A Coin Named Shit
Yes! I finally landed a contract!
The climb up had been exhausting, but her steps on the way down were light and buoyant. A full year into her life as an operator, and this was Seyeon's first contract. She wanted to give herself a round of applause.
And not just any contract — a newly registered SS-Rank hunter! Plenty of other people would have been after him; that much was obvious.
These days, unless an operator had some kind of special ability, hunters rarely bothered looking for one. The job market was brutal. Plenty of hunters just skipped the contract altogether because it was too much of a hassle — which was a real problem, since the Association wouldn't pay you without one.
Today, at least, she wanted to give her usual scatterbrained self a hearty pat on the back.
Still... that site. It was Bitstorm, wasn't it?
Seyeon thought back to the site. It was a place she'd rather never look at again, if she could help it.
Bitstorm. A place where you bought and sold cryptocurrency, Bitcoin included. A den of speculation.
...Well, if a rich guy wanted to play around with that stuff, who was she to judge?
Dwelling on unpleasant thoughts never did anyone any good. Twenty-three years of life had taught Seyeon that lesson more thoroughly than anyone. She quickly wiped the site from her mind and continued down the hill, her mood lifting once more.
Tonight's dinner is a bulgogi party with my little siblings!
"Hello? Ah, yes... Yes, I found an operator. We signed a contract."
Several days had already passed since he'd signed the contract with Seyeon. How many calls had Jisu received in that time? Apparently there were a lot more operators hunting for hunters than he'd expected.
Meanwhile, his investments had been going nowhere. Through some minor miracle, he'd managed to bump his Stamina up a little, but Mental Power was stuck in place. The only real disappointment was that Strength and Agility — the ones he'd poured money into with high hopes — had dipped a little.
After several days of tinkering, his status looked like this:
Still clinging to S++ by a thread, huh.
Just then.
Another operator recruitment call?
"Hello?"
"Hi! Jisu, how have you been?"
Thankfully it wasn't a spam call. He recognized the voice.
"Seyeon?"
"Yes! Hi! Hehe, have you been well?"
"Ah, yes. I've been fine."
"That's such a relief!"
She's... really chipper.
They hadn't even exchanged more than a handful of words, but something about her upbeat energy made her seem like the kind of person who was relentlessly positive. She'd be great at cafe customer service.
"What's up?"
"Huh? What's up? I should be the one asking you that! You haven't called me even once since we signed the contract."
"Ah..."
Come to think of it, hadn't she said she'd pass along all kinds of information as his assigned operator? If he really thought about it, a few questions did come to mind. But honestly, actually asking them felt kind of awkward.
"Anything at all is fine, so call whenever you want! Even asking what the Hunter Association cafeteria is serving today is totally okay!"
"Uh, well, even if I knew the menu, it's not like I could go there and eat it."
"Yes."
"..."
A beat of silence. Seyeon was the one who broke it.
"Anyway! That's not actually why I called."
"Ah, so you had a reason?"
"Of course I did. What do you take me for?"
He decided not to say a goofball out loud. Jisu had at least a baseline of social skills.
"A gate's about to open."
"A gate? Then..."
"Yes! A raid's about to start. It'd be easier if I give you the coordinates along with the location, right? Head toward XX.YY near City Hall Station."
"Wait! Coordinates? How am I supposed to check coordinates?"
"You didn't lose the receiver I sent you, did you?"
"No. It's in my drawer."
"That explains it. I tried paging you with it and got no response. I figured if you hadn't lost it, you'd just stashed it somewhere."
"..."
He was briefly at a loss for words.
"Do I have to wear this all the time?"
"No, just during combat is fine. When I need to reach you, I can just use your phone like this."
"Then... never mind. It's nothing."
Jisu started to argue, then thought better of it. What was the point of winning an argument with this person, anyway?
"If you look at the receiver, there's a small button. Put it on and press it, and it'll lock onto your current coordinates."
"Ah, I see."
"Great! So, will you participate?"
"Participate? Don't I have to go no matter what?"
"No. It's an incursion situation, but it's not sudden, and if you turn it down the offer goes to other hunters. I just grabbed this mission first at the Association level, so I'm telling you about it first. It's not an important mission, so if you have other plans or whatever, it's fine to refuse. It's just a raid, after all."
"I see."
"Yep! If it were a really important mission, I'd tell you that you have to come. That's what the annual salary contract is for."
Jisu fell silent for a moment, thinking. He was a little scared of how his invested stats might fluctuate, but the market had been moving sideways for days now. Even if he went all-in, his stats probably wouldn't shift much. His attack power was still plenty high, so it wouldn't hurt to go hunting and stockpile some of those soul essences or whatever they were called.
