The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 41

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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 41

The Point of No Return

Vertiginous.
Leo stood at the window of the site office, gazing down at the sprawl below, when dizziness seized him and he stumbled backward.

“Leo. Every time I see this, I get chills.”

Elm Street 1248. Until recently, a two-story wooden house had stood here.

But once the structure was demolished and the rear fence torn down, a barren plot roughly 1,200 pyeong in area had emerged.

Now, in its place, a black excavation was taking shape—as if a meteor had smashed through and hollowed it out.
At the bottom of Basement Level 3, some hundred laborers and dozens of heavy machines worked in perfect coordination, clawing away earth.

“Leo, you’ve got more surprises coming yet.”

Kang Jun, wearing a hard hat, approached with a faint smile.

This was nothing like an ordinary underground parking garage.
The excavation maintained a perfect circular form as it descended—the ancient Roman Colosseum’s construction technique, replicated exactly.

“Circular excavation is delicate work, but once it’s done, the entire wall becomes arched. If we’re going to contain the pressure from the hot spring water, this is the only way.”

“That much I understand, but how can you dig such a perfect circle without deviation? The surveyors were shaking their heads over it.”

“It’s all a matter of experience.”

Kang Jun laughed it off casually, yet in his eyes gleamed the radiance of a skill bestowed by the system.

Following the golden grid that hovered in empty air, he simply called out coordinates—and a flawless Roman-style underground amphitheater was taking form.

Just then, Sofia approached from behind, clutching a sheaf of documents.

“Director, the specialized piping work to draw up the hot spring water is about 80 percent complete. We’ve also synchronized the valves brought from Long Beach with the central control room. However….”

She pushed her glasses up and handed him a single sheet.

“The temperature at Basement Level 3’s floor, where it meets the hot spring water, is abnormal. The Cooling Pump we installed temporarily is venting the heat outside, but maintenance costs are steep.”

Kang Jun was well aware of the problem.

“Hold on a bit longer, Sofia. Once we finish the outer wall and ceiling concrete pouring next week, I’ll establish a proper HVAC system. Until then, keep close watch on power consumption.”

Sofia nodded at his instruction. Everything was turning like a perfectly wound clock.

* * *

While the Golden Gate was ascending, a man was plummeting into the abyss.

In a dim motel room that sunlight never touched, empty bottles and half-eaten pizza crusts lay scattered.

A low groan escaped.

From the corner of the room, wrapped in blankets, a man whimpered. Unkempt beard, hollow eyes. It was Reynolds.

Just two months ago, Reynolds had been a respectable executive at a major corporation. Now he cut the figure of a vagrant, unmistakably.

“Damn it… haah….”

Reynolds groped along the floor with trembling fingers. He snatched up a glass bottle, bringing it desperately to his lips.

He tipped the last few drops of whiskey into his mouth, and only then did the tremors in his hands begin to subside.

Buzz… buzz….

His smartphone, lying facedown on the floor, suddenly vibrated.

[Reynolds. Do you think running away makes the debt disappear? If you don’t wire fifty thousand dollars in interest by tomorrow, we’re coming to collect from your wife’s restaurant and your daughter’s high school.]

“No…!”

Reynolds stared at the message and let out a sob of despair. The hand holding the phone began to shake again.

He switched off the phone and wrapped his arms around his knees. Tears spilled down his face in torrents.

“Honey… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….”

His gaze fell on a family photograph scattered across the floor.

A snapshot from the day he’d been promoted to vice president—himself, smiling radiantly, his wife and young daughter folded in his arms. Those golden days would never come again.

His loyalty to the company had exacted a terrible price.

Embezzlement, extortion of kickbacks from subcontractors, lobbying of the city council—every crime Julian had ordered, Reynolds had taken the fall for.

He’d lost his entire fortune defending against lawsuits and federal fines, let alone severance pay.
The house had been seized, and his wife had fled with their daughter to escape the debt collectors.

“And I did all that filth for him!”

Reynolds beat his chest, wailing. The humiliation of just days ago only deepened his anguish.

