[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return – Chapter 97

“Please drop me off here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I just want to walk a bit on my own.”

I got off Kim’s car at a sidewalk a little ways from home.

It could be seen as about a ten-minute walk for me.

It was a decision made because I needed some time alone to organize my thoughts.

“Alright, I’ll be nearby, so call me if you need anything.”

“Yes.”

A little after I started walking, I realized I had completely forgotten one very important fact.

‘There are… a lot of people.’

Thinking about it, it made sense.

This was Seoul, and specifically, Jongno.

It would be weirder if there weren’t people around.

People here, people there.

A bustling crowd brushed past me.

The good news, at least, was that unlike before, being in a crowd didn’t trigger any panic attacks.

It was a significant improvement after what had felt like a long dormitory life.

“Wow….”

“Hey, hey, look over there.”

“Whoa.”

“Is that a celebrity?”

“Isn’t that a foreigner? Ah, is that someone from a foreign movie?”

I could feel the eyes on me, but I’d gotten somewhat used to it, so I continued walking.

At first, my steps felt light, but as I got closer to home, they began to feel heavier.

And then suddenly, a thought struck me.

‘…Did I just make a huge mistake?’

Before I knew it, my steps had stopped.

When I left the filming set, my mind had been a jumbled mess, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d really messed up.

‘That wasn’t… what I should have done, right?’

After all, just dropping everything and running away from filming… even I thought that was absurd.

‘What to do? Should I go back and finish filming right now?’

But even if I did, whether they’d be able to use it was a whole different issue, so it’d be useless anyway.

‘Why did I do that?’

Thinking it over, I realized there were far better options than just running away.

I could have finished filming the commercials and later gone through the proper channels to terminate the contract; wouldn’t that have posed no issues at all?

‘But isn’t there a problem from the moment I decided to cancel the contract? What do I do?’

I was being impulsive, that much was clear.

I reflected once more on my nonsensical actions.

“What do I do…”

Tears threatened to spill from my eyes.

The weight of what I had done slowly tightened around my chest.

“Oh.”

Lost in my thoughts, I found that I had arrived in front of my house.

Steeling my anxious heart, I got into the elevator, and when I arrived home, my mother greeted me.

“You’re back early today?”

The moment I saw my mother’s face, something welled up inside me.

“Uh, well….”

In the end, I poured out about what had happened that day to my mother.

“So you… just ran away from there? That’s why you’re home? Why would you do that?”

“Just… something happened.”

Along with that, my mother’s face turned into a look of disbelief.

Goodness, of all the countless excuses, just that was what I said…

Of course, there were reasons beyond that, like the atmosphere within the team or the vibe on set at that moment, but expressing it in words was difficult.

“Sigh…”

And then came the heavy sigh.

“I knew you would mess up someday. You little rascal.”

“…What do I do now?”

“Even if there’s no issue legally due to the contract, you shouldn’t go around blaming others carelessly. Ethical responsibility and legal responsibility are different. If you wanted to terminate the contract with the team, you should have called me first. What do you do just running away like that?”

She was right on all counts.

“I’ll be out for a bit, so you reflect on this. Just know you’re going to get a lecture when I get back.”

“…Okay.”

My mother hurriedly finished her preparations, grabbed her car keys, and left the house.

It seemed like she was off to deal with the consequences of my actions.

I felt like I was serving a sentence as I anxiously paced around the house, but even after a few hours, my mother showed no signs of coming back.

‘What’s going on? Is something wrong?’

I thought about making a call to check, but then worried that me calling might be an inconvenience.

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

‘…I’m such a fool.’

Given the situation, self-reproach just kept piling up.

Stupid, idiot, dimwit, sea cucumber, sea slug.

I’d deserve any insults thrown at me for my foolishness.

Just as I was wallowing in self-pity.

Ding-

I heard the sound of the front door opening.

“Mom, is that you?!”

Thinking she might be late, I hurried to the entrance, but unfortunately, it wasn’t my mother who walked in.

“Hey, Yujin. You’re here?”

It was my father.

Oh right… it was around the time he came back.

“Uh, well… yeah.”

“Did you wait? Go to the living room first. I’ll wash up a bit.”

I wasn’t particularly waiting for him, but somehow the situation felt a bit strange.

“…Ah, okay.”

Anyway, there were things I needed to discuss with my father, so it wouldn’t hurt, but still… the gravity of the situation mattered, doesn’t it?

My father casually mentioned as he passed by the bathroom.

“Oh, and your mom called. She said everything about you is fine, so don’t worry too much. She happened to run into an old classmate and is just chatting over coffee.”

“…Really?”

“Yep, so don’t stress too much.”

I had worried for nothing; it seemed my mother had figured things out well.

‘…Could you at least give me a heads-up?’

I couldn’t help but feel some resentment towards my mother, but maybe she intentionally didn’t contact me.

Maybe she was thinking I should suffer a little.

