The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 28

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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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Chapter 28

Floating a Bridge on Water

‘Three days lost to the visa issue. Then another day wasted when Plan A fell apart. That leaves me twenty-six days of air.’

The acrid smell of gunpowder hung in the air, drifting across the site.
Kang Jun watched the dust settle while his mind raced through calculations.

“M-Mister Kang! What on earth have you done!”

Leo’s voice rose in a panic, his words tumbling out in an accusation.

His blue eyes glistened with tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks at any moment.

“Mister Kang! You’ve obliterated the bridge to dust! Have you abandoned the entire project?”

Leo’s voice trembled.

‘What possessed me to shake hands with this crazy Asian….’

In that moment, Leo found himself regretting his stroke of luck in gaining the brilliant black-haired Asian—as if fortune had twisted into catastrophe.

With the bridge destroyed, the heavy machinery couldn’t cross the River. Which meant one thing: the entire project had come to a halt.

Visions of multimillion-dollar penalties for delay and Golden Gate’s bankruptcy flickered before Leo’s eyes.

“Leo, don’t worry. Who said anything about destroying the path entirely?”

Kang Jun shrugged with perfect composure and gave Leo’s back a reassuring pat.

“Look—a new road has just arrived. Let’s go take a look.”

Kang Jun turned toward the vehicles that had just pulled up, leaving Leo’s resentful gaze in his wake.

Leo, Max, and Sophia hurried after him in alarm.

Whoooosh—Screech!

Three trailers hissed to a stop, their air brakes releasing clouds of steam.
The flatbeds were stacked with materials that Sophia had hastily airlifted in.

“Take a look. This is the new bridge we’re floating on the River today.”

The moment Leo’s eyes fell on the cargo, his tears dried up completely.
Not from relief—but from pure bewilderment. His expression twisted with confusion.

“Mister Kang…. What is this? You can’t possibly mean to build a bridge out of plastic boxes?”

The trailers were not loaded with conventional bridge materials.
They held massive rectangular blocks of Polyethylene Buoyant Pontoons—each roughly three meters long by two meters wide.

Like giant Lego bricks. The only difference was their colossal size.

Atop them lay Deck Panels with non-slip coating, and along one side were scattered the Steel Pins needed to lock the pontoons together.

“Plastic boxes? These are modular pontoons with excellent flotation. They’ll support even the heaviest equipment without breaking a sweat.”

At Kang Jun’s matter-of-fact explanation, Leo let out a sigh and muttered to himself.

“Driving a dump truck over those empty canisters….”

Kang Jun chuckled and threw out an unexpected question.

“Leo, seems like you didn’t serve in the military back in America?”

“What? Military? Why the sudden question?”

“The Republic of Korea Combat Engineers call this a pontoon bridge.”

In fact, Kang Jun himself was military-exempt with only a middle school education.

But he’d heard countless war stories from old-timers on construction sites, and he’d actually installed pontoon bridges as temporary crossings at worksites before.

More than anything, he was throwing out the joke to shake Leo out of his panic.

“Think of it as a tactical military bridge used in River Crossing Operations. Each buoyant pontoon can support several tons. Link them together, and you’ve got a steel road that won’t sink even if a tank rolls across it.”

Kang Jun’s mind was already running through the Buoyancy Calculation Formula and Load Distribution diagrams.

“Come on, no time for whining. We’ll finish the pontoon bridge by tonight!”

Kang Jun’s declaration was met with a moment of silence. Then Max approached, lighting a cigarette.

Click — exhale.

Max blew out smoke and gazed toward the River, his eyes sharp with something he’d just figured out.

“Master Kang… you’re really something, aren’t you?”

Max pointed with his finger at both ends of the River, where the banks met the water.

“Those debris from the collapsed bridge—their positions weren’t accidental, were they? You planned it that way from the start?”

Kang Jun felt genuine admiration at Max’s sharp observation.

‘Experience counts for something after all. He caught that.’

Floating the buoyant pontoons on the water and assembling them was essentially just block-matching.
The interlocking seams could be welded together in seconds once you had the equipment.

The real key to installing a pontoon bridge lay in how firmly and flatly you could anchor the bridge abutment—that critical first section connecting land to water.

If you carelessly laid the first module on soft or sloped ground, the load would tear the joints apart.

“You’ve got a sharp eye, Max.”

Kang Jun smiled and pointed beneath the water’s surface with his finger.

“That’s right. I angled the blast so the deck panels and support beams would fall directly beneath the shoreline.”

A small gasp escaped Max’s lips.

Just as Kang Jun said, the boundary where land met water was now layered with concrete debris.

A foundation for the bridge’s start and end points, created the moment the explosion went off.

“See? Building a bridge really is that simple.”

Kang Jun picked up the megaphone and continued.

“Pouring team! I want that Rapid-Set Concrete dumped over the rubble pile right now! Then we’re setting the first module on top and welding it down with anchors!”

“Understood, sir!”

The workers moved with perfect coordination. Kang Jun’s plan had no margin for error.
But assembling the Pontoon Bridge on the water required additional manpower.

“Sophia, the divers are still on standby, yes?”

Sophia nodded in response to his question.

Along the River, a Barge that had been rushed in for the emergency, a Motorboat, and four divers in Diving Suits waited in readiness.

Their task was to fit the Polyethylene Buoyant Pontoons that the crane lowered onto the water with Steel Pins and secure the Anchor Chain to the riverbed.

