Chapter 270 – Side Story 1 – Choi Joo-won

Children being abandoned due to worsening economic hardship are increasing.

Choi Joo-won was one of them.

[His name is Choi Joo-won. We’re leaving him here because we’re struggling with financial difficulties. Please take good care of him.]

The orphanage director who saw the note reportedly sighed first.

Where in the world are there parents who abandon a baby who hasn’t even passed his first birthday like this?

But for Choi Joo-won, the parents who abandoned him and the orphanage director who sent him for adoption to America at age 3 were all the same.

Either way, he was abandoned just the same.

To Choi Joo-won, the orphanage director was no different from a parent.

Perhaps that’s why?

Under American parents who looked different from him, Choi Joo-won only caused trouble.

His deviation might have started from this time.

“Waaaaah! Waaaaaaaah!”

“Oh my, here we go again, here we go again.”

“I don’t know why he’s like this all day long.”

Choi Joo-won, who was expressing his dissatisfaction in his own way, ended up being returned within less than half a year.

And once again, he got new parents.

“Your name from now on is Adam Bishop.”

Though he came to live with the new name Adam, his troublemaking continued.

The very fact that his parents had different hair colors was a source of dissatisfaction for him.

“I don’t want to, I said no!”

“Adam! Are you really not going to eat?”

“I, I won’t eat! I said I won’t eat!”

“Then don’t eat.”

After throwing a tantrum at the dinner table for 3 hours, he started getting hungry.

When Adam glanced around and peeked into the kitchen, his adoptive parents said.

“Are you hungry? Do you want to eat this?”

“Y, yes.”

“No. You need to starve more.”

For the reason of correcting his behavior, Adam had to starve for a full day.

He cried and threw tantrums, but all that came back was a cold voice.

“No. Starve more.”

Only after starving for two days could he finally get food.

That’s when Adam felt it.

That they were different from ordinary parents.

Their disciplinary methods were certainly extraordinary.

They started using corporal punishment from the time Adam entered school.

“What are these grades?”

“I, I’m sorry.”

“Put out your palm. Let’s get 30 hits.”

It wasn’t just the palms.

Buttocks, calves, thighs, etc.

Sometimes they would hit the back of his head for the reason that he looked at them unpleasantly.

Then if he wet himself on the floor, they would hit his calves again for that reason.

It was essentially abuse and assault.

‘Am I just a tool for my adoptive parents to relieve stress?’

When he had grown somewhat in stature and reached an age where he could think deeply, Adam left home.

Because he could no longer endure the verbal and physical abuse.

‘It would be more comfortable to live like a beggar outside. Since they’re not my real parents anyway, they won’t come looking for me.’

He had no intention of going back.

Rather than living while being abused, he would live comfortably as a beggar.

Thus Adam wandered the slums and streets until he became an adult.

Wearing ragged clothes, rummaging through trash cans, picking up cigarette butts that someone had thrown away and smoking them, etc.

‘This is a completely beggar-like life.’

It was literally that.

He was no different from stray animals abandoned on the streets.

‘Why do I have to live like this? Abandoned by my real parents, abused, and driven out like a beggar.’

As the difficult days continued, negative thoughts naturally accumulated.

‘Damn world. Just collapse completely.’

I can’t be the only one living such a shitty life.

In that sense, Adam cursed the world.

He hated seeing people who lived better than him.

Did Adam’s wish reach heaven?

2010.

The world changed drastically.

Dungeons appeared and monsters and awakened ones emerged.

Dungeon breaks occurred and people died.

“Kuk kuk kuk! The end times, the end times are coming!”

But it was too early to be happy.

Because he was about to die first due to the dungeon break.

Kieek- Kieek!

A large-eared monkey was chasing Adam.

“Huff, huff!”

Adam, who had been running with all his might, was cornered into a dead end.

The opponent was just a human-sized monkey.

It was holding a spear that a primitive man might carry, but considering that it had killed dozens of people with that spear, it couldn’t be ignored.

