Chapter 35
"Assistant Manager Kang, thanks."
As soon as I got to the office, Assistant Manager Park casually handed me a bottle of Bacchus.
"What’s this about all of a sudden?"
"Thanks to you, we landed the ad gig without a hitch, and yesterday’s festival wrapped up successfully too. Besides..."
He gave me a thumbs-up and added, "I caught a real-life look at Yu So-ra in cosplay right before we wrapped up yesterday. You’re the one who made that outfit, right? As a fan, I’m honestly grateful you let me see such a perfect cosplay..."
"Whoa, you really do sound like a total otaku when you put it like that."
"Well, I am one, so it’s fine."
"..."
He admitted it so easily I had nothing to say.
"Anyway, aren’t you going to get insanely busy now?"
"Why?"
I asked, tilting my head.
"Did another one of our ads come in?"
"No, it’s because of the clothes you made."
"...?"
"Yu So-ra wore it this time, and it blew up. I think requests are going to start coming in from everywhere."
"...Ah?"
Damn.
No wonder the visitor count on my blog had shot up since yesterday.
"At that point, couldn’t you just quit the company?"
"Why would I quit?"
"You make a few million won from one outfit, right? If it were me, I’d quit and do that full-time."
"That’s not happening."
My principles were firm.
"A side job is just a side job. The moment it becomes your main job, it gets just as hard."
"...Really?"
"It’s because it’s a side job that I can enjoy doing it."
"Fair enough... now that you say it, that makes sense too."
No matter what anyone said, money mattered.
That was an undeniable fact.
The reason I’d started side jobs in the first place was because of money.
But like Assistant Manager Park said, if I made handmade crafts my main livelihood.
Or switched my main job to translation or some other talent?
I wouldn’t be able to approach it with the same light heart I had now.
The reason I was dabbling in all sorts of side jobs like they were sample dishes was precisely because they weren’t my living.
Especially if I made my talents my main occupation, it would mean becoming a freelancer just to chase bigger money.
And because freelancers, by nature, earn according to how much work they do, they end up spending their weekends without mercy, and more often than not they push themselves so hard they can’t even rest on weekdays.
That didn’t suit someone like me, who wanted a comfortable, easy life.
In that sense, I should probably put up a note saying I’m not taking any requests for the time being.
I’d already turned down Lim Yu-jin’s request for a bag earlier, so it’d be better to make my position clear.
Besides, it was already December.
With year-end—the time when people felt most excited and cheerful—there was already hardly enough time to spend on myself.
***
"Haaah..."
I got out of bed with a long yawn.
It was 11 a.m.
I’d slept in after a long time.
Feels leisurely for once.
The project I’d been handling at work was finished, and the handmade work I’d been pouring myself into for weeks was done too, so I’d never felt so relieved.
After a quick wash, I left the house.
Let’s not take the car today.
I decided to take the bus, get off somewhere reasonable, and walk the rest of the way so I could soak in the atmosphere of the streets.
It’s getting cold.
Winter was definitely winter.
Didn’t they say the first snow would fall soon?
As I got older, I grew numb to a lot of things, but for some reason, whenever I thought about the first snow, my chest still seemed to go soft and warm.
Maybe it was because my first love happened in winter.
Carols were already echoing through the streets, and Christmas trees were starting to appear one by one.
The buoyant feeling of the season filled the city center, and seemed to spread into my own heart too.
Right, I should probably start learning another language soon too.
This time it was English’s turn.
The price was a whopping 40 million won.
That makes my skin prickle.
Still, I’d already decided that learning Chinese, Japanese, and English was the right move, so without thinking any further, I bought it.
[Duri Bank]
-Withdrawal: 40,000,000 won.
"My chest aches..."
But the moment that huge amount of money vanished, my balance suddenly looked pitiful.
[Side Hustle Account]
-Balance: 3,215,260 won.
"...Why am I always broke?"
I was clearly earning an incredible amount through side jobs, and yet all that was left was a tiny little sum.
"Should I translate again?"
It seemed like there was no other way to make money this quickly and surely.