Four days earlier.
In desperation, Reynolds had slipped into the underground parking garage of the Blackwood Headquarters, grasping at what he hoped might be his final lifeline.

After waiting for hours, he caught sight of Julian, the vice president, approaching his car.
Reynolds stepped into his path and dropped to his knees, pleading.

“Vice President! Please, I’m begging you—save me! After all the years I’ve served you, you can’t just abandon me like this. I’ll die! Please, just withdraw the lawsuit!”

Reynolds seized the hem of Julian’s trousers, begging with every fiber of his being. Pride was a luxury he could no longer afford.

But Julian felt not a shred of sympathy. He looked down at him with an impassive face and spoke in a flat, measured tone.

“Let go, Reynolds. The lawsuit is a matter for the legal department.”

Julian glanced at his bodyguard and jerked his chin.

The muscular bodyguard hooked Reynolds’ arm and hauled him upright. Reynolds stumbled, too weak to offer any real resistance.

Julian’s expression never changed as he continued.

“You worked for me? Don’t delude yourself. You were only useful insofar as I paid you a salary. And now, your usefulness has simply run out.”

“Vice President! My family is about to die because of these debt collectors! I’ll do anything! Please, just give me another chance….”

Julian threw his final words at Reynolds, who was thrashing in desperation.

“You’ll do anything? Then why don’t you land a fatal blow against those Golden Gate bastards? Then we’ll talk.”

Vroom—!

With those words, Julian’s car peeled out of the parking lot. Reynolds, crumpled on the ground, found Julian’s parting words echoing in his ears.

“A fatal blow…?”

Julian had only mocked him with an impossible condition—a way to swat away an annoying pest. But for Reynolds, standing at the edge of a cliff, those words were a lifeline.

‘That’s it… If I destroy Golden Gate, I can get my job back! The debt collectors will back off, and Mary and our daughter will come home!’

Reynolds began to weep. But the corners of his mouth were smiling.

From that night on, Reynolds began circling Elm Street 1248.

“Those Golden Gate bastards… they’re actually burying the building underground…”

Reynolds hid himself behind the fence surrounding the construction site, a black hood pulled low over his head.
While he wallowed in the gutter, Golden Gate’s blueprints were becoming reality.

‘I’ll stop them, no matter what. My survival depends on it. My family’s survival depends on it.’

Reynolds had been a seasoned site supervisor before he ever became a director. The layout of equipment alone told him everything he needed to know about how a construction site operated.

His gaze fixed on the temporary power control room.
Pipes and pumps extending up from below were spinning loudly, humming away.

‘Down there, where it touches the hot spring water, is probably like a steam room. They’d need a cooling pump to keep the workers from overheating.’

Reynolds’ eyes narrowed.
The Main Power Cable, coiled like a serpent—Golden Gate’s Achilles heel.

‘If that cable were to snap? It would definitely be a catastrophe…’

The reality would be far worse than Reynolds imagined.

Basement Level 3 would be flooded with scalding water vapor, unfiltered.
Construction would grind to a halt entirely, and Golden Gate would bear the weight of a major safety incident, their reputation collapsing.

‘This is it. This is the only way I can prove I’m still worth something.’

That very day, Reynolds bought an Industrial Cutter from a hardware store and returned to his motel room.

* * *

At last, the night of reckoning arrived.
Reynolds crept toward the power control room, the Industrial Cutter hidden in his coat.

But then his eyes suddenly widened as he peered past the fence into the site.
Dim lighting filtered up from below, and workers’ shadows danced and writhed in the depths.

‘Damn it—Night Shift Work? There are people down there…’

Reynolds’ mouth went dry.
If he shut down the Cooling Pump now, those workers would be trapped helplessly in the scalding steam.

But delaying entry meant the construction site would begin exterior concrete pouring tomorrow.
This was his last chance to sabotage the work.

“All right… Even if the pump stops, there should be time to evacuate. I only need to think of my family.”

He forced down his wavering reason and dragged his trembling legs toward the power control room.

