Episode 3
According to the System, relics were divided into six ranks in total.
1. National Treasure
2. Treasure
3. Masterpiece
4. Rare
5. Retro
6. Replica
And what I had managed to find was a Masterpiece.
Among everything I’d seen while combing through the antique markets from Sindang Station to Dongmyo, it was the highest-ranked item aside from the white porcelain I’d picked up, even higher than the ceramic with its neck half broken off.
And that one had only been a Rare item, at best.
So this white porcelain must be something pretty remarkable.
Still, I couldn’t say I was one hundred percent sure.
I didn’t feel like this ability itself was some kind of hallucination, but even so, nothing had been proven yet.
Once I get it appraised, I’ll be able to tell whether this power is trustworthy or not.
I could worry about going to a hospital after that.
For now, I should just get to work.
I got on the subway as usual.
Jam-packed again today.
I hadn’t expected to get a seat in the first place.
Even though I’d left a little earlier than my usual commute time, there was only just enough room to take out my phone.
At the scramble crossing in front of Guro Digital Complex Station, I pulled my earphones out as I waited for the X-shaped crosswalk light to turn green.
Just when I was staring hopelessly at the signal, waiting for that light to come on.
Honk-!
A horn blared, and a Mercedes came to a stop right in front of me.
Whirr- the window slid down.
“Hey, Kang Deputy!”
A familiar face shouted at me.
“...Park Seong-jun?”
It was my colleague Park Deputy.
“Morning. Want a ride?”
“We’re right in front of the office. What kind of ride are you talking about?”
Cross the street, and I’d be there in five minutes flat.
Honk honk-!
I heard impatient horns from behind.
“Move it already. People behind me are getting antsy.”
“Fine, go on in! We’ll catch up inside!”
He shouted cheerfully and drove off with a vroom, disappearing from view.
...Park Deputy got a Mercedes?
A C-Class 200.
I was genuinely shocked.
Until last month, he’d been going on about how Korean cars had the best ride quality and that if you considered after-service, you absolutely had to drive a Hyundai or Kia. Then out of nowhere, it was a Mercedes.
What shocked me even more than his taste was this.
That can’t have been cheap on our salaries.
We were talking low to mid three millions a month at best.
After rent, subscriptions, and a few savings accounts, there wasn’t much left for living expenses. How had he pulled this off?
Had he won the lottery or something?
Personally, it wasn’t even that I was jealous.
I’m worried about him...
He was the sort of guy who lived by his moods, sure, but he was also my closest colleague, and I didn’t want to see him go under.
I quickened my pace and reached the company building.
Park Deputy had already parked and made it into the office.
“Oh, you’re here already?”
He greeted me with a grin.
“It was right in front of me. Anyway, what’s with the new car?”
At that, as if on reflex, Choi Manager’s eyes flashed and he hurried over.
“Park Deputy, you changed cars?”
“Yes. This is my first time driving it in today.”
“Oh, what kind is it?”
Like some undercover inspector pulling out a royal warrant, Park Deputy produced the car key.
“It’s a Mercedes.”
“A Mercedes?!”
At that, a few of the female employees shot glances this way too.
In a small company like ours, a Mercedes had that kind of impact.
“Seo-jun, isn’t it about time you changed cars too?”
Park Deputy asked me casually.
“You’ve been saying yours has been having a lot of little issues lately.”
“That’s true. But I don’t drive it all that much.”
Living in Seoul, the subway was much faster and more convenient for commuting.
The car mostly came into use for dates or trips out of the city on weekends.
But lately I hadn’t even been dating, so it just sat in the parking lot and gathered dust.
Listening to us, Choi Manager finally couldn’t keep himself out of it and cut into the conversation.
“But how did you afford to change cars, Park Deputy? It’s not even bonus season this month. Isn’t a Mercedes a little too much of a stretch?”
“Ah, well, the truth is... it’s a secret, but.”
“Come on, tell us.”
“You know that airline stock Yoo Manager mentioned at the company dinner?”
I remembered.
After drinking, he’d gone full-send and bought in right there at the dinner table.
Just watching it made my heart pound.
“I pooled all my seed money and went completely all-in. Then it shot up over the course of a few days.”
“...That much?”
“Yep. I made twenty-five percent. Put in thirty million won and pulled out just over seven million in profit.”
“Whoa, that’s insane...”
“Once I’d made the profit, I thought about it, and the monthly payment on this was about the same as the Avante I’d been driving. I bought it used, so there wasn’t much of a burden... so I just went ahead and bought it.”
“Man, that hurts. I should’ve bought it too...”
Assistant Manager Bae Hayoung and employee Lee Minji had somehow joined the conversation as well.
“That was a foreign stock, right?”
“Yeah. Nasdaq.”
“Could you maybe teach me how to trade overseas stocks?”
“Teaching you isn’t hard.”
“Deputy, me too. I heard American stocks are really good.”
“Could you tell us what you bought?”
“Actually, I’m planning to pull my seed money out and put it into crypto now.”
“Crypto?”
“Especially meme coins are really active these days...”
Just like that, the topic naturally shifted to investing.
Not only Choi Manager, but the female employees who’d gathered as well were all sitting there with bright eyes, listening intently beside Park Deputy.
As for me, unlike them.
I’m passing on investing.
I had no interest in that world, so I quietly stepped back and returned to my desk.
I should get my work ready.
But before I could even set up my computer, buzz-
A message arrived on my phone.
[Invitation to Appear on MBS’s "Treasure Appraisal Show! What’s Our Relic Worth?"]
Hello, this is the production team for "Treasure Appraisal Show."
Congratulations. Your application for relic appraisal participation has been selected as a finalist!
