Wang-ko Is Sulking
Lethal Company was still lost in the ARAM queue. Seoni Moon was supposedly grinding architecture until dawn, completely obsessed. That left only O-Wang Company — and Wang-ko was probably still fuming over there.
"Hey! Absolutely no trash-talking other streamers. Keep the chat civil, please. And streaming is my calling — I've got zero interest in that line of work."
A twenty-four-hour no-sleep stream really wasn't easy. Honestly, if I'd just mindlessly mined or kept chipping away at the half-finished Sky Island floor, I wouldn't have had anything to think about. Time would have passed either way.
But I don't want to do that. Everyone spun the roulette with money they worked hard for. Those prizes are precious — the least I can do is put on the best broadcast possible.
Consumers aren't blind. Sure, there were always a few suckers who donated out of habit without thinking, but people only came back for more when the product actually satisfied them. I wanted to plant a memory in my viewers' heads that Seo-a's twenty-four-hour no-sleep stream had been packed and genuinely fun.
In that spirit, let's go find Wang-ko.
Viewers always craved a new picture. A meeting with Wang-ko — someone I'd barely ever crossed paths with — would be the perfect hook to get their dopamine flowing even in this quiet, still dawn.
I zoomed out on the map and found his location. He seemed to be moping alone at an old fishing spot on the outskirts of Seoul. To fake a chance encounter, I told the viewers I was heading for Lethal Company's Do-zney Castle, which was a bit farther out than the fishing spot. The fishing hole sat right along that route — the perfect excuse.
"No, I'm saying the kids are going way too far. Huh? I did all that so we could succeed, okay? So O-Wang Company could take first place. And then they start comparing us to other companies, saying we have no freedom, that it's a dictatorship, that I'm being too harsh — you think that doesn't piss me off? Come on, hyung-nims, say something."
"……."
Uh, excuse me? When you're talking to your viewers, you're supposed to turn your in-game mic off.
Anyway, that little slip of Wang-ko's gave me the perfect opening. Mid-flight toward Lethal Company, I veered off and touched down at the fishing spot!
"Who goes there? Who just made a coughing sound?"
"Huh? What? Ah! I had my in-game mic on while talking."
Wang-ko's character emerged from a corner of the fishing spot, grumbling as he revealed himself. He'd been sitting there fishing for time itself. Ahem — hadn't seen him in a while, and that nose was still impressively large. Apparently Rabbit TV had someone equally famous for nose size.
"Ah, Seo-a-nim. Long time no see?"
"Hello, Wang-ko-nim. I got a tip that there was a grown adult crying at a fishing spot, so I dropped by for a second."
"……."
A devastating jab right out of the gate! The viewers erupted as Wang-ko visibly flinched.
After all the nightmare clients I'd faced as a field sales rep at a tiny company, this was nothing. I smoothly seized the initiative and asked Wang-ko why he'd run away from home like a sulking teenage boy and ended up here.
"No, so those bastards……."
Once I heard the explanation, it was pretty simple. With a vehicle auction announcement recently posted, O-Wang Company had set its sights on first place in wealth as well. Wang-ko, determined to shoot a documentary inside a variety show, started cracking the whip on his company employees with a vengeance.
"Everyone assembles at nine and works until ten at night. And seventy percent of that day's earnings go into the company treasury. That's how we dominate the vehicle auction. Huh? You saying I'm taking too much? I'm doing the exact same thing myself, so what's the problem!"
To his credit, Wang-ko led by example and stuck to the brutal schedule himself. But even so, funneling seventy percent of earnings into the public fund was more than enough to breed discontent among the company staff. People who still hadn't finished their endgame gear sets had personal equipment they wanted, and sometimes you just wanted to escape the grind and blow off steam at the casino — that was human nature, wasn't it?
On top of that, O-Wang Company's approach looked even worse next to everyone else. If the other companies had been running the same way, people might have gritted their teeth and thought, Well, at least we're not the only ones suffering. But the other places were absolute free-for-alls.
