WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 48: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (48)

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#48.

The head of publicity for the governor's Local Extinction Response Task Force checked every new video uploaded to the 「Onik Uncle and the Hapless Chief」 channel as soon as it went up.

Officially, it was to ensure the cultural experience complex and local specialties had been promoted properly...

In reality, the publicity chief simply did not want to work.

Opportunities to openly collect a paycheck while slacking off during office hours were rare and precious.

The publicity chief considered this lapse beyond personal control.

'I'm exhausted! I can't get any work done like this!'

Having an overly motivated superior was terribly tiring for those beneath them.

It was even worse when motivation was all that superior had.

Whenever an idea they considered good occurred to them, they tossed out another assignment. For subordinates who had not even finished their existing work, it could only bring sighs.

They could not neglect their original assignments, either.

Their superior constantly asked, "How is that thing from before coming along?" What exactly "that thing" referred to was chosen at random.

'I'll have to work overtime anyway...'

Before being dragged into the task force, the publicity chief's overtime had been no different from the cutting-edge overtime of other civil servants who had mastered applied quantum mechanics in keeping with the times.

Until a complaint was filed, an audit began, and actual observation took place, the publicity chief's location remained indeterminate between the workplace and home.

The task force's overtime, though, was classical-mechanics overtime.

Civil servants had sweetly enjoyed the work-life balance guaranteed by probability clouds in the micro-world, meaning the unobserved world where no one watched them, while happily collecting overtime allowances.

Then the governor's harsh, greedy hand dragged these exemplary public servants into the cold macro-world and fixed their state.

The governor valued only labor visible in the macro-world. It was a terribly outdated attitude.

The task force members could not keep themselves from lamenting.

How could someone who wanted to build achievements and name recognition before making a run for the presidency fail to keep up with scientific and technological progress so badly?

Was that not a national tragedy as well?

The working conditions of South Korea's proud civil servants, who ought to lead the nation into the twenty-first century as a scientific powerhouse, could not keep regressing like this...

'Someone who doesn't work overtime lacks fighting spirit? What century is that way of thinking from?'

As the publicity chief grumbled inwardly while watching the video, an archery-range employee's awestruck remark suddenly caught the official's ear.

"No, hey, does this even make sense...? Onik, if you entered an international archery tournament carrying a horn bow, you'd win gold..."

...What?

The publicity chief blinked blankly for a moment.

'Enter an international archery tournament with a horn bow? And win gold?'

That one remark gave the chief an idea.

If such an absurd-sounding assumption became reality... it would not only be a joyous occasion for the country. It would be a joyous occasion for the province, the governor, and the publicity chief as well.

Building recognition and a premium image for local specialties?

'That'd be nothing.'

Amid an enormous cauldron of overflowing national pride, people were sure to show blazing interest in every local specialty the miracle boy had promoted in the past.

And that was not all.

One of the governor's key initiatives, fostering traditional cultural industries and revitalizing the regional economy, would gain tremendous momentum as well.

This was a fight whose outcome depended on how much of the central government's budget they could bring in.

And central-government budget allocations were heavily influenced by public opinion.

A single superstar could decide where a budget worth trillions of won went.

This province was already known as the home of bows.

More precisely, that applied only to a particular county within the province, but the clan village where the extraordinary boy in the video lived was not terribly far from it.

It was far by local standards, but by Seoul standards, it was the sort of distance where one place looked much the same as another.

They needed to bring in more funding, solidify the province's image as the home of bows, and strengthen the related infrastructure.

Then the next round of related budgets would be drawn there as if pulled by a magnet, giving them the advantage of moving first.

The principle that money attracted money applied just as well to national budget allocation.

That was one reason individual local governments fought for funding as if their lives depended on it.

The publicity chief replayed the portion showing Onik's target several times, rubbing their chin.

'Could this... really work?'

The scenario the publicity chief imagined was unrealistic, but the target in the video was utterly real.

A child who shot nothing but nines and above from 145 meters did not seem likely to fail at a 70-meter target, less than half that distance away.

(Archers from the Korean Archery Association would have protested that closer targets were actually more difficult, but the publicity chief knew nothing about traditional archery.)

Once a civil servant's mind began working, it kept turning.

'If we position the governor as someone who recognized a genius boy's talent early on and gave him wholehearted support...

'Then it might not be unreasonable for our greedy old man to show his face in a video once.'

The governor's public relations and promotion of provincial administration also fell within the duties of the Local Extinction Response Task Force's publicity chief.

It might seem strange to ask what public relations and provincial promotion had to do with responding to local extinction, but the task force's true nature was a special organization for building the governor's achievements.

