The Return of Big Man - 1

It was a peaceful Monday.

Office workers and students, still heavy with the sweetness of the weekend, dragged their bodies toward the world of light. And in the world hidden in shadow, the darker world beyond it, things had begun to move as well.

A realm that could not even be compared to the world of light.

It was a discussion of truth shared among sages.

An old sage once said:

Between all birth and death lies condom. Human beings are creatures who keep fucking until the end. That was the ABCDEF of life.

It was the truth that pierced through the beginning and end of life.

The school of truth was opening in the darkness beyond the world's light. Like sages of ages past, they had turned their backs on the hollow secular world and pursued truth.

But.

The sages' discussion was interrupted by one citizen.

The sages clicked their tongues.

"Tsk. We were in the middle ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of discussing life and reproduction."

"And where do these VTuber riffraff think they're barging in from?"

"What nonsense. Hoho."

"Someone with an armband should come and cut that bastard down."

They were lofty.

So they did not trouble themselves to clean up the filth with their own hands. They only knocked on the summons book and left it to the servants wearing armbands. Then they tried to return to their discussion.

But they could not.

Breaking news kept coming.

The sages sensed that something was off.

Rustle, rustle

"?"

"?"

"?"

"?"

And then they said:

"What is going on...?"

They stirred uneasily.

Even idle shut-ins who spent Monday lunchtime buried in communities were surprisingly strict about the rules they had set for themselves. Things like always posting a warning before uploading a crap pic through a throwaway account.

But the atmosphere was clearly overheated.

For it to be mere fun, the brain-rotting had gone too far. As such, this situation was as serious a crisis as the dark age when arrow play and reflection play had been all the rage.

To shed light on the confusion of the ignorant masses.

The sages set out.

'Something unmistakably unusual is happening....'

Toward the sites the masses were talking about.

Fork

Pazijik

Paprika

HiTube

Live Future

And so on....

At places commonly called streaming platforms, they clicked into the VTuber category, which they usually reacted to with visible disgust and a shower of downvotes just from seeing it. They had put aside their pride before curiosity.

And they beheld something astonishing.

"Th, this is...!"

It was divine punishment.

The punishment known as "money-beating."

The god who delivered that punishment had a simple name.

"B, BigMan...?"

Even on the third-rate platform no one cared about, Live Future, there were people broadcasting.

She was a VTuber.

"Ahaha! This is really hard."

"Yes, it's really hard."

"Ah... really? I see...."

The cute girl with red hair tied in ribbons smiled awkwardly.

She had been streaming a puzzle game from the start. It was a game where you linked and broke blocks of the same color by proximity. Despite the casual-looking graphics, it was fairly difficult.

So once she started focusing, it got quiet.

"...."

On the screen, only a dazed-faced girl and puzzle pieces splitting apart little by little were visible. Once the game began, the chat window fell silent, devoid of any reaction. The occasional reply only came during idle banter.

And without a word,

only the clicking of a mouse could be heard.

Click

Click

"...."

Boop

Boop

"...."

Click

Click

"...."

Boop

Boop

"...."

No provocative interaction.

No refreshing dopamine shower.

Not even any sound....

It was, quite literally, another world.

"...."

Fantastical High School Girl was alone.

On an internet broadcast where back-and-forth banter mattered, she was playing a niche game no one recognized, while even the distance to the only viewer who was talking kept confusing her....

She was alone.

Quietly in a frozen space.

Forever.

Endlessly.

"...."

Click

Click

Then someone entered the room.

The viewer count was only in the teens, so the number showed up right away.

Especially because the nickname was unusual: BigMan.

"!"

Astraesia felt a little relieved.

"BigMan-nim! Welcome! Thank you for coming."

"?"

And then.

He replied.

"Ah, thank you for the donati... yo, you...?"

one

ten

hundred

thousand

ten thousand

one hundred thousand

one million

one million won.

"...."

The moment she saw the amount with empty eyes.

Astraesia swallowed hard. Then she suddenly got to her feet and bowed. Thanks to that, the facial rigging came loose, making the girl on the screen droop pathetically. It was very much a small-streamer move.

"A, a million won? R, really?! W-wha...?! Uh, that is... ah! BigMan-nim! Thank you so much! Thank you very much! I'll really work hard! Thank you for your support!"

The frozen chat window began to stir.

Everyone reacted to the sudden anomaly.

...

...

...

The chat gradually devolved into lower and lower forms of imagination.

"?!"

Astraesia jerked when she saw it.

Fear surged up inside her. No matter how you dressed it up as a donation, unless you were some truly unhinged madman, there was no way to regain your composure in front of a million won.

She agonized over it.

"...."

What do I do? Should I really do what he asked? B-but if he gave me a million won, shouldn't I at least give him the reaction he wants....

Resolve and anguish tangled together.

But he never asked for anything like that.