With Do-zney Castle finished and nothing left to do, Lethal Company employees spent all day drifting in and out of Rena World like a temp agency, recruiting people for ARAM or looking for LoL teammates. Partner & Tofu Company, with no strong-handed boss to keep them in line, was running a flexible work schedule — and they were the envy of everyone. And Seoni Moon? Blackfoot, essentially the prime minister of the PUBG cartel, had recently joined and was starting to impose some structure, but compared to O-Wang Company's iron grip it was still baby steps.
In the end, O-Wang Company employees' discontent came from one thing: comparison with the other companies.
"Is it wrong to want us all to pull together and go for first place? If we're running a company in Rena World anyway, being number one is a good thing, right?"
Wang-ko was fundamentally putting on a WWE performance, but underneath it there seemed to be some genuine frustration building up. Looking at company employees, sure — everyone had different personalities and different ideas, and sometimes it got a little frustrating. That was something you had to work through with mutual understanding and compromise. But for big-name streamers, this was a weak spot. They'd succeeded for so long with this exact pattern, stacking up viewers along the way, that changing their style had become nearly impossible.
"Not everyone wants first place at all costs. Some people are looking for that healing vibe. And even people who like being number one might find the intensity ramped up so suddenly that they can't keep up."
"Bah! Those types can all get lost. I'll kick 'em out and recruit an elite squad from scratch."
I cooed and soothed Wang-ko for a while as he huffed and puffed, venting his rage at empty air.
"Still, sometimes this kind of healing atmosphere is nice too, right? Look at the moonlight on the water over there at the fishing spot."
"……."
"Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars."
Without thinking, I hummed Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon. Wang-ko, his mood finally lifting, started swaying his shoulders and singing along.
"Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars."
"Hell yeah, Seo-a! You know what's up. That song vibe is killer!"
This was exactly why company leaders couldn't wander around outside much. The second viewers saw a new girl, their reed-like hearts went wild screaming "Buy her!"
Anyway, the unexpected karaoke session at the fishing spot had cooled Wang-ko's temper considerably. But a problem still remained.
"Okay! I'm willing to ease up on the work conditions a bit, like Seo-a said. But what if they still complain after that?"
"At the end of the day, their complaints come from comparing conditions with the other companies."
"Right."
"Alright. I'll take care of it — come with me."
"Huh?"
I put Wang-ko out in front and flew straight to O-Wang Company's frontier. Currently, O-Wang Company was chasing the American Dream, leveling vast tracts of land far east of Seoul while simultaneously building their headquarters — the "White House" — and running a land reclamation project. The city's name, apparently, was America. They were calling themselves the number-one company and the greatest nation on earth, no less.
When we arrived in America, it seemed everyone had been waiting for Wang-ko — a welcoming party was already lined up at the entrance. Leading the pack was Oh-ha, whom I hadn't seen in a while, followed by Su-ppi, SexyPig, and Parkna, a whole row of PUBG cartel members standing at attention. Just looking at them, the air felt thick enough to choke on.
"Seo-a, hi! What brings you here?"
"Long time no see, Oh-ha-ssaem. Chairman Wang-ko said he needed some help."
"Huh?"
I had no intention of dragging this out. In any situation, seizing the initiative was what mattered. I told them to restate the conditions that had made the employees so unhappy.
"Look, we're not asking for anything crazy. Just cut the work hours by about two hours and lower the treasury contribution rate. Honestly, seventy percent is way too much."
"What's too much about seventy percent?"
"Huh?"
"We put a hundred percent into the public fund, and if you need money you have to write a formal request."
"Ehk?"
"And those work hours are pretty reasonable, honestly. I heard you even got a bonus-style fan funding as the White House neared completion. Then of course you should put in that much."
"W-well, that's……."
"Kids these days only want to enjoy their rights and treat their duties like a joke. I need to pick a day and give them a proper attitude adjustment!"
While everyone stared at me in a daze, Wang-ko behind me started clapping with pure delight.
"See? This is exactly the kind of talent our PUBG scene needs."
That… was a compliment, right? Right?