It Takes a Scammer to Catch a Scammer (2)

Self-employment.

When people talk about careers, the ones who actually go the startup route are few and far between, so the subject deserves a little airtime.

How much does it cost to start a business, anyway?

Even opening a single café runs you over thirty million won. Before you ever see a single won of profit, interiors and equipment can easily push the number far past that.

Streaming is a different animal.

Got a decent broadcasting PC? Congrats — you can start a stream for basically zero won. (Disclaimer: not actually zero.)

Cross over into VTubing, though, and the story changes completely.

Commercial rights to a digital avatar. Commissioning the base 2D illustration for rigging. Then breathing life into dozens — sometimes hundreds — of individual layers through the rigging process itself. Every step of that pipeline costs anywhere from a few hundred thousand to several million won.

Just search "VTuber debut cost" on YouTube and you'll find actual VTubers posting their own breakdowns. Even for corporate projects — those so-called Gen-whatever large-scale productions — you're looking at around thirty to forty million won.

...Is that kind of investment even worth it?

Yeah. It is.

This isn't about fun or self-satisfaction. Right now I'm pulling viewers in with cosplay, but eventually a full conversion to VTubing is non-negotiable.

Why?

To minimize exposure as much as possible. Not skin exposure — personal information exposure.

Because if stalkers start circling, it becomes a real headache.

I live alone. No family around. Even if I call the cops, they don't take me seriously.

"A stalker? Ah, right. We'll look into it."

"No, I'm telling you they're real. They could break in tomorrow—!"

"We'll increase patrols, ma'am."

They don't believe me when I describe a normal threat. Anything involving future sight gets me even less credibility.

Either way — the point is to keep my public-facing activity to a minimum.

Bottom line: going VTuber is a mandatory condition for protecting my virtue.

So after ending stream, I started browsing outsourcing sites, looking around — and then...

"Whoa. This place is a trap farm."

I could see the scammers. Not a scammer — scammers, plural.

Artist A's work looked decent enough that I was about to place a commission, and then a bad future lit up in front of me.

Ghosting after payment. Account deletion. Brokerage fees still charged. And the most serious problem of all—

"Huh?"

The future appeared. And not as some fragmentary scrap of text, either—

A relentless flood of posts pouring across social media.

Coldly speaking, it could sound like a dopamine-addict witch hunt swarming an issue for the drama — but then the future went further.

"Ah."

I saw it. Not just a short stretch of the near future — the distant end result, all the way through.

"Hrm..."

I folded my arms and leaned back into the chair.

Why is this showing up in so much detail?

I can see the future. But it's never been this specific before.

Because I was the victim? Because this was a scam that almost happened to me? I've lived twenty years dealing with this kind of thing more than once or twice — and it's never been this concrete, or reached this far ahead.

"Hrm... hrmmmm..."

A dilemma. There are plenty of artists out there, and the smart move is just to step around the landmine.

But something inside me kept talking.

— Are you really just going to let this slide?

"...Ah, damn it."

My head hurt. The future had been so much sharper than usual that I couldn't erase the one possibility floating up in my mind.

What if. What if this was the future telling me to stop it? What if it was sending me this vision so I'd clean up the damage this future would cause?

"Nah. No way."

It's not like my future-sight ability was some karmic penance for the scams I ran in my past life, ordering me to catch other scammers as atonement.

"......Damn it. If you're going to show me this much future, at least ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drop a tip about Sungwoo Electronics stock tomorrow."

If you're going to dump this much foresight on me, the least you could do is leave a little scrap of text in some corner somewhere — Sungwoo Electronics hitting 400,000? — is that so much to ask?

"Honestly, there's no real reason for me to go charging in myself..."

No choice, though. Now that I know, I have to step in.

"I'm planning to run champion and gym-leader concept streams for a while anyway, so catching one scammer in the meantime wouldn't be the worst use of my time."

Right. This isn't about rescuing victims of a case I could have ignored. This isn't some noble crusade to settle the karma of my past life.

"This bastard seriously thought he could scam me?"

Revenge. I didn't actually get hit — but the fact that he almost got me is more than enough grounds for a little private criminal justice.

"Some people are paying two million won for this, and he thinks he can make money off a few minutes of one-click garbage?"