BigMan only quietly donated and vanished.

"?"

Astraesia tilted her head.

And the same thing happened all over the place.

A proper platform.

A personal VTuber streaming on a small scale.

"A baby cactus born from the energy of the hidden world tree in the desert! Rolpi, the spirit of flowers, will bring you all the beautiful aura of the oasis...."

"...Uwoaah?! T-thank you for the donation! BigMan-nim! Th-thank you for supporti...."

Rolpi froze.

"...."

At a glance she had thought it was one hundred thousand won.

But the length of the number was strange.

"Huh?"

one

ten

hundred

thousand

ten thousand

one hundred thousand

And...

"O, one million?"

She went rigid.

Unlike her reaction,

the chat was cheering.

"Th, that's not really the issue."

A planning-style group.

A corporate VTuber group backed by a large company.

"Uhtyata.... Seeing all the kids from Sun Class gathered here to play with Haerin from Monday afternoon means today's 'Uhtya' time is going to have to run a little longer, doesn't it?"

"Then, from here on, the Uhtya time...."

"?"

"...U, Uhtya."

"Uhtyatahtyatahtya! BigMan! A million! Thank you! Uhtyatahtyatahtya!"

Concept.

Scale.

Platform.

He did not care about any of it.

Whenever he saw a VTuber, he would suddenly go up and hand over money.

At those words, some cried, some went wild, and some did their best to preserve their concept.

But he would only leave without a word.

And yet.

People remembered.

...

...

...

In the end, the indiscriminate raid ended at midnight on Monday.

The total number of VTubers who benefited from it was 311.

BigMan.

Who was he?

Why was he spraying money so indiscriminately?

People could not know.

Only one thing.

One thing they could know....

He loved VTubers.

At least, that was how it looked.

But how long would this go on?

Wednesday, first week of May.

A cafe near Hangang Park.

A free public Wi-Fi signal connected.

I took out my phone.

"...."

For a while, I repeated the donations.

Then I moved around on a unicycle. It was to switch between public Wi-Fi networks. I also made sure to swap out the used phone for each donation account.

"...."

BigMan's donation accounts used virtual accounts created through overseas paper companies, and I mixed in accounts tied to virtual currency, so they shouldn't be traceable right away.

Thorough anonymity.

Irregular patterns.

Emotion-based logic.

I was making a financial ghost that wandered this world. Chasing this ghost would not be easy. No matter how powerful the conglomerates or the National Tax Service might be.

"...."

It isn't completely safe. But at least I can make it frustrating enough that they'll chase it, then decide it's pointless and give up in exhaustion.

Of course, this wasn't something I was doing for fun.

It was for what lay ahead.

I was rebranding BigMan.

There were three goals I wanted.

1. A structure thoroughly separated from Seonwoo Taek

2. Logic so emotional that opposing it would be pointless

3. Accessibility that only indirectly influenced "my fated connections"

That was it.

'Karma' and 'fate.'

The only pattern I could identify at the singularity in the changed cycle was one thing.

Namely....

"BigMan disappeared, and Seonwoo Taek remained."

The existence of BigMan.

It was only an internet persona, but the BigMan from the previous cycle had certainly overwhelmed Seonwoo Taek's presence. And yet, the moment he chose his "fated connections," he vanished from this world like dust.

Which meant....

In order for me to remain Seonwoo Taek, BigMan should become a disposable scarecrow that can vanish if need be. Even if he grows so large that he draws hostility from institutions and conglomerates, he'll disappear on behalf of the people....

That kind of ghost.

In other words.

A talisman doll.

And there was another reason for preparing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this talisman.

[Remaining Balance: 16.3 billion won]

My assets were growing faster than I had imagined.

"...."

Maybe I'll reach 20 billion by the end of this week.

The reason was simple.

I had acquired something called "credit."

Credit was an asset I had never obtained in previous cycles. Seonwoo Taek had always been nothing more than "an unemployed bum who got lucky in the early part of the cycle and hit the lottery."

But.

In this changed cycle, I had already become "an investor who made 8.7 billion won through investing." As the past had been rewritten, I now had transaction records and an investment portfolio as an investor.

Thanks to that, proving credit was easy, so I even set up accounts and corporations overseas.

The range of transactions changed.

Short-term trades were now only one option.

I could earn money in parallel structures by spreading 2 billion won around at a time.

Short-term skyrocketing stocks.

High-return leverage.

And even the securities firm's "special deals."

The fertilizer money needs to grow money.

I had gained credit.

Reaching 100 billion in this cycle would probably not be all that difficult. Even if I claimed to be an angel investor, I might, in some way, end up drawing the attention of the institutional side.

"...."

And that was why.

I needed a talisman doll called BigMan.

I took a business card from my pocket.

BigPlan Holdings Korea

Investment Director Seonwoo Taek

This was.

my new big plan.