The Arm-Wrestling Broadcast That Broke the Internet
The live chat for fitness YouTuber Han Gaeul’s stream was already a madhouse. Even though the broadcast hadn’t officially started, more than a thousand people were waiting, refreshing the page like addicts.
There’s nothing quite as entertaining as watching someone else’s house burn down. Most people wouldn’t pay a cent to see an ordinary guy’s place go up in flames, but when it’s a beautiful woman’s life on fire? People would line up with cash in hand.
As soon as the camera feed went live, the thousand or so early viewers exploded past five thousand. Every last one of them had come to enjoy the spectacle and witness Han Gaeul’s final moments.
Finally, Han Gaeul appeared on screen. The moment she stepped into frame wearing those skin-tight leggings that clung to her body like a second skin, not only did the YouTube chat explode, but every single personal broadcasting community on the internet lost its collective mind.
Nobody believed she would succeed. Not a single person watching her stream was focused on how she would win. They were all betting on how long she could last.
Han Gaeul deliberately ignored the flood of chat messages pouring across her screen and began the event. She showcased her graceful figure while briefly explaining the rules of the competition, then wrapped up her opening segment.
Finally, the arm-wrestling matches began. The first opponent sat down at the table. The moment viewers saw the masked man, question marks flooded the chat.
His physique did look well-trained at first glance, but that was about it. Most people assumed bigger muscles automatically meant more strength. But my muscles weren’t built for show—they were compressed, battle-hardened muscle. The kind that could exert several times more power than their size suggested.
If I had taken my shirt off, people would have immediately understood just how dense and well-defined my muscles were. But since I was trying to hide my identity as much as possible, I had layered up. As a result, to the viewers watching through the screen, I looked completely ordinary.
The moment people saw my appearance, the topic in chat instantly shifted from “how long will she last” to “how many minutes until it’s over.” Even if there were weight classes, I looked like I’d barely be middleweight. I wasn’t even a professional athlete—just a regular guy. How good could I possibly be?
When the first opponent stepped onto the stage, the chat atmosphere was already terrible.
The opponent was a middle-aged man who clearly trained seriously. The difference in weight class alone looked like several divisions, and comparing forearm thickness was almost embarrassing. To anyone watching, it was a match that made no logical sense for me to win. Every viewer predicted the opponent’s victory.
But then—
“Ugh!”
It ended the moment it began, exactly as everyone expected. Except the winner was the complete opposite of what they had predicted.
The crowd that should have been cheering fell deathly silent, as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on them. He had been defeated in a single instant without any real contest of strength.
Breaking that silence, I spoke.
“Next.”
Some shouted that the opponent must have been weak. Others screamed that it was rigged. Not a single person thought I would win the next match too.
After practically dragging the stunned gym owner off the stage, the next opponent came up.
This time it was a fairly well-known fitness YouTuber with a decent subscriber count. Since he was a recognizable figure in the fitness community, rigging was unlikely, and his skills were considered solid. Everyone watching believed this would be my first loss.
But that belief lasted only a moment.
“Aaaack!”
His arm was bent the instant the match began.
The confident fitness YouTuber couldn’t even get in a single word of self-promotion before he fled the stage in utter humiliation.
After that, several more YouTubers who had built reputations on strength joined the challenge, but the result was exactly the same every time.
Only then did people finally start to realize something was seriously wrong.
Posts saying they couldn’t believe it flooded every site. Some people even uploaded proof videos claiming it was absolutely impossible and participated themselves. Just like the others, they were crushed in one move, left slumped over, then dragged through the mud as their humiliation was pinned to the top of every forum.
“Next.”
The library-like silence gradually filled with cheers. Arm-wrestling was a man’s sport decided purely by raw ability. For the competitors it was a full-body, all-out battle, but for spectators it could feel boring since it lacked the dynamic movement of other combat sports. Yet because every challenger was slammed down the instant they sat down, there wasn’t a single dull moment.
As time passed, the rigging accusations gradually lost their power. However, since no actual arm-wrestling pros had appeared yet, the word “rigged” still lingered in the air.
[Once the real arm-wrestling pros show up, the rigging talk will finally die.]
The comments made sense. Now everyone was waiting for the real pros to appear.
