Chapter 2.2

By the time he finished eating his ramen, Radi had begun to change the topic.

"Let's end this topic here guys. If you mention any more, I'll have to temporarily mute you. It would be rude to Jay-nim if I said any more. Shall we ride Mt. Baekdu for the first time in a while? If we can climb Mt. Baekdu, I will dance for you guys!"

Mt. Baekdu referred to stacking coins in order from 1 to 100 as stacking a total of 5,050 coins from the number 1 is similar to climbing a mountain.

It was a Korea TV term that originated from the coincidence whereby the final goal of 100 coins and 'Baek' in Mt. Baekdu had the same pronunciation.

This was a trick that Korea TV and streamers came up with in order to receive coins from their viewers.

But viewers happily accepted the provocation as streamers would go on to present a reward for a successful climbing of Mt. Baekdu.

Especially when it was a streamer who didn't usually dance like Radi. People would go crazy for such a sight.

- Pole totem!

- Rock Stack!

- 👍👍👍

- ❤️❤️❤️

- Go!

- ❤️❤️❤️

- Yes!

The chat window, which had been filled with chatting asking for further details about the earlier gossip, changed almost immediately. Such was the wisdom of a seasoned broadcaster.

Hyunwoo Lee remembered that he had 7 coins left for the month.

'Since it's Radi, it's only right for me to pay up a viewing fee with my leftover coins. I'm going to sign up as a fan and shoot at Level 7.'

When shooting coins at the stack, the timing was very important. If the timing was not right, overlapping would occur. Hence why he opened up the coin gift window in advance, only to…

"Fuck?"

Lee Hyeon-woo spat out expletives without even realizing it.

[Coin Gift]

[Gift to Lajeehye (Radi)]

[– ____ Coins to gift]

[-Possessed coins 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999...]

'This endless chain of 999s... Is it bugging? What kind of error...'

"No, wait... No way...!"

'That retarded dream from last night was actually real? Putting two and two together, this situation certainly seems like the dream I saved in my head and forgot about. So… It wasn't a dream?'

"Haha...Haha...."

A blank laugh leaked out of his lips.

'Is this how it feels to win the lottery? It feels great and yet, the actual feeling is not that great. It's a strange feeling…'

"Can I use this?"

Asking such a question, he realised he was able to input a figure into the space.

The angel said that he could, and hopefully, by the grace of God, she did not cause any damage to Korea TV or the National Tax Service unknowingly.

Recalling how Lee Hyun-woo had asked such for such a request even while drunk, he felt incredibly proud of himself.

"Brother Yul King! 7, 8, 9. Thank you, every little bit counts toward climbing the mountain! Next, next!"

- Go! Go!

- Again!

- Next one!

- Sent!

- Me next! (Tug-of-war chat-con)

While Lee Hyeon-woo was still astounded, Radi had already started climbing Mt. Baekdu.

Climbing was a figurative expression for the game they were playing since she was still sitting in her chair and rocking her body lightly, prompting viewers to shoot even more coins.

To motivate them, she shook her arms like a tug-of-war or called the nicknames of viewers who gifted her coins.

The chat window was actively egging the next person along as she chatted to encourage people to spend more of their money.

[I-want-to-be-unemployed gifted 10 coins!]

[I-want-to-be-unemployed became the 25,244th fan club.]

"Baeksoo! 10 Coins to climb higher! And thank you for joining us as a fan! Great, great! Next is 11 coins to climb. 11! Who will shoot the next gift?"

When he clicked the 'Send Gift'button, the number of coins gifted was as many as the number he entered into the panel.

'Even though I knew it was probably going to work out, I feel overwhelmed with emotion now that I've actually seen the gift go through.'

'…'

'How do I react?'

"Aaaaa!"

Hyunwoo Lee jumped up from his seat and cheered.

A lion's roar that made him appear like a barbarian erupted from his mouth.

'Pleased. I am so happy. Now I am a tycoon!'

Lee Hyeon-woo promptly left Radi's stream after the revelation.

'I have infinite coins, so Radi's stream isn't the main priority right now.'

The first thing he checked was whether he could receive a refund from the customer service centre.

His coins were infinite, so if he kept refunding the right amount of real-world money, he wouldn't ever have to worry about money for the rest of his life...

"No. Wait… What if the employee handling the refund ended up seeing my coin balance details?"

Hyunwoo Lee's hands stopped moving while he was happily filling out the refund form.

'I was so happy that I didn't really think about it.'

He owns way too many coins. In terms of real-world cash, it went beyond thousands of trillions and goes even beyond light years, purple years, and whatever amount possible: a mathematically impossible number.

It was such an impossible number, that even if one collected all the money from around the world and exchanged it for coins, such a figure couldn't be accumulated.

'What will the staff who sees this judge of the situation? Of course, it would be considered a bug. And he'd check the payment history or recharge history. And since there are no records, he may just delete all the coins.'

'…'

'What of the fact that an angel made my wish come true? It's just a massive hassle. Even after collecting all the wealth in the world, when an unrealistic balance is presented to customer service, wouldn't Korea TV instantly know they'd been duped? No… In this case, I would consider it a hack and not a bug. A crime whereby I not only hacked Korea TV for coins but also cheated around the payment system and the national credit network. This… would spell much more trouble than just a simple bug if found out.'

"Can't I somehow turn this into money?"

'I won a lottery? No. America's Super Bowl? It's so big that I could say I won it that way. But refunds probably aren't possible. Are there any retarded situations like mine?'

Hyunwoo Lee pondered over how to convert the infinite coins.

Then he suddenly found a way to turn his coins into real-world money.

A lot of ways too.

There were dozens of streamers on the monitor. With them, it would be easy to cash out.

He would fire coins at them and then get paid real-world money in return. It could be interpreted as some sort of a cash-back scheme.

First, he had to consider the income structure of streamers on Korea TV. Watching the stream evidently wasn't his only pleasure, as Hyeon-Woo Lee also remembered their income structure.

The normal streamer's fee was 40%.

3.3 per cent withholding tax.

10 per cent VAT.

Comprehensive Income Tax was 6 to 35 per cent.

If you assume that one gifted 1 coin, that is, 100 won per coin, the streamer would earn between 32 to 50 won according to the tax reductions. And so a conversion of 320 won for every 1,000 won donated.

'Since 10 million won is 3.2 million won, then if I gifted 100,000 coins, that would convert to 1.6 million won returned to my account with cash back, which is half the donated returns. No, even if I asked for a cashback of only 1,000,000 won, it's certain that a streamer would line up and offer to embark on such a scheme with me.'

Calculating these numbers in his mind, Hyeon-Woo Lee sat down in front of the computer with a broad smile full of enthusiasm.

— — — — — —

patreon.com/countp