Shivering
"Holy crap."
So Rihwa clamped both hands over her mouth. Sitting right outside the front door of her dilapidated shack was a massive rectangular parcel.
The raffle had been drawn just two days ago, meaning it had arrived in record time. Clutching her wildly pounding chest, she tore into the packaging. Before long, the sleek, violet silhouette of a state-of-the-art virtual reality capsule emerged into the dim light.
"Whoa... Ooh..."
It was far too glamorous an object to sit against a backdrop of peeled wallpaper and a leaking ceiling. As expected of a luxury model, there was no need for complicated installation; a single wireless link was all it took to synchronize.
"...Wait, is this really the right move?"
Her giddy smile faltered as a cloud of dread washed over her. Nothing had changed about the crushing reality weighing on her shoulders: a debt of eighty million liang. In all honesty, the rational decision would be to sell it second-hand immediately, chipping away at the principal and lowering her monthly interest payments.
Her phone chimed.
Resting her hands on her slender hips, Rihwa glared intensely at the violet capsule—the Another V12.
"Hah."
A staring contest with an inanimate object was never going to yield answers. Admitting defeat, her shoulders slumped.
Bzzzt.
The smartphone on her rickety desk buzzed with another vibration. Lighting up the screen, she found a direct message request waiting on the Ogogok app.
Given how much aggro she had drawn under the handle 'Wadeulwadeul', one-on-one message requests were nothing new. Naturally, almost all of them were hostile demands telling her to stop seeking attention and quit muddying up the chat room.
To make matters worse, she had just walked away with the grand prize. Ever since the raffle, an endless stream of jealous viewers had slid into her inbox to spew mindless abuse.
Assuming this was just another hater, Rihwa moved to dismiss the notification, but the sender's handle caught her eye.
Beside the name sat an official streamer verification badge, dispelling any suspicion of an impersonator. It was the genuine article.
Unlike the live chat where she had won the raffle, this was a private, one-on-one conversation.
For an instant, Rihwa's thumbs twitched to reply with her usual gimmick—'Hyung, I'm cold, hug me'—before she swiftly hit backspace. This was a private DM. There was no reason to provoke irritation by playing a character here. No matter how absurdly she acted in chat, she was fundamentally a fan who tuned in to his streams. On top of that, she had just received a luxury capsule worth well over ten million liang through his broadcast.
Typing an ordinary, polite sentence under the handle Wadeulwadeul felt remarkably surreal.
Contrary to his boisterous on-screen persona, Jo Meohyeop was remarkably polite in private. Then again, the same could be said for Rihwa. The internet was an outlet where people indulged in personas they could never reveal in real life.
Rihwa prepared to conclude the exchange. By all accounts, his business was finished. But Jo Meohyeop wasn't done yet.
Caught entirely off guard by the sudden proposal, Rihwa blinked at the screen. Meohyeop continued typing without missing a beat.
Rihwa let out a soft chuckle, practically hearing his familiar broadcaster cadence through the text. That was precisely the charm of Jo Meohyeop. Despite being an industry giant, he remained grounded, transparent, and effortlessly likable.
"..."
She turned her gaze back to the V12 she had contemplated pawning off only moments ago. The sleek, purple curves were undeniably alluring. It was an exquisite piece of machinery.
Maybe just once...
Even if she sold it without ever turning it on, it would still be priced as an unsealed unit. If that was the case, wouldn't it be better to try it out first? She was genuinely curious to experience the cutting-edge technology of this realm, which sat a tier above her previous world. Furthermore, the chance to collaborate with a creator she regularly watched was an enticing prospect.
Sensing her hesitation from the prolonged pause, Meohyeop had hurriedly sweetened the pot.
She cut straight to the chase. Right now, what she needed above all else was cold, hard cash.
The reply flew from her fingers without a second's delay. Earning over sixty thousand liang an hour? Considering the current minimum wage hovered around ten thousand liang, turning it down would border on insanity. In fact, since waking up in this strange world, she had never encountered a part-time gig that paid anywhere close to this rate.
The chat ended there. Rihwa stared blankly at her screen, feeling a surreal daze wash over her. Given Jo Meohyeop's free-spirited streaming style, it wasn't unprecedented—one of his regular content segments literally involved ambushing viewers' homes to bum a meal off them. Even so, for Rihwa, whose life had recently been an unending sequence of gloomy hardships, this unexpected gig felt like an oasis in the desert.
"Right. The proof photo."
Focusing her phone's camera, she framed the V12 in the center of the shot. She had no intention of writing an elaborate essay for the post. After all, the caption had already been decided.
It was the internet, so one had to stay in character. With the post uploaded, Rihwa gathered her things to head out. Today was the first time in a while that the logistics warehouse had called her in for a shift.
