Chapter 38
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: 30,000 Bitcoins
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Jin-seong began thoroughly concealing his own existence as time went on.
The scale had grown so massive that he couldn't predict when the office might get raided and dragged off by the police.
Now, Jin-seong had zero contact with other master agents and never showed his face in the field.
He left all external meetings and public activities entirely to Hyun-sik.
Jin-seong said firmly to Hyun-sik.
"Hyun-sik, from now on, you have to handle all meetings and outside work in my place."
"In return, I promise you this: even if something goes wrong for you, I'll get you the best lawyer money can buy and pull you out no matter what. And I'll bump up your commission in the meantime too."
Hyun-sik nodded calmly at Jin-seong's words.
"Got it, hyung-nim. If you get busted anyway, our whole line is done for..."
"You stay hidden where no one can find you. I'll take responsibility for the rest."
After that, Jin-seong cleared out the old office and set up a new office-cum-home in a completely secret location no one else knew about.
That place became a thoroughly secretive space unknown even to the master agent line or headquarters.
He instructed Hyun-sik to pick trustworthy people and appoint them as team leaders to run the organization, and Hyun-sik carefully assembled his team with a full sense of the weight involved.
Jin-seong now had a clear goal.
'Just a bit more, hand it off to Hyun-sik, and live out my days in peace.'
It had already been three years since he started this business.
His line on Icos alone now had over 13,000 members, and daily deposits easily topped 1 billion won.
They were pulling in over 1 billion won a month in cash alone.
But with that scale came massive outflows too.
Bribes to public officials and cops, salaries for the TM team and Young-jin, office rents, living expenses—the money poured out just from breathing, between 400 and 600 million won a month.
Still, Jin-seong's pure take-home averaged over 500 million won monthly.
He set a goal of 10 billion won in total cash, planning to drop everything and retire once he hit it.
But then a problem exploded.
One day, Jin-seong happened to drop by Young-jin's office and caught him gambling alone on an online betting site.
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?"
Young-jin jumped in shock at Jin-seong's sharp voice and hurriedly shut down the screen.
But it was already too late.
"Hyung... no, I was just bored... tried it once."
Jin-seong's face hardened.
Having walked the path of gambling from start to bitter end himself, he could tell at a glance how dangerous Young-jin's state was.
"Be straight with me. How much have you gambled?"
Young-jin hung his head and hesitantly spoke.
"I'm sorry, hyung-nim... Lately I've been so lonely and bored, kept messing around with stuff and ended up touching this. I meant to stop after a little..."
"But the amounts just kept growing."
Jin-seong's heart grew heavy.
This was the result of dragging Young-jin into this world, letting him taste the flashy life, and then leaving him to his own devices.
He'd gotten hooked on the big money Young-jin was raking in and spiraled into an unrestrained lifestyle that inevitably led to gambling.
Jin-seong took a slow deep breath and spoke to Young-jin.
"Didn't I tell you not to go down that road?"
"You get sucked into gambling like this, and no matter how much money you make, you end up losing it all."
Young-jin bowed deeply, his voice trembling.
"I'm sorry, hyung-nim... I won't do it again. For real."
Jin-seong let out a deep sigh.
He too was someone who'd been to hell and back through gambling.
Seeing Young-jin's situation dredged up memories of his own past, leaving his heart in turmoil.
Jin-seong decided he couldn't let this slide any further.
"Cut it all off starting today. I supported you and trusted you for this? If you touch gambling again, I can't work with you anymore."
Young-jin nodded quietly.
But Jin-seong knew.
Once gambling starts, it's never easy to quit.
This incident plunged Jin-seong into deep thought.
With a key talent like Young-jin mired in the dangerous swamp of gambling, he felt a grave sense of crisis and decided to reexamine his future plans.
He had a gut feeling that his retirement was coming sooner than expected.
Jin-seong spread out some delivery food in Young-jin's office and quietly cracked open a bottle of soju.
Young-jin's face across from him was a mix of remorse and shame.
"Hyung-nim... I'm really sorry. I won't do it again."
But Jin-seong didn't believe him.
He knew gambling's endgame all too well from Seong-gwang's example.
To keep this brother from being lost, Jin-seong thought he needed a powerful shock therapy.
He looked straight at Young-jin and said.
"Young-jin, be honest. How much do you think you need to gamble before you can truly let go without regrets?"
Young-jin flinched in surprise and waved his hands frantically.
"No, hyung-nim. I'll quit for real now."
But Jin-seong pressed on with a resolute expression.
"No, people don't quit that easily once they've started. You're gonna keep lingering on it and sneak around anyway, so I'll front you the cash properly this time—go all out once and for all."
"But if you lose it all, you have to realize you can never gamble again, no matter what, and quit for life. Deal?"
Young-jin hesitated, glancing at Jin-seong's face.
After agonizing a moment, he finally spoke.
