even so—
“Damn it.”
Park Hyo-man still couldn’t accept his own aptitude.
***
Let’s imagine something.
What if there were only one janitor in an entire city?
Everyone would request that janitor’s services, and overwhelmed with work, he’d naturally raise his prices.
“Wow…”
Park Hyo-man landed a job with a single phone call—and stared in awe at the first paycheck deposited into his bank account.
This… is my salary?
At first, he suffered full-body aches every day. But after getting used to the work and learning tricks from his seniors, it became manageable.
“You like it?”
“Yes!”
“Staying uninjured is the most important thing. Wouldn’t it be unfair to die after working yourself to the bone just to make money?”
“I’ll remember that!”
“Hyo-man. You were really born in a good era.”
“Was I?”
“When I was your age, pay was so low I couldn’t even dream of owning a home. I’ve built hundreds of apartments—yet I don’t own one myself. Does that make sense?”
“No, it doesn’t!”
“And back in my day—”
“……”
Time passes.
Eras change.
The results of P’s Aptitude Test strongly influence how men and women of marriageable age choose their partners.
And aptitude cannot escape the influence of genetics—factors like creativity, reflexes, memory, and endurance.
In other words—
“Quite a few coworkers gave up on marriage, saying it was hard enough just to live alone…”
“…Thirty years ago?”
“Yeah. Thirty years ago.”
As their numbers naturally declined, construction workers became rare—and their value rose.
Meanwhile, occupations with extremely high marriage preference became oversaturated, and incomes dropped.
For example?
Doctors were everywhere—but there was no one to build hospitals, so they couldn’t even open clinics.
“It’s a world that’s easy for me to work in now.”
“Of course it is. Back in my day, it was really tough. You should consider yourself lucky.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Is it tiring talking to an old man like me?”
“Not at all!”
“Back in my day, there were plenty of coworkers who cursed picky supervisors. Job sites weren’t this empty.”
“I see!”
By anyone’s standards, Park Hyo-man’s life had been going smoothly.
***
“Gah!”
Thud!
Dozing off, Park Hyo-man flinched as a blade suddenly burst up from beneath his feet, instinctively activating his Acceleration ability.
The blades slowed relative to him.
And now that he’d grown used to these ambushes, dodging wasn’t difficult—but his vision wouldn’t focus properly.
The blade looked doubled.
The cause was obvious.
I want to sleep!
Severe sleep deprivation.
But the pursuer had no intention of granting him such a primal desire.
Thud!
His concentration wavered, and he failed to notice the second blade erupting beneath him.
“Aaagh?!”
The Super Grand Galaxy General Infinity Blade pierced up through his sole like an awl.
He yanked his foot back in time to avoid losing his leg—but the pain forcibly jolted awake a mind that had already reached its limit.
Limit upon limit.
Realizing he couldn’t go on like this, Park Hyo-man fled the city.
“I have to shake him…!”
Outside the city was crawling with monsters—extremely dangerous.
He knew that.
Outside the city, water and food were scarce.
He knew that.
Outside the city, there were no peaceful beds, no beautiful women.
He knew that.
Outside the city—
He knew! He knew! He knew!
“I need to sleep!”
But to Park Hyo-man—who desperately wanted to lie down and sleep peacefully for even ten minutes—none of that mattered anymore.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Is this bastard a monster…?!
Even while sprinting with Acceleration, the blade-tentacle attacks erupting from the ground showed no sign of stopping.
Turn back and fight?
That would be suicide.
“No.”
He’d been attacked mid-conversation.
He had crossed a river he could never return from.
GGG-rank Hunter Amolang.
There was no one who didn’t know how many people he had killed under the justification of righteous retaliation.
Women.
Students.
Infants.
Even families who didn’t know what their children or parents had done—he tied them all together and mercilessly threw them to SSS-rank monsters.
And if you attacked him directly?
Tremble.
Just imagining it made Park Hyo-man’s body shake. Not forgiveness—he wouldn’t even be granted a humane death.
If only I could go back…
Construction practitioner.
He hadn’t liked it at first—but since it suited his aptitude, he adapted quickly, and the income was satisfying.
But one’s nature doesn’t disappear so easily.
Whenever he saw someone who seemed to have a better aptitude—despite knowing nothing about them—his heart grew restless.
Slash!
“Aaaaagh!”
Lost in memories and half-asleep, Park Hyo-man’s ankle was cleanly severed.
Thud… thud…
It rolled across the ground.
With a desperate scream, he rolled across the dirt, bracing himself with his palms—
“……”
I want to lie down like this.
The severed foot had already regenerated in that brief moment, so standing up and running wasn’t a problem.
