The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 2

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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 2

Departure

Thump.

The last bus of the night lurched as it rolled over a speed bump.

In the very back row of the bus.
Choi Kang-jun sat with his head resting against the window frame, staring into empty space.

The work clothes carried the stench of sweat and concrete dust.

Late at night, exhausted passengers instinctively avoided the seats around him.

Any other day, it would have stung. But now his attention was absorbed entirely elsewhere.

“…….”

Kang-jun carefully reached his fingers toward the empty air.

Nothing but blank space.
Yet his eyes saw it clearly: a translucent blue window, hovering before him.

[Status Window]
▶ Name: Choi Kang-jun (Age 32)
▶ Class: Apprentice God’s Architect (Lv.1)
▶ Skills Possessed: None

No one else on this bus could see the blue window. Only Kang-jun’s eyes could perceive it.

His fingertip touched the holographic window. There was no physical sensation. Yet a faint ripple spread through it, and the window responded.

Not a hallucination. He’d confirmed it throughout the entire hour-long ride home from the site.

He’d rubbed his eyes, splashed cold water on his face, pinched his cheek.

There was only one conclusion.
Either he was going mad, or this was real.

‘System.’

The words rose silently in Kang-jun’s mind. Immediately, text appeared.

[I await your command, Agent.]

‘What the hell are you? Why can only I see this?’

[This System is an arrangement of the great ‘God of Architecture.’ You were chosen because you alone possess a perfect sense of vertical and horizontal precision.]

Mechanical. The words were dry, devoid of emotion.

‘Can I turn this off? Is there a way to unsee it?’

[Will you forfeit your right as Agent? Upon refusal, your qualification will be revoked and your life reclaimed immediately.]

Life reclaimed.
Cold sweat trickled down Kang-jun’s spine.

The afternoon’s disaster flashed before his eyes.

Several tons of H-beam steel raining down from above. And that strange voice that had cut through the silence when time froze.

Without this System, he would already be nothing but mangled meat.

The phrase “life recovery” was no empty promise. It meant: you’ve been saved, now pay the price.

‘Are there any other functions in the Status Window?’

[Your current Agent level is insufficient. As your level rises, more detailed information and System functions will become available.]

So he had to raise his level. Kang-jun exhaled deeply and turned his gaze toward the window.

The glittering night streets of Seoul. And in their midst, Kang-jun’s reality was shabby.

Screech.

The place he stepped into after opening the rusted metal door.
A semi-basement one-room in the hillside slums of Gwanak-gu, Sillim-dong — deposit fifty million won, monthly rent three million.

Mold bloomed across patches of the wallpaper.
The damp air stung his nostrils. Kang-jun kicked off his work boots carelessly and collapsed onto the narrow bed.

His body felt heavy.
Kang-jun stared blankly at the ceiling. Above the stains, the System window still hovered.

[Tutorial Quest: Foundations of a New World]
▶ Objective: Repair the roof of an old residential building
▶ Location: 1242 Elm Street, Pasadena, California, USA
▶ Time Limit: Begin work within 20 days
▶ Penalty for Failure: Recovery of abilities and immediate death

No matter how many times he read it, the content left him speechless.

A whisper escaped between Kang-jun’s lips.

“America? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Kang-jun was thirty-two this year. After leaving the Orphanage with nothing but a middle school diploma, he’d drifted from construction site to construction site.

He’d never been abroad, never even been to Jeju. He didn’t even know what a Passport looked like.

He could barely tell uppercase from lowercase English letters.
And now it was telling him to go to America alone?

And where was he supposed to find the money for a plane Ticket?

Kang-jun’s bank balance was exactly 340,000 won. That wasn’t even enough for a round trip to Busan, let alone America.

“Somehow it’ll work out… Let me just sleep.”

Kang-jun closed his eyes as if escaping reality. Exhaustion crashed over him.

He had to be at the labor dispatch office again at dawn tomorrow. If he didn’t earn his daily wage, next month’s rent would be late too.

That was when it happened.

