Gift

Yeah, bullshit.

I was reading articles from a few years back when a snort escaped me.

My father was an A-rank Hero. The year I turned fifteen, he died in a mysterious accident. It wasn’t that he’d fallen fighting a Villain, and it wasn’t that he’d gone missing. At the scene there was nothing but his body, alone, soaked in blood.

At first, an A-rank Hero’s death set off a huge commotion. Now the news had dropped him entirely, and even on the internet forums his Hero name, ‘Hyperman,’ was hard to find. So much for all that praise about an A-rank Hero; the public turned its back easily enough.

I did everything I could to uncover the truth about that death.

…Looking back, I really did try everything.

It started with long posts online, appealing for sympathy… Consultations with lawyers, a petition on the government’s e-People portal, tips to reporters, requests to the court for a reinvestigation, and on and on. There was nothing I hadn’t tried to dig up the secret behind my father’s death. I even took up a picket sign and staged a one-man protest in front of the Hero Association.

Somewhere in there, someone approached me and offered to pay me to stop. All that ever did was make me blow up at them. Because I hadn’t been doing any of it for something as cheap as money.

I just wanted to know how my father died, and why he’d had to die. That one thing was all I’d been chasing, all this time.

And the result of all that effort, of throwing away high school for it?

I went from orphan to orphan with nothing but a middle-school diploma and no job.

Stop thinking about it.

— Flump.

I dropped onto the bed and pulled out my phone.

The emptiness of years blown away like foam on water. The helplessness of learning nothing at all for everything I’d poured in. The self-loathing gnawing at me, the dread of what came next. All of it faded fast under the flood of content pouring down my feed. That was why I couldn’t quit social media and games.

I was scrolling through the forum on autopilot when it happened.

“…What’s this now?”

The title made me frown, and I clicked straight into the post.

Title: if money’s on the line, who’re you betting on, the Villain or the Hero?

(screenshot of a website reading ‘Hero Gamble’)

(screenshot of a list of Heroes and Villains currently in combat)

(screenshot of a betting history)

it’s Hero Gamble, made by the Villain org Beyond Villain lol

turns out this kinda thing exists now

and apparently a surprising number of people are on it

the amounts being bet are brutal;

heard the site’s been running over a year and the pots have gotten big lately

seems to run steady with no scam-and-run drama

if you’re curious go dip a toe in, go go

└ tf is this shit

└ isn’t this easy money tho. just bet on whoever’s guaranteed to win

└ dumbass, you don’t know what odds are?

└ what’s odds. like stock dividends?

└ sigh

└ if the win looks guaranteed the payout’s tiny. but hit an upset and you multiply your money in seconds lol

└ ad, gtfo

└ it’s not an ad?

└ yeah sure it isn’t

└ delete the ad post, what are the mods even doing;

└ do they actually pay out? aren’t they just gonna run off with it lol

└ nah, cleaner than you’d think

└ still a Villain org tho. careful, they’ll stiff you

└ yeah well I made a million won lol

└ and?

└ link pls. I’m curious?

└ posting it below

└ thx

People actually do this crap?

I clicked the link down in the comments. I half expected it to be bait. It wasn’t. The screen filled with exactly the UI from the screenshots in the post.

Cheap 3D graphics burst out around a logo reading ‘Hero Gamble.’ Below it, a list of fights in progress came scrolling up.

…They really are gambling on Heroes and Villains.

The Hero names were familiar. So these weren’t made-up matchups. You voted on Heroes and Villains who were actually fighting right now? I clicked the match at the very top.

└ CATTIA TO THE MOOOON lolol

└ yeah ok, next furry

└ you think Holywoman’s a joke?

└ yeah, got her ass handed to her last time didn’t she?

└ stfu

└ this time’s different, fr;;

└ underdog degens filtered lolol

…700 million against 1.3 billion?

Illegal site or not, a two-billion-won pot. That alone showed how many people used the place. Who on earth sank money into gambling like this? The ones I understood least were the people betting on the Villain’s side.

More money on the Villain than the Hero?

The Hero’s odds were higher than the Villain’s. Which meant plenty of people had bet on the Villain to win. My brow furrowed at the realization.

Heroes break themselves protecting the citizens. And the citizens themselves are rooting for the Villain, for money. What a joke.

…Forget it.

