The First Crash

He had always lived a diligent, honest life, and so he had never once tried to deceive anyone. But with this power, maybe he could pull it off somehow. If he made enough money that way, he could buy a proper ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠house. He could hire an expensive caregiver for his mother.

Yeah. I'll give it a shot. For Mom.

He steeled himself as best he could, and with that resolution, Jisu returned to his seat. Having stepped out of the raid field, he didn't feel like he possessed any overwhelming power — but according to what he'd just confirmed, he wasn't SS++. He was SSS-rank. Thinking that all that remained now was raking in a fortune, he carefully picked up his smartphone and logged into Bitstorm.

"Huh?"

Something on the main screen felt off. The Justice Coin he'd bought...

Aaaagh! What the hell!

Jisu was stunned by how fast Justice was falling. The numbers kept dropping — endlessly, relentlessly, plunging straight toward the floor. It had gotten this expensive in a single day, and now it was crashing this hard?

It wasn't that he hadn't anticipated this at all. The first coin he'd ever laid eyes on — Gazua Coin, or whatever it was called — had hit the daily limit and then plunged endlessly toward the bottom. But the difference between seeing it with your own eyes and living it firsthand was the difference between heaven and earth.

He went blank for a moment at how suddenly it had all happened, then snapped out of it and dumped every last coin he had.

Yes! Yes! Sell them already!

If he'd been someone who'd actually paid real money, he would've needed a buyer on the other end to dump, which would've had him shitting bricks even worse. But Jisu could throw every last coin at the market price of the exact instant he wanted to sell.

In that split second, it had dropped again. Jisu had barely managed to get all of his abilities back.

Wait, S++?

S++. If an ordinary hunter hopeful had received this rank, they would surely seize enough wealth and honor to raise their entire family. The media would go wild over the emergence of a genius hunter, and countless hunters below A-rank would fight under his command. But for Jisu — for someone who had already tasted SSS-rank — none of that registered in the slightest.

It dumped!

As Jisu, who'd just gotten his first real taste of how vicious crypto could be, let out a sigh, a voice called his name from the counter.

"Hyun Jisu? Your hunter license is ready."

"Ah, yes."

Pushing past the shock of the dump, he walked over to where they were calling him. The license came into view — his photograph, and a statement certifying him as a hunter. And the rank written beside it...

"SS-rank?"

At Jisu's words, the woman behind the counter spoke, looking flustered.

"Ah, well, the Director said... she understands that you're actually SS++-rank, and that you even came close to SSS-rank, but if we announced that when the exact mechanism hasn't been identified yet, it could cause a serious incident..."

The woman couldn't help but shrink into herself. Stamping an SS++-rank hunter as SS-rank was, in a way, dropping them two entire ranks — it could easily be taken as an insult. An SS++-rank hunter would receive extraordinary treatment and recruitment offers from any country in the world, and if that happened, it would be a massive loss for South Korea as a nation. Of course, they only thought that because they had no idea what was going on inside Jisu's head.

It went up a rank? Honestly, it's a good thing they didn't stamp SS++ on there.

He had reached SS++, that much was true — but the current Jisu was S++. Far better this than having SS++ plastered across every headline and causing a mess. From Heeyeon's perspective, this had been her way of reining in Jisu, that infuriating man who wouldn't listen and wouldn't explain his ability. But in the end, it was an ironic situation that actually worked in his favor.

"Ah, and also... the license has been issued, but hunters of S-rank and above require special management by the government, so you'll have to wait a while before we can call you in for hunter activities..."

"Ah..."

Either way, it didn't matter to Jisu. If anything, learning a little more about crypto was the priority right now. Today had taught him, viscerally, exactly what that ability of his was.

His thoughts a tangle, Jisu walked back the way he'd come with his license in hand, without so much as a goodbye. Once he was out of sight, the woman at the counter let out a deep sigh of relief.

Whew. I was so nervous I'd set him off. They always dump jobs like this on low-level staff like me...

For her, too, not having gotten on the bad side of an SS++-rank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hunter was a genuine relief, and the tension drained from her body. How could an ordinary civilian possibly enjoy getting on the wrong side of a man like that?

