The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1

The Human Protractor Answers God’s Call

“Hey, you bastard! Choi Gang-jun!”

The Site Supervisor’s voice cut through the cacophony of the construction site like a blade.

“Are you finishing your work properly? Don’t you see the scaffolding pipes scattered all over? You already think you’re done and planning to clock out?”

His rebuke came wrapped in curses.
Choi Gang-jun adjusted his Safety Helmet without a word. He offered no excuses.

He simply brushed off his work gloves and picked up a steel pipe lying across the floor.

“I’ll clean it up.”

“Look at that attitude. You think you’re something special? If you’ve got no education and nothing to your name, the least you can do is move your body quickly!”

The supervisor’s criticism continued without mercy.

Gang-jun hoisted the pipe onto his shoulder and swallowed a sigh.

The truth was, Gang-jun had shouldered roughly eighty percent of today’s work on this site.

That morning, the foundation work for a small bridge was underway, spanning the stream that cut through the New City District on its outer edge.

The problem was the level.
The ground had proven more uneven than expected, and the formwork meant to support the bridge piers was subtly out of plumb.

Even after deploying a Laser Level, the measurements kept fluctuating.

The Elite Engineer, fresh out of a prestigious civil engineering program, stood sweating through his crisp Safety Helmet, eyes fixed on a tablet PC.

The Site Supervisor, meanwhile, chain-smoked through a stack of cigarettes.

The Concrete Pouring truck had already arrived and was idling on standby.
If the delay stretched any longer, the cement inside the mixer would harden, resulting in catastrophic financial loss.

That was when Gang-jun stepped forward.
He didn’t consult the Laser Level, nor did he examine the complicated blueprints.

Instead, he employed the primitive Water Level Method—filling a clear Vinyl Hose with water and matching the levels at both ends. Then he squatted on the ground and closed one eye.

What entered his vision.
The skewed formwork, the Rebar jutting at an angle, and beyond it all, the horizon line.

Countless lines crossed in Gang-jun’s mind. A precision sharper than any machine—the sensibility forged by fifteen years in the trade.

The moment the ability of the “Human Protractor” awakened.

“Crew lead. Put just two wood scraps under the right side of the formwork. No—two millimeters more to the left. Perfect. Lock it there.”

“Hey! Choi Gang-jun! What gives you the right to bark orders!”

The supervisor jumped to his feet, but Gang-jun simply swung his hammer several times without a word.

Clang! Clang!

The result was astonishing.

The moment Gang-jun’s hand touched it, the wavering Laser Level’s needle settled dead center as if by magic.

Zero margin of error. Perfect level.

The Elite Engineer’s jaw went slack, and the Site Supervisor cleared his throat with an awkward expression.

“Uh… yeah. Well, we got lucky. Start the Concrete Pouring right now!”

The crisis had been averted because of Gang-jun, but the credit went entirely to the Site Supervisor and the Elite Engineer.

In return, Gang-jun didn’t even get a warm cup of coffee. All he received was the same minimum wage he made every day.

The reason was obvious.

Choi Gang-jun. Thirty-two years old this year. An orphan.
Armed with nothing but a middle school diploma, he’d drifted through construction sites for fifteen years since he was seventeen—unskilled labor, bottom rung.

Without a single state-certified credential to his name, Gang-jun was nothing more than a “cheap laborer to push around” in the Site Supervisor’s eyes.

After finishing with the pipes, Gang-jun moved toward the pile of Rebar.

An engineer from some prestigious university barks orders without getting a speck of dirt under his fingernails.
And he rolls across the site floor following those orders.

Gang-jun often felt a hot flame surge up inside his chest.

‘Pathetic. So in the end, all it takes is a piece of paper.’

Yet there was a reason he never left this world.

Exhilaration.

Seeing the razor-sharp angles of a wall he’d built rise before him.

When the Formwork came off and he ran his hand across the Concrete surface, smooth and flawless, unmarked by a single bubble.

When the lines on a blueprint transformed into real space beneath his own hands.

That touch, that craft—it delivered a catharsis more intense than anything else.

Gang-jun wiped the sweat from his brow and finished his work—gathering tomorrow’s bundles of Rebar in one place.

“Heave.”

Gang-jun hoisted a bundle of Rebar onto his shoulder. He was about to shift his weight and take a step when—

Screeeech—!

A sound of metal tore through the air above his head. Gang-jun’s eyes snapped upward instinctively, his pupils dilating.

The massive Tower Crane that blotted out the sky.
The pile of H-Beam Steel hanging from its end was swaying violently.

Whether it was a mistake in the crane operator’s control or a defect in the worn cable, there was no way to tell.

Crash—!

The steel cable, at its limit, snapped free with a violent screech.

“Ahhhhh! Get out of the way!”

“Tower crane wire just snapped!”

Workers scattered, screaming.

Choi Gang-jun knew he had to move. But the bundle of rebar across his shoulders kept his body locked in place.

There wasn’t time to dump the rebar and throw himself clear.
The cascade of H-Beam Steel came crashing down on his head.

His vision filled instantly with black metal. He felt death arriving.

‘Ah… my poor life. So this is how it ends.’

Childhood memories from the orphanage.
The day he first wept, hauling bags of concrete on a construction site.
The wonder he felt stacking stones into neat walls with his own hands.

As memories flickered past like a lantern show, Choi Gang-jun closed his eyes.

And then.

