Taegeuk's Tears
Taegeuk's guts were on fire.
They had been burning for months, ever since the business went under, but lately his heart had finally started to ease. A five-star mage had appeared. Kim Siwoo had debuted on stream and, not content with tossing around billions as if they were nothing, had burned through tens of billions more on items and special options in less than a week. Better still, he was a mage.
"At last! An owner!"
To Taegeuk, Ellen's Tears was nothing short of his last lifeline. He would never claw his way back to the life he'd had, but this was a chance to shake off every debt on his back, and maybe—just maybe—scrape together enough to open one small shop of his own. He couldn't help how he saw it. The bankruptcy had been a foregone conclusion the moment he fell into the game and started feeding it company money, and yet he clung to the belief that the only hole in his accounts was the temporary one he'd torn by overreaching to buy Ellen's Tears.
Either way, the plan had been running smoothly. Watching the man upgrade low-level gear all the way to five stars, Taegeuk felt no need to rush. Five-star accessories were impossible to get anyway, and aside from Ellen's Tears, there simply wasn't another level-1 five-star accessory in that class. No theme item even came close. So he stepped in boldly.
Twenty billion.
Everyone else had only a hazy guess at the price, but luck had been with him. The raid party had been unusually kind; he'd pleaded that he had no money and promised to take a smaller cut from then on, and they had let Ellen's Tears go for four billion. He meant to sell it for twenty. A profit of sixteen billion—pulled out as real cash, something like five. Enough to clear his debts, run a modest little trade, and live in comfort, all while still playing Haven.
He opened his mouth with that future already painted, and Kim Siwoo's face was far calmer than he had expected.
"Yeah?"
The air of a man about to buy it on the spot. Taegeuk had run a business, and the first rule of business was to take as much money as you could get.
"I'll be putting it up for auction."
He reached for the play at once. Looking back, he still congratulated himself; the improvisation had been so sharp it left even him amazed. Would anyone really spend more than twenty billion on Ellen's Tears? He doubted it. Still, you never knew. Offers had been coming in steadily, and if even a little competition caught—if the price climbed from twenty billion to twenty-five—he would be more than satisfied.
And then—
"Thank you, owner of Ellen's Tears!"
"...Fuck!"
Taegeuk spat the curse, and it still didn't cool him. Ellen's Tears was already registered at the auction house. If you wanted the sale to fall on the day you chose, the item had to be listed twenty-four hours ahead. Ordinarily the smart move was to leave himself room, run the auction, and promote it—but if he meant to satisfy Kim Siwoo's hunger to buy at once, it had to be tomorrow. He also had to give any rival bidders time to scrape their money together. Let it play out like this, though, and the whole thing turned to waste.
"No."
Competition required at least two people. Taegeuk had run a business, so he knew exactly how this worked. Once Kim Siwoo, the only buyer who actually mattered, declared he would not pay more than twelve billion, Ellen's Tears became a twelve-billion item.
"Fuck. Fuck. No. Please."
You never knew. Some blind sucker might see a five-star item go up and smash the buy button. But he knew better. No sucker like that was coming. Half a year ago, maybe. Not anymore. These days nobody was fool enough to sink that kind of money into a level-1 five-star accessory. Wasn't that why he had spent months wandering a market where only sellers kept showing up, praying a single mark would bite?
Plenty of people had said they wanted to buy, in truth. Most of them walked the moment the price cleared ten billion. Even the ones ready to pay on the spot had mostly named three.
"Fucking bastards. Trying to eat for free and flip it."
He was out here praying to hook a sucker of his own, and still he heaped every curse he had on the resale merchants.
"Ah... please... what do I do."
Selling at twelve billion would have been fine, honestly. Even twelve billion was the highest offer anyone had ever put in front of him. The problem was that twelve billion wasn't actually twelve billion. To sell the item to Kim Siwoo, he had to cancel the listing and bring Ellen's Tears back, and a cancellation did not return five percent of the minimum bid. This was no ordinary game auction house, where you slapped an item up and relisted it if nobody bit. Haven's auction house, like the exchange, was linked to every server in the world, and it always took its cut.
Five percent of twenty billion. He had already paid one billion. Cancel now, or let the auction fail and come back unsold—either way, that billion vanished.
"Aah."
