Even Soup Stock Turns Into Bone Broth When You Have 1 Billion Won
Stars shimmered and drifted over the heaving night sea.
I looked up at the sky, taking in the sharp, acrid smell of gunpowder.
Bang—!
Fireworks of every color burst and glittered like stars scattered across the night.
It was a beautiful display.
Perfect for decorating the deck of a luxury cruise ship.
Perfect for bringing a lavish party to its finale, too….
Bang—!
I tilted my wineglass back as I listened to the cheers. It was the sort of bottle that cost hundreds of millions of won.
Gulp…!
“….”
The sour taste of the wine sat heavy and stale on my tongue. I didn’t understand why people drank this stuff and called it good.
In the end, I spat it out before I could swallow it all.
“Ptooey.”
So I set the glass aside.
“Haaah….”
Maybe because, by time, I had been an ordinary unemployed man until just a few months ago? Even surrounded by the rich, I still felt empty and alone. Fancy wine didn’t suit me, either.
“….“
I looked down at my phone.
Transaction history, asset graphs, stock charts.
Countless numbers representing my wealth were climbing steeply upward. It was hard to believe those figures had been earned in barely three months.
So the final amount is… roughly 100 billion won, I guess.
In about ninety days,
I had made 100 billion won.
A miracle born from magical short-term trades, economic events, and deals close enough to prophecy.
Over those past ninety days,
I had been no different from a god.
“….“
But I no longer clung to that wealth. Instead, I checked the most important number at the top of the phone.
Time.
[July 31, 11:56:46 PM]
[July 31, 11:56:47 PM]
[July 31, 11:56:48 PM]
…
…
…
July was ending.
“…huh.”
I tossed the phone into the pool beside me.
Splash!
Since the only people around were drunk, nobody really cared. With a small burst of foam, the phone screen full of numbers sputtered and went dark.
Then someone came to stand beside me. He was the captain of the ultra-luxury cruise operated by a foreign company. Holding a champagne flute, he spoke in English.
“It seems the wine wasn’t to your taste, Mr. Seon?”
“….“
“How about this premium champagne I brought instead?”
“….“
The captain poured champagne into the two glasses he had brought. Even after I’d clearly ignored him, he was still trying desperately. He held out a flute with a rim of foam trembling at the top.
“….“
In the end, I took it.
He grinned and raised his own glass.
We clinked them in silence.
Clink!
“Haha, you’re a taciturn one, aren’t you?”
“I just don’t bother with unnecessary conversation.”
“As expected of someone who wrote a legend in just three months. You must have quite the presence. Might we have a chance to discuss some promising investment opportunities?”
The captain’s flattery was blatant. He must have dug up information about the guest who had purchased the most expensive ticket on this luxury cruise.
“….“
That guest was me.
…Is he asking me to leak some investment tips or something?
Oh, then he’d come to the wrong place.
I didn’t know anything beyond August.
Once these miraculous three months ended,
I’d just go back to being an ordinary unemployed man again.
It’s about time midnight rolls around, so maybe I should give him a mercy dive show as an apology.
I pushed myself to my feet.
“The champagne is excellent.”
“Is it really? I’m glad. It was quite difficult to get.”
“Thank you. In return, I should probably show you something.”
“Oh!”
The captain’s face lit up.
He seemed to think the golden information in my head was about to come pouring out. But that hope was betrayed almost immediately.
Because I started running across the wide deck. The cheers of the crowd and the fireworks drifted past my ears like something far away.
Thud, thud, thud!
Below the deck, the dark night sea slowly came into view. The Pacific swelled and rolled beneath us.
I didn’t stop.
Thud, thud, thud!
From behind me, the captain shouted, “M-Mr. Seon?! Just what are you—?!”
People’s eyes widened all at once.
“Wait, what is he doing—?!”
“Oh my God—?!”
I jumped from the deck of the ultra-luxury cruise ship.
Thud—!
Sea wind slammed into my chest.
The sound of the waves grew louder and fiercer.
The final flash of the fireworks brushed my eyes.
“Good bye—!”
The vast night sea was swallowing me whole, black as pitch.
Screams came drifting from far away.
-He jumped?!
-Damn it, it’s fifty meters up!
-Aaaah?!
-Call the rescue team, now—!
Good bye.
So this run, too….
…good bye.
I closed my eyes.
“….“
The sound of the waves drew nearer and nearer.
[July 31, 11:59:58 PM]
[July 31, 11:59:59 PM]
…
…
Tick.
“….“
But what touched my cheek wasn’t the cold of the night sea.
