Hero Gamble

— Crunch.

My eyes shut on their own at the first fried chicken I’d had in ages. It filled a stomach that had been living on cup ramen because I was broke. All of it thanks to the Gift, ‘Future Observation.’

…Gather exactly a hundred million, then pull the money out.

I tore at the chicken with one hand and worked my phone with the other.

Already over two million.

Not counting the withdrawals I’d made along the way for this and that: about two and a half million won earned. From ten thousand won, twenty-five times over in roughly a week.

At this pace I’d hit my target soon enough. Hero Gamble’s maximum bet per round is a hundred million won, and turning a profit a few times at that size would blow right past it. Once that happens, I can move over to stocks or crypto.

If I can’t be a Hero and I can’t be a Villain… I’ll just be a jobless guy with money.

The Hero Association leaves a bad taste, and becoming a Villain doesn’t sit right with me either. There are people in this world who live with their Gift hidden, after all, and that life wouldn’t be so bad for me. With the power to see the future, making money comes easy regardless. Grow the seed money with Hero Gamble, then build safe assets out of it.

— Vrrr!

That was when my phone buzzed. Caller: Cha Huigyeong. One of the few people I knew.

“Hello.”
“Yeah, Taeseung. It’s me, Big Sis Huigyeong. How about the pork cutlet place we always go to, this weekend?”
“…”
“Taeseung?”
“Okay.”
“Good, see you then!”

— Click.

The call itself was simple enough. Let’s eat together this weekend, that was all. My face, though, stayed dark.

“…How long is Big Sis Huigyeong planning to keep looking after me.”

Name, Cha Huigyeong. Hero name, Speedgirl. She works as a B-rank Hero, and originally she and I were nothing to each other. That’s still true now. So why is she the one calling me out to a meal?

That connection started at my father’s funeral hall.

“Are you Taeseung? Your father told me a lot about you.”
“B-rank Hero… Speedgirl?”
“Mm, that’s right. He asked that if he ever stopped being of this world… I look after you well.”
“…And?”
“From here on Big Sis will look after you. Don’t worry. Just call me Big Sis Huigyeong!”

My father was dead, so I don’t know what he and Cha Huigyeong were to each other. I only know she kept the promise she made in that funeral hall. From that day to this one she’s eaten with me every weekend and checked how I was doing. Whether I was eating properly, whether anything unusual had come up, and so on…

My mother died the moment she gave birth to me, so I wouldn’t really know… but if I’d had a mom, is this what it would feel like?

This week… no, let’s meet until next week and no further.

She’s a good person, and being a good person was exactly the problem. A B-rank Hero’s days are busy. Her time and effort spent on a guy like me was a waste; better she spend it saving even one more person.

“You look happy. Something good happen?”
“…Not especially.”

A few days later, I met Cha Huigyeong at a pasta place. Ponytail tied up tight, sporty clothes. With sunglasses on in case anyone recognized her, she looked like a celebrity. Sunglasses meant to dodge other people’s eyes, and doing nothing to hide how striking she was underneath them.

“Don’t tell me you bought a computer or a game console?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Suspicious~ You can lie all you want, Big Sis always knows.”

I thought I’d acted exactly like always. Had it shown? Cha Huigyeong kept picking at me, asking what had happened. Not that I could tell her about the Gift. With that straight-arrow personality of hers, she’d start pushing me to become a Hero on the spot.

She’s someone I’m going to part with soon anyway.

To Cha Huigyeong, a person like me is a shackle. A shackle forged out of my father’s dying wish. Any more meetings would obviously be nothing but poison for both of us.

I got up from my seat earlier than usual.

“I’ll get going, then.”
“Huh? Uh, uhh… You’re done eating? Taeseung! Wait a second.”

— Slip.

She shoved an envelope into my pocket. The money she looked after me with, every time we met. Once a week, some three hundred thousand won pressed into my hand. And this was the other reason I had to stop seeing her.