Its fundamental purpose was not really to respond to local extinction.

It was much like how many of this country's low-birth-rate policies had no direct relationship with low birth rates.

South Korea's wise politicians understood the importance of branding better than anyone.

'...He just can't get greedy for screen time. If he's satisfied with appearing only once, there won't be any pointless backlash. Those people won't feel as burdened, either.'

Those people, of course, meant the two owners of 「Onik Uncle and the Hapless Chief」.

Internet broadcasters in non-political fields naturally wanted to avoid becoming involved with politicians.

The association itself could become a negative issue.

Still, if the governor appeared briefly just once as a public official sincerely helping a young genius enter international competition, they could avoid much of that fallout.

At worst, the video's comment section would become a little messy.

(Their side also supported locally based creators in various ways.)

After that, the governor's presence could be shown indirectly through the active assistance of the civil servants below him, including the publicity chief.

It was an investment in the future.

The moment the genius boy from a country village won gold, the governor's foresight and devotion would finally be recognized anew.

(The publicity chief would also have a moment in the sun. The glory of Chungju City's pioneering publicity official was not far away.)

As the chief had already considered, a great many projects being pursued by the province would gain tremendous momentum as well.

Having decided on a course, the publicity chief issued instructions to the team through the Provincial Administration Communication Platform, an internal work messenger. There were things the official needed to confirm before submitting a proposal.

A short while later.

"Chief, we contacted the cultural experience complex, and they said there was no rigging or staging in the archery contest at all. It really was entirely the child's skill. They said they were genuinely shocked, too."

"I spoke with someone from the archery association. If we only look at the regulations, entering an international competition with a horn bow isn't impossible, but they said it was uncertain whether the world federation would actually allow it.

"They said an advance inspection of the actual equipment and a request for interpretation of the regulations would be essential. There's also a fair possibility they could reject it for reasons other than the equipment regulations."

"And if the bow is a handmade item produced in limited quantities by one artisan, it could later become an issue under the rule requiring equipment to be commercially available."

"They also said the federation would need to determine matters such as whether a traditional thumb ring violated the finger-tab equipment regulations, and whether handmade arrows that could not be completely identical violated the rule that all arrows must have the same form."

"But they asked why we were asking something so pointless. What insane athlete would enter a target recurve event using barebow equipment?

"I wrote down what they said, but I don't know the difference between the two, so I couldn't answer..."

Civil servants were brave because they did not know.

The publicity chief nodded.

'Right. From the perspective of helping him, it would be troublesome if there were no obstacles at all.'

They could try first. If it proved too difficult, they could simply tell him to use the equipment everyone else used.

The genius boy's talent was not going anywhere.

After casually reaching that conclusion, the chief shared the plan with the team, prepared a proposal, and sent it upward.

The governor's reply was concise.

"Interesting. Push It Through!"

#

Around the same time, by coincidence, Legal Hunter was having thoughts similar to the publicity chief's.

'Could this work?'

One of the archery-range employees had made that remark while unable to hide their admiration and shock at the young genius's skill.

Legal Hunter had seriously turned those words over in his mind for several days.

The idea had been vague at first, but it became more and more concrete with each passing day.

'Gold. A gold medal...'

He already knew that his young business partner's skill with a bow was extraordinary.

No, he had thought he knew.

When Onik punched holes into the nine and ten rings from that far away, leaving them ragged, Legal Hunter briefly felt something close to awe toward his young business partner.

'Can that really be human skill?'

When Legal Hunter was young, in a remote village in the 1980s where there was little to do for fun, the bows made by the Master Bowyer served as a catalyst that brought all the villagers together, regardless of age or gender.

In one sense, it was also an old tradition that had continued since the Joseon era.

(The tradition still survives at many archery grounds as the pyeonsa nori culture.

It has only become increasingly forgotten because it continues to decline due to fewer newcomers and an aging population.)

The knack he had acquired in childhood gave him an eye for judging an archer's skill.

Simply watching his young business partner was enough to give him chills and leave him overwhelmed.

The video preserved just how stupid his expression had been then. Legal Hunter could not simply laugh at his own face in the video as the viewers did.

He let his imagination run wild.

'If Onik really wins gold on the world stage with the Master Bowyer's horn bow... that would be an incredible stroke of luck.'

Winning gold alone would make him a proud national hero.

But how excited would people be if a child who had not even come of age crushed the competition with a traditional horn bow?

The channel's subscriber count would keep rocketing upward throughout the competition... no, even after it ended. His other businesses would become so successful that it would be impossible for them to fail even if he tried.