It was the soft, worn warmth of an old bed.
“….“
I opened my eyes.
The familiar stained ceiling of my one-room apartment came into view. It was the shabby little place I’d lived in ever since graduating college and becoming unemployed.
I picked up the phone I’d left by the bed and turned on the screen.
[May 1, 7:00:02 AM]
Saturday morning.
Morning sunlight was spilling into the aging apartment complex.
“….“
…I’m back again.
The loop had started once more.
At some point, I had become unable to escape July 31.
Once that time passed, everything reset automatically.
Ninety-two days starting from May 1….
I kept living the same stretch of time over and over.
And the first thing I did was always the same.
“I should go scratch some lottery tickets.”
*
Monday at noon.
I stopped by the bank headquarters and came back to boil some ramen. On the floor of the one-room apartment were the newly opened passbook and card under my name, Seonwoo Taek, tossed down carelessly.
Bubble, bubble.
Inside the orange broth, the noodles were cooking to perfection.
The ramen you eat after claiming lottery winnings… a routine that never changes, even in repeated runs.
Composure mattered.
Up until about my fifth run, I had shouted my lungs out the moment I confirmed a lottery win. But after being spotted by strange people a few times during the loop, I’d learned to rein it in.
By now, I was truly numb to it.
“….“
While I waited for the noodles to finish cooking,
I opened the portal app on my phone.
The online newspapers were buzzing with the lottery winner story.
Still, I found myself wondering what I could do with the money.
“Hmm….”
The game of multiplying wealth by any means available had already been pushed almost to its maximum with legal methods in the previous run. Of course, if I pulled out the illegal methods I knew from later loops, I could make even more….
But there’s no real need to make money that way.
I’d already done almost everything money could do.
Buying and selling people directly,
touching dangerous drugs,
and all the other things that felt wrong… I’d left those out.
Traveling abroad, buying a house, living in hotels, eating my way through the world, impulse shopping….
I’d done it all.
And the loop still hadn’t ended.
“….“
I turned off the gas.
Then I started eating.
“Slurp….”
The ramen was delicious this run, too. As expected, it had the rich, perfect taste of a complete food made by geniuses who were practically insulting the gods.
The wine worth hundreds of millions of won had bored me,
but for some reason, starting ramen always sat just right on my tongue.
“Mm, tasty.”
This flavor never got old, no matter how many dozens of times I ate it!
*
I patted my stomach and turned on the computer.
I didn’t have belly fat,
but I didn’t have abs, either. My stomach was just plain and unremarkable.
There was a run where I trained like crazy and ended up with a pretty solid body. I really felt like I’d been possessed back then….
Did I spend close to 300 million won on that one?
It was the run where I’d hired top trainers, nutritionists, and even medical consultants in Korea on short-term contracts and dedicated myself to exercise. Watching me train in silence, people had even started rumors that I was “a chaebol heir seeking revenge for his family.”
I used to pick a theme for each run and play around with it that way. It was my way of not going insane during an endless repeating loop.
And the theme I’d chosen for this run was….
“….“
Click!
…was donating to small-time streamers.
“It may look foolish, but there’s nothing better than this for watching reactions. I’m sick of charts and numbers by now, so I want to see people’s emotions a little, too.”
If I really wanted to spend money somehow,
and I wanted to watch human emotion ripple violently across the screen….
No theme was stronger than stream donations.
I’ve been doing it off and on ever since I learned about streaming platforms with unlimited donation amounts. Reactions vary wildly from person to person, so it’s pretty fun, in its own way.
It had a cheap, scrappy charm you could never get from a major platform with strict donation limits. Thanks to that, even during lifeless runs, it would sometimes give me a little spark of energy.
The method was simple.
Comedy, idle chat, game streams, pretty-girl cams, exercise streams—didn’t matter. I’d quietly slip into a room with around ten viewers, ask nothing, and throw money at them.
About 100 million won, more or less.
Then the souls of those tiny broadcasters would go wild.
The reactions were all over the place.
Some people would freeze as their mental state collapsed.
Some people would still try to act calm, even while visibly rattled.
It didn’t mean anything deep.
“….“
There was a problem.
I scrolled the mouse wheel again.
Rrrrsh.
It was all faces I’d already seen.
Not in this run, of course.
“Hmm.”
Looks like I’d showered too many donations around in the previous run.
There’s almost nobody left worth seeing a reaction from….
Then, at that moment,
I saw an unfamiliar face.
More accurately,
it wasn’t a face at all but a “pretty-girl illustration.”
It was a VTuber.
“!”
“A small-time VTuber….”