After steadying his breath, he cut through the padlock with the Industrial Cutter he’d brought. The lock gave way with a soft click, and he slipped into the power control room, swallowed by shadow.

Groping through the darkness, he found the Main Power Cable and positioned the cutter’s jaws against its sheathing.
One firm squeeze—that was all it would take.

But.
Reynolds’s body went rigid.

Shaking. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Damn it… Why can’t I stop trembling? I can do this. It’s just shutting down one machine. That’s how I save my daughter…!”

He muttered to himself like a man trying to hypnotize his own will, but his hands kept quivering.
The cutter’s blades chattered against each other, filling the room with noise.

Unable to bear the crushing tension, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.
He was about to pull out his Portable Stainless Steel Flask and force down some alcohol when—

It fell.

A photograph tumbled from his pocket. In it were the smiling faces of his beloved wife and daughter.

‘If I do this… could I ever face them again?’

He had spent years committing every filthy act—blackmail, bribery, hoarding supplies.
But he had never before driven anyone to their death.

If he severed the cable now and stopped the Cooling Pump, what would happen to the workers laboring on Basement Level 3 through the night?

They could be engulfed by high-pressure water vapor and perish en masse.

Somewhere down there was a man who was a father, someone’s cherished family.

“Ugh… No… I can’t. I can’t do this…”

The faintest glimmer of human conscience awakened his corrupted reason, late as it was.

He could not save his own family by sacrificing innocent lives.
If he became a monster now, even if he paid off every debt, his family would never accept him again.

“You’re right… I’ll find another way. If all else fails, I’ll go to that bastard Kang Jun and beg on my knees.”

Tears streaming down his face, Reynolds was loosening his grip on the cutter when—

“Huh…!”

The whiskey he’d slugged back became his undoing.

His vision swam from the alcohol, and his sweat-soaked hands trembled violently.
As he twisted to pull the stubborn cutter free, his grip slipped.

Slice—!

“Ah!”

The misaligned Industrial Cutter’s blade scraped sharply across the rubber sheathing of the Main Power Cable.
As copper wire exposed itself through the torn insulation, sparks erupted skyward.

Crack-crack-crack! Hissssss—!

Saved by the insulated grip, Reynolds avoided electrocution, but the shower of sparks stole his sight—he screamed and collapsed backward.

“Aaaaagh!”

Zing—thud!

The safety breaker fell, and the Cooling Pump’s motor ground to a complete halt.
From deep within Basement Level 3 below came an ominous, rising hiss of water vapor beginning to boil.

“No, no… no! It was a mistake—I was only trying to pull it out…!”

Sitting collapsed on the floor, Reynolds stared in horror, his gaze darting between the sparking cable and the motionless pump.
A tiny slip in the moment he’d chosen conscience. Yet the consequences were now irreversible.

Panic seized Reynolds. He scrambled to his feet and bolted into the darkness. A Portable Stainless Steel Flask fell from his jacket pocket, rolling across the floor.

* * *

At that same moment, in quarters near the work site.
Kang Jun’s smartphone blared urgently as he sat reviewing documents at the table.

The caller was Max, the on-site supervisor. The moment Kang Jun accepted the call, an urgent voice cut through.

[Director! Emergency situation! The Main Power Cable in the control room is damaged—the Cooling Pump has stopped!]

“What? The Main Power Cable is damaged?”

Kang Jun shot to his feet, his face hardening. The pen he’d been holding clattered to the floor.

Through the receiver came the faint sound of shouting mixed with what seemed like something collapsing.

[At this rate, water vapor will fill Basement Level 3! The night shift workers are still down there—!]

“Max, listen to me carefully.”

Kang Jun’s voice cut through Max’s panic with absolute firmness.

“Abandon all equipment. Evacuate the workers immediately—all of them, right now!”

[Yes, yes! Understood!]

Kang Jun hung up and snatched his outer coat in one motion.
The site had been running like clockwork, without a single error. Yet now—a damaged Main Power Cable.

Bang—!

Kang Jun broke into a sprint toward the work site, where water vapor had begun to rise.

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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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