WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The World Is Not a Game ◈
Chapter 10
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“That box is Chuck’s present, and the books are mine. They’re the new comics ‘starring you.’ I stopped by a bookstore on the way and asked for every title they had. Give them a read. I read them to pass the time on the way here, and they’re pretty fun.”
Ignoring Nikki’s sly grin, Hyeokjin let out a quiet sigh and picked up a book.
It was a graphic novel from a famous comic book publisher. Right on the front cover was Hyeokjin, dressed in his Closer outfit.
“Hmm...”
Hyeokjin had never thought much of his outfit, but it looked rather impressive on a book cover.
It almost brought to mind the hero of a dark superhero comic he had read as a child.
It was a little embarrassing, but Hyeokjin was still curious about a book starring him. He opened it and skimmed the contents.
A moment later...
“They’ve made the whole damn thing up.”
“Ahaha! Hahahaha! Hey, the story’s pretty good, though, isn’t it? The art’s not bad either. Here, this is the best part. ‘No, you monster! Beware my power! Green...’ Hey! Why’d you close it all of a sudden?”
Nikki had been chattering excitedly beside Hyeokjin, and she protested when he shut the book.
Ignoring her, Hyeokjin buried his face in both hands and lowered his head.
Since having his body modified, Hyeokjin’s emotions had become greatly dulled by the synthetic warp hormones constantly flowing through his body.
He felt emotions just like anyone else, but over a much narrower range. This allowed Hyeokjin to stay calm and avoid panic in any situation, but this...
Even Hyeokjin struggled to handle this.
Embarrassment. Such overwhelming embarrassment that he couldn’t raise his head.
Chuck nodded at Hyeokjin’s bowed head with an understanding expression.
“It’s like that for everyone at first. You’ll get used to it with time. Still, this is the first time I’ve seen you show so much emotion. Was it that embarrassing?”
“...Yes. I could read any other superhero comic without a problem, but being the model for one is so embarrassing that my face feels hot. Thinking about people all over the world reading it makes it even worse. And you, stop laughing. How can you laugh when I’m suffering here?”
Hyeokjin raised his head and glared at the snickering Nikki. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Wow, I’ve never seen you get this angry, Vanilla. Hey, don’t take it out on me. All I did was bring you something that was already published! If you want to get mad, blame the writers who planned it and the big shots in the government. Right? Hahaha!”
“...Right. Getting angry at you won’t change anything. Whew.”
Hyeokjin pressed his fingers to his temple and sighed at Nikki’s laughter-filled reply. Chuck gave Hyeokjin a small smile and spoke in a gentle, reassuring tone.
“It’s not all bad. A tidy sum in ‘character royalties’ will be landing in your bank account soon. It really is quite something. I get a little under a hundred million dollars. How much do you get, Nikki?”
At Chuck’s sudden question, Nikki frowned and counted on her fingers as though doing the math. Then she gave a light shrug.
“Three hundred twenty-three million, two hundred forty thousand dollars last year alone. After taxes.”
“Haha! That’s more than three times my annual income.”
“Well, you haven’t really been doing anything, old man. I’ve been busy shooting commercials and movies. You could make that much if you put in the work.”
“No, you need to be popular to get offers in the first place. I don’t get many.”
Nikki tilted the glass in her hand and answered indifferently, as if it were nothing, while Chuck laughed heartily. Sitting between the two as they discussed those sums so casually, Hyeokjin shook his head in disbelief.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s hard to even imagine that much money, let alone spend it all in a lifetime.”
“Oh, you’ll be making this much yourself soon enough.”
“True. Vanilla’s incredibly popular right now. The government’s been promoting you everywhere as the person most responsible for reclaiming our territory. You’ll easily clear two hundred million.”
Nikki readily nodded in agreement with Chuck. Listening to them, Hyeokjin frowned and rubbed his chin as he looked at the comics piled on the table.
Two hundred million dollars.
In Korea’s now-defunct currency, that would have been roughly two hundred fifty billion won.
Hyeokjin had made quite a lot of money working as a Closer, but this was a truly unreal sum.
And it wasn’t a one-time payment. He would earn that much in a single year...
Still, when he thought it through, it made sense.
In the world as it was now, S-rank Closers were quite literally everyone’s idols. Their popularity far surpassed that of world-famous singers, actors, or sports stars.
With that level of popularity, it was only natural to earn that kind of money.
After seriously considering his future earnings for a little while, Hyeokjin shrugged and spoke.
“Well, it doesn’t particularly appeal to me. Even if I have money, I don’t really have anything to spend it on... I’ll donate everything I receive to the Closer Association.”
“What? Did you just say you’d donate all of it?”
“Yes.”
“But why on earth would you do that? If you have nothing to spend it on, you could simply leave it in the bank. Ah, if this is about maintaining your public image, there’s no need to...”
Chuck began speaking with a look of understanding, but Hyeokjin quickly shook his head.
“No, this isn’t about my image. I don’t care what other people say about me. To give you a more honest reason... I want to stop that much money from going to my family.”