The broadcast and live schedule will be decided after a meeting between the applicant and the production team.
Location: MBS Headquarters Studio (Yeouido, Seoul)
Simulcast: MBS main broadcast + Naver live.
Please contact us as soon as possible so we can arrange a suitable schedule.
If we do not receive a reply within three days from the date of receipt, the opportunity will pass to the next applicant.
...Oh!
I hadn’t expected them to get back to me this fast.
I’d attached a photo when I applied, and apparently it had looked convincing enough.
There were still five minutes left before work started, so I moved to the break room and called them right away.
“Yes, I’m calling about the text message. A meeting? Yes, that works. Yeouido isn’t far, so I can come. But today would only be possible after work...”
***
A small cafe near Yeouido Station.
“...That’s why we reached out to you.”
“Ah, I see.”
After hearing the story, the timing made perfect sense.
Each episode of "Treasure Appraisal Show!" featured three participants.
But just four days before filming, one of the cast members had suddenly dropped out.
Apparently he’d been arrested for looting cultural artifacts.
Human beings really did manage all kinds of dramatic nonsense.
In any case, they’d been urgently looking for someone to fill the slot.
And since I had checked the box for “available anytime,” they’d picked up my application and contacted me right away.
“More than anything, since you live in Seoul, we thought the preliminary meeting and schedule coordination would be easier.”
“My luck was good, then.”
“Collecting antiques is mostly luck anyway, more than ninety percent of it.”
“Fair enough...”
The writer calmly slid the contract toward me.
“It’s a little too heavy to call it a contract, so please think of it as a kind of consent form.”
“Ah, yes. When exactly is the shoot?”
“This Friday. The live broadcast starts at 10 p.m., so please arrive by 9.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
From the way work had been going lately, even if I had to stay late, I’d be done well before then.
“And could you read this part once? As we mentioned in advance, if it turns out to be fake, you’ll need to consent to the item being damaged for the sake of the broadcast performance.”
“Ah, yes.”
The participant agrees that, should the item be determined to be a fake as a result of appraisal, the item may be immediately damaged or disposed of on-site for the purposes of directing and broadcast performance. No financial or psychological compensation shall be provided for any resulting loss.
Reading it over, it was pretty brutal.
“So there’s no compensation?”
“Ah, yes. It’s part of our program’s rules, so...”
The writers hurriedly added,
“But we do pay appearance fees!”
“How much do you pay?”
“For ordinary participants, we pay 300,000 won per episode.”
...Oh?
The antique I’d bought for only 30,000 won.
If they were paying 300,000, that was a sweet deal.
“Sounds good.”
Without thinking about it any further, I signed right at the line.
“See you Friday.”
***
On the day of filming.
I’m more nervous than I expected.
Actually, since HR Vision was an advertising agency, it wasn’t unusual for me to visit filming locations from time to time, so it shouldn’t have been that intimidating.
Of course, I’d been to studios often enough, and when handling projects that went into TV commercials, I’d also stop by broadcasting stations now and then.
But there was a difference between showing up as a company employee to do work and standing there in front of the camera as an actual participant.
It would’ve been less nerve-racking if it had just been a prerecorded shoot.
But it had to be live.
On top of that, they said the Naver live chat would be visible in real time, which made me wonder if I should take a calming pill before this started.
“Mr. Kang Seo-jun, you’ll be the last participant today. Please wait in the client seats inside the studio, and when your name is called, come out onto the marked stage.”
At least I could watch the others film before going in, which was a relief.
There were three participants total today, including me.
An elderly grandfather.
And one young man who looked a little younger than me.
The young man, who was second up, seemed to be pretty sociable, because he started talking to me even during the waiting period.
“Hello. We’re filming together today, right? Let’s have fun with it.”
“Ah, yes.”
“I’m twenty-four. How about you, hyung?”
“Thirty.”
“Oh, then I can call you hyung.”
He chuckled and gave my side a quick glance.
“Wow, you brought a porcelain piece.”
“Yes. And yours?”
“Mine’s the real deal. Something truly valuable.”
With a confident look, he carefully opened a fancy box.
Inside was a single hanging scroll, rolled up into a tube.
“This has been passed down in our family for generations, you know?”
“Oh...”
The edges were frayed, the weave had come apart in places, and it was stained with quite a bit of grime from handling.
There was even a faint smell of mold. You could tell at a glance it had swallowed up a great deal of time.
“You know the Naju Im clan, right? My family’s from a totally upper-class line, a proper prestigious household. My father passed this down to me with real care... man, if I hadn’t had debts, I never would’ve sold it.”
The guy poured out the story in a stream without anyone even asking.
“It’s definitely worth several million... no, if things go well, maybe even a hundred million won.”
“Really?”
“Actually, I was thinking of taking it to that American show, the one with the bald pawnbrokers? But I decided to leave this historical Joseon document here in Korea, so I brought it here.”
“Ah, I see. That’s impressive.”
Having finished his bragging, he looked back at my porcelain and asked,
“How much do you think yours is worth, hyung?”
“Me? Well...”
I’d bought it for 30,000 won.
The status window saying it was a Masterpiece still wasn’t something I could honestly trust.
If I didn’t lose money on it, that would already be a win.
“I’d be satisfied with 300,000 won.”
“Oh, really?”
He smiled with a faint air of superiority.
“I’m rooting for you.”
“Sure.”
Knock knock-!
Just then, the door opened with a knock, and an FD wearing an intercom came in.
“We’re fifteen minutes out from the live broadcast. The participants will be entering the studio now!”
We each gathered our items and rose from our seats.
“Good luck.”
“You too, hyung.”
With both anticipation and nerves tangled together in my chest, I headed for the studio.