"Brrr... So cold."
Feeling the precursor of another seizure brewing within her veins, she shook a pill from her medicine bottle, swallowed it dry, and stepped out into the chilly air—completely oblivious to the tidal wave of chaos her photo was about to unleash upon the fan cafe.
Streaming under the moniker Jo Meohyeop, Jo Cheol-gon let out a wry smirk. Barely moments after ending their direct message exchange, Wadeulwadeul had already posted proof of receiving the V12. Naturally, the post skyrocketed straight to the cafe's trending tab.
"Fast as hell."
Just as he had gathered, the kid knew how to communicate like a normal human being. Cheol-gon had encountered countless viewers over his career, and more often than not, the wildest trolls and attention-seekers online turned out to be perfectly ordinary folks in society. Wadeulwadeul was clearly one of them.
The title was simply 'Hyung'. Given the kid's track record, the post would undoubtedly be a lazy snapshot captioned with that tiresome 'I'm cold, hug me' catchphrase. As a seasoned denizen of the internet, Cheol-gon saw through troll psychology like an open book.
"Called it."
Clicking into the post, the content was predictable to a tee. Well, predictable gimmicks were often the most entertaining.
"Wait, why the hell are there so many comments?"
Cheol-gon's gaze drifted down to the comment counter. It hadn't even been thirty minutes since the upload, yet the replies were already knocking on the door of one hundred. A proof photo for an ultra-luxury giveaway was bound to draw attention, sure, but certainly not this fast or fiercely.
"...Wait."
A second glance at the image made the reason instantly, horrifyingly apparent.
The issue wasn't the title, nor was it the caption. The problem was the photo itself.
In the dead center of the frame sat the gorgeous, glossy violet Another V12, looking every bit the masterpiece of modern engineering. That part was fine. The true catastrophe was the environment surrounding it.
Scorched linoleum flooring; a dining table leg wrapped haphazardly in layers of blue duct tape; a gaping, hollow puncture visible in the ceiling; a crooked window frame that didn't align with its sill; and frayed wallpaper stripped away as if gnawed on by rodents. Standing proudly amidst this squalor, the state-of-the-art virtual reality capsule produced a contrast so jarring it bordered on artistic tragedy.
"Where the hell does this guy live, Compton?!"
In disbelief, Cheol-gon zoomed in on the picture. For a split second, he wondered if it was an elaborate Photoshop stunt crafted for shock value, but there wasn't a single seam or artifact of digital manipulation. It was raw, unadulterated reality.
As if echoing Cheol-gon's dumbfounded horror, the comment section marched in unified grief.
For a fan cafe notorious for cutthroat banter and relentless trolling, this degree of solemn unanimity was unprecedented. Cheol-gon loved dishing out mischievous roasts to his viewers, but this was far beyond anything a decent person could mock. For an entertainer, the single most critical instinct was their cancellation radar. Poking fun at Wadeulwadeul right now would be an express ticket to social ruin.
He suddenly remembered how instantly the kid had accepted the two-hundred-thousand-liang appearance fee. At first, he had just thought it was hilarious enthusiasm, but seeing this photo wiped any lingering humor clean from his face.
"Wait a minute."
Cheol-gon's mental gears shifted into overdrive. Crisis and opportunity were always two sides of the same coin.
Turning crisis into opportunity.
Turning cancellation into salvation.
Without this razor-sharp survival instinct, his provocative broadcast style would have ended his streaming career a dozen times over. Cheol-gon instinctively sensed that this exact moment was a high-stakes double-edged blade.
This joint stream with Wadeulwadeul... he needed to prepare for it far more meticulously than he had planned.
"Hold on."
Midway through hoisting another cardboard crate, Rihwa froze in place.
Blinded by the allure of quick cash, she had accepted the streaming invite without hesitation. But now that she had time to chew over the details, an enormous flaw presented itself.
Jo Meohyeop had specifically asked her to highlight the capsule's superior points by comparing it to the models she had previously used.
...Yet Rihwa had never set foot inside a virtual reality capsule cafe since arriving in this world. From the instant she walked out of that remote cave, every waking second had been consumed by the desperate scramble to earn money and treat her Nine Yin Severed Meridians. She didn't play video games to begin with, making entertainment hubs like capsule cafes an unfathomable luxury.
Which meant that if the broadcast went according to Jo Meohyeop's vision, her appearance was practically impossible.
"I'm completely screwed."
"Hey! Miss So! Stop spacing out and get packing!"
From across the floor, the shift supervisor caught her slack with miraculous precision and barked across the warehouse. Grumbling under her breath, Rihwa bent her back and resumed taping boxes.
It seemed that the moment this shift wrapped up, she would have to message Jo Meohyeop and politely back out.