What Exactly Was It?
It was a Saturday afternoon.
The ABCD fandom community was in an uproar.
Under normal circumstances, the conversation should have been something useful, like whether a giraffe could beat a lion, whether Aki-chan's pronunciation was part of her concept, or the production year of Clara's favorite anime. But...
Right now, the only topic was a certain PC cafe.
-I took the morning train from Gyeonggi and rushed all the way to Seoul, and the line in front of DoDaNet PC Cafe is insanely long, lol. I’m screwed, lol. I can’t live in Seoul unless I’m at least a little jealous of it.
-There’s a story that people from Gyeonggi spend fifty percent of their lives on the subway....
└Three hours?? I’m in the 400s too.
└Then go wait at the cafe.
└What cafe?
└There’s a huge cafe on top of the PC cafe building. They’ve rented that out too and are using it as a waiting area.
└Oh, damn, Bigman! I’m coming right now.
-Why the hell is this cafe so crowded? Isn’t everyone just sitting around? I can’t find a seat, so I’m just standing here and my legs hurt, damn it.
-? I’m at the cafe too.
-Oh...! Are you two dating? Whoa.
-Have sex, have sex.
-“That was the day we first met.”
-Stop making that stupid joke, damn it.
-I have no idea what you're talking about; there are tons of empty seats in the cafe. Why not just sit with someone? I’m sitting with a stranger right now.
└That’s not easy....
└No, lol.
└At this point, just sit with another nerd.
└For real lol.
-Damn, it was worth waiting three hours. There are tons of goods inside, and they’re blasting the broadcast super loud, lol. I chatted with Clara noona in front of the interaction camera, and the time just flew by. This is insane, it’s so much fun.
-Why’s this guy so angry since earlier?
-Have sex, have sex.
-No, he’s not angry. He just seems like he’s hard as hell....
-(awkward silence)
-But for real, it’s fun even though it’s nothing much.
After Friday’s broadcast went out, the PC cafe kept welcoming ABCD fans.
They couldn’t take part in the event proper, and only enjoyed a quick look around and the interactions before leaving. Even so, they cheered at the fact that there was a space meant just for fans.
And.
More and more people began to feel indebted to the fact that a place like this had been opened so absurdly easily.
-Putting aside the shock that a place like this appeared in just a week.... What I like is that, even though they’re still early in their activity and the fans haven’t spent a single won yet, you can tell they’re already trying to do all sorts of things for us.... Honestly, even if it wasn’t a VTuber, there are not many places that treat people like this....
-For real lol.
-We got the All-Star Box for free, and then got the event for free too, so I kind of feel bad lol.
-Ah, such a flex....
-But the funny thing is, ABCD has already been active for over a year lol.
-Uh, huh... why are my eyes tearing up...?
-I get what you mean lol. I somehow wasn’t able to get the hype out of my system, so on the way home I ended up buying the soundtrack and the All-Star Box lol.
└For real, I just bought the soundtrack, the All-Star Box, and membership without thinking.
└Still cheaper than one truck of gacha, right?
└Cheaper... way cheaper....
└Seriously the worst value-for-money group in history lol.
Even as customers, they felt sorry.
Is it really okay for us, who haven’t even spent money, to get treated like this?
Faced with that fundamental question, everyone could only feel a little guilty.
That was how satisfying the experience had been.
The scale differed from person to person.
But ABCD’s fandom had the idea of “we need to give something back” carved into their heads. And that carving showed up in action almost immediately.
A fandom bound by emotion.
The “loyal fans” that kept an IP alive had been born.
Not merely customers who had received good service, but people who, as members of this worldview, willingly wanted to belong while paying on their own initiative.
And naturally, they worshipped the god shining brilliantly above them.
-Bigman is the real reason.
-For real, life’s gotten fun lately.
-For real lol.
-That state-backed-capital kind of power....
-Has anyone ever just deliberately spent money so we could have fun like this?
-Which chaebol would even do that?
-None, damn it lol.
It wasn’t just capitalist admiration.
It was sincere worship of the god who had created this world.
-Bigman....
-B-M.
-Bigman.
-Bigman—
...
...
...
They had gone beyond meme-like insanity.
They had arrived at true worship.
Loyalty toward a god, and a fandom bound by emotion toward a singular, unmatched world.
It was a grotesque structure that no other IP had managed to build.
And there was someone who was aware of that structure.
*
If you asked for the biggest cultural content company in South Korea, there was one place everyone would think of.
-Ah, that place....
-Their logo always shows up at the start of movies.
-They make dramas too.
-They’ve got an idol agency too.
Arc Network
It was the conglomerate that always led the pack, whether in film, music, or dramas.
This culture-content giant, commonly shortened to Arc, ran a wide range of entertainment businesses. Its reach extended across idols, film production, OTT, streaming, and games.