If a bid actually landed at twenty billion, he could at least tell himself the billion, that five percent, was simply the auction fee. Regret came flooding in. If he had known, he would have set the opening bid lower, and then it would have sold at that price. Or he should have sold the moment he was told to just sell. Even so, some scrap of the businessman remained in him, and his final judgment came out cold. He went straight to the auction house and pulled Ellen's Tears back.
"The fee cannot be refunded. Are you certain?"
"Hurry. Give it. Hurry!"
He snatched up Ellen's Tears and immediately sent a donation to the stream, where Kim Siwoo was shaking hands after closing out a direct trade.
"Fuck... why is the minimum donation fifty thousand won."
Throwing a billion onto the dirt already ached in his bones, and a donation floor of 50,000 won set his teeth grinding. He choked it down anyway. It was the only way left to save himself.
"Ah. Want to come this way? I can't turn the stream off for you this time, but if that's all right, come on over."
"..."
He ran. Not far off, he found Kim Siwoo talking with Lim Sarang.
"Oh. Hello!"
The bright greeting twisted his face.
"What the hell is this supposed to be!"
"Yes?"
The shout had torn out of him before he knew it.
"What is?"
"On the stream you said you wouldn't buy it for more than twelve billion."
"Right. And even that feels like I priced it high, doesn't it? I asked around. That's what people said."
"You can't get this anywhere. The thing you just bought—you can't even use it until level forty. If you're going to spend fifty billion, you might as well spend twenty on mine..."
"Why would I?"
"..."
"You said you'd buy it!"
He yelled it without once noticing they were standing on a street full of people passing by.
"I did?"
"I listed it for auction because of you!"
"When did I say I'd buy it? I said I was buying. You're the one who told me you'd put it up for auction and that I should come bid, Taegeuk."
"That's—!"
He tried to push on, and the last thin thread of reason caught hold of him. The stream was live. At least a hundred thousand people were watching.
"Turn the stream off."
"Why would I?"
"Twelve billion. I'll sell it for twelve billion."
A few viewers had apparently already dug up who he was; messages packed with curses were arriving inside the game. Anything from someone not on his friends list could be ignored. The vicious spam flooding the community boards could not. For a man who still hungered after his good name, the shame was crushing. So he would sell. He had no choice.
If only the stream weren't on. If only the debt weren't there.
"Hmm."
"It's the price you named! Why!"
"Because I just spent fifty billion. Make it ten billion and I'll think about it."
"You lunatic. You think you get to throw your weight around just because you're live? Fine. Get lost! At ten billion I'll sell it to somebody else and be done with it!"
Reason gone, Taegeuk turned his back and walked. The reason he was this frantic was simple: he had hit his limit. Out in the real world, the debts he kept rolling over and the loans alike already had collectors knocking. The reason he clung to his pride until the very end was just as simple.
"I'll sell it for ten billion."
Better to hand it to a merchant than to a bastard like that for ten billion. A merchant had already reached out in secret yesterday. He would dump the thing fast and fold up this filthy game for good.
The merchant's answer was lukewarm.
"Five billion."
"What? You said you'd buy it for ten."
"Oh, come on. I watched the stream too. Kim Siwoo's buying at ten billion—what do I gain buying at ten? If I want anything left over, I buy at five. And all of this is going on the broadcast, so you'll need to shave it down for my image, won't you? You're hard up for cash, aren't you, pal? By tomorrow the interest gets worse. Just dump it and go."
"You son of a bitch!"
"Yeah, yeah."
The other merchants were no different. Every time he lowered his price, the number they named sank right along with it.
"Four and a half billion."
"Four billion. That's what you paid for it, mister."
"Fucking bastards..."
Tears welled in Taegeuk's eyes. If his heart had its way, he would bind Ellen's Tears to the account so no one could ever have it—the tears, the item, all of it—and delete the game. His hand wouldn't come away. How was he supposed to quit while the money was still sitting there?
In the end, Taegeuk had no choice but to decide.
"...I'll sell it for ten billion."
"Sorry. The viewers say you've got a lot of nerve, and they're telling me not to buy unless it's seven billion. The money doesn't matter to me, you know? I just don't want them pinning a sucker label on me. You know the word rich people hate most is sucker, right?"
"....Seven billion. Maybe just the exchange fee, if you could somehow..."
"......"
Kim Siwoo smiled at a man who, even at the very end, still couldn't get his head on straight.
"Ah. I'll cover that for you. Thanks for the direct trade."
Ellen's Tears, wet with a single drop of Taegeuk's own, passed into Kim Siwoo's hands for 7.7 billion.