Absolutely not.

"I haven't even made two hundred thousand in donations yet!!"

I am absolutely, positively not the kind of person who reads the future and acts for the sake of justice.

"Yeah. He's a scammer either way."

Become a sacrifice for my stream.

The man listed on the outsourcing site as an illustrator under the artist name Je-Zzos was practically drooling over the pending deposits in his account.

"Making money is so easy these days."

This was, after all, the age of AI.

Using AI to generate a specific image and then selling it off wasn't particularly difficult. At first it was commissions worth a few tens of thousands of won. He'd spend hours tweaking prompts and refining the output just to earn that much. When he posted online about how the effort didn't even clear minimum wage—

That was the kind of response he got.

And then he thought: AI, huh. As long as you don't get caught, what's the problem?

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠world was already in the AI era. YouTube itself was flooded with AI-generated videos. So what if a picture was made with AI? The client got the high-quality image they wanted, so it was fine. And if anyone pressed him on it, he could just hide behind "trade secrets."

It had worked so far. He'd been running small personal commissions through social media, pocketing anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of won. Now it was time to play in the big leagues.

Land just one good mark, close the deal, and two million won was nothing. He'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already fooled the brokerage site's manager, hadn't he?

"Once I collect the payment, I'm out. Done and gone."

One big score. Grab about six million and vanish.

With that plan in mind, Je-Zzos carefully answered every question from aspiring VTubers who found his page the moment he opened it.

"Of course, of course, I'll meet the deadline, no problem at all... Ah, damn. Why do they have so many requirements?"

He was answering, but the clients were surprisingly picky.

"Sunwoo... Kang? Why is this guy asking so many questions?"

Do you have other portfolio files? Can I get the original PSD? Is there a video with a public timelapse? Do you write up contracts...?

"If I did all that, I wouldn't be one-clicking in the first place... wait."

He was in the middle of filtering out everyone who looked like they wouldn't fall for it when—

"Oh."

A pretty easy-looking mark had just appeared.

Compared to the others, she wasn't asking for much detail at all.

"Heh heh. Well now. How does she already know I work fast?"

She was even offering extra money to speed things up.

"...Is it even okay for a deal to go this smoothly?"

The moment he felt things were falling into place a little too easily—

"Eh."

Didn't matter. Things going smoothly just meant the mark was taking the bait.

"I'll whip one up real quick and push it straight to transaction complete. No — better yet, should I suggest a cash deal outside the platform so there's no brokerage fee?"

Time to properly land one.

Je-Zzos accepted the commission, gave out his email address, and started writing things in the email that he couldn't put on the brokerage site.

"But this person's email address is... eh, whatever. Doesn't matter."

"Wow. A cash-deal phishing scammer. Classic."

The second I gave him my email, the cash transaction pitch came flying in.

"Is this guy brand new to the industry? Ha. As a senior professional, I've got a lot of notes for him..."

Based on our conversation, his qualifications as a scammer ranked him as... a small-time crook. The type who exclusively targets social freshmen and early-twenties kids — the weak ones — and is only now trying to pull off one real score.

But small-time or not, anyone who tries to drain hundreds of thousands from my bank account is a traitor who deserves to be torn apart.

"This is a little different from the future I saw... aha. Because I played the mark harder — acted even more like a sucker — he stepped things up past the original timeline."

If I'd just placed a clean, normal commission, he probably would have tried a refund-and-run. But because I talked like the gullible women I used to romance-scam in my past life, the scammer rewrote the future itself and started working me over.

"Hrm..."

I'm not particularly specialized in illustration. I studied a bit, but nothing like the professional deep-dives I used to do when I was conning women.

But then again—

I've already confirmed he's a scammer. Why would I waste time warming up?

The future itself is telling me to lock this bastard up so he can't scam anyone else. If I can't even strip a guy like this bare, I never would have survived my past life the way I did.

"Two-track approach."

Bzzzt.

My phone started buzzing — from the burner account I'd set up in advance for this exact case.

Not under Eun Harin's name. Under the name of my past life — Kang Sunwoo.

"Make it sensational enough that anyone would care."

You dared try to scam me?

You can go do a little stint in prison too.