But his will could no longer keep up with his body.
Thud.
Even though he knew he must never be captured, he gave in to his desire.
I did it again…
He wanted to become an SSS-rank hunter who lacked nothing—just like the protagonist of a novel.
And when he finally achieved that dream, he fell once more—betrayed by a cabal of jealous SSS-rank hunters who were even better than him.
“Damn it…”
Thud!
Ignoring the pain of his waist being severed, Park Hyo-man fell into a deep sleep.
***
Park Hyo-man, sleeping like a corpse, was transported and imprisoned in a basement on my orders.
A right hand that could cut anything.
Confiscating it like a weapon wasn’t possible, which made things troublesome—but this world possessed considerable knowledge and technology for effectively restraining ability user criminals.
“If the right hand is the problem, then remove the right hand.”
“But it’ll just regenerate, won’t it?”
“That can be solved with a simple procedure. Like pouring concrete over soil so a tree can never grow back.”
“…That’s horrifying.”
Unaware of what was about to happen to his body, Park Hyo-man was traveling through dreamland.
A dream within a dream?
I didn’t know what he was dreaming of—but his expression was blissfully happy.
Strange.
I had pushed him to limits no ordinary human could endure.
After suffering this much, one would expect him to long for reality—but—
That wasn’t the case for Kim Eun-jung, a patient who had lived happily as the protagonist in the romance-fantasy novel I Became the Youngest Daughter of Count’s Family, only to have her life collapse completely later.
(Something’s off.)
Right?
(It might already be too late.)
“……”
The likelihood that my senior’s guess was correct kept increasing.
Park Hyo-man possessed the Sword Demon’s hand.
His entire body hadn’t transformed—but part of him had undeniably become a Sword Demon.
What if the patient is already dead?
Nam Hae-soo revived the moment he died, transforming fully into a Sword Demon.
But there was no rule saying every patient’s death had to follow the same pattern.
He could be dying slowly.
He could be transforming slowly.
(Kid. If there’s nothing left to see, kill this bastard and end the dream.)
“…Hmm.”
(What are you hesitating for? This time I’m not testing your humanity—so don’t worry. If you want, I’ll guarantee secrecy.)
“…Let me know when he wakes up. Don’t force him awake.”
“Yes Amolang-nim.”
I wanted to end this world immediately, just as my senior suggested.
But for the first time in a while, my instincts as a shaman whispered to me.
Not yet.
There was still something I was missing.
***
It took a full five days before Park Hyo-man finally opened his eyes.
He wore a hollow expression.
“You wrapped me up pretty thoroughly.”
He was seated on a steel chair shaped like a flush toilet, with his limbs firmly fused to it.
Not tied—fused.
His body now served as cushioning for the chair.
A white cloth covered his lower half to reduce visual revulsion, but any notion of human rights was absent.
“Did you come to torture me?”
“I know a torture specialist who starts conversations only after squeezing confessions out of mistakes made at age five—but I want to talk to someone whose mind is still intact.”
“…Amolang-nim. I’ll cooperate fully. Please forgive me.”
Park Hyo-man spoke in an extremely submissive tone.
But knowing well the crimes he’d committed, he didn’t seem to expect much.
“If you cooperate, I’ll tell you how you might be forgiven.”
“R-Really?!”
“Or it might just be a cruel joke. Hope torture.”
“That’s—!”
“So? What’ll it be?”
“…Ask your questions.”
With no real choice, Park Hyo-man resigned himself to answering.
“Why didn’t you doubt the witch’s words?”
“She saved me after I was betrayed by comrades I trusted and trapped inside an SSS-rank monster.”
“So you trusted her because it was charity?”
“…It probably sounds stupid, but yes. I was that desperate.”
“I suppose you were. One moment you were spanking the backsides of SS-rank beauties—then suddenly you were an SSS-rank monster’s snack.”
“……”
Park Hyo-man didn’t reply and simply lowered his head.
“Next question.”
“Yes.”
“A right hand that can cut anything. Are you sure that was a gift from the witch?”
“…What?”
“You said it was a gift.”
“Yes.”
“How did she give it to you? Wrapped nicely like a present?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
This was an extremely important question—for both him and me.
“She said she would give me great power, and then she touched my right hand.”
“…That’s it?”
“Yes. From that moment on, I could turn my right hand into a blade. Thanks to that, I escaped even the Ancient Black Elephant’s hardened organs and hide—”
“You got played.”
“…What?”
“You were scammed by the witch.”
And everything that had happened—
Was likely the ‘gift’ she had prepared for me.
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TL Note:
The novel is fully completed (231 chapters)
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