Taking the Prize
Sparrows were already cheeping in the thin light of early morning.
I'd been up since the crack of dawn, before the east had properly brightened. Dressed and ready, I stepped into Sua's room.
Fast asleep, breathing soft and even.
Her sleeping habits were awful. I straightened the blanket she'd flung aside and tucked it properly back over her. Seeing her sleep so peacefully, she really was nothing but a kid. No point waking her. I slipped out without a sound.
On the counter downstairs I scrawled a rough note and left it.
Heading out first. Might be back a little late.
That ought to be enough. I nodded, satisfied.
Time to go.
Outside the shop I drew in the crisp dawn air and shook off the last of my sleep.
All right. Straight there, then. The PC bang I'd gone to yesterday.
After hearing Sua out, I'd turned it over for a long while—how I was actually supposed to help. By any ordinary means, earning four million won in a single week was close to impossible. I needed something special. Something so far outside the ordinary that a normal person couldn't even attempt it.
Did I have anything like that? I was nothing more than a second-rate delivery rider for a Chinese restaurant.
In the end, the only special thing I possessed was one. Eternal Battle. I might not be much at anything else, but that one thing I could claim, without blinking, as the best in the world. Using it to make money was the reasonable choice.
Pro gamer. YouTuber. Streamer. Succeed at any of those and the money would be enormous, and I was confident I could succeed. But time was far too tight. Those options had to go. If I'd had even a little more room, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second.
Rule that path out, and only one thing remained. An amateur tournament, not a pro circuit. The PC bang event I'd glanced at yesterday without thinking came back to me at once. First place paid a million won. For a window this short, was there a better way to make money?
Even with a million, I'd still be three million short. But amateur tournaments weren't only held at that one PC bang, were they? Eternal Battle amateur events, in every corner of the country. Sweep them all in a week and four million shouldn't be out of reach. And if I took every prize and still came up a little short? I already had a Plan B in mind, so it would probably be fine.
What I was sure of was that, right now, this was the best move I had. Which was why I'd decided to take the week off deliveries. Put bluntly, no matter what the hell I pulled behind the handlebars of a jjajang scooter, I was never going to scrape together surgery money that way.
For the record, I didn't even entertain the option of failing to take first. Once I'd set my mind on winning, losing simply wasn't possible.
Since the dawn of time, a PC bang being open twenty-four hours had been the unwritten law of the land. Of course it was open even at an hour like this.
Inside, the part-timer was nodding off behind the counter. The same one from yesterday. Was he working a shift this long? A flicker of pity went through me, but that was separate from the fact that the same person would make signing up easier. Not a bad situation.
"Excuse me. Wake up for a second."
Talking didn't do it no matter how I tried, so I tapped his shoulder. He lifted his head and stared at me through half-open eyes.
"...A goddess. Am I dreaming."
"Sorry? Hey. Snap out of it."
Goddess, of all things. What kind of dream had he been having?
At the sound of my voice he blinked a few times, and then his eyes shook hard. A beat late, he'd realized this was real.
"Ah... I, uh, um..."
He was gone. I rubbed my forehead, already fed up.
"I want to enter the tournament you mentioned yesterday."
"...What?"
"Want me to say it again?"
"N-no! The tournament, right!?"
"Yes. Application, please."
"Right away. H-here you go!"
I took the form he held out and filled in my name and personal details at once. At the boxes for nickname and tier, I paused.
Nickname
Jjamppong Aficionado
Tier... Unranked would be fine to write, wouldn't it? I hadn't actually finished placement yet, so having no tier wasn't a lie. And there was no law that skill and tier had to match. Talking myself into it, I checked Unranked without a shred of shame.
"Here."
"Yes! Thank you! The tournament starts at noon, so from now... you just have to wait six hours."
"Thanks."
I had no intention of staring into space for six hours. I wasn't about to lounge around playing games just because I'd come to a PC bang, either. Every minute counted. I had no idea what kind of snowball a little delay might turn into.
"Mind if I ask one thing?"
"Ask me anything!"
"Are there any other tournaments at other PC bangs? Within a week."
"Uh... other tournaments, you mean?"
A question he clearly hadn't seen coming. His face went uneasy. But this guy—how to put it. Even if he didn't know, he looked like the type who'd dig it up somehow and tell me anyway. Reliable, in that sense.
Yeah. In cruder terms, a pushover.
Of course I didn't just sit and watch. I took an empty seat and searched hard on my phone. Why a phone instead of a computer? Money. Not a joke. The hourly fee at a PC bang. If a difference of a thousand won was what kept me from covering the surgery bill, then what? The hospital would probably be flexible about that much, but that was exactly how desperate every last coin was. If I could save it, I saved it. And the Wi-Fi was free.
The search turned up more amateur tournaments than I'd expected. Offline events run by PC bangs, like this one, and online ones hosted privately by streamers. So this was what it meant to be the most popular game in the country. With the pro scene so active, the amateur market looked wide too. For me, right now, that was very good.
Most of the offline tournaments were in Seoul, but there were some out in the provinces as well. Even if travel ate a fair chunk, win and I'd make the money back. No question. I compared them and dropped anything that overlapped in time. Naturally, the ones with smaller prizes were the ones that got cut.
"Um... in this neighborhood, there's one next week..."
"Oh. Thanks for telling me."
He tipped me off to a few PC bang tournaments that weren't listed online. Once I pulled all of it together, the week was packed solid.
"Hmm..."
Add up every prize and it was razor-thin. Factor in living expenses for the week and it got dicey. Almost none of them were as generous as this PC bang. Some paid a first-place prize of only a hundred thousand won, and some split into preliminaries that would burn far too much time. I'd have to move with a plan that already included executing Plan B.
Just then the part-timer came over to where I was sitting and held out a drink.
"Um... have this, while you're at it."
"I didn't order. Sure you didn't mix up the seats?"
"I-it's on the house!"
"Ah."
Honestly, I was a little thrown. From one angle I could look like a nightmare customer—occupying a seat without paying, just fiddling with my phone. And using the charger without asking, on top of that. Still, I didn't turn the kindness down.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
"Then... could I ask one favor?"
Don't tell me this was about my number. If it was, help or no help, I was refusing flat. I always repay a kindness, but leaving an opening for someone I have no interest in is its own kind of cruelty.
He scratched the back of his head, shy.
"Your name...! Could I ask...?"
"Sorry? My name?"
Not a number. A name. Just that? He clearly liked me, but was he this hopeless, or just a pure idiot?
"It's on the application. You could just look."
"Ah... still, if you t-told me yourself, I think that'd be better!"
He stammered, then suddenly floored it, and a dry laugh escaped me. Well. He didn't seem like a bad person. Not that I had any intention of dating a man. Ever.
"Bae Gaeul."
"...Gaeul. Yes! I'll remember it perfectly!"
"You really don't have to memorize it."
"Ah..."
He wilted at once against the wall I'd put up. As he trudged back toward the counter, I called after his back.
"I'll enjoy the Fanta. And thanks for the help."
"...Haha! What help. This is nothing!"
Mm. The pushover aura on this one was overwhelming.
Anyway, more importantly, I checked the time and it was already eleven. I hadn't realized it had flown by like that. With the tournament drawing near, the PC bang was filling with people. I'd been too focused to notice, but they'd hung a banner on the wall as well. Looked like they meant to run the thing for real. Well. That would be why they'd put a full million won on it.
Time I got ready myself.