Ding-!
A mechanical chime pierced the quiet room. Kang-jun’s eyes snapped open.

The blue window hovering near the ceiling shifted to crimson, flashing urgently. A new alert.

[A Linked Quest has occurred!]

[Quest: Qualification for Departure]
Your basic preparations for traveling to America are woefully insufficient. As an Agent of God, prove your qualification and acquire the essential supplies.
Employ your innate senses to correct the collapsing balance.

▶ Objective: Eliminate the collapse hazard threatening the outer wall of the Jeil One-room building where you currently reside.
▶ Time Limit: 1 hour
▶ Reward: [Item: Passport], [Item: One-way Airline Ticket to America], [Skill: Babel’s Tower (English Patch)]
▶ Penalty for Failure: Ability forfeiture and immediate death.

“……!”

Bang.

Kang-jun rocketed from the bed.

His eyes wavered as he scanned the rewards. A Passport. An airline ticket. And an English language patch.

Everything he needed to reach America was dangling right there as the prize. The System had understood his situation perfectly.

Yet it wasn’t the sweet promise of reward that moved him.

[Penalty for Failure: Ability forfeiture and immediate death.]

Those final words, glowing blood-red.

“Damn it. Brings someone back to life and wants to squeeze every last drop out of them.”

Kang-jun clicked his tongue and lowered himself from the bed.

He pulled the work coveralls back on and yanked open the worn toolbox wedged in the corner of the room.

A pry bar, a hefty sledgehammer, and several thick oak wedges.

The basic tools he always brought to a job site. Kang-jun gathered them up and bolted from the room.

* * *

One in the morning.

Silence had settled over the alley. A single streetlight blinked, casting its pale glow.

The Jeil One-room where Kang-jun lived was a weathered brick building more than thirty years old, its facade faded to rust-red.

He stepped outside and tilted his head back, studying the outer wall.

‘Remove the collapse hazard,’ he muttered to himself.

Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the building’s structure.

To an ordinary person, it would be nothing but a grimy, decrepit brick wall. But Kang-jun’s vision began to shift in an uncanny way.

Whoosh—

Hundreds of golden lines traced themselves across the building’s exterior.

Vertical lines and horizontal lines. The direction of gravity and the distribution paths of load projected onto Kang-jun’s retina as if rendered in three-dimensional blueprints.

A human protractor.
Kang-jun’s innate sense, visualized through the System’s power.

“Ugh… my eyes aren’t normal anymore. Wait… I found it!”

Kang-jun’s gaze locked onto the base of a pillar in the corner of the first-floor parking garage, where a thick gas pipe ran through.

Golden lines were tangled there in a snarl of crimson.

As he drew closer to examine it, the situation looked dire.

Water was leaking from an old sewage pipe, causing the ground beneath to settle minutely. The base of the brick pillar had shifted slightly as a result.

To the naked eye, it was merely a gap of one or two centimeters, but to Kang-jun’s eyes, that small fissure was warping the load-bearing stress of the entire building.

If left unchecked, the pillar would collapse under the weight when the heavy monsoon rains of summer arrived.

If the gas pipe ruptured as well, it would be a catastrophe.

“Tricky, very tricky. Let me just check the mission once….”

Kang-jun murmured to himself.

An ordinary laborer would have mixed concrete, poured it into the gap, and smoothed over the surface.

But such a superficial remedy couldn’t address the fundamental imbalance of weight distribution. The pillar would be crushed before the concrete even hardened.

This wasn’t a problem that brute force could solve. It demanded perfect angles and precise physical calculation.

But Kang-jun needed no calculator. His eyes were the world’s most precise measuring instrument.

“Huh.”

Kang-jun drew out an Oak Wedge. He pressed its end into the microscopic gap in the pillar.

It was no random placement. He struck precisely at the critical stress point where the crimson-tangled lines of force were most concentrated.

“Here we go.”

Kang-jun gripped the handle of the Sledgehammer with both hands.
He twisted his torso, gathering the spring of his muscles. Then, without hesitation, he brought the Sledgehammer down.

