You Still Don't Believe Me?

It was another peaceful morning on the Internet Broadcasting Gallery — Inbang-gal, for short.

A place where people argued about their favorite streamers, and where the whole board would erupt the moment anything interesting happened. This being morning, the fire that had burned all night had gone out, leaving only a faint, lingering heat.

It had started with the Inbang-gal users who'd wandered into Kim Muwon's stream after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reading a post by CoinMaster. This wasn't just a guy who was good with a sword. He had drawn out Sword Qi — something that belonged squarely in the realm of fiction.

A few people figured he'd slapped computer graphics onto a pre-recorded video, or used AI to fake a convincing blade of energy. But after watching Kim Muwon banter with chat in real time, so naturally it was almost boring, those suspicions evaporated on the spot.

And yet the stream was full of things that didn't add up — not just one or two. After a gallery user posted that the sliced boulder had to be a prop, the board's mood swung hard toward the whole broadcast being staged.

The reason was simple enough. Modern society was a world of reason and rationality. Every old tale and legend had been demoted to superstition, and everything from sorcery and magic to assorted superpowers had long since become a punchline — just another kind of con.

Inbang-gal had already settled on thinking of Kim Muwon as a gifted showman, nothing more. Sword Qi and martial arts could not exist in the real world — and even if they did, anyone who revealed them would vanish without a trace.

He'd given a dull morning something different to look at, and that was that. As far as the gallery was concerned, he was just a promising new streamer with room to grow.

Before long, the mood flipped completely. He manipulated boulders with a wave of his hand as if he were using telekinesis — and then smashed two of them together, proving that the rock he'd cut was no prop at all.

The Sword Qi had to be some kind of production trick. The sliced boulder had to be a prop he'd brought and set up in advance. The moment the gallery settled on those conclusions, Kim Muwon smashed them to pieces as if he were laughing in their faces, and tossed out a fresh topic for them to argue over.

And the parade of wonders didn't stop there. Kim Muwon kept throwing out one astonishing feat after another, shaking Inbang-gal without mercy.

Had the Sword Qi been real? If the boulder wasn't a prop, then what had he used to cut it? How had he pulled off Object Control? How was a human being leaping to the top of a tree in a single bound?

Then he announced he was starting the main content and tore up the mountain at a blistering pace, and a small army of Inbang-gal users hammered at their keyboards, pouring out frustration and awe in equal measure.

Using the platform's mission system, Kim Muwon had declared he would take any question at all — in auction format. Inbang-gal caught fire at that swaggering ambition. Even allowing for the possibility that they wouldn't get honest answers, they agreed to just ask what they wanted to know.

It didn't matter whether you used Inbang-gal or not. People were people. Anyone watching the stream right now was probably wondering about the same things.

About thirty minutes after the question auction opened, the streamer himself spoke up.

Kim Muwon called an end to the bidding and pulled the ten questions that had drawn the most money.

With that tidy send-off, hundreds of questions — from eleventh place on down to who knew how far — failed one after another and vanished from the list.

The highest bid had climbed as high as ten million won. Even tenth place was sitting at a few million. The host himself couldn't help being impressed. Most of that money had come from CoinMaster — the same viewer who'd first found the stream — living up to the username and throwing cash around like confetti. Still.

The audience barely had time to finish gawking at those insane amounts before Kim Muwon kept going.

The camera, which had gone dark, came back up on Kim Muwon and the mountain summit. And the moment the auction closed, he announced he would start answering the ten selected questions immediately. The chat, which had been screaming upward at a blistering pace, froze. Everyone watching leaned in to hear what he would say next.

And then, at last, the answers they'd been waiting for began.

The aggro had landed. No — it had landed too well. Watching the viewer count already climb past a thousand, I answered the first question like it was nothing.

"First question. How long did you spend preparing the effects you showed on stream today?"

A laugh slipped out the moment I finished reading it. Chat bloomed with question marks to match, but once you understood what the question was really asking, you couldn't help laughing.

How long did I spend preparing the effects? The intent was painfully obvious. They were calling everything I'd shown them a production, right to my face. I let the corner of my mouth curl up and casually lifted my leg.

And then — BOOM.

"That was an Earth-shattering Step. Does that answer your question?"

Seeing was better than hearing it a hundred times. I let the Earth-shattering Step answer for me, the boom rolling out across the summit, and chat caught fire. I tipped the camera down to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠show the ground split open in a spiderweb of cracks, and the viewers only got louder.

"The second question follows from the first. What magic tricks did I use to pull off Sword Qi and Object Control."

I lifted a hand, easy and unhurried. The stones scattered around me — big ones, small ones — gathered themselves up and drifted in front of my chest.

"Does this look like a magic trick to you?"

I wrapped my hand in Hand Qi, closed my fingers around a hefty chunk of rock, and crushed it. Then I took the shattered pieces, along with the stones I'd pulled in from the surroundings, and worked them with Object Control.

Hundreds of pebbles rose into the air, knocking and packing against one another, until they formed the simple outline of a person — lines and circles, nothing fancy. The finished stone doll jumped. It walked. It even danced a little. Then it burst apart in every direction. There was no way to write that off as a trick, and another donation slammed in.

From the chat, the mood of the stream was already settled. The fact that I could use martial arts was, for all practical purposes, confirmed. What people actually wanted to know now was how I could use it — and, more than that, how martial arts could exist in the real world at all.

"Alright, alright. Next answer."

Whether they were ready or not, I worked through the ten selected questions one by one. Someone asked me to cut something with Sword Qi, so I casually sliced whatever happened to be nearby. Someone asked me to prove my lightness skill with a specific movement, so I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did exactly what they'd asked.

Naturally, the longer the Q&A went on, the more the chat's mood flipped — from there's no way martial arts exist in reality to how does martial arts exist in reality?

"That's it. All ten questions answered."

There was no more need to prove that martial arts were real. The conversation was already turning toward where I'd learned it, and how anyone else could learn it too.

"I'm seeing a lot of questions now that you finally believe in my martial arts. Unfortunately, the only questions I took were the ten I just finished."

Maybe they caught the laugh in my voice and sensed trouble coming. I glanced over the chat messages pouring in, frantic and overlapping, then turned to the camera, offered a proper fist-and-palm salute, and delivered my closing line.

"This was our first meeting, but I had a great time. Let's see each other again next stream."

I left the screaming chat behind as the screen went black. A single merciless line appeared in the center of the display.

In a single instant, a viewer count that had climbed all the way to thirteen hundred was promoted to the rank of internet ghost.