"Alright. I'll head over there, then?"
"Yes! I'll give you a detailed briefing once you arrive. There's still some time before it opens, so you can take your time getting ready! Come in about... two or three hours. Okay, bye!"
Uh...
After hanging up, he hurriedly pulled up the Bitstorm site.
The site was unusually quiet. Then again, this kind of calm had been going on long enough that it was starting to feel normal. The prices of coins with dwindling trading volume weren't displayed in blue for a drop or red for a rise — they were just black text. It meant the prices had barely moved since yesterday. A market this dead had been dragging on for days.
The chat window was just as silent. Normally it would be flying with noise — some coin going to the moon, the whole crypto market being cooked, if you don't buy you're a bagholder, if you buy you're a bagholder, if you hold you're a bagholder, whatever you do you're a bagholder. But now it was just quiet.
The signal rooms and HODL chats Jisu had joined were in the same boat. Some signal rooms had frozen over with zero messages. Others had self-destructed by flooding the chat with useless info. Even the ones that were somewhat accurate hadn't managed to catch any big pumps. The HODL chats were no better — nothing but junk posts, barely a scrap of useful information.
But he had to make a decision now. For Jisu to use his ability, he had to buy something. Anything.
Jisu looked at Bitstorm's list of newly listed coins. Just yesterday, more than ten coins he'd never even heard of had hit the market. But what choice did he have? He had to pick a pearl out of this vast stretch of sand. No — even if it was some worthless shitcoin, he had to buy something if he wanted to fight as a hunter.
Huh?
Even if it was some shitcoin?
Jisu checked Bitstorm's newly listed coins one more time.
The coin is named Shit?
Faced with this miracle of naming, Jisu's jaw hung open. Let's check that again.
Shitcoin. SHITCOIN. The coin was actually named Shit?
Curious despite himself about what the hell this coin even was, Jisu pulled up the details.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us: the sturdy roots of blockchain! A new and innovative Shitcoin, created to serve as the fertilizer of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A coin made by the great cryptocurrency authority, Savoshi Tomatoto! Shitcoin, the first to pilot Equalium-based Blockchain 3.3.0, offers holders an even more astonishing and innovative coin experience. The philosophy of our Shitcoin is...
"What the actual fuck is this bullshit?"
The sheer absurdity of it made Jisu swear out loud. He wasn't the type who swore much, so any of his acquaintances would have been shocked to hear it.
Anyway, seeing a coin like this listed and trading on Bitstorm — supposedly the country's largest crypto exchange — left him genuinely speechless. But what could he do? Coins were born and died on this market by the thousands.
Honestly, calling this the Fourth Industrial Revolution...
Why, though? Why did he want to buy it?
Jisu was suddenly seized by an overwhelming urge to buy Shitcoin. Yeah. In the parlance of the times, he was starting to really need to take a Shit.
The coin's branding was about as on-the-nose as a signal could get. Just a poop shape. A brown, soft-serve-ice-cream-looking icon that practically smelled. Shitcoin. New and innovative blockchain whatever.
Why on earth did he want to buy this coin?
Uh... I don't know why, but I just want to buy it?
He'd felt this exact thing once before. The first day Jisu had walked into Bitstorm knowing absolutely nothing. A coin that had just... caught his eye. He couldn't explain why, but he'd wanted to buy it. Justice Coin.
The moment that thought clicked into place, Jisu invested his Stamina and Mental Power into Shitcoin as if possessed.
There was only one reason he put those two stats on it. They had nowhere left to fall. Stats couldn't go negative. Which made them worth gambling with.
Yeah. Limited downside, unlimited upside. Sometimes just going for it is the smart play.
◈ Stamina: 113
◈ Mental Power: 22
◈ Purchase Price: 0.00003 Equalium (flat)
I did it!
Back when Jisu was still in school, a kid full of dreams, not once had he imagined that growing up would mean becoming an adult who paid real money for a virtual lump of shit. And yet, here he was. That adult. So this was what he'd been working so hard for, all this time.
Jisu sank into a private, inexpressible regret.
The rest of his stats, he'd put into majors. After checking the charts, he bought the two coins with the smallest price swings.
◈ Strength: 2,150
◈ Purchase Price: 1,218,572 won (flat)
◈ Agility: 787
◈ Purchase Price: 238,800 won (flat)
"Alright. Time to head out!"
And so Jisu set out for battle, a freshly minted owner of digital dung. He cut a truly magnificent figure.