Chapter 123 – A Masterpiece Is Decided by a Single Difference
“……”
Flip! Flip flip!
Kang Min-hyuk stared intently at his manuscript and kept turning the pages.
Slight wrinkles formed on his forehead, and his dry lips kept moving.
Because……
‘What is this? Why doesn’t it feel right?’
The manuscript wasn’t bad.
Just as planned, the protagonist Kim Bin-woo cut off Coup-ler’s head……
And everyone returned to their daily lives.
It was a manuscript made from a storyboard he had thought was nearly perfect — a near-perfect manuscript.
But perhaps because he had looked at the same thing too many times?
For some reason, it didn’t hit him emotionally.
He didn’t feel that “this is it” sensation he had experienced at many turning points while drawing comics so far.
He kept thinking that this alone wouldn’t be enough.
Yet he couldn’t clearly pinpoint what the problem was.
After all, the manuscript itself wasn’t bad.
No, to be honest, it was quite good.
However, as a work capable of overwhelming the other nine candidates for the Bucheon Comic Awards……
It felt like it was missing that one decisive edge.
And exhausted as he was right now, Kang Min-hyuk couldn’t figure out what the cause was.
While Min-hyuk kept rereading the same manuscript, Kim Rok-hee tilted her head and asked,
“What’s wrong, Min-hyuk? Is there something wrong with it?”
He looked up.
He saw the faces of Kim Rok-hee and Oh Dong-gyo.
Both looked utterly exhausted, as if they would collapse at any moment.
He couldn’t say to them,
‘I don’t know why, but the manuscript doesn’t feel right, so I want to scrap it and redo everything.’
“No, it’s nothing. You guys worked hard. Let’s go back and rest.”
“…That reaction feels a bit weird though.”
“It’s fine. Everyone, go back and get some proper rest. Thanks for all the hard work.”
“You worked hard too, Min-hyuk-kun.”
“Haaah… It’s finally over.”
With bittersweet expressions, they returned to their dorms.
Min-hyuk also took a hot shower and immediately lay down on his bed.
His whole body throbbed as if he had been beaten, and a headache pounded in his forehead.
After running non-stop for the final few weeks with almost no sleep……
His body was screaming.
If he just closed his eyes now, he should fall into a death-like sleep……
But
‘Sleep isn’t coming.’
His eyes and mind were wide awake.
It felt like Kang Min-hyuk’s will and thoughts were desperately resisting sleep.
The reason was obvious.
‘Why exactly didn’t the manuscript feel right?’
The final two chapters of Brave King that he had finished today.
He had thought he had raised the density to the maximum with a perfect plan……
But something just didn’t sit right.
If he left it like this, it wouldn’t become the ending he wanted — that thought kept repeating.
If he were at home right now, he would have gotten up and sat at his desk immediately.
But since he was in the dorm, he could only replay the final two chapters over and over in his head.
He went through each cut, vividly recalling how the manuscript had been completed, what dialogue had appeared, and how the flow felt.
And the next morning.
“…Ugh…”
“Min-hyuk-kun, are you okay? Your face… looks even worse?”
Unlike Oh Dong-gyo, whose face had become shiny, Kang Min-hyuk’s appearance had become even more miserable.
“Ah, it’s nothing. I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”
Even after that, Min-hyuk’s worries continued.
“Today’s class is about techniques to strengthen character relationships, right?”
“Yeees!”
“You there, try explaining what ‘relationship’ means.”
“Isn’t it talking about the code of how characters interact with each other?”
“90 points. Almost exactly right.”
Throughout the entire class, he sat with his mouth open like a zombie whose soul had left its body, staring straight ahead.
And in his mind, the final chapters of Brave King kept replaying endlessly.
[Whose seat is that empty one over there?]
[Hmm… Weren’t there always two empty seats?]
The epilogue scene where the classmates feel a strange sense of déjà vu upon noticing that Kim Bin-woo and Jeon Gang-pae’s seats are empty.
[Brave… King?]
The scene where heroine Baek Seol-hee looks at a familiar username in her game friends list but can’t remember whose account it is.
[Die, just as I wished.]
The scene where Kim Bin-woo pulls out the King’s token embedded in Coup-ler’s heart with his own fist, ending everything.
