Byeongho's face had turned pale long before he finished shouting.
"You crazy bastard! There's a limit to what you can ask someone to cover for! Gunpowder? Do you have any idea whose head is going to roll because of this? Yours? No—mine! Front to back, left to right!"
"But buying gunpowder—"
"What kind of nonsense is that? Fireworks are sold everywhere!"
"The impurities—"
"That's enough. Plow the field. Immediately."
After a long and vicious argument, Jinho finally gave in. Before leaving, Byeongho turned around and pointed at him.
"I'm checking the day after tomorrow. If that field isn't plowed, I swear I'll drag you in myself. Got it?"
"Yes. I got it."
Byeongho confiscated the gunpowder and walked away, muttering.
"That lunatic…"
"Weirdo maniac."
That was what Jinho's relatives called him.
It wasn't affectionate.
From childhood, Jinho had been a walking accident waiting to happen—obsessive, reckless, and incapable of moderation. His parents heard the same warning from everyone:
One day, that kid will cause a real disaster.
Online, the nickname evolved.
At first, people called him a wide maniac—someone obsessed with many things. Later, they quietly changed the character.
From 廣 (wide)
to 狂 (crazy).(1)
Jinho had always been different.
He remembered things too well. Focused too deeply. Once absorbed, the world ceased to exist.
"I think he's special," his kindergarten teacher said.
His parents believed it.
By elementary school, they tested his IQ.
"His memory, concentration, and comprehension are exceptional," the doctor said. "Genius-level."
Hope soared.
Then collapsed.
Jinho simply didn't study.
He could binge an entire animation series without eating. He could recite obscure trivia years later. But textbooks never stayed in his head the same way.
"What's the point of being smart if you won't use it?"
No matter how much pressure his parents applied, his grades never rose above average.
Korean and history were excellent—he remembered them like scenes from a movie. English hovered in the middle. Mathematics dragged everything down.
"I can't recall it," Jinho once muttered to a friend.
"Recall?"
"Everything else replays in my head. Math just… doesn't."
In the end, he chose liberal arts.
Stress found another outlet.
From elementary school through middle school, he drowned himself in robot animations, especially the Universal Century timeline. Online arguments, lore debates, obsessive research—it consumed him.
The turning point came in his second year of middle school.
A steampunk drama set in the 19th century.
Cancelled after one season.
Jinho hunted it down through foreign sites, translating scripts line by line because there were no subtitles.
His parents raged.
Then his English grades skyrocketed.
That was when Jinho stopped being someone who watched.
He became someone who made.
With friends, he built a miniature steam engine based on Watt's design. Alcohol lamps heated the boiler. A crude generator lit LEDs.
They won an Excellence Award.
His parents accepted congratulations—
—and then scolded him.
"What good is this for a liberal arts student?"
His allowance was cut.
The following year, he built a steam locomotive using real steam pressure.
His parents nearly collapsed.
Still, Jinho entered university through regular admission—In-Seoul, public administration, just below SKY.(2)
A feast followed.
"Stop wasting time."
"Become a civil servant."
"Don't ruin your parents' lives again."
Jinho nodded.
And ignored them.
In his first year, he built a man-made seaplane using part-time wages and flew it at the Han River estuary.
"It's flying!"
Police and paramedics watched in silence.
The footage aired nationwide.
A Talented University Inventor.
His parents lay down with headaches.
Thus began what his relatives later called—
The First Uprising of the Crazy Maniac.
After that, nothing stopped him.
Leather armor from the Three Kingdoms period. Swordsmith apprenticeships. Western full-plate armor forged on weekends.
His parents even hit him.
It didn't matter.
What made it worse was that during semesters, he studied earnestly—and scored well.
A career counselor once said quietly:
"Jinho isn't academic. He's an inventor."
"If he'd been born in 19th-century Europe," another added, "he'd be famous."
In his third year, disaster struck again.
An American acquaintance invited him to help build a historically accurate pirate ship.
Jinho took a leave of absence and flew to the U.S. without hesitation.
The Second Uprising of the Crazy Maniac.
The project expanded when an Arab billionaire funded a full-sized vessel.
Jinho returned with blueprints.
And furious parents.
"Enlist. Now."
He obeyed.
After the army, he passed the Grade 5 civil service exam.
Another feast.
Another sigh of relief.
But office life crushed him.
"This place is suffocating."
Depression followed.
Medication.
Finally, surrender.
"Live however you want," his parents said.
The next day, Jinho resigned.
Three years later, he opened a smithy in Yangsan.
After Byeongho left, Jinho scratched his head.
"Fireworks powder corrodes barrels too badly…"
He sighed.
"I'll borrow Old Man Hwang's tractor tomorrow."
Inside the warehouse, he paused.
"If this was discovered, I'd already be in prison."
A small box.
Two glass vials.
Nitroglycerin.
"I don't even know why I made this…"
Then—
Grrr.
The ground trembled.
"An earthquake?"
Jinho ran outside—then froze.
"If that explodes, insurance won't save me."
He turned back, sprinted into the warehouse, grabbed the box, and hurled the bottles into the field.
Boom! Boom!
Relief flickered—
Then the earth split open.
And swallowed him whole.