And so, each left with nothing but their own thoughts, Hyun Jisu's hunter exam came to an end.

"An airdrop, huh..."

After the exam, Jisu holed up in the corner of his room and researched Justice Coin. He probably should have researched it first before buying — it felt like he'd gotten the order completely backwards — but hey, the results had been good, so what did it matter? Anyway, he now understood why Justice had suddenly skyrocketed and then crashed just as hard.

By evening, Justice had coughed up nearly all of its miraculous 18x gain. Trading volume itself had dropped so much that the price wasn't falling in any noticeable way anymore. But with a massive crash line sitting right there on the chart, it was obvious nobody would want to buy this coin. On top of that, there was Justice Equilibrium — the de facto sequel — so it was obvious nobody would want to invest in a Blockchain 1.0-based Justice.

Of course, as far as Jisu was concerned, whether it was Blockchain 1.0 or next-generation 2.0, he honestly had no idea what any of that meant — but that's what it said, wasn't it? The outlook was that even after the airdropped Justice Equilibrium was deposited into users' wallets, its listing on the Korean won market would be delayed. Of course, that had nothing to do with Jisu, who invested stats rather than money.

On Coinler, the community known for having the largest concentration of cryptocurrency investors, all kinds of glowing testimonials were already pouring in.

Reading posts like those, it felt like the old legends of gold mines in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wild West. Buy it and it goes up. It has no choice but to go up. Anyway, the future was blockchain, and decentralized currency was incredible. It felt like how much cryptocurrency you held would soon become the measure of power itself.

But this world — especially the world of coins — was an even more cutthroat, dog-eat-dog capitalist world than reality. There was no way only people making money existed. No — more precisely, there was no way only people making money could exist. Someone making money meant someone else was losing it. In this world, that logic operated with ruthless precision.

Naturally, there were far more people who'd lost money than people who'd made it. Looking back, if you'd bought Justice at 28 won and sold when it climbed to nearly 400, it seemed like even a dog or a cat could have made money. But that was always ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the view from the future looking back at the past.

When 28 won became 100, then 200, and then — could it actually be happening? — broke through 300, it was only natural that nobody could bring themselves to make a move. Some people might think: whether you sell at 200 or 300, you're profiting either way, so why can't you sell? But the human heart isn't that simple.

What if it hits 400? 500? Hell, what if it hits 1,000? Cryptocurrency was the very essence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and if you had been lucky enough to get there first — delusion begot delusion, and before long, ordinary people were swallowed whole by it. In the end, they couldn't buy, and they couldn't sell. Time simply passed. And as that time of desire ticked away, someone made money, and someone else lost just as much.

The thought of just how merciless this market was sent a cold sweat down Jisu's back.

I did it without thinking at all...

One way or another, Jisu was a winner in this game. Sure, he'd once gone past SS++ all the way to SSS-rank, but even his current S++-rank was the result of stats nearly seven times his original values. The pump of a coin he'd bought in full without a second thought. The tremendous power he'd gained from it.

This ability is way more insane than I thought, isn't it?

Jisu barely managed to settle his excitement. Either way, his ability only took effect while invested in coins. When he wasn't invested, none of it applied, leaving him essentially no different from a civilian. This appeared to be the one and only shackle on the ability he possessed.

Well, if it applied even when I wasn't invested, it would feel like it'd completely shatter the balance of this world.

That also ruled out the cheap trick of selling the moment the price pumped during combat.

In that case, I need to find a foolproof strategy.

There probably was no such thing as a foolproof strategy, given that this was investing. But since it was investing and a hunter ability at the same time, he judged that there had to be a way through. There was still plenty of time. Jisu had only just obtained his hunter license.

It would be fine to say goodbye to the part-time gigs and work sites he'd been grinding at until now. Still, it would be better to wrap things up properly one last time.

"I should get some sleep first."

Far, far too much had happened in a single day. Jisu was beginning to dimly realize that his life was about to head in a direction entirely different from everything that had come before.