Crack!

A perfect blow. The head of the Sledgehammer struck the back of the wedge in perfect horizontal alignment.

The force of impact traveled through the wedge, lifting the entire load-bearing stress of the pillar upward.

Creak.

The building exhaled a faint groan.

Kang-jun didn’t stop. In quick succession, he drove a second wedge, then a third, into other gaps.

The depth and angle of each wedge’s insertion were different.

They were the optimal balance points he’d found by sketching and erasing countless blueprints in his mind.

Clang! Crash-bang!

The sound of hammering echoed through the alley. But Kang-jun’s strikes were less like noise and more like the rhythmic motion of machinery.

The fourth and final wedge.

Kang-jun wedged the pry bar’s blade into the gap between the bricks like a lever and pressed down with his full body weight.

Screech—

The misaligned bricks clicked back into place with a sound like gears meshing.

Seizing the moment, Kang-jun drove in the final wedge and gave it a light tap with the hammer to lock it in place.

“Done.”

Kang-jun wiped the sweat from his brow and stepped back. In his field of vision, a dramatic transformation unfolded.

The red lines of stress that had been tangled throughout the building, threatening its collapse—

They began to unravel from the four oak wedges he had driven in.

And finally, every line shifted to a serene golden hue, and the structure regained perfect vertical and horizontal alignment.

The building’s danger of collapse had been completely eliminated.
The entire operation had taken just fifteen minutes.

It had been a difficult problem, but for Kang-jun, it was simple work.

In that instant—

Ding!

The System alert chimed as if on cue.

[You have perfectly completed the Linked Quest ‘Grounds for Departure.’]

[The System acknowledges the Agent’s remarkable intuition and spatial ability.]

[Your reward has been deposited at your residence. Please confirm immediately.]

Kang-jun’s lips curved upward.

“Acknowledge, my foot. Just make sure the reward actually shows up.”

Kang-jun gathered his tools and made his way around the building to his semi-basement one-room apartment.

His heart began to race. Would the System’s promised reward really be waiting for him?

Click.
He opened the door and stepped inside. He didn’t even bother turning on the lights. His gaze shot straight to the worn folding table.

The table that had been empty when he left for work that morning—

Two objects were now sitting on it, their forms visible even in the darkness.

One was a small notebook with a deep green cover, and the other was a stack of papers.

Kang-jun swallowed hard and approached. He reached for the fluorescent light switch.

Click.

The room flooded with light.
Kang-jun’s hand trembled as he reached for the green booklet.

[REPUBLIC OF KOREA PASSPORT]

Gold-foil lettering embossed on the cover. With shaking hands, he opened it.

A familiar face stared back at him in the identification photo.
It was him—Choi Kang-jun—stiff and awkward, his gaze fixed on the camera.

Name. Resident registration number. Passport number.
Even the official seal, dated to today, was stamped perfectly in place.

This was impossible.
He’d never set foot near a government office, yet here was his passport.

Kang-jun immediately picked up the document beside it. An airline ticket e-ticket.

[Incheon International Airport (ICN) ➔ Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)]
[Departure: 14 days from now, 10:30 AM]
[Seat: First Class]

“This is insane… First class? This is real?”

Kang-jun let out a breathless laugh, fluttering the ticket. It never even occurred to him that the documents might be forgeries.

Hadn’t he witnessed the System’s power with his own eyes—creating something from nothing?

That’s when it happened.
A flash—brilliant and sharp—seemed to burst from deep within his mind.

[Reward: Skill ‘Babel’s Tower (English Patch)’ is being imprinted onto your brain.]

The Genius Laborer Crosses the Pacific — Episode 2

Author
Kalman
Publisher
Titan
Planning / Editing / Production
Lee Sung-guk
Cover Design
Studio Ineus

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260819030.0002

ⓒ2026, Kalman

※ This e-book is protected under the Copyright Law of the Republic of Korea.
No part of this work may be reproduced, adapted, or modified in any form without the express permission of 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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