The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 18

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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 18

Hiring an Accountant

“I’ll repay that money, I promise…. In any case, you’ve resolved the trouble, so I’ll tell you what happened.”

Alhambra Room 202, where cheap air freshener and cigarette smoke hung together in an acrid haze.
Sophia Miller closed her eyes for a moment, sifting through memory. When she opened them again, she spoke slowly, deliberately.

Light from two monitors flickered across her pale face.

“It’s been exactly ten years since I left my home in Pasadena.”

Her voice cracked, thin and fragile.

Ten years ago, Sophia Miller had been the pride of Old Pasadena.

A brilliant mind paired with a perfectionist’s temperament — she had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions, with exceptional grades.

And as if by natural consequence, she had been recruited by an investment bank on Wall Street and became an accountant there.

“I… loved numbers.”

Sophia murmured while gnawing at her fingernails.

“Numbers don’t lie. One plus one always equals two. Assets and liabilities must always balance. Whenever even the smallest discrepancy appeared, it felt like insects crawling through my mind. That became my weapon. At first, anyway….”

Her perfectionism made her the finest financial expert on Wall Street. But no one foresaw that very perfection would become the seed of tragedy.

“Three years ago. I was organizing Corporate Acquisition and Merger files and bond records when…. I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.”

Her eyes blazed as she ground her teeth.

“Money laundering through shell companies, and executives were creating illegal financial products using clients’ pension assets as collateral. The upper management was subtly manipulating the ledgers. It just happened that I could read the numbers — could see the fraud hidden in them.”

Any ordinary employee would have looked the other way. Perhaps they never could have detected dishonesty among the countless figures in the first place.

Sophia couldn’t accept the ledger that didn’t balance. In the end, she reported the fraud to the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Audit Committee.

“I thought I could change the world….”

A self-deprecating laugh crossed Sophia’s lips.

“But reality isn’t a movie. The company immediately hired thirty lawyers from a major law firm and started tearing me apart. Far from uncovering the truth, they countersued me for ‘theft of corporate secrets and defamation.'”

Like hurling an egg at stone.
The company, armed with capital, controlled the media and fabricated evidence. Colleagues stayed silent, not one stepping forward.

After three years of hellish courtroom battles, the judges ruled in the corporation’s favor.

“That day, I was driven from Wall Street, and I suddenly found myself burdened with a fifteen-million-dollar settlement.”

Leo inhaled sharply.
Fifteen million dollars. Two billion won in Korean currency. An amount no individual could repay in a lifetime of labor.

“I lost everything and fled westward. But I couldn’t bring myself to return to Pasadena. I couldn’t face my father…. There was no way I could show him his daughter reduced to a debtor.”

She wiped away her tears as she continued.

“I hid away here, scraping by on pocket change. And then… I heard my father had passed. A month after the funeral, no less.”

The guilt of not being there for her father’s final moments—she clutched the photograph from the corner of the desk to her chest and broke down.

“I didn’t even have money for living expenses. In the end, I had to take out loans against the house my father left me in Pasadena. Now it’s truly finished.”

Only Sophia’s sobs echoed through the room.

Leo’s eyes glistened as well, his nose reddening.
Then.

Ding—ding—ding!!
Chirp!

A succession of alarm sounds blared from Leo’s pocket. Startled by the inopportune noise, he fumbled for his phone and checked the screen.

“Oh no… this can’t be….”

Leo’s face went even paler than Sophia’s.

Kang Jun raised an eyebrow in question, and Leo urgently thrust the phone toward him, whispering.

“M-Mr. Choi… we have a disaster! The firm handling our financial accounting has failed! We need to submit documents for the twenty-million-dollar advance by midnight today, but the person in charge had an accident and disappeared!”

The list of required documents attached below made one’s head throb just looking at it.

“Subsidy usage plan, tax returns for one hundred fifty workers, Golden Gate Construction’s corporate tax exemption structure documents, and lease cost accounting for Blackwood equipment incorporated as subcontracting.”

Leo tugged at his hair, his voice wavering.

“Up until now I’ve only ever issued basic tax invoices! How am I supposed to produce paperwork like this?! Even if I sent it to another firm right now, it would take weeks minimum! If I don’t deliver by midnight, the advance gets frozen!”

Even if Kang Jun controlled the construction site, moving hundreds of millions of dollars ultimately required administration and accounting.

Right now, Golden Gate Construction was a small shop with brilliant technical skills but zero administrative capacity.

Kang Jun glanced back and forth between the bewildered Leo and the tear-stained Sophia.

‘A genius accountant obsessed with numbers. A construction company president who right now desperately needs someone who can juggle tens of millions of dollars.’

The timing was almost too perfect.

Kang Jun turned to face Sophia directly, his eyes meeting hers, and spoke with firm resolve.

“Sophia, that thirty-eight thousand dollars I threw at the loan shark earlier. You think you could pay that back?”

Sophia’s bloodshot eyes widened. Leo, equally confused, looked up at Kang Jun.

“I’m offering you a job. Chief Accountant at Golden Gate Construction. What do you say?”

“…What?”

“What?!”

A stunned question burst from both Sophia and Leo’s mouths at once.

“M-me? When I’m just a bankrupt owing fifteen million dollars….”