Once Onik rose to stardom, he would surely earn an enormous income as an advertising model, too.

Wondering how much that might be, Legal Hunter looked up old articles about the endorsement fees of a certain figure skater who immediately came to mind.

"Queen of Figure Skating. After winning gold at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, annual endorsement fees of up to 1.4 billion won per commercial!"

"...She is known to have earned more than 10 billion won in advertising income over the past year, astonishing the public. This year, she ranked sixth on Forbes' list of the world's highest-earning female athletes..."

"The queen's rise shows no sign of slowing in the advertising world. Last year, she ranked sixth on Forbes' list of the world's highest-earning female athletes. This year, she made an astonishing leap to fourth place, earning a full 16.3 million dollars, or 16.7 billion won."

"Her endorsement fees have remained high even after retirement. Her absolute status as the queen of figure skating and a national hero continues to make countless companies send her love letters..."

After reading through the articles, Legal Hunter quietly thought that Onik, with both natural talent and a distinctive background, could easily reach that level.

'And he takes after his great-uncle and his father. He's a good-looking kid, too.'

Of course, Legal Hunter could not take a share of the advertising income Onik earned.

What mattered was that he would be able to use an advertising model with that much value for free.

Legal Hunter's company was also his young business partner's company.

It did not even need direct advertising.

Did they not offer customers the long tradition of the head family, of which the national-hero boy was the eldest-line descendant, through a company owned by that very boy?

Word would spread on its own, and reporters would rush to write articles.

Onik's background, as the sole male heir for three generations of a family that included an independence activist and a war veteran, and as a child who had grown up steadfastly in a household with only his grandfather, was like a rocket engine waiting to ignite.

'And it would solve the military-service problem, too!'

Onik was not the only one worried about his military service.

The military-service benefit granted to international competition medalists was not an exemption, but alternative service.

Still, it was effectively an exemption. All they had to do was continue working in their sport and fulfill volunteer-service hours.

The fact that profit-making activities were not prohibited during alternative service made it even better.

Legal Hunter remembered something his daughter had said during a phone call some time ago.

"Dad, what will happen if our boss has to go into the military later? If you broadcast alone, the average views will plummet.

"Even when the boss finishes his service and comes back, they won't completely recover."

Legal Hunter's daughter was deeply attached to the channel she managed.

For her, it was not just a way to earn money. It had been a path to self-realization that came to her when her self-esteem had hit rock bottom.

(It was a concept that had become unfamiliar to many Koreans lately, but self-realization was originally one of the key criteria for choosing a career.)

Legal Hunter felt a little hurt by his daughter.

To her, he was just Dad, while Onik alone was the angelic boss.

He had completely forgotten his original sin of opposing her request to hire more editors because there were too many videos for her to upload.

"Why not work fourteen hours a day without weekends? That's what I do. How are you going to succeed without even that much effort? Kids these days, honestly..."

Expecting affection from his daughter after saying things like that would have been shameless.

In the end, they were only able to make the additional hire after Onik supported the request and persuaded Legal Hunter on behalf of the "editor big sis," whose complaints he had heard.

Even then, Legal Hunter lost more points with his daughter by grumbling that labor costs were a waste...

Anyway, Onik's military-service issue was a concern for Legal Hunter as well as for his daughter.

If they could solve that concern early on, what obstacle could there possibly be in the business ahead?

Once he had thought that far, Legal Hunter picked up his smartphone and opened a search bar.

He intended to find out what his young business partner would need to do to join the Olympic team and what events he could enter at his current age.

Before his slow fingers could type anything into the search bar, though, an incoming-call notification appeared on the screen.

"What? Isn't this the publicity chief?"

Expecting that the publicity chief might already be offering him another advertisement, Legal Hunter pressed the call button.

"Hello?"

"Hello, President Jo. This is Jang Su-won. I'm the publicity chief from the Local Extinction Response Task Force that you spoke with before. You remember me, don't you?"

"Ah, yes. Officer Jang. Of course I remember. How could I forget? But what prompted your call? Is this about an advertisement?"

"No. Not today. I have something else I'd like to ask you about."

"Something you want to ask? Go ahead."

"Well, to get straight to the point..."

The tired civil servant paused briefly before getting to the point.

"I watched the video you uploaded to YouTube, and Onik seems to have quite extraordinary skill with a bow.

"So, if Onik himself wants to take archery more seriously, the provincial government is considering giving him active support. The idea would be to enter him in various competitions.

"What do you think, President Jo...?"

Legal Hunter's mouth fell open. What a coincidence.

At that moment, he felt as if a special destiny were guiding him.

Footnotes:

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