Kang Jun was approaching the divers to issue work orders.

“Hey, boss? Hold on a second.”

The young diver who had arrived noisily that morning with his sports car cut in with a tone of complaint.

“You want us high-end personnel to fit together those LEGOs in the water right now?”

He smirked and pulled down his Diving Suit’s zipper halfway.
The other divers hesitated, unsure whether to begin work, watching the mood carefully.

Time was critical. Leo bristled and started to step forward, but Kang Jun raised his hand to stop him.

“You’re right—it’s not exactly work befitting high-end personnel. So the original day rate won’t cut it, I suppose.”

Kang Jun turned to the divers and held up four fingers.

“I’ll pay you four times your agreed-upon salary for today. Cash, right now.”

In an instant, the young man, who had been standing with one leg cocked, straightened up. The smirk vanished from his face, and the defiant gleam in his eyes softened to meekness.

“Oh, boss! You really know how to seal a deal. So what should I be doing from now on?”

A swift change of posture. He pulled his Diving Goggles down over his eyes.

Kang Jun couldn’t help but give a dry laugh at the man’s shamelessness, even as he studied him carefully.

Kang Jun could tell at a glance: the muscles visible above the Diving Suit were not inflated vanity—they were the real thing.

Real, functional muscles forged under the crushing force of water pressure; a chest that spoke of remarkable lung capacity. His physical condition was genuine.

Once the work began, the man’s true skill emerged.

Every time the crane lowered a Polyethylene Buoyant Pontoon module to the water’s surface, the man cut through the current to be first at the coupling point.

“Crane, ready! Inserting the pin!”

His judgment in the moment was exceptional.

He read the timing with uncanny precision—that split second when the heavy Steel Pin would slide cleanly into the hole of the swaying Pontoon.

Sliding the pin in place, hammering it secure, then surfacing back to the boat—the whole sequence flowed as naturally as water.

More than half of the modules had been handled by him alone.

‘What kind of work was he doing before? His instinct for the job is incredible. There’ll be plenty of uses for him going forward.’

Kang Jun was quietly factoring the man into his hot spring development plan for 1,248 Lot.

“Module 14 connection complete! Lowering the Anchor Chain!”

Max’s radio crackled across the site.

The Polyethylene Buoyant Pontoons extending from the shore had already crossed the middle of the river and stretched toward the opposite Riverbank.

Clank—! Booom—!

The final Polyethylene Buoyant Pontoon module settled onto the concrete pad that had been poured on the far bank.

The Young Diver and the land workers moved in perfect synchrony, fastening anchor bolts and dropping anchors to the river bottom to secure the side resistance of the Pontoon Bridge.

At last, a new path had been carved across the water.

“Phew….”

Kang Jun removed his Safety Helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow.

The crimson sunset was beginning to paint the western sky.

The bridge bobbed gently with the ripples of the current, yet it seemed solid enough to bear hundreds of tons of Load Distribution.

“I can hardly believe it. Demolished a bridge and floated a temporary one in a single day.”

Max stubbed out his cigarette and shook his head in wonder. Leo and Sophia both turned their gaze back and forth between the completed Pontoon Bridge and Kang Jun, their eyes gleaming with admiration.

Kang Jun adjusted his Safety Helmet back on and turned to Max.

“Now that the bridge is finished, we need to run a test.”

“A test, you say….”

“Start up one of those heavy machines lying around over there. I’ll drive it across myself.”

At Kang Jun’s instruction, Max picked up the radio.

Moments later, with a loud engine roar, a 25-ton Dump Truck loaded with gravel rumbled toward them.

Kang Jun wrenched open the cab door and pulled himself up into the seat.

“M-Mr. Kang! You’re really going to drive it yourself? Even so, this is the maiden crossing—if it sinks…!”

Leo protested, but Kang Jun rolled down the window and smiled.

“If I don’t trust a bridge I built myself, who would cross it?”

Vroooom—! Grrrrrr—!

Kang Jun pressed the accelerator. The massive tires left the Riverbank and climbed onto the first Deck Panel.

Squeeeak! Clang!

As the weight transferred, the steel Deck Panels of the Pontoon Bridge groaned under the strain.

The first Polyethylene Buoyant Pontoon module sank slightly into the water, sending ripples across the surface. The workers watching from the shore gasped and took a step back.

But that was all. The pontoon that had submerged surged back up with powerful restoring force, lifting the truck.

Bob, bob.

The Dump Truck that Kang Jun was driving began crossing over the Pontoon Bridge.
The Steel Pins and Deck Panels distributed the weight of dozens of tons across the entire pontoon array, holding firm.

Moments later, the truck finally reached the opposite Shoreline of Zone C safely.

“Yaaaaaaay!!”

“We did it! The bridge held!”

Cheers erupted from the workers and Young Divers who had been watching in suspense.

The moment Kang Jun stepped down from the truck and raised his hand toward the cheering crowd—

Ring-ring! Ding-a-ling-ling!

A cheerful alarm sounded in Kang Jun’s mind.

A golden holographic window began to unfold before his eyes.

[Sudden Quest: ‘Weaving the Broken Thread’ has been completed perfectly!]

[The God of Construction commends the agent who forged a new path even in the depths of despair!]

[You have obtained an enormous amount of Experience Points! The promised reward has been granted!]

A smile spread across Kang Jun’s face as he read the message.

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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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