Once in a while I’d see Japanese VTuber clips surface through the algorithm, but this was the first time I’d learned someone was active on a domestic platform like this.
“Hmm.”
Truthfully, I knew plenty about VTubers.
There had even been a run where I was deeply immersed in otaku culture. But I’d given it up after the loop’s time limit drove me half crazy waiting for manga and anime that wouldn’t be released until after the regression period.
Back then, if I opened the streaming app on my phone, the algorithm would vomit up nothing but VTuber-related content.
…It’s been a while. I’d almost forgotten about this.
A nostalgic feeling washed over me.
Even now, on the preview screen, a blonde pretty girl was moving her mouth in a stream of chatter. Almost as if under a spell, I entered her room.
Click!
And almost immediately, a bright but slightly slurred female voice greeted me. The yellow side-twin-tail pretty-girl board—Aki-chan—welcomed me in.
“So then… ah! BigMan! BigMan-nim, welcome, wel-come!”
The live chat had basically frozen in place. The ten or so viewers left were barely speaking. The only people really chatting were about five.
I let out a dry laugh.
She’s the real deal when it comes to small-time status. But wow, that pronunciation is really off. Kinda cute, though.
To hear that unusual way of speaking, I held off on throwing down 100 million won for now.
“….“
I folded my arms and listened closely to Aki-chan’s broadcast.
“So, like, ah. Right, so. Suddenly they handed me pigeons for cigarette money. They were, um, like, crackl… alive? Flap-flap!”
All Aki-chan talked about the entire time was her convenience-store part-time job and the other members of the group. She was supposed to be an idol-style VTuber, but there was no talk at all of music or lessons.
“Clara unnie bought chicken, and then Doda and Aki were trying to eat the same drumstick…. But then, since Aki’s been doing dance practice, she’s way stronger….”
My remaining otaku instinct analyzed the situation.
“….“
The group name was ABCD.
Most likely, Aki-chan and the other members were corporate VTubers. And it looked like they’d been contracted through a creator promotion deal on the new streaming platform, Live Future.
So maybe the platform offers settlement bonuses or regular contract money during its launch period… but long term, it’d still be better to work on a major platform.
I had no idea who the agency head was, but his instincts were terrible.
He’d chosen isolation, blinded by the small profits right in front of him.
And sure enough, he was on the verge of crashing and burning.
They’d aimed to create a virtual idol that could survive even in the VTuber red ocean, but from the look of the chat, the project seemed on the verge of being shut down for financial reasons.
Now that I keep hearing the pronunciation, she sounds like someone from overseas.
Probably working part-time at a convenience store just to stay afloat.
“Hmm.”
Okay.
Situation understood.
Aki-chan’s circumstances were interesting enough.
No matter how sick I got of everything else, human emotion was always intense.
I decided to donate.
This is my first time donating to a VTuber, but what kind of reaction would I get if I gave her 100 million won?
No, wait….
I’d already seen plenty of 100-million-won reactions.
She’s a corporate VTuber, so what if I give her around 1 billion won? If someone who had achieved nothing for a whole year suddenly got that kind of money….
I wanted to see what happened when unconditional money went to someone who desperately needed it.
My curiosity started to itch.
So I grabbed my card and made it happen.
I hammered the zeros in the donation amount box without mercy.
“One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand….”
One billion won.
Click!
Donation of 1 billion won complete.
For a tiny platform like this, the virtue of restraint meant nothing.
A sharp grin spread across my face.
Security and the tax office are going to call me like crazy later.
Then I pressed the button.
A green donation window popped up above Aki-chan’s head.
Ding!
[BigMan] donated 1,000,000,000 won!
“Ah, BigMan-nim! Thank you so much for the donation… h-hm… hm-nida?”
Aki-chan froze.
“….“
Her eyes were shaking uncontrollably.
“Eh? O-ne, two, three, fou… ten…? Huh? No way…! Eh? For real? Eeeh?”
And then I heard frantic clicking through the microphone.
Click
Click
Click….
“E-eh? Eeeeeh—?!”
Aki-chan spoke in a stunned voice, the tremor in it turning wet and breathless.
“A one-billion-won donation… th-thank you….”
Question marks began appearing in the chat window one by one.
I laughed as I watched it unfold.
I burned 1 billion won just for this reaction.
Now I was satisfied enough.
“Heh….”
And with the account named BigMan, I typed one last message before leaving the room. I had no desire to stay and act like a king ordering people around.
I closed the internet window in satisfaction.
“Phew. That’s a relief.”
*
And that day,
all of South Korea’s communities burned.
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