“Your family? Couldn’t you simply not give them the money?”
It was a perfectly sensible answer. But Hyeokjin sighed quietly, then frowned as though he didn’t even want to think about it.
“Yes, I could refuse. But they wouldn’t give up. They’d keep pestering me for money. It would be a real nuisance. I’d rather get rid of it all so they can’t even entertain the idea. My family already lives far more lavishly than they deserve on what I earn as an A-rank Closer. I could tolerate that level of luxury and waste... but I can’t accept hundreds of millions of dollars being thrown away for nothing.”
Chuck and Nikki wore strange expressions at Hyeokjin’s firm reply. Seeing their confusion, Hyeokjin merely smacked his lips without saying anything.
The two didn’t know what Hyeokjin’s family was like, so they wouldn’t understand the decision.
Family ties were considered the most basic and reliable of all human relationships. Unfortunately, to Hyeokjin, family didn’t mean blood relatives who could be trusted more than strangers.
They were more like parasites who used those blood ties as an excuse to suck Hyeokjin dry.
His parents threw themselves into pleasure-seeking, saying they would enjoy life as much as possible before humanity went extinct.
His younger sister still hadn’t come to her senses and remained blinded by her hunger for power.
Since immigrating to the United States, Hyeokjin had earned around three million dollars a year by constantly closing A-rank dungeons.
Every year, he earned enough to support an ordinary person for life. Yet whenever money entered the account, Hyeokjin’s family spent every last cent.
Hyeokjin disapproved of his family wasting money like that. But he hardly spent any money himself, and he hadn’t wanted to get into pointless arguments with his family over it, so he had let it slide until now.
But two hundred million dollars was another matter.
Two hundred million dollars. It was, quite literally, an astronomical sum.
It was more than a single person could easily spend. Yet judging by the spending habits Hyeokjin had seen so far, his family would somehow manage to blow the entire amount.
Used properly, that money could save countless lives. Could Hyeokjin let it disappear just to satisfy his family’s empty desires?
Even Hyeokjin, who had stood by and tolerated his family’s selfish behavior until now, couldn’t accept that.
‘...When I think about it, this relationship turning out this way was about half my fault.’
Hyeokjin had been frowning at the thought of his family clinging to him and whining. Then memories of the family decades ago suddenly came to mind, and he let out a bitter sigh.
His family relationship hadn’t been this unhealthy from the start.
They had simply been an ordinary, happy family. But after Hyeokjin became a Closer, that relationship had slowly begun to twist.
Hyeokjin had become a Closer just after the existence of shadow worlds was made public.
It was a time when speculative capital from Wall Street and around the world had poured into warp-related objects.
Commonly called “Ooparts,” even unremarkable examples had sold like hotcakes for enormous sums thanks to that flood of speculative money. Riding the boom, Hyeokjin had made a fortune far too easily.
And being young at the time, he had wasted that easily earned money just as easily.
While enjoying a life of luxury he had only imagined before, Hyeokjin had also handed his family enormous sums of money.
As a result, the whole family had begun spending freely.
His parents had run a small barbecue restaurant. Perhaps bitter about their landlord’s abuses of power, they had eagerly bought up small buildings and fulfilled their dream of becoming landlords themselves. His vain younger sister had draped herself in designer goods and begun trying to enter politics.
As time passed and the speculative bubble burst, Ooparts prices had begun to stabilize. But Hyeokjin’s abilities had kept improving, and he had brought back increasingly rare objects, keeping his earnings at much the same level.
That unchecked, extravagant lifestyle had continued for twenty-five years.
After South Korea fell and he immigrated to the United States, Hyeokjin had stopped wasting money. His family’s spending habits, however, had remained unchanged.
No, they had actually grown worse.
Perhaps traumatized after witnessing a shadow world encroach on reality right before their eyes, Hyeokjin’s parents had even started taking drugs, saying they would “enjoy the rest of their lives before humanity went extinct.” And his younger sister, who remained immature despite her advancing age, was still running wild, declaring that she would “enter American politics.”
His family’s lack of self-control had brought the relationship to this point. Still, no matter how he looked at it, the money Hyeokjin had provided was where it had all begun.
“Donating your money because you don’t want your family pestering you... That reminds me, may I ask you something, Hyeokjin? It concerns your private life, so I’m a little hesitant.”
After hearing Hyeokjin’s answer, Chuck looked at him and asked a question as though something had suddenly occurred to him.
When Hyeokjin nodded to show it was fine, Chuck began cautiously, sounding uncertain.
“Your mention of family reminded me. The woman you asked Nikki to take to the hospital earlier... Her face was so badly damaged that I couldn’t recognize her, but her build was similar to your younger sister’s. Could she have been...?”
“Yes, she’s my younger sister.”
“But why on earth was your younger sister here? And why did you do that to her?”
Footnotes:
Nikki’s unfinished “Beware my power! Green...” line parodies the superhero Green Lantern’s oath, which ends with “Beware my power, Green Lantern’s light!”
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