That wasn’t all.

‘A monkey that’s fine even after being shot with a pistol…’

There was absolutely no way he could win.

Unless he miraculously awakened.

At that moment.

Hwaaaa-

Adam’s body glowed and golden powder scattered.

‘Th, this is…?’

It was an awakening effect, but that wasn’t important right now.

Kieek!

The startled monkey immediately thrust its spear.

“N, no! Save me!”

Then a miracle happened once more.

The monkey stopped attacking at Adam’s words.

‘Wh, what?’

Adam, who was looking at the still monkey with puzzlement, called up his status window like he had seen on TV.

And he saw it.

That he had gained a fraudulent trait called mind control.

* * *

Korean robbers show knives, but in America where gun ownership is legal, they show guns first.

“Hand over everything you have. Unless you want a hole drilled in your head.”

When a gun barrel is actually pointed at your head, your mind would go blank like a white sheet.

But Adam, who encountered a robber while walking down an alley, was surprisingly calm.

“Your Karma value is high.”

“What?”

Saying that, he calmly gave instructions to the robber.

“Hand over all the money you have and commit suicide.”

“Understood.”

Bang-

Adam, who leisurely left the alley with the small amount of money, suddenly felt doubtful.

‘To think I’m only killing robbers with such an amazing ability…’

Adam had been deliberately choosing places where robbers might appear and robbing them in reverse.

But collecting such small change couldn’t bring about dramatic change.

‘Is there really nothing but becoming a hunter?’

Hunters, who were the only ones who could fight against monsters, had a status like nobles in medieval times.

All awakened ones were busy entering dungeons and raising their levels.

Anyone who delayed like Adam would only be called a fool.

‘Good. I’ll become a hunter. I’ll definitely succeed as a hunter, earn a lot of money, and gain people’s recognition.’

But there was something he had to do before that.

“You, what’s your name?”

“It’s Bread.”

“Right, Bread. How much robbery have you done so far?”

“I’ve done it to the point of boredom.”

“Good. At least there won’t be any mistakes. Do you have plenty of bullets?”

“Yes.”

“Good, do you see that house over there?”

The place Adam pointed to had the house of the adoptive parents from whom he had run away after being abused.

“Kill the owner of that house and then kill yourself too. Can you do it?”

“Leave it to me.”

Bread, who received the order, hid a pistol in his back pocket and walked away while surveying the surroundings.

Adam turned around without even watching that sight and entered the dark alley alone.

It was the back view of someone who had decided to settle the past and walk the path of a hunter.

* * *

Mind control was a fraudulent trait in many ways.

Not only could he safely hunt monsters by mind controlling them, but he could also use humans like slaves.

‘Even the most skilled S-rank hunters obey my commands as long as their Karma value is high…’

After learning that fact, Adam became desperate to meet top-tier hunters.

Anyway, just making eye contact would immediately make them his subordinates.

‘It seems even top-tier hunters don’t have clean backgrounds.’

3 out of 10 top-tier hunters had Karma exceeding 100.

They must have committed murder for some reason in the past.

‘They probably used the characteristics of dungeons to kill people they didn’t like and pretended they died to bosses.’

It was a common method, but it was good for Adam.

Thanks to that, he could dominate hunters and expand his forces.

As a result of steadily building his forces for 10 years.

Adam had become the head of a world-famous guild that anyone would recognize by name.

‘To think I, who wandered the slums, have risen to the highest position…’

Adam was not only the master of Overlord Guild but also an S-rank hunter.

For him, who was using world-class rankers as slaves, there was nothing left to envy.

Except for not having parents.

No, strictly speaking, he had parents.

Korean parents who abandoned him before he was even one year old.

‘If they knew I had succeeded this much, they would probably regret it and beat the ground?’

Adam decided to visit Korea while he was thinking about it.

To meet his biological parents.

‘Has it been 10 years?’