[Synchronization rate 99%… 100%.]
[Suitable proxy has been located.]

A mechanical voice echoed through his mind—yet somehow majestic, resonant.

The world stopped.
The falling H-Beam, the swirling dust, the workers in flight—all of it froze.
Everything hardened as if a pause button had been pressed.

Choi Gang-jun’s eyes snapped open. He gasped at the impossible sight before him.

Golden lines stretched in perfect vertical and horizontal alignment, not a millimeter off.
They wove together, forming a single message window.

[The God of Construction watches you.]

“…What is this.”

He whispered the words aloud.
A hallucination?

The text in the window began to shift rapidly.

[Modern architecture has lost its way. Only formulas and numbers remain, while sweat and soul have vanished.]
[Those who cower behind safety nets open their mouths to build, while those who truly understand earth and wood and steel are cast aside entirely.]

Those words struck him like an arrow to the chest.
They pierced the very irrationality he had felt grinding through construction sites for fifteen years.

[You who possess the most perfect eye and instinct. You who trust intuition over numbers, earth over paper.]
[The God of Construction designates you as his sole proxy and successor.]

[Do you accept?]
[YES / NO]

Gang-jun looked up briefly at the H-Beam Steel suspended in the air.

If that fell, it was instant death. There had never been any choice to accept or refuse in the first place.

Whether this was a devil’s contract or a hallucination before death didn’t matter. If there was any chance to live, he would have jumped into a sewage pit.

“…I accept. I accept, goddammit!”

Gang-jun screamed the words through gritted teeth.
In that instant, a golden explosion erupted, flooding his vision with white light.

“Gasp!”

Gang-jun barely regained consciousness, breathing in ragged gasps.
The acrid smell of the construction site filled his nostrils.

“He’s alive! Choi Gang-jun is alive!”

“This is insane, it’s a miracle, an absolute miracle!”

Shocked voices of workers echoed around him.

Gang-jun slowly pushed himself up. The bundle of Rebar that had pinned him lay scattered to the side.

And just beside him, at a distance of barely a foot, several tons of H-Beam Steel had pierced the ground.

Had the trajectory shifted even slightly, Gang-jun would have left no recognizable remains.

A miraculous survival.
The Site Supervisor and everyone else around them had collapsed, their legs giving out beneath them.

Gang-jun stared at his trembling hands. Not a single wound on them.

In fact, his whole body thrummed with vitality. Even the chronic lower back pain and shoulder stiffness that had plagued him were completely gone.

That was when it happened.

Ding!

A mechanical chime sounded, and a translucent blue holographic window materialized before Gang-jun’s eyes.

[System synchronization complete.]

“…!”

Gang-jun held his breath.
It was real. That golden space and voice he’d seen before—they weren’t hallucinations.

His personal information was displayed in the blue status window.

[Status Window]
▶ Name: Choi Gang-jun (Age 32)
▶ Class: Apprentice Divine Architect (Lv.1)
▶ Title: Human Protractor

▶ Stats
• Strength: 15
• Precision: 85 (MAX—superhuman)
• Durability Assessment: 10
• Natural Affinity: 5

▶ Possessed Skills
• [None]

‘Precision 85? Superhuman?’

While Gang-jun stared at his status window, the system interface flashed again, displaying a new message.

[The God of Construction assigns you your first mission.]
[Prove your worth, and rebuild the corrupted architecture of this world from its very foundation.]

“A mission? Where did this come from all of a sudden?”

The message window’s content shifted.

[Tutorial Quest: The Foundation of a New World]
Prove your instincts in this new stage. You must save the rotting timber and leaking roof.

▶ Objective: Repair the roof of an old house
▶ Location: 1242 Elm Street, Pasadena, California, USA
▶ Time Limit: Begin work within 20 days
▶ Reward: Initial Settlement Support Fund
▶ Penalty for Failure: Ability Revocation and Immediate Death

“…The United States?”

A dry laugh escaped Gang-jun’s lips.

A middle-school dropout day laborer who’d never been anywhere near an airplane, whose English vocabulary consisted solely of “okay” and “thank you”—and now the United States.

Worse yet, a tutorial quest with a specific address. And failure meant instant death.

“Ha… haha…”

Gang-jun pressed his forehead and let out a bitter chuckle.

Was this some kind of joke? Without a passport to his name, he was supposed to somehow fly to California within seven days and repair someone else’s roof?

Yet the system window hovering before his eyes didn’t disappear. It only continued to blink, as if urging him to make a decision.

Fifteen years spent scrambling across Korean construction sites.

No matter how hard he’d struggled, he couldn’t shake the label of “day laborer”—not with a middle-school education.
And then came this miraculous second life and this mysterious system.

Gang-jun kicked the H-Beam Steel that had nearly crushed him just moments before, testing it with his boot.
Then he grinned up at the system window floating in the air.

“All right. Let’s give it a shot. Whether it’s the States or hell itself, pouring concrete’s all the same, isn’t it?”

Choi Gang-jun’s American Dream began without warning.

Genius Day Laborer Crosses to America—Episode 1

Ji Eun-i
Kalman
Publisher
Titan
Planning / Editing / Production
Lee Seong-guk
Cover Page
Studio Innerus

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260819030.0001

ⓒ2026, Kalman

※ This e-book is protected under the copyright law of the Republic of Korea.
No part or all of this work may be reprocessed in any form without permission from the author and publisher.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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