In that way, Arc’s movements pointed in many directions.
It brought in what would be needed in the future, analyzed it, prepared for it, and made it its own.
The one steering that prow was the Investment Strategy Team under the business division.
And...
One of the new investment businesses chosen by Investment Strategy Team 2 was VTubers.
In the middle of Seoul.
It was Saturday afternoon, but the lights in Arc Network’s headquarters never went out. In the office overlooking Seoul, countless employees moved back and forth.
-Resubmit the proposal by nine tonight. Don’t write whatever you want.
-Yes, understood.
Tap, tap, tap—
Among them was a particularly separate office.
Jeong Yu-ri, the young team leader of Investment Strategy Team 2, was tapping away at her laptop.
“....”
What Jeong Yu-ri was writing was a risk-analysis report on the threatening IP expansion moves of a certain VTuber group. It was a direct threat analysis for the group she managed.
[The impact of ABCD reentering the market is....]
[When translated into concrete figures, this becomes....]
[What matters more than scale is the independent ecosystem....]
“....”
Tap, tap, tap—
We don’t need to change the operation of Romantic Drive, which received investment from this side. But if the impact grows to the point that it interferes with its role as a test bed for future business, then it’ll be irreversible....
Jeong Yu-ri had been involved in VTuber investment.
VTubers.
In truth, even among executives, there were plenty who questioned the field itself.
-VTubers?
-Isn’t that too niche a market?
-Subculture businesses have terrible ROI compared to the risk.
-Except for Japan, I thought this was a business the major conglomerates had mostly left alone....
-Wouldn’t it be better to focus on our core fields—
But that was exactly why it was worth testing.
To try it before others swallowed it up.
As each platform business slowly became a red ocean for the big corporations, the only business not yet conquered by them was Korea’s subculture market.
That’s why we prepared the Romantic Drive project for four years.
The planning had succeeded.
As a successful test bed, Romantic Drive had seized the initiative in the subculture market.
And then....
All of a sudden.
Bigman appeared.
And the market was thrown into upheaval.
“....”
Jeong Yu-ri had a headache.
Watching the things that mad capitalist monster did, with efficiency tossed straight into the trash, made her wonder whether the right move was to throw away her corporate ID and start scratching lottery tickets instead.
Tap, tap—
“....”
Jeong Yu-ri’s hands stopped.
I must be tired. I’m starting to think strange things.
She leaned back in her chair for a moment and rubbed at the corner of her eyes.
In the quiet office,
a low sigh echoed through the room.
“Huu....”
Bigman.
Bigman....
“....”
There was no way to predict that bastard’s moves.
Money?
She couldn’t know the exact details of his corporate settlement, but somehow he kept finding it from somewhere and covering everything at a clip. There was no movement to bring in investors, and no sign of sponsorship either.
Profit?
He didn’t care about that kind of thing. He was obsessed only with emotional attachment and consumption.
The market?
ABCD had established its own distribution network and kept charging ahead in a way that was hard for a company to check. Small in scale, yes, but undeniably in control of an independent distribution system.
In a word—
A monster charging ahead on emotion as fuel....
That was how Jeong Yu-ri defined the Bigman phenomenon.
“....”
And then she thought.
What if.
What if she could join hands with this monster as an investor?
What if she could keep the market upheaval and that uncontrollable variable under control?
“...Then things would get easier.”
As she muttered that to herself,
she looked back at the laptop screen.
There, the movements of a group called ABCD had been organized.
One year of stagnation
Bigman's appearance and 1 billion won
Showcase debut and 3D
Big Plan A Company
“....”
Jeong Yu-ri calmly
began analyzing the structure of these incidents again.
Tap, tap, tap—
Before attacking,
you analyze the enemy.
I still don’t know whether they’ll become an enemy or be brought over as an ally.
That kind of gray relationship was familiar in this line of work.
*
“Team Leader.”
“Yes?”
“What’s all that?”
“Unsold food items.”
“Huh....”
Sunday evening.
Somehow, A-young still wasn’t taking a break from her part-time job.
She had come to the convenience store at the usual evening time. And she had caught me in the middle of moving items onto a truck.
Endless stacks of snack boxes.
A-young looked at them and tilted her head.
“All of that is being discarded?”
“No. These are things I bought out of pocket before they were discarded.”
“Huh? Why?”
“If they’re thrown away, I can’t donate them.”
“?”
She tilted her head the other way.
“Donate them...?”
“Yes. I buy them with my own money before the expiration date and give them to temples and churches.”
“Huh.... Why?”
“I thought it’d be better for someone who wants to eat them to have them before they get thrown out. Want to come along?”
“Huh? To where?”
Thud—!
I tossed another box and said,
“The donation site.”
“!”