“You have to take this. Hm?”
“…”
“Taeseung, you’re leaving early because you think Big Sis is busy, right? You don’t need to do that. Big Sis is super free! So stay a little longer. I want to talk with you more.”

Cha Huigyeong smiled a shy little smile, and one eyebrow twitched. I’d known her long enough to know that habit of hers. When she lied, her eyebrow usually twitched. The ‘not busy’ was probably the lie.

“I’m going.”
“Ah…”

— Jingle-jingle!

I stepped out of the pasta place. When I glanced back, I could feel Cha Huigyeong’s eyes on me. The wounded look on her face made me feel bad for no good reason… but I hardened my heart.

Big Sis Huigyeong should get to live Big Sis Huigyeong’s life.

The envelope of money in my pocket felt heavy. In a single month alone it came to about a million won. We weren’t blood relatives, and taking that much money from her was strange in its own right. So I had to earn money, and fast.

What I’m doing is… one way of looking at it, pulling money out of a Villain organization.

Money I’d put into Hero Gamble: zero won. Everything I’d earned so far had grown out of the ten thousand won signup bonus the site handed out at registration. If that grew into millions, no, into tens of millions, and I withdrew it, that would hurt them too. Which meant I hadn’t betrayed my father.

That’s enough. That’s enough…

Rationalizing it that way, I headed home.

A few days later. I was at home eating delivered jokbal¹, staring at my phone screen.

Fifty million at last…!

These days, checking my account balance was what I lived for. A natural result, when every bet was a guaranteed win. At this pace I’d reach the billion I’d set my sights on before long, but… maybe I’d have to pull out of Hero Gamble before that.

I never dreamed the site had a feature like this.

Looking at the Hero Gamble homepage, I swallowed a sigh.

└ ?

└ the hell

└ what am I even looking at?;;

└ isn’t this a bug?

└ a 5,000% return, what the fuck lol is it rigged?

└ doubted my own two eyes for a second there;

└ look at the gap to 2nd

└ is a number like this even possible?

└ and the hit rate is 100% lol

└ if this isn’t rigged then what is

└ how would you even rig it, dumbass

└ guess a Hero threw a match;

└ match fixing my ass lol

└ 107 the GOAT, absolutely nuts

└ 10 for 10 at a 5,000% return, guy’s gotta be shoving his whole stack in every time?

└ lolololol insane

└ now THIS is a heart of a beast, yep;

└ the guy in 2nd for returns should hand his nickname back on his own.

The homepage had posted the monthly return-rate ranking alongside the monthly hit-rate ranking. Naturally, I sat in overwhelming first place in both. The notice had drawn an unusual flood of comments.

…I didn’t want to get famous like this.

All that interest aimed at me felt electric, and it left an itch under my skin. What I wanted was seed money, enough to move into stocks or crypto. Pulling area-wide aggro wasn’t part of the plan. And it wasn’t only the Hero Gamble site; stories about me were going up on other communities too.

Fair enough, I guess.

In under a week I’d made ten bets and swelled ten thousand won into fifty million. A result only possible because I rolled the money from each bet straight into the next. That was where a return rate like 5,114% came from.

…Should I just withdraw and stop?

Fifty million was plenty as seed money. My original target had been a billion won², but they could always take the money and run, and I was afraid of a Villain organization retaliating for what it had lost. Right. I’d earned enough. Let’s stop here.

The money that was left, then. As I laid a finger over the withdraw button, a message printed itself onto the screen before I could press it.

— Ding!

“A Villain organization’s… director?”

A director of Beyond Villain, the Villain organization that runs Hero Gamble, had sent me a message.

…They want to talk? Is this a don’t-withdraw thing?

I’d started from ten thousand won and built it to nearly fifty million. If I pulled that money out, it was a straight loss for them. No wonder they’d be seeing red. From where I stood, though, it came as a bolt out of the blue.

I’ll tell them I’ll stop betting, so at least let me withdraw what I’ve got now.