Let me just send a message.
I emailed them to ask whether there was anything new that needed translating.
By Monday, I’d probably get a reply.
Around a chicken shop I passed by, there was an idol model standee on display.
Song Ji-na from the girl group Finestar.
The name felt familiar, so I dug through my memory and realized she was a friend of Lim Yu-jin, the one who’d wanted me to make a bag.
I should’ve said I’d make the bag.
If I had, my bank balance would probably have been warm through the end of the year.
I was a little late to regret it, but still.
What could I do? It was already in the past.
The moment I stepped into the workshop, something else was waiting for me again.
"You rotten bastard, Choi Kang-san."
Of all things, he’d gone and gifted me a draft beer dispenser, so now I had to install the thing.
I don’t know who’ll come by, but the next guest who visits will probably like it.
I found a good spot, grunting as I hauled it into place, then hooked up the power too.
It was manual labor to install, but once it was done, it actually looked pretty solid.
Still, it’s slowly starting to look complete.
At first, the place had been so empty I’d wondered when I’d ever fill it with equipment.
But after gradually adding things like the sewing machine and the laptop, it was starting to look respectable.
Right, I should write my novel too.
Last week had gone by in a blur, and the reserve chapters were almost down to nothing.
Let’s give it a go after a while.
Tap, tap-tap-tap.
I started clicking away at the keyboard comfortably.
***
"Already...?"
Before midnight even hit, I finished the seven chapters that would go up next week.
"I guess I’m starting to get used to this after writing it a few times."
Aside from the throbbing in my wrists and fingers, I seemed to be adapting pretty well.
-Time remaining: 13 hours 23 minutes.
The active effect still had plenty of time left, though...
I decided to stop here for the week.
I’d already met my set quota, and tomorrow I wanted to leave as a full day of weekend rest just for me.
Let’s just set the schedule and take a break.
I logged into Munstopia to schedule the reserved chapters for upload, and then.
[Comments: 999+]
"...Huh?"
A mountain of delayed notifications popped up.
"There were this many comments?"
I was pretty stunned, but that wasn’t the only notification.
[Donation history: 99+]
"W-what’s this now?"
-SeviHeo donated 500 gold.
-LeeSeunghyeonr donated 100 gold.
-ss321 donated 200 gold.
-ShiJeong donated 400 gold.
-Fighting donated 1,000 gold.
-DutchCoffee donated 300 gold.
-IWantToReadItAll donated 5,000 gold.
...
-Let’sGo donated 10,000 gold!
"...W-why are they giving me money?"
One person had even thrown me 10,000 gold.
"Is this game money or something?"
[Gold eligible for exchange]
-Total donations: 287,500 won.
-Gold is exchanged at a 1:1 rate with cash.
"...Whoa."
It was real money.
The explanation said I could just press the settlement button and it would be deposited into my account, but I was still suspicious, so I clicked it anyway.
Beep-!
A notification rang immediately.
[Duri Bank]
-Deposit: 287,500 won (Munstopia).
"Whoa..."
It was real.
Did it get promoted somewhere?
I wondered if I’d somehow gotten another celebrity boost, and thought of Choi Kang-san or Lim Yu-jin, but...
I never even told them I was writing a novel.
They weren’t the type to be loafing around on my blog anyway.
And honestly, it was more likely they didn’t even know what a web novel was.
Where the hell did it get famous?
As I was poking around the Munstopia site, one section suddenly caught my eye.
[Today’s Best]
-1st: A Calamity-Level Mage Stirred Up a Typhoon - Sansu (Mountain-Water)
-2nd: Played Soccer Without Knowing I’d Awakened - RedOne
-3rd: I Spent a Night with the Chaebol's Only Daughter - Side-Hustling Teddy Bear
-4th: A Rotten Reincarnation - Troy
...
"Wait. What is this?"
I thought I’d read it wrong.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
-3rd: Side-Hustling Teddy Bear.
"I’m... third?"
I was ranked third in Today’s Best.
And the latest chapter’s views, which had barely broken 100, had somehow already passed 10,000.
"...This is insane."