‘…Mom’s going to scold me a lot when she gets back.’

With a guilty conscience, I sat quietly on the sofa in the living room, waiting for my father.

After about twenty minutes, he finally came out.

“Did you wait long?”

My father settled into the sofa, smelling of some men’s skincare product, like an older gentleman.

“You want to start a team?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Do you have any concrete plans?”

“…Not really.”

Of course, I had thought about it in my head, but I had never firmly established what I needed to do!

I just thought vaguely that I’d need this and that, and that I needed this much money.

“Yujin.”

“Uh-huh?”

“If you asked me to buy you a house worth ten billion won, I would have done it without hesitation. The same goes for other things. But now you want to start a team?”

“Uh-huh…”

“Then this becomes a business discussion.”

For some reason, my usually gentle father looked heavier and more substantial.

“So you could see this meeting as sort of an investment briefing regarding the funds for your business. Why should I invest in you?”

“…For the potential for the future?”

“What kind of potential?”

“……Well, I don’t know?”

I never imagined we’d have such a Q&A session.

I had thought casually I might charm him and he’d lend me the money… and I felt pathetic.

“Yujin, ten billion won is a lot of money.”

“I know that….”

“Some people lose their lives over this money. You don’t understand the fear of money.”

Deflated.

I realized I had underestimated the gravity of this.

“Alright, let’s say I agree to lend you ten billion won. How will you repay me?”

“……By winning the Red Cup?”

“Can you guarantee you’ll win it?”

“There’s… no guarantee.”

That was obvious.

What team or player out there would dare guarantee a championship title?

‘Even Rainbow can’t.‘

Winning in the past and having the potential to do so in the future are entirely different stories.

Of course, one could argue that the odds of winning are high, but the Legends of League scene is evolving and becoming more competitive each year.

No team or player could confidently say they would win the Red Cup.

“Then I can’t lend it to you.”

…It’s going this way, huh?

“Can’t you just lend it to me? Oh, and there’s also naming sponsorship and stuff.”

“What do I trust you on?”

“…Because I’m your child?”

If only I could say something like ‘it’s because I’m your pretty daughter,’ but that still felt out of reach for me.

In fact, it probably would be for a lifetime.

“Hmm.”

My father looked a bit flustered for a moment but soon managed to put on a serious expression again.

But even so, he was still my father.

“While that’s a substantial reason, it doesn’t justify lending me ten billion won.”

“…I really believe in this. Can you help me just once?”

“No.”

My father was resolute.

Had he ever shown such a side to my sibling or me?

‘…Well, my sibling has never asked for a ten billion won handbag.’

Actually, did they ever?

…Not sure.

I didn’t memorize the prices of the bags my sibling owned, so it made sense I didn’t know.

Well… in any case, that wasn’t the important thing, and as my father said, if it had been a ten billion won handbag, I might have bought it without question.

But my reason for borrowing money was to create my team.

The reasons were entirely different.

“Yujin, can you prove your worth to me?”

“My worth?”

“Yeah, can you repay the money I’d lend you no matter what?”

“Well….”

Of course not.

That very phrase was about to slip out of my mouth.

‘Ah.’

There was something.

A way for me to earn a large amount of money in a short time.

“I can.”

“……You can?”

My father looked a bit surprised, as if he had never expected such a response from me.

“I’m not going to put money into something just because you say so without a solid reason─”

“I’ll earn ten million won in a month and show it to you, okay?”

“If you can really do that, then that’s enough. …You’re not planning to borrow from some financial institution, are you?”

“What do you take me for?”

My confident attitude seemed to prompt a strange sense of caution in my father as he shook his head.

“Ha… Yujin, while ten billion won is a significant sum, one million won is also a significant amount. You think you can earn that in a month?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… okay. Try it out. But don’t say anything else later. Even if we didn’t sign a contract, this is essentially a deal. Understand?”

“I get it.”

Having formed this non-contractual contract with my father, I headed straight to my room.

‘…I didn’t know it would lead to this.’

I recalled the past.

In my days as a prisoner, I had despaired over not becoming a pro and sought another path.

Internet streaming was precisely that.

Though the situation changed entirely when I ended up like this during the moment of starting that momentous first broadcast, I still had the desire to try streaming at least once.

All the necessary equipment was at home.

They were the very ones I had picked out while being dragged to department stores with my mother and sibling.

“I found it.”

After hastily setting up the camera and microphone and doing a few tests, I logged onto the Red TV website.

“I’m someone with zero recognition in streaming. I need some solid clickbait.”

A month.

That was an exceedingly short time to earn a whopping ten million won.

Therefore, I was planning to stream not just during my awake time, but even while I was asleep.

‘When it comes to that… this is it.’

There was a so-called secret weapon among Legends of League streamers or BJ.

I was about to use that secret weapon from now on.

-GM1) Rank 1 No-Broadcasting