The highlight scenes at each key point and the dialogue in those scenes kept repeating.
It was as if Kang Min-hyuk’s body and mind were floating, trapped in the final section of Brave King.
They weren’t bad. They were clearly good scenes.
Moreover, today was the deadline to submit the manuscript to the New Chance editorial department.
Because they needed prior preparation to create various promotions and buzz ahead of the Bucheon Comic Awards.
But……
‘Can I really submit this?’
His stomach churned.
“Kang Min-hyuk.”
“……”
“Kang Min-hyuk! Kang Min-hyuuuk!”
“Ah, yes, teacher!”
“What did I just say?”
The teacher standing in front stood with a furrowed brow.
It seemed he had noticed Min-hyuk zoning out and called on him.
“Uh, um, that was…”
At that moment, someone stepped hard on his foot.
When he glanced sideways, Dong-gyo moved his lips without making a sound, like a ventriloquist doll.
Reading the shape of his mouth, Min-hyuk quickly answered,
“Re-redemption narrative, sir.”
“Yes, redemption narrative. Pay attention.”
“Yes!”
Min-hyuk barely escaped the crisis.
When he somehow managed to get through the class,
“Min-hyuk-kun, are you really okay?”
Oh Dong-gyo asked with a worried face.
“Ah, I’m fine. It’s just… the fatigue hasn’t fully gone away yet.”
“If that’s the case, then there’s nothing we can do.”
It was right then, while the two were talking.
“Hey, Kang Min-hyuk.”
“Huh?”
When he turned his head, Kim Rok-hee was standing there.
Unlike her usual cheerful self, her face was heavily scrunched up.
‘What’s going on?’
As Min-hyuk tilted his head,
“Come outside with me. I have something to say.”
“Ah, okay.”
“You too, Oh Dong-gyo.”
“O-oi!”
The three of them headed to a quiet corner of the corridor.
After a brief silence,
Kim Rok-hee crossed her arms and asked with a serious face,
“There’s something you’re not satisfied with, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Be honest. Yesterday after finishing the manuscript, and today spacing out in class the whole time — it’s because something doesn’t feel right, isn’t it? Am I wrong?”
“…Min-hyuk-kun, magicayo?”
Both pairs of eyes pierced straight through him.
It was so burdensome that his stomach churned.
But he couldn’t easily open his mouth.
He didn’t even know what exactly he wasn’t satisfied with. How could he possibly say to the two who had run with him until now, “I want to scrap it”?
“It’s nothing serious…”
“Say it quickly. If you don’t, I’ll get angry.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“We’re breaking up the friendship.”
When Kim Rok-hee pouted, Min-hyuk answered with an awkward smile.
“…Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“I’m originally like that.”
Seriously, this isn’t easy.
Min-hyuk let out a heavy sigh and said,
“The manuscript… doesn’t feel right.”
“What?”
“…In what way?”
“It just doesn’t feel right. It came out exactly as I planned. I don’t know if it’s because of my mental state… or if there really is something wrong. I don’t get that ‘this is it’ feeling. And I have to send the manuscript to New Chance by today. I didn’t want to make you guys worry, so I didn’t say anything. That’s all.”
“……”
The surroundings became quiet again.
They were probably thinking similar things.
“Problem, problem… What’s the problem?”
“Ugh… I don’t know either. Maybe it really is just a mood thing.”
Even the team members couldn’t tell whether the anxiety Min-hyuk felt was real or just emotional.
There was also a high chance they couldn’t spot the problem because they had been looking at Brave King’s manuscript for so long.
“So it’s really nothing. Thanks for worrying, but you don’t have to.”
“…Ugh.”
“What time do we have to send it to New Chance today?”
“By 5 o’clock. The courier is coming at 3.”
While the two were groaning, Kim Rok-hee lifted her head and said,
“Then let’s do it this way.”
“How?”
“Right now, make two copies of the manuscript. Until 3 o’clock, we’ll keep reading it repeatedly and look for problems. If there’s no problem, we send it as is…… and if we find a problem.”
“Then?”
Tap!
Rok-hee pointed at Min-hyuk and declared in a confident voice,
“You call New Chance. And beg them with everything you have to extend the deadline a little. How about that?”
