Chapter 41
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Yeong-jin's Death
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I had trusted people too much. That was my problem.
Not only the headquarters managers, but even the sub-master agents under me—I believed they were all my people. That was my mistake.
The moment settlements started lagging from headquarters, I should have immediately moved all the members to my own site and cut ties.
If I had, at least I wouldn't have suffered losses this massive.
But I foolishly trusted headquarters to the end, and I trusted my subs. The damage had grown way too big.
It was already too late. My funds were down to a measly 1 billion won.
The instant members on my site cashed out even once in big numbers with this money, I was done for.
When I had 10 billion in cash, no matter how much members won, I believed they'd eventually spit it back out, so I stayed relaxed.
But with just 1 billion now, even one or two days of heavy cashouts would dry me up completely.
Still, I pulled myself together somehow.
I blocked all contact with Icos headquarters and urged my sub-master agents to move as many members as possible to my site.
I had 30,000 members on my line at Icos alone. Even subtracting dormant accounts and fake sign-ups, there were at least 10,000 active ones.
If I could quickly pull them over at this scale, I could rebuild in a few months somehow.
But things weren't that simple.
The loyal ones who'd move to my site from the early days had already come over. The rest saw that cashouts and deposits were still working fine at Icos, so they didn't feel any urgency to switch.
Icos HQ was putting out notices that everything was normal, doing their best to stop members from leaving.
In the end, no matter how hard the master agents made calls and hustled, the results were pathetic.
Only about 2,000 members had switched to my site.
Honestly, I was disappointed. I'd told them to manage their members well, but when push came to shove, not many followed us out of trust.
I later found out that 70% of them had already been bought off by HQ. They'd been telling their members to keep using Icos without worry.
In the end, plenty of them pocketed settlements from both me and HQ for double-dipping.
Those bastards had been hiding their knives, waiting to stab me in the back.
And then disaster struck.
The 2,000 or so members trickled out a bit on the first day, but on the second, cashouts suddenly flooded in.
That's when my spine went ice-cold.
Funds drained fast, and in a blink, I was left with just 200 million won. 800 million had vanished in an instant.
"Please, just lose it back quick..."
But right then, sports matches went perfect for bettors for days on end, and cashouts exploded even more.
Eventually, funds hit zero.
Cashout backlogs had already surpassed my capital.
In desperation, I scrambled loans and barely scraped together 50 million won to patch things up.
Just a month ago, I'd had 10 billion in cash. Now I was a debtor with 50 million won in loans.
I couldn't even cover site operating costs, let alone settle with sub-master agents.
Stress was making my hair fall out in clumps.
I couldn't hold on any longer.
Once cashouts backed up, rumors of scamming spread among members.
My site collapsed.
All of it happened in just a week.
Sitting alone in the empty office with a soju bottle in hand, I muttered to myself in frustration.
"Where the hell did it all go wrong...?"
If I'd wrapped everything up and moved lines when HQ first delayed settlements, I could've salvaged at least 3 billion.
But hoping to make a comeback, I burned through even that and ended up in debt.
It was a foolish choice.
I couldn't endure anymore.
In the end, I gathered my closest aides and sub-master agents, bowed my head.
"Sorry. I can't hold out any longer."
The subs said nothing.
Seeing me—the guy who'd always handed them steady cash and seemed unbreakable—completely broken, they probably figured the glamorous life was over.
And just like that, my days as a master agent crumbled.
Once word got out that I'd gone bust, I heard Icos HQ finally cracked open the champagne.
Soon, news that SENES had collapsed rocked the master agent world.
With the country's largest organized master agent network falling apart overnight, other lines scrambled to scoop up our scattered members.
I watched it all with a heart gone cold, just pouring bitter soju down my throat.
I thought quietly.
Fortunately, combining deposits from the office and apartments should cover the remaining debt.
I called the realtor right away.
The apartment I lived in still had six months left on the lease.
I rushed to list it for takeover and begged the realtor boss.