It felt like I’d caught a glimpse of the abyss underneath the world, and it left me feeling filthy. A site like this, you just close it and you’re done. I hit back to return to the forum I’d been reading.

— Bzzzt!

“…!”

My vision blurred without warning. A strange sensation, like someone had started playing a ‘video’ over my eyes. Inside that bizarre, indescribable moment, the video was showing me a ‘phone screen.’

└ the underdog prevails lolol

└ chalk-betting bastards, buuuurrrrrp lolol

└ yeah it’s so damn sweet

└ god

└ damn it, that cat bastard fights like absolute garbage;

└ nah but who just pulls out a brand new skill right there lol

└ fr;;

└ guess she went and worked out a finisher after losing last time?

└ if you worked one out then say so, ffs

…What is this?

Had the fight ended while I wasn’t looking? There was no way it ended that fast.

Before the question could even settle, the pressure behind my eyes vanished. My vision, back to normal again.

I blinked a couple of times and checked my phone. The screen I’d just seen was gone without a trace. The Holywoman-Cattia fight hadn’t even been decided yet.

…A dream? Or was I just seeing things?

A sharp wave of exhaustion rolled over me before the question could take shape. My eyes ached from watching the hallucination, like I’d pulled an all-nighter. A stabbing migraine finally made me set the phone down. I kept my eyes shut and rubbed at the lids.

…What the hell was that.

Those letters had been far too vivid for a hallucination. And then the fatigue and the pain rolling in behind them. Nothing in my life had felt like that before, which made it frightening, and strange.

I was still massaging my eyes, about to try to sleep.

“…Just in case.”

I turned the dark phone screen back on. Maybe it hadn’t been an illusion after all. Luckily, a line was there to greet me: ‘Sign up and receive ₩10,000 free! Withdrawal not permitted!’

— Tap. Tap-tap.

Nothing to lose, so I let my fingers move.

I signed up, and the 10,000 won it handed me went straight onto B-rank Hero Holywoman. I killed the phone and lay back, and a snort of laughter came out of nowhere.

What am I even doing.

With my eyes closed, I just felt pathetic. Signing up and placing a bet, all on a maybe. At this rate, wasn’t I exactly the same as the people I despised?

…Forget it.

I jammed the earphones into my ears. Falling asleep to music was the only way out of this miserable self-loathing. Not long after, I was asleep.

---

The next morning.

“What in the world…?”

I turned on the phone screen the moment I woke, and my breath caught.

└ the underdog prevails lolol

└ chalk-betting bastards, buuuurrrrrp lolol

└ yeah it’s so damn sweet

└ god

└ damn it, that cat bastard fights like absolute garbage;

└ nah but who just pulls out a brand new skill right there lol

└ fr;;

└ guess she went and worked out a finisher after losing last time?

└ if you worked one out then say so, ffs

“…This is exactly the hallucination I saw yesterday?”

I shot upright in bed and rubbed both eyes. B-rank Hero Holywoman’s victory line, the money in the pot and the odds, even the comments left under that fight. All of it matched the hallucination from yesterday exactly.

An anomaly I’d never once experienced before. Some would say I’d lost my mind, or that it was nothing but coincidence. I thought otherwise.

“…Don’t tell me it’s a Gift?”

Gift.

An unknown power that had appeared forty years ago alongside the first Villain. A special power only five percent of the world could obtain.

Maybe I’d awakened a Gift.

“Right. Th-the money…”

My fingers shook as I pulled up my Hero Gamble balance.

In an instant I’d made over ten thousand won. The 2.69 odds on B-rank Hero Holywoman, applied.

But what if this was my Gift?

I could make more than twenty thousand won. A lot more.

Hero Gamble runs its betting on an odds system. Say you put 20,000 won on a bet at odds of 2. Win and the 20,000 becomes 40,000; ride all of that into another win and it’s 80,000. Ten wins in a row that way and you’re at 20.48 million won.

…Calm down first. Before any of that, what matters is understanding the Gift.

Gifts didn’t come with the ‘status window’ that turns up as a matter of course in other web novels, anime, and manga. Nobody tells you the details of your own Gift. There was one convenient method, of course.

Normally you’d register the awakening with the Association and take their Gift examination, but… well.

The Hero Association runs a Gift examination. Several days of deep data collection and analysis, and they can tell you what kind of Gift you have. Naturally, that held no appeal for someone who didn’t trust the Association.

