These Familiars Are Strange - Chapter 289: Invasion (8)

Ha Si-heon is a brilliant but obsessive Wall Street financier who has built an immense fortune driven by a fear of financial insecurity. After enduring a tragic childhood, losing his mother, and navigating financial ruin with his father during South Korea’s 1997 financial crisis, Si-heon immigrates to the U.S. He fulfills his father’s wish by becoming a doctor but finds himself drawn to the lucrative world of Wall Street.At a top hedge fund, Si-heon leverages his medical expertise to dominate biotech investments, thanks to an unusual ability to predict successful FDA drug approvals. He amasses wealth quickly, yet struggles with a pathological fear of spending money. His relentless pursuit of profit takes a dark turn when he’s diagnosed with idiopathic multicentric Castleman’s disease (iMCD), a rare, life-threatening immune disorder with no cure. His condition worsens despite aggressive chemotherapy, as the lack of research funding for this “orphan disease” leaves him without options.Just as Si-heon faces death, he miraculously awakens to find himself transported 10 years back in time, to the beginning of his career on Wall Street. Realizing he has a second chance, Si-heon is determined to not only reclaim his wealth but also amass enough money to fund a cure for iMCD. The story explores themes of greed, ambition, mortality, and redemption, as Si-heon seeks not just to survive but to redefine the meaning of his life.

The story begins similarlly—a mid-level corporate worker dies and awakens in another world as a 19-year-old—but from there, Eren follows a very different path.Erik, a mid-level office worker, had a simple dream:“Graduate college.Get a job.Screw MILFs.”But reality wasn't so kind to him. Due to his hastiness, he forgot to check the company's background and accidentally enlisted himself into a black company—a corporate hellhole that literally made employees work to death.Such was the fate of our protagonist, Erik.Exhausted after working nonstop 12-hour shifts for seven days straight, he lost his grip on reality and met a meaningless death, collapsing onto his desk in an office nobody would mourn.Yet, reality wasn't entirely cruel either.He suddenly transmigrated into the body of an 18-year-old—young, energetic, muscular, and brimming with vitality. And best of all?He woke up sleeping right next to someone!“What? I'm transmigrated sleeping right next to my step-aunt?!”Even crazier: in this new world, beauty standards were completely reversed. Here, the pinnacle of femininity was a skinny figure with small boobs and an even smaller ass, and women who didn’t fit that mold—busty, curvy MILFs—were mostly ignored, discarded, and lonely.“How crazy is that?” Eren voiced, grinning from ear to ear.But all of that was about to change, since he was here now. He'd make all MILFs his—starting with his deliciously thick, step-aunt.

What do you do when your brother dies because of some entitled assholes? You go undercover.My real name? Clare. But at school, I’m Clause—just another guy blending in. Disguised. Watching. Yes, a boy. No, it's not an all-boys school—I'm just deep undercover, hunting down the bastard responsible for my brother’s suicide. Nobody—and I mean nobody—messes with my precious brother and gets away with it. They better pray I never find them, because when I do? Death will be a mercy, and trust me—I don’t do mercy.And as for the egotistical Alpha and the narcissistic Vampire Prince? They can go fuck themselves. I don’t do mates, I don’t do claiming, and I sure as hell don’t do them.

“I am the rot in your foundation. I will crawl back from hell and bury this world.”Those were Red’s final words as his classmates—the people he once sought validation from—watched him dissolve. They stole his life force to fuel their own ascensions, becoming Paladins, Sages, and Kings. They threw his empty husk into the Abyss, satisfied the 'Terrorist's Son' was finally gone.But death was not the end. While his body lay broken in the abyss, his soul drifted to the sanctuary of a Forgotten God.Awakening the forbidden SSS-Rank Talent [Exponential Divinity - 100x Growth], Red realizes that in this world, power isn't given—it's built. He doesn't need heroes; he needs monsters.From the chitin of hyper-evolved insects to dragons, from eldritch horrors to the nightmares sleeping in the dark, he begins to construct a civilization that defies the natural order. Under his hand, the weak do not just survive—they evolve into calamities.The Heroes are leveling up in their golden towers. The Gods are watching from their thrones.But in the shadows, Red’s Strongest Civilization is already preparing for war.[Betrayed and sacrificed, I awakened an SSS-Rank Talent. While others struggle to build a village, my civilization grows 100x faster.]