After much searching, he found his biological parents’ house.

He was too young to remember his parents’ faces, but this was definitely the place.

Ding dong-

Adam, who pressed the doorbell, felt nervous like he had never done even in front of S-rank monsters.

“Who is it?”

The door opened and a woman in her mid-50s poked her head out.

“By, by any chance, Choi, Choi…”

“Yes?”

‘Damn, Shit!’

Despite learning Korean for this day, he stammered and couldn’t speak.

“Is, is this Mr. Choi Beom-su’s house?”

“It is, but who are you?”

“Th, then are you Ms. Yang Hee-soon?”

“I asked who you are.”

“C, can’t you recognize me?”

Yang Hee-soon looked at him with rolling eyes.

She seemed to have no idea who he was.

‘Well, since I was young, there’s no way she’d recognize me.’

Adam revealed his identity with a glimmer of hope.

“I’m Choi Joo-won. Your son Choi Joo-won. The one who was abandoned in front of Sunshine Orphanage when he was 8 months old…”

“Ah…”

At his birth mother’s surprised appearance, Adam smiled and said.

“You must be very surprised that I came suddenly?”

“Why, why are you here…”

“I didn’t come to argue about what happened back then. I just came to see your faces…”

“Who is it?”

When a middle-aged man appeared from behind Yang Hee-soon, Adam bowed his head.

“Hello. You’re Mr. Choi Beom-su, right?”

“Who are you?”

“It’s me. Your son Choi Joo-won.”

“…”

Choi Beom-su’s expression hardened like stone.

“You don’t need to look at me like that. I just came to see the faces of those who gave birth to me…”

“Dad, who is it?”

This time Adam’s expression hardened.

He could see children who appeared to be in their mid-twenties beyond the door.

Two of them at that.

‘They had children?’

The two parents gestured for their children to go inside as if they had shown them something they shouldn’t see.

“Go inside quickly, quickly!”

“Excuse me, Father.”

Choi Beom-su was startled by the call from the unfamiliar young man he was seeing for the first time.

“F, Father? I’m not…”

“You are my father. The person next to you is my mother. Am I wrong?”

“…”

Adam, who was looking back and forth between his biological father and mother with a cold expression, asked.

“I have something to ask. If you were going to have two children and raise them anyway, why did you abandon me?”

“Th, that’s…”

“At that time, there were circumstances that…”

“Circumstances?”

Adam vented his accumulated resentment.

“Do you know how much I’ve suffered until now? Do you know what a painful life I’ve lived! Being abused by adoptive parents! Rummaging through trash cans like a beggar!”

“…”

“At first, I resented you a lot. Why did you abandon me? If you had raised me responsibly to the end, it wouldn’t have turned out like this.”

“…”

“But now I’ve forgiven everything. How can I do that? Because I became an S-rank hunter. Because I succeeded spectacularly. Because I was compensated for all the hardships I went through.”

“…”

“That’s why I came. To show that the son you abandoned back then has succeeded this much.”

“…”

“But you gave birth to siblings who aren’t much different in age from me and have been living well? After throwing me into such a gutter.”

“…”

“Did you ever try to look for me later? If you have a mouth, say something.”

“I’m sorry.”

“…”

Adam was dumbfounded.

He didn’t come to hear such words.

He expected to be welcomed with surprise at his successful appearance.

“We were wrong back then.”

“We have no face to show you. So please go back now.”

The parents, who bowed their heads like criminals, turned their backs.

Thud- Click-

The door closed.

Was he being abandoned like this again?

‘Even though I succeeded spectacularly, are those children stuck in that house more precious than me?’

Adam, who had been standing in front of the entrance for a while and didn’t know when to leave, raised his head.

‘Right. Then that’s what I’ll do.’

At Korea’s moment of crisis and desperation.

If he appeared like a savior and saved his biological parents?

‘They would acknowledge that I’m better than those children and look at me again.’

Thus Adam decided.

To stage a coup in Korea.