After dozens of participants had their arms snapped, the long-awaited professional finally stepped onto the stage.
Most viewers didn’t know the faces of random arm-wrestling competitors. But everyone recognized this man. He was Nam Seok-jin—the very athlete whose loss had sparked this entire controversy.
The broadcast that was supposed to end quickly had become more and more thrilling. Her live viewer count had already surpassed ten thousand.
The arm-wrestling tournament proceeded smoothly. Like the previous event, today’s schedule was split into Part 1 and Part 2, each running for two hours with a thirty-minute break in between.
Just as Part 1 was about to wrap up, someone stepped onto the stage as if they had been waiting for this exact moment.
The instant Han Gaeul saw him, she forgot she was still broadcasting and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“What the hell were you thinking?!”
Nam Seok-jin casually ignored her irritated outburst and sat down at the table. Then he glared at me and growled.
“Do you have any idea how much humiliation I suffered because of you?!”
From what I’d heard, he hadn’t been expelled from the Arm-Wrestling Association, but he had received a lot of harsh criticism over match-fixing suspicions. It wasn’t really my fault, but since it happened because of me, I was about to offer at least an apology when Seria called out to me.
> Sir, that man… he’s smiling.
> ...
“What?”
I looked closely at his eyes as Seria had suggested. His face was clearly furious, but his eyes were laughing.
‘No way…’
This kind of dual expression wasn’t the mark of a psychopath. There was only one other explanation: someone had paid him to act this way.
“Seria, can you check his phone?”
> Affirmative. Please wait one moment.
Since we were close enough for a handshake, Seria instantly pulled up his text history. The result was exactly as I suspected. He had agreed to receive ten million won from a guy named Lee Soo-rek if he beat me. Including the tournament prize money, he stood to walk away with fifteen million.
‘What kind of bastard does something like this?’
Because he had lost last time, Han Gaeul had fallen into an incredibly dangerous situation. Instead of helping her, he was taking money to sabotage her even further. Any lingering guilt I might have felt instantly vanished.
Besides…
‘Does he really think he can win if we fight again?’
Even though I had crushed him with overwhelming power, it seemed he had written it off as a fluke or coincidence. Or maybe he had something he was relying on.
The moment I grabbed Nam Seok-jin’s hand, I immediately understood the source of his confidence. His grip strength was completely different from before, and the muscles in his forearm had visibly swelled. This was nothing like the man I had faced a week ago. Unless he had spent time in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, there was only one possible answer.
He had taken performance-enhancing drugs banned in sports.
‘This just keeps getting better.’
Looking at Nam Seok-jin, I said,
“Last time I went easy on you. This time, even if you get hurt, I won’t take responsibility.”
“What? You son of a bitch! You think it’ll be the same as last time?!”
My light provocation must have worked. He came in hard the instant the match started. But my arm didn’t budge an inch.
“You said it would be different, but it doesn’t feel any different at all?”
“Shut your mouth, you bastard!”
He was definitely several times stronger than before, yet my arm remained planted like a steel stake driven into the ground.
“Ugh… ughhhhh!”
Nam Seok-jin’s arm began to tremble violently. The veins on his forearm writhed as if they would burst, and sweat poured down like rain. Still, my arm didn’t move at all.
Having thrown sportsmanship out the window and pumped himself full of every banned substance imaginable, only to still be losing, he finally lost his mind. He squeezed every last ounce of power from his body.
“If you keep forcing it like that, you’re going to injure yourself. Why don’t you just give up?”
“Shut up! Urgh… uaaaaah… AAAAAACK!”
Crack!
The man who had been exerting monstrous force suddenly screamed. His arm went limp like a puppet with its strings cut. He had pushed past his limits so violently that tendons tore and muscles ruptured.
During my time as a hero, I had seen countless demons get drunk on their suddenly enhanced power, push past their limits, and end up self-destructing because their bodies couldn’t handle it. Nam Seok-jin looked exactly like those demons now.
I didn’t know for sure, but he would probably have a hard time using chopsticks with his left hand for a while.
“Next?”
Whether Nam Seok-jin was rolling on the floor in agony or not, I boldly called for the next challenger as if nothing had happened. But this time, no one came forward.