“I don’t want to beg with my hands and feet.”
“Hey! Are you doing it or not?”
“I’ll do it, fine.”
“Then we don’t have time, so let’s hurry. For the copies… we’ll ask Teacher Choi Jung-an.”
“Okay.”
After that, the three of them moved busily.
They took the manuscript they had completed yesterday and went straight to Teacher Choi Jung-an.
They asked her to make copies.
And then……
Here, Kim Rok-hee displayed her usual boldness.
“Teacher! While you’re looking at it, please tell us if you notice anything strange!”
“Strange? The quality looks really good though.”
“Anything is fine! Ah, and please give one copy to the department head too. Don’t forget to ask for his opinion by 3 o’clock today. If you want the first Bucheon Comic Awards winner to come from our school!”
“Okay, okay.”
Watching that, Kang Min-hyuk gave an awkward smile.
‘As expected, Kim Rok-hee is amazing.’
The 34-year-old Kang Min-hyuk didn’t have the confidence to act that boldly.
No, precisely because he was 34, he had even less confidence to do so.
No matter how important the challenge was, he didn’t have the nerve to push someone like that.
Even though it was someone else’s work he was assisting on, seeing Kim Rok-hee act that way made him think……
‘She’s really something.’
For some reason, he felt grateful that he had such good teammates.
“Alright, let’s meet at 3 o’clock. Everyone, fighting until the very end!”
“Ganbare ganbare!”
“Yeah.”
After that, the members of Team Brave moved diligently.
During class, they slipped the manuscript between book pages and read it repeatedly. Whenever something came to mind, they immediately wrote it down in their notebooks.
They skipped lunch and continued this process, concentrating so hard that sweat formed on their foreheads.
‘Let’s do it without regrets.’
The final part of a work they had poured a long time and a lot of love into.
They wanted to send off that ending without even a speck of regret.
And so, the promised time arrived.
At the far end of the corridor.
The three stood facing each other, each holding a notebook in hand.
Kang Min-hyuk shrugged his shoulders and said,
“Whew…… I couldn’t find anything. Still.”
“I don’t know either. No matter how much I think about it, this seems like a good manuscript.”
Oh Dong-gyo also scratched his head with a troubled expression, apparently having no particular opinion.
‘Well, I guess this is enough.’
Min-hyuk let out a heavy breath.
He felt like he had done everything he could until the very end.
He was about to conclude that this should be enough to send the work off without regrets when—
“I received one opinion from an anonymous informant.”
“Huh? Anonymous informant?”
“Who is it?”
“…The person doesn’t want to be revealed, so I can’t say. But here’s the opinion they gave.”
Flip!
Rok-hee turned the page of her notebook and said,
“At the very end, it would be good if Baek Seol-hee realized that the person who logged into the game was Kim Bin-woo. And if the scene where the kids are revived by Coup-ler’s wish is connected to a scene inside the game or used as a metaphor, the completion would feel higher. They didn’t give a specific method though.”
The moment he heard those words, Kang Min-hyuk’s eyes widened.
“Ah……”
It felt like being hit in the head with a hammer.
With that single sentence, he immediately understood what he had been missing and what the sense of discomfort that had been lingering in his mind was.
“S-Sorry! Give me a second, I need to make a call!”
Kang Min-hyuk immediately turned around and quickly dialed a number.
“Hello, Editor Gwang-jin. Yes, yes. The thing is, I’d like to push the deadline back a little. I’m really sorry, but could you give me just one more day? Yes, yes, some additional revisions came up. Yes, please. I’m begging you.”
After the call ended.
A little later, the phone rang again.
“Whew… Yes, thank you.”
It must have been the New Chance editorial department.
Min-hyuk let out a deep sigh, then spoke to the two with a serious face.
“Sorry, guys… Can you endure one more day with me?”
Then.
“You call that a question?!”
“If you treat us to Hwangje-seong one more time?”
Smiles appeared on the faces of the two Team Brave members.
And……
As the three of them returned to the classroom with energetic steps and sat down at their seats,
‘Looks like it’s resolved.’
Han Yu-ra looked at the side of Kang Min-hyuk’s face and lifted the corner of her mouth with a small smirk.
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