So in the end I spent several days testing the Gift myself. I didn’t set foot outside the whole time. I ran around the apartment like a lunatic, tapped at my eyes, even strained them so hard they went bloodshot.

After all those tests.

I accepted that I had awakened a Gift.

“As for a name… ‘Future Observation’ feels about right.”

Future Observation.

My Gift was, literally, the ability to observe the future. I searched the internet too, but there was no Gift like mine.

A Gift that sees the future — I might be the first.

Since 1980, when the first Gift was discovered, there had never once been a Gift that could see the future. When I first realized that, my heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Of course, the more I tested the ability, the more that flutter died down.

Future Observation has a lot of defects.

Through Future Observation, I can see the near future. But I can’t control the ability at will. Meaning I can’t choose which future I get to see. The foresight even fires on its own, with no regard for what I intend.

I can’t even tell when an observed future turns real.

Out of all those experiments, there was exactly one thing I could say. An observed future becomes real within twenty-four hours. And since the ability only fires once or twice a day, even that might be a trap of statistics.

“…Kind of a letdown.”

Deep down I’d been hoping for a body-enhancement Gift like my father’s.

Even at this very moment, five percent of the world’s people live with a ‘Gift.’ Only those among them with genuinely outstanding abilities can become Heroes. Less than one percent of the population as a whole… the chosen of humanity, in the truest sense.

When I was little, I wanted to be a great Hero like my father too…

As a child I dreamed of becoming a Hero like my father. Winning a powerful Gift, becoming a magnificent Hero. But reality was a gutter.

“Still… is there really any need to become a Hero?”

My father was a man worth respecting, but when I thought about how he died, I felt nothing but disillusionment with the Hero profession.

The Hero Association, which buried my father’s death instead of establishing exactly what happened. And then the move to shut me up with money, back when I was the one taking it to the press. It left a bad taste, no question about it.

Nothing guaranteed I wouldn’t die a suspicious death like my father.

Better to be a ‘Villain’ than die that way…

“!!!”

That was when my eyes met someone’s. The photograph of my father hanging on one wall of my room. He was beaming, a younger me gathered up in his arms.

I quietly turned my gaze away from the photo.

…Villain later. Money first.

As I came back to myself, my surroundings registered. A tiny semi-basement studio. Empty instant-noodle cups and disposable chopsticks lay scattered around.

Good and evil are things you weigh once your stomach’s full.

My current situation: middle-school diploma, orphan, unemployed. I have no way to earn money on my own, and no shortage of places for it to go. To live, I needed to make money.

Fortunately, Future Observation had nothing to do with physical ability, but for making money it was the best power there was. Stocks, Bitcoin, sports betting, gambling, the lottery, and so on. If you knew the future, there were plenty of ways to make money. Only, every one of them came with constraints.

Stocks and Bitcoin are the textbook plays, but my seed money’s too small to make much. Sports betting caps out at 100,000 won a round… and the lottery’s meaningless unless I can watch the draw in advance, isn’t it?

A method with big risk, but one that could turn money fast, every single day.

My eyes drifted naturally to my phone. Still sitting on the screen: ‘Hero Gamble.’

This was the money-making method I chose.

Illegal, but that’s exactly why it can multiply your money several times over in one shot. The maximum bet is a full 100 million won per round. At least ten betting events opened every day, so I figured the foresight would fire on one of them.

— Bzzzt!

“There it is!”

In that instant, heat spread around my eyes and the future came into view.

└ holy shit he actually won this

└ the underdog prevails, always

└ Stag Beetle is dogshit weak

└ all flash and nothing behind it, god d-mn

└ a rhinoceros beetle would’ve won;¹

└ facts

…Bet right now.

The moment Future Observation ended, I put every won in my balance on Yoyoman.

Some might ask why I didn’t stake more. Honestly, I didn’t want to put my own money into Hero Gamble. On the off chance the Villain org running the site took the money and ran.

And it looks small now, but the money comes fast.

Hero Gamble’s odds run between 1 and 5. Miss and you get nothing, but hit and your money multiplies. So by my calculations, I’d have serious money within a few weeks.

How do I know?

And so, the next day.

I turned the phone on the moment I woke, and the result was in. I checked the account balance on the site, and it read 123,471 won.

A single click had earned me a hundred thousand won.