Baby Shaman Advent

So it's finally over...

Back when he'd seen it in a drama, it was the sort of ability he'd thought he might want at least once. Now that he was the one who actually had it, it was worse than having nothing at all.

Dinner with Lee Jayeong ended in him spraying wine with everything he had. Her white two-piece was soaked red. How was she supposed to go anywhere like that?

Of all the things to think—did you really have to think that, even inside your own head?

One more reason to quit. And of all people, the youngest granddaughter of a chaebol house.

I'd better steer clear of her for a while.

Bzzzt—

That one, he did feel a little sorry about.

Coming from Jayeong, a joke like that didn't feel like a joke. What was a ten-million-won dress to the granddaughter of a chaebol family?

He'd gone out meaning to treat her anyway, and then he'd gone and done that to her clothes, so he'd breezily put seven hundred thousand won on the card on his way out.

Even making several million won in the market, burning seven hundred thousand on a single dinner still stung. Maybe once he cleared a few hundred million it wouldn't. No. However much he made, seven hundred thousand for one meal felt like it would always sting.

Mondays were already miserable just from picturing Team Leader Park's face. From here on, he was only going to hate them more.

If Jinseong Group ever found out the man Jayeong likes is a divorcé... would they throw me out on the spot?

If they'd at least send him to another affiliate, he'd show up and work himself to the bone. That was that. Maybe he ought to open it one more time.

By the time he got back from dinner, the cooldown was full.

Click. He pressed Y.

Flash— and sure enough, with the burst of light, a new status window rose before his eyes.

What is it this time...

And in that moment.

The future of a single target. Did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that mean he could see someone's future?

He turned it over for a moment. A line that set his curiosity on fire and still looked chilling.

Think about it. What if this were his own future?

If he died in an accident a month from now, could he really dodge that death? He'd probably be too anxious to sleep properly for the whole month.

Other people's futures were worse still. Seeing someone headed for good things would be fine... but what if it was the opposite?

He shook his head.

Better not to use this one.

Bzzzt. Another vibration.

Don't tell him it was Jayeong again.

Come to think of it, he'd been the same. Weekdays ran from overtime straight into company dinners, so even after you got married, nights you actually spent together were almost nonexistent. Weekends, then, were nothing but hauling shopping bags stuffed with clothes Lee Somin bought without end at the department store.

Truly amazing. How did women manage to spend more than six hours in a department store?

Well, if you thought about it, the stranger part was wandering a department store for six hours on the kind of money they had.

That bitch came to mind on her own, and with her, the thought of a drink.

Tell Bongshik he'd had dinner with a junior woman from the office and come home, and the guy would be sick with envy.

"Unca! Going out again?"

"Where are you off to in the middle of the night? Two runs in one day?"

"I'll be right back."

He'd tried living on his own for a bit after the divorce, but having someone around to nag him wasn't entirely bad.

"Uncle! You can't go eat snow crab by yourself!"

"I won't. Snow crab is only with you, Yeju."

"Hey— you made it!"

At the far end of the place, Bongshik shot a hand up.

Tudari. Something like their hideout.

"What are we having?"

"What else."

"Kimchi udon and a bottle of soju?"

"That's the one."

Not for nothing were they brothers from the balls.

Once you were past thirty, a quiet drink out in front of the neighborhood tasted better than the noisy downtown. A bottle of soju with fish-cake stew. If he ever married again, his wish was nothing grander than this: coming to a little Tudari like the one by the house and sharing a modest glass with his wife.

"Huh? Bongshik, you..."

Unlike last time, Bongshik's hair looked a little fuller. Bongshik stroked his head as if to say Jinyeong had only just noticed, and said,

"What did hyung tell you? Said I'd make money on Bitcoin and get a hair transplant."

"...You're still on about Bitcoin."

"Not still. I'm telling you I planted it with that money."

"On a measly million won?"

"No. After that I figured it'd go higher, so I put in ten million."

"So how much is it up?"

Dungshik held up three fingers.

"Thirty percent."

"That's a decent climb."

"Heh. Right? Sting a little, doesn't it, this much?"

It didn't particularly sting. His own stock returns were nothing to sneeze at. The One Plus One Event had dropped forty million won into his account for free, besides.

"You know if you brag about money, you're supposed to pick up the tab."

"Obviously. Eat all you want."

"Pretty modest, for all that talk."

"The hair's plentiful, though."

"Heh."

They knocked their glasses together. Liquor he'd always thought bitter was nothing but sweet. Soju over wine, after all. Told to choose between a three-hundred-thousand-won wine and a four-thousand-won bottle of soju, he'd take the soju without a second thought.

"So you're planning to keep holding the Bitcoin?"

"No. Time to cash out."

