Today, We Will Definitely
I didn't know Oh Yeong-jun all that well.
He wasn't family, wasn't a friend… wasn't even a fellow streamer, so it would have been stranger if I did know him intimately.
Still, I knew the trail he'd left up through 2025, before the regression.
Rena World, Rena World 2, the MacaoTalk server, the Devil's Playground, GTA Retirement Town, and on and on.
On every major server, Oh Yeong-jun carved out a heavyweight storyline—and every single time, his innate temperament came roaring out without fail.
That rebellious streak.
Oh Yeong-jun always ran the same recording on loop about how he just wanted to kick back as a comfortable number two under some big-corp streamer—but by the end, he was always angling for a coup.
Trusting that nature of his, I dangled the bait.
Wouldn't he like to knock Wang-ko down a peg—the big-corp streamer already swaggering around like O-Wang Company owned the hegemony of Rena World?
Whatever Akatsuki was short on, I could supply without limit.
Endgame gear that Oh Yeong-jun and Muyo didn't have, for instance—if Purge Day went well, I could front it all as an advance. Potions, too, in generous supply.
Akatsuki was small and undergeared, sure, but Oh Yeong-jun had hit Challenger on four accounts, and even Jisuni and Muyo had physicals that put most female streamers to shame.
Oh Yeong-jun's deliberation didn't last long.
He seemed to think it over for a moment, then cheerfully agreed to the mercenary contract.
And with that, we parted ways in the Discord channel.
Yeah. But still.
A cunning rabbit keeps three burrows, as they say.
I was far too suspicious a person to put all my faith in Oh Yeong-jun alone.
Rena World's casino business was booming beyond belief.
Not that anyone was actually making money, of course—lost goods simply vanished into thin air.
Still, streamers who'd blown through millions of Rena in a single day kept popping up left and right, and they dug in through the small hours in front of the slot machines with cigarettes clenched between their teeth, swearing they'd win it all back even if they had to take out loans to do it.
And whenever someone hit a jackpot, the whole crowd would stampede over, howling for tips… a scene that held up a mirror to the absolute bottom of modern society.
That raw, primal comedy code was catnip for the viewers, which only made the streamers dive even deeper into the casino.
The proof was right there in the popular posts—page after page of casino-related threads plastered across the community boards.
Once the casino became that much of a phenomenon, even the streamers who'd been playing it cool came running, claiming they just wanted a little taste.
A full-blown circus of chaos.
I clocked in that morning and took over from Subnitti, who'd been on the overnight shift.
"From yesterday through this morning—seventeen cases total. Three million two hundred fifty thousand Rena in loans processed, boss."
"Mm-hmm. Our Deputy Sub's been working hard."
In the end, people only played at the casino—the ones making money were honest(?) operators like us.
Of course, not every single person who walked into the casino walked out poorer.
Every so often, there was a special case who punched through terrible odds and walked away with fortune in hand.
I sent Subnitti off to end her stream and get some proper rest, then stepped into the casino myself.
The star of day one's jackpot was none other than Apple-mong.
Surrounded from early morning by a throng of gamblers.
I'd checked the community's popular posts just a moment ago and been stunned myself.
The golden hand who'd raked in a full twenty million Rena on the up-down game.
People were screaming for tips from every direction—absolute pandemonium.
But a short distance away, one streamer was fixing Apple-mong with a cold, hard stare.
Tu-nyang-i—someone I hadn't seen in quite a while.
That look had a reason behind it.
Because until Apple-mong hit her jackpot, the main character of this casino had been Tu-nyang-i herself.
Amazingly, the moment Tu-nyang-i showed up yesterday, she'd soaked up attention on par with any big-corp streamer.
Until then, she'd been a nobody virtual streamer—no name recognition, never once in the spotlight.
The secret to her sudden popularity was simple.
She was sitting on a fortune no individual was supposed to have.
The personal funds displayed beneath the minimap on screen.
Nearly thirty million Rena, stamped right there.
And that wasn't even all of Tu-nyang-i's wealth.
To the floating crowd that had rushed over in shock, she bragged like she was showing off—claiming her personal storage held over five thousand diamonds she'd mined.
Five thousand diamonds meant a cool twenty-five million Rena!
A combined fifty-five million Rena was more than enough of a headline to make her the casino's main character, right up there with the big-corp streamers, in a place where money was everything.
From that moment on, Tu-nyang-i was the hot topic of the hour.
Win or lose at the tables, she didn't care—she wandered around scattering tips like some benevolent patron.
And every other streamer fawned and groveled with every cute trick they had.
When had a nobody streamer like Tu-nyang-i ever tasted luxury like this?
Swollen with arrogance, nose pointed at the ceiling, she forgot sleep entirely and held court like a queen in the casino straight through the night.
By the time she looked up, her funds had dwindled to ten million Rena.
Still a massive sum—but her spending had clearly tightened compared to before.
The crowd's enthusiasm cooled a notch as a result… and that was exactly when Apple-mong snatched every scrap of the spotlight by setting a new record of twenty-two million three hundred seventy thousand Rena on up-down.
In a single instant, Tu-nyang-i was shoved from protagonist back to sidelined extra.
That piercing stare was packed full of jealousy, envy, and a dark craving for something she herself didn't possess.
Looks like she's already used it, doesn't it?
Rena World had been open for a full month already.
With an endgame pickaxe, you could pull two or three million Rena a day in diamonds with nothing more than a bit of honest grind.
So if you assumed she'd been earning steadily, Tu-nyang-i's net worth wouldn't have been a problem at all.
But… was that really the case?
Tu-nyang-i had spent a week in the middle playing on the Poko Server, and according to the explanation posts on the community boards, she'd supposedly built her fortune mining hard off-stream during that time—but I couldn't buy it that easily.
The aggression she'd shown on the Poko Server, the political maneuvering, and above all, the information I carried from before the regression.
The track record of using X-ray to mine diamonds in absurd quantities—that history only piled more suspicion onto every step Tu-nyang-i took.
And more than anything, if this were money she'd truly earned through hard work, she never would have thought to scatter it around the casino as tips just to feel good for a while.
Easy come, easy go.
That was how I saw it.
Anyway, none of my business.
Tu-nyang-i's affairs really were none of my concern.
Across both the pre-regression life and this one, our paths had never crossed even slightly.
What mattered more was reading the current situation.
Our lending operation off the casino was thriving harder than ever—and more importantly, the people who counted as our main enemies for today's Purge Day—Oh-ha, Wang-ko, Su-ppi, and the rest—had apparently been enjoying the casino late into the night before heading out.
And they'd declared they were coming back early today to win it all back. If that was true, there was no way their condition would be normal for the afternoon Purge Day.
Our company staff, on the other hand, had been scheduled in five-hour shifts with rest fully guaranteed.
We've prepared this thoroughly. If we still lose, I'll just have to call it the will of heaven.
I left the casino behind, streamers still lost in their gambling, and stepped out.
Someone else on staff could handle the loan work.
I called Mayo over and launched into one-on-one drills to prepare for the afternoon's Purge Day.
Our item pool had grown more diverse, too.
We'd crafted crossbows for coordinated group attacks, and prepared shields to block enemy ranged fire.
At this point, our readiness alone was second to none.
Tick, tick—time flew by.
Before I knew it, it was 4:30 in the afternoon.
Subnitti, who'd gone to catch up on the sleep she'd lost on the overnight shift, had already assembled two hours earlier.
We were at absolute peak condition!
I led everyone toward the square.
Today, we would definitely complete the three-peat.