I put my finger on the ‘Yes’ button floating in the message. If I wanted to salvage even part of what I’d earned so far, talking it out with them was the better move.

And the instant my finger pressed the button.

“…Huh?”

My vision twisted, like a rag being wrung out in someone’s hands. Before I could even cry out in shock, my sight went black, just like that.

“Where… is this?”

I’d definitely been at home eating jokbal, but when I opened my eyes I was in some room. A room thick with an antique, old-fashioned air. ‘The private office of some aristocrat’ felt like the right way to put it. Two things stood out about it. The room had neither door nor window, and…

“Are you Im Taeseung?”

…there was a woman seated at the office desk.

…Who is she?

A woman with an unusual air about her. Pure white hair hung long down her back, shading to green toward the ends. A hair color no dye could produce artificially. The mark of someone who carried a powerful Gift.

— Tk-tk-tak!

I backed away on instinct, opening the distance between us. A powerful Gift sometimes brings on physical changes at the moment of awakening, and hair color is the most common of them.

The back of my head thumped against a wall. The chill of it coming through my hair. My heart hammered at how vivid the sensation was.

“This is the first time we have looked upon each other face to face.”
“…Have we met somewhere before?”
“Hmm. I sent you a message only a moment ago, did I not?”
“A message?”
“Now that I think on it, I have not introduced myself yet.”

The woman in front of me let out a low hoo-hoo of a laugh at whatever pleased her, then rose from the chair with a creak. Dressed in a black gown like some medieval noble lady. Her doll-like beauty made the dress suit her, rather than the other way around.

“Introductions, then. My name is Belia. I hold the post of Director in the Villain organization ‘Beyond Villain.’”
“…”
“A pleasure to meet you.”

Belia. The name written in the message, no question about it. A director of the Villain organization Beyond Villain.

…I never dreamed ‘having a word’ would look like this.

“I should like to apologize for the somewhat forceful method. This way is far more convenient.”
“What are you after? If this is about not withdrawing, or telling me to stop betting—”
“Hoo-hoo. Nothing of that sort concerns me.”
“What…?”

My brow furrowed. I’d taken it for granted that the message was about Hero Gamble. And it wasn’t?

“It is not user_107107 but Im Taeseung… you, in whom I have an interest.”

— Rustle—

Belia picked up one of the documents stacked on the desk.

“Name, Im Taeseung. Age, twenty-five. Son of the A-rank Hero Hyperman…”
“What is this supposed to be?”
“Middle-school diploma, orphan, unemployed — and there is one item of note.”

— Fwap.

She lifted her eyes from the document and smiled.

“A pitiful son who never did learn why his father died.”
“…!”
“Would that qualify as an item of note?”

At her words the fist I hadn’t realized I’d clenched trembled. What did she know about me, to run her mouth like this? Did she have the first idea what I’d put myself through until now?

“There is no need to glare at me so fearsomely.”
“Shut up! What would you know…”
“Naturally, I know nothing of it. What years you have had to endure, what you have been feeling.”
“I… I tried too. I tried until it nearly killed me, I did everything I could…”

Everything I’d done since my father died flashed before my eyes. I met a great many people who took an interest in his case, and I went out and threw myself into every kind of activity. I can say with pride that I did everything I could do.

“Do you truly believe you made every effort?”
“Yes!”
“I do not think so. One method yet remains.”
“…One method?”

Belia held up her index finger and closed one eye.

“You have done every last thing that can be done inside the fence called the law… but you have never once stepped outside it, have you?”
“…What?”
“It is a simple method. To use not a Hero’s way, but a Villain’s. That is the last method left to you.”

At the words ‘a Villain’s way,’ my face hardened. I’d grasped what Belia was trying to say. The one method I had never tried. Unlawful conduct, the kind the law comes down on.

“I understand. Your father was a Hero, so you would not wish to be entangled in illegal things.”
“…”
“But if it is what you want, I shall help you.”

— Shff.

Belia, stretching one hand out toward me. I couldn’t let myself fall for that alluring smile. Not