“The thing is, I have an extreme aversion to even the smallest discrepancies. What Golden Gate needs is a perfectionist to manage our funds.”

Kang Jun leaned forward on the table, sweetening the offer with an additional condition.

“The reconstruction budget for Old Pasadena alone is fifty million dollars right now. If you straighten out the accounting books perfectly, I’ll set aside five percent of the company’s profits as an incentive.”

Five percent of the profits.
The moment the current contracts were completed, hundreds of thousands of dollars would fall into her hands. A staggering offer indeed.

At Kang Jun’s words—that he needed her abilities—Sophia’s crumbling sense of self began to breathe again.

And money, as always, was the most powerful persuasion.

“I… do you really think I can do this?”

“If you don’t believe in yourself, then prove it.”

Kang Jun turned to Leo. Grasping at straws, Leo transferred the administrative documents that had arrived from City Hall to Sophia’s computer.

“Sophia, please. If I can’t get this sorted by midnight, I won’t even have money for bulldozer fuel tomorrow!”

Leo clasped his hands together in pleading.
After a moment’s hesitation, Sophia gripped the mouse and began reading the complex numbers that appeared on the monitor.

Her dull, unfocused gaze sharpened in an instant.

The defeated look vanished without a trace, replaced by the bearing of a true professional.

Clack-clack-clack! Click! Clack-clack-clack!

Sophia’s fingers flew across the keyboard.

She worked through complex Excel formulas while simultaneously cross-referencing California state law and federal tax code, methodically structuring the tax framework with surgical precision.

What was even more remarkable was that she executed calculations in the tens of millions range entirely in her head, never once reaching for a calculator.

“Wait, um…? Page three—the labor cost ratio doesn’t match…?”

Leo interjected from beside her. Sophia answered without lifting her eyes from the screen.

“Be quiet. I’m restructuring it to prevent double-billing of workers’ compensation insurance for Blackwood’s one hundred fifty subcontracted laborers, and I’m applying special tax deduction provisions to bring the corporate tax rate down to twelve percent. I’m completely rewriting the ledgers you prepared.”

“Yes… let’s do it that way.”

Leo closed his mouth and quietly stepped back.

Two hours later, Sophia pushed her chair back only after striking the Enter key.

“Done. Send it to City Hall now. It’s a document they won’t find a single flaw in.”

Leo squinted at the screen and examined the files displayed before him.

Tens of pages of financial operation plans and tax optimization reports—books so meticulously cleaned that even the bloat from lease expenses had been stripped away.

“Everything fits together so perfectly! Sophia, you really are a genius!”

Kang Jun, who had been watching silently, chuckled softly to himself.

‘In such a short time… truly remarkable.’

Inwardly, Kang Jun was in awe. Her skill was simply overwhelming.

Leo pulled an Employment Contract from his bag, holding it out with barely contained excitement.

“Please! Will you take over Golden Gate Construction’s finances?”

Sophia Miller glanced back and forth between the two documents lying on the table.

One was the Employment Contract for Golden Gate Construction’s financial director.

The other was a Compensation Agreement granting her full authority to renovate the house and pond at Pasadena 1248 Property as she saw fit.

She hesitated no longer. Ink flowed across both pages.

The moment her signature was complete.

Ding-ding! Ding-ding-ding!!!

An alarm chimed through Kang Jun’s mind.
A system window materialized in his field of vision.

[Special Quest: ‘Open the Locked Door’ completed flawlessly!]
[You have persuaded the stubborn master of this land and acquired the legal right to control the hidden geothermal energy.]

[You have obtained a tremendous amount of Experience Points!]
[Reward Granted: The skill ‘Pulse of the Earth’ has advanced! (Lv.1 → Lv.2)]

Flash—!

A blue light shimmered across Kang Jun’s eyes.

[Skill Level-Up Effect Applied]
▶ Maximum detectable underground depth expands dramatically to 100 meters.
▶ Secondary Effect Unlocked: [Earth’s Chill]. You can now employ a freezing ability to plummet ground temperatures within a 10-meter radius down to minus 20 degrees, freezing the earth solid. Cooldown: one week.

‘A freezing ability…! That’s incredible!’

Kang Jun exulted inwardly and extended his hand toward Sophia Miller.

“Then start tomorrow. I look forward to working with you, Sophia—our dedicated accountant.”

At his words, Sophia Miller’s eyes brightened as she clasped his hand and nodded.

* * *

The next day, Pasadena 1248 Property.

Kang Jun had risen early and now stood before Sophia’s house, cordoned off by restriction tape. He was burning with curiosity about what lay deep beneath this land.

He took a deep breath and pressed his palm down into the earth.

[Skill Activated: Pulse of the Earth (Lv.2)]

Whoooosh—!

A wave of detection far more powerful than before radiated downward into the depths.
Ten meters down, twenty, fifty… and finally, one hundred.

“Nngh…!”

An overwhelming flood of geological information crashed into his brain all at once, and his temples throbbed painfully.

But the pain faded quickly.
Kang Jun exhaled sharply as the reality beneath this land revealed itself before him.

“This… this is far hotter than I expected.”

Eighty meters below the surface, groundwater gathered and churned, boiling upward.
A vast lake born from a geological fault.

“What exactly have I stumbled upon?”

Kang Jun grinned widely, clutching the soil that pressed against his palm.

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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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