I’d thought I was writing it reasonably well, but I never dreamed it would do this well.
Beep-!
[A new contract proposal has arrived.]
When I opened the notification, there was already more than one item stacked inside.
[Contract proposals: 26]
-We’d like to inquire about publication at W-Plus Co., Ltd.
-Hello, this is LoveBooks.
-This is Choi Jong-pil from Sanghyeong Media!
-Studio 386 would like to propose a publishing contract.
-This is Rookie Won, PD from the fantasy-fiction planning team at Zerus Media.
...
"Does this even make sense?"
I’d just written this as a hobby.
I’d never studied writing, and...
I knew my talent was exceptional, but feeling it like this is a completely different matter...
An A-grade.
And I’d even used the special ticket, so the early chapters had been delivered with an S-grade performance. The ripple effect was huge.
-I was completely overwhelmed from the start...!
-I enjoyed reading this so much ^^
-Please give us the next chapter!
-More updates, more updates, more updates!
-Thanks for the great read.
-Writer, do you like steamed dumplings?
"I do like steamed dumplings more, though... why are they asking me that? And what does 'more updates' even mean?"
It sounded like terminology from this side of the business.
I’d started writing with no knowledge of the web-novel world at all, so even as I read the comments, I was thoroughly baffled.
Drip-drip-drip-drip.
Almost like I’d been bewitched, I started reading through the comments one by one.
Most of them said they’d enjoyed the story, but there were also plenty of nasty ones.
Still, they didn’t really feel like attacks on the work so much as people who were just bitter or bad-tempered, so they didn’t hurt much.
After all, words meant to tear others down had no real strength.
"This is fun."
I didn’t even notice time passing just by reading the comments.
Then one comment stood out.
-For a story like this, maybe not the grand prize, but the second prize is basically locked in, right?
"When did the contest period end again?"
I started rereading the contest guidelines.
But there was one thing that caught on my mind.
-To qualify for an award in the contest, you must serialize on Munstopia and complete a publication contract.
"So I have to get it published."
In other words, I needed to choose one of the many publishers that had just contacted me.
I started looking over the contract proposal emails again.
As I read them, they were all flashy.
One place promised to do the webtoon adaptation, another guaranteed a drama rights deal, and so on.
I couldn’t tell whether they were serious or just throwing around empty promises, but the claims were so grandiose they were hard to trust.
Some even claimed they’d pay millions of won in advance.
But the more I read, the more I thought:
There’s no sense of reality here.
They all felt like con artists.
How long had I been sifting through the proposals with that much suspicion when one familiar name finally caught my eye.
-Hello, writer. This is Willow Publishing.
Maybe these people are trustworthy?
The hanwoo gift set I’d received not long ago came to mind.
They say there’s no bad person among people who give you beef.
I’d already sent out an email about translation work during the day.
I should ask them about it if they reply.
***
On Monday morning, the moment Kim Dae-ri of Willow Publishing opened his inbox, his eyes flew wide open.
"T-team Leader!"
He rushed over to Team Leader Yu Na-ri.
"We got an email!"
"From whom?"
"From writer Kang Seo-jun!"
"What?!"
Team Leader Yu jolted and sprang up from her seat.
"W-what did he say? Did he bring up a contract meeting or something?"
She hurriedly stared at the monitor.
"It’s not a refusal email, right? If we can just meet him first and persuade him, there’s still a chance."
"I thought so too. I thought it was a contract-related email, but..."
Assistant Manager Kim couldn’t hide his flustered voice as he answered.
"He’s asking whether there’s any translation outsourcing he can take on."
"...Huh?"
Team Leader Yu doubted her own ears so much that she checked the email herself.
And sure enough, that was all it said.
"Why translation..."
"Well, maybe he’s planning to do it as a side job, the way he always does."
Startled.
"...Wait a second, Assistant Manager Kim. You said this person had never written web fiction before, right?"
"Yes. He had no background at all."
"Then could it be that this writer is right now..."
She swallowed a dry laugh and said,
"...completely unaware of just how huge a hit he’s become?"
---