"Already?"

"You take only as much as you're meant to eat, and then you get out. That's just how this whole investing racket works. Coins especially—stay in for the long haul and you're liable to get a ring through your nose."

Coins... Come to think of it, even when he'd picked up Speed Reading Master, he'd only skimmed the investment books that had to do with stocks. He'd never once looked at anything about coins.

Still, people talked about it so much these days that he had the rough shape of it.

The global financial crisis of 2008. America's subprime mortgage collapse dragged the world economy down with it, and governments, banks, and central institutions lost their credibility all at once. That was when Satoshi Nakamoto proposed a monetary system that could run with no central authority at all.

Decentralization: no government, no bank, the users themselves recording and verifying every trade. The blockchain: every record of a transaction bundled into blocks, linked in order of time into a chain, a public ledger that could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not be forged. And a hard cap, total issuance fixed at 21,000,000, so it could never be printed without limit the way a central bank printed money.

In some corners they were already calling Bitcoin digital gold. Of course, with volatility that violent, more people called it a scam than called it a stable store of value like ordinary currency or assets.

"Bongshik."

"What?"

"How do you actually go about trading that Bitcoin?"

"Heh heh. Now that hyung's finally making some money, it's starting to tempt you?"

Bongshik threw back a thick swallow and walked him through how a trade worked.

Until just a few years ago there hadn't been an exchange in Korea where you could trade, so people used overseas ones. Then, starting in 2014, an exchange called KoreaBit appeared, and trading became possible. It wasn't hard. Download the app, sign up, pass a few verifications, and that was the end of it.

"A lot like stocks."

"...Jinyeong, you're doing stocks?"

Bongshik's eyes went wide. No wonder. Jinyeong's whole creed had been to keep his head down and save, diligently and honestly. He'd never even seen the people around him make money in the market. Most of them had lost it. Watching them, there'd been times he thought of himself as the winner.

A foolish thought. Live out a savings-account life like this and he'd die without ever buying a single home in Seoul. That much was obvious.

"I started recently."

"What'd you buy?"

"Just this and that."

"Wow! Selfish. That's how you're gonna be?"

He had no particular desire to hand over a rigged stock. You could make money for a while, but miss the moment to get out and you might be bagholding for the rest of your life.

"I'm stuck in the red. It's embarrassing."

"Heh heh. Figures."

He opened the KoreaBit app and pulled up the chart.

It really is exactly like trading stocks.

Then he started working through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the chart, slowly. Turning it over, his finger stopped on its own.

This chart...

The curve that had risen in a gentle slope from the latter half of 2016 reared up steep the moment 2017 arrived. And as of this April it was grinding sideways, like a dip someone had pressed into it on purpose.

The volume was strange, too. The price was hardly moving, and yet volume alone kept climbing.

Someone's pinning it down and accumulating.

Certainty that a syndicate had moved in. Proof that somebody at the bottom was sweeping up supply like a madman.

......

He could chew through a stock chart like gum, but coins might be another country entirely. Greed pricked him for a second. He decided to stop here. There was a limit to what a chart alone could tell you.

He was in no position to talk, riding a rigged stock himself, but Bitcoin had no value. Get caught wrong in a thing like this and you might walk yourself straight into ruin.

The moment he went to close the app—

Huh?

......

So the target didn't have to be a person?

He swallowed, dry.

An ability he wouldn't have used anyway, if the target had been a person.

"Hey. What are you doing all of a sudden?"

"Just be quiet a second."

"If we were gonna sit here quiet, I'd have drunk alone at home. I came out so we could talk!"

He left Bongshik grumbling across the table and sank into thought.

Year and month. Pick wrong—land on a month that had ridden the peak and then fallen—and the whole thing would be a bust.

I think it said futures within a year can be viewed month by month, too.

...Does the Random Box read minds, too?

He decided on low risk, low return over high risk, high return.

And in that moment—

Shrrk. A year of monthly closing prices unfurled in front of him.

W-what is this...

A chart you could never have believed in the stock market.

No time even to lose his head. Racing the limit, he started copying the prices into his phone.

"Sigh. Pretending to look at your phone when you don't even have a girlfriend."

Dungshik poured the liquor down on his own. Then, again:

"I'm just gonna finish cashing out my Bitcoin."

"...?"

Bongshik turned his phone on.

"Bongshik. Don't sell that."

"...Why? Feels like it's about to drop."

"If I say don't sell, don't sell."

"Heh heh. This bastard. Sick over me taking profit and getting out, huh. Relax. I'll sell this and cover the whole second round."

At the sudden shout, Bongshik's eyes flew wide, and he stared.

Right in front of him sat a guy who couldn't even eat what was put in his hands.