"Boss, please sell off the apartment and the five two-room units we used as offices quick.
Tell takeovers I'll cover two months' rent."
The five two-rooms sold faster than expected.
That got me about 15 million won in deposits urgently.
Now left were three apartments, each with 10 million won deposits—30 million total.
I called Yeong-jin and Hyun-sik, apologized profusely.
"Yeong-jin, Hyun-sik, sorry it came to this. Gotta move fast—pack up quick."
They comforted me instead, worried.
"Hyung, it's fine. Thanks to you, we've saved a few billion each anyway.
You worked hard taking care of us all this time."
Hyun-sik and Yeong-jin quietly packed up without a word.
Once everything was sorted, I returned to my parents' home.
Empty-handed, with nothing.
Mom and Dad were shocked to see me show up like a wreck out of nowhere.
"Jin-seong, what the hell happened?"
"Dad, Mom... the business tanked. Sorry..."
They just patted my shoulder silently for a while.
They trusted me and didn't pry further.
I paid off 40 million of the 50 million debt with the deposits.
The remaining 10 million, I'd pay back slowly while working some job.
For three months, I holed up in my room, saw no one, thought nothing, just let time pass.
And so my flashy 3 years and 6 months as a master agent ended in futility.
In 2015, at age 29, I'd lost everything and gone bust.
Yeong-jin was heartbroken every time he thought of Jin-seong hyung, who'd cut off all contact after his mental breakdown.
Jin-seong had believed in him, given him money, honor, a new life when he had nothing. He was like a brother and benefactor.
They could've all been happy if they'd just stayed quiet.
A few more quiet years of earning, retire to applause—that's all it would've taken. But HQ ruined everything.
Yeong-jin was wrapped in quiet rage.
He vowed to avenge his hyung no matter what.
Truth was, Yeong-jin had never run a master agent operation himself, so nothing tied him down.
With his skills and network, shaking HQ was easy.
Yeong-jin quietly gathered skilled hacker friends from his old community.
From that day, Icos HQ's site faced relentless attacks.
Starting with simple DDoS, Yeong-jin escalated to hacking and dumping their entire member database on master agent forums.
Icos HQ turned into chaos overnight.
Members rioted about scams, master agents panicked, operations ground to a halt.
HQ had been steadily monitoring Jin-seong's moves.
They even knew his parents' address, sent people for regular updates.
But Jin-seong showed no activity.
Reports said he barely left his room all day, maybe popped out for smokes at the corner store.
HQ relaxed upon hearing that.
With no money and in debt, Jin-seong was no threat anymore.
So they figured he wasn't behind the attacks.
But master agents who'd started working directly with HQ felt the difference from Jin-seong's era.
No new members? They'd freeze settlements immediately.
Smaller agents got paid straight from HQ's account.
One big win streak from members, and HQ pulled a scam.
Unthinkable under Jin-seong.
Subs regretted it too late.
How easy and stable things had been with him—now they truly felt it, but way too late.
The sites had turned tyrant. Even if individual master agents spoke up now, members were leaving one by one.
Meanwhile, HQ grew anxious.
Frustrated over who kept attacking, they asked the master agents.
"Hey, any of you know something?
We're under constant attack—who the hell's doing this?"
They all said the same.
"Looks just like when we hit other sites before.
Bro, has to be Hani hyung's hacking crew."
HQ managers' faces hardened.
They couldn't let Yeong-jin—who was cutting their lifeline—off easy.
In the end, HQ hired a fixer firm that handled dirty work, ordered them to grab Yeong-jin with ethnic Koreans, drag him in by force.
But shit hit the fan. Urgent call from the firm.
"Boss, things went wrong.
The kid resisted hard, so we roughed him up a bit. On the way back, he panicked, we let our guard down, and he jumped out the door of the moving car. Dead on the spot."
HQ felt their blood freeze.
What started as just scaring him and shutting him up had turned into murder in a flash.
Realizing they'd crossed a point of no return, the HQ managers' minds went blank white.