"Then... hyung-nim, could I maybe try with about 200 million won?"
Jin-seong laughed in disbelief.
"Hey, that's too small-scale."
"If I'm giving, I'll give 400 million—go wild."
Young-jin's eyes went wide at those words.
No matter how high his salary, it would take at least four years to save 400 million in cash.
But with his head full of gambling fever, Young-jin couldn't see anything else.
He only knew that Jin-seong, as a 1.5th-generation master agent, had mountains of cash.
Suddenly, taking such a huge sum felt guilty.
After a moment's thought, he jumped up, went to a drawer in the corner, and pulled out a USB drive.
Young-jin carefully handed over the USB.
"Hyung-nim, hold on. Take this."
Jin-seong asked with a puzzled look.
"What's this?"
Young-jin scratched his head and explained.
"Actually, a while back, I learned about 'Bitcoin' chatting with online friends from an overseas community."
"I mined some as a hobby, sold programs I made, and earned this. It's got about 30,000 in here."
"I hear the value's rising these days... Anyway, use this as collateral."
"I'll pay back what I win from gambling and take it back then."
Jin-seong tilted his head.
It was 2014, and he didn't even know exactly what Bitcoin was.
But since Young-jin was offering it as collateral out of consideration, he decided to take it for now.
"Alright, if you're entrusting it, I'll keep it safe."
Jin-seong casually stashed the USB in his personal safe.
The next morning, true to his word, he prepared 400 million won in cash and handed it to Young-jin.
At that moment, Jin-seong couldn't even dream of the astonishing value those Bitcoins in that tiny USB would hold just a few years later.
Young-jin blew all 400 million in a single month.
The expected outcome. Yet Young-jin's face looked strangely relieved.
Like he'd finally set down a long-carried heavy burden.
"Hyung-nim... I'm sorry. I was such an idiot."
Young-jin bowed his head, but having seen gambling's true end, his eyes were much clearer than before.
Jin-seong smiled calmly back at him instead.
"Hey, it's fine. I never planned to get that money back from the start."
"As long as you've truly snapped out of it."
Only then did Young-jin grasp the depth of Jin-seong's intentions.
And he cautiously spoke up again.
"Still, hyung-nim, I'll save up and pay back the 400 million for sure."
"Keep the Bitcoin safe until then. I'll come get it."
Jin-seong chuckled lightly.
"Got it. Work hard and come claim it."
And so another year passed.
Jin-seong had amassed more than enough for his retirement goal.
But the real issue was elsewhere.
He couldn't immediately convert this money into assets like houses or cars after retiring.
There was no legitimate way to prove its source. In the end, Jin-seong racked his brain endlessly over how to launder the funds.
Meanwhile, his line grew even more massive and solid.
It became an unrivaled powerhouse in revenue and scale that no other line could touch.
But when everything seems smooth, problems always arise.
A massive issue erupted from the Icos managers Jin-seong trusted and relied on.
Especially Tae-gyu, who held the largest actual stake in the site.
He'd been deep into gambling for a while and secretly siphoning site operating funds.
Even worse, Tae-gyu had gotten into drugs.
Jin-seong hadn't noticed a thing.
Tae-gyu had always been so disciplined and sharp; Jin-seong never imagined something like this.
Nor did he foresee how this would create a fatal rift between him and site HQ.
Right up until all these problems surfaced, Jin-seong believed everything was perfect.
But out of his sight, Tae-gyu's issues were worsening, driving an irreparable wedge between Jin-seong and Icos headquarters.
It came out later, but Tae-gyu's method of secretly diverting site operating funds was simple yet cunning.
He created slush funds by rerouting settlement payouts meant for master agents through fake member accounts.
Jin-seong's line was so huge with so many members that it was relatively easy for HQ to manipulate.
All member registrations were approved by HQ anyway, and Jin-seong could only check nicknames, deposits, withdrawals, and betting histories for approved members.
No way to verify if they were real people or fakes.
HQ picked codes under Jin-seong—especially those with high settlements—and slipped in one or two pre-made fake nicknames. Then they'd "top up" these dummy accounts with fictitious site money internally to shuffle funds around.
For example, they'd charge 5 million won each to two high-settlement codes (A and B). Then bet 1 million on odd for one code and even for the other.
One side always wins, the other loses—by design.
Here's the key part.
If Code A lost its 5 million bet, HQ would recharge it with 10 million and repeat.
By cycling charges and rigging wins/losses, they'd pile up money in these nonexistent fake accounts.
They skimmed off Jin-seong's rightful settlements bit by bit to match those fabricated amounts.
Jin-seong had no idea his settlement records included losses from fake accounts HQ had invented.
This way, Tae-gyu quietly siphoned Jin-seong's monthly settlements steadily.
When the truth came out, Jin-seong was dealt a massive shock.
It was hard to accept that one of HQ's core figures he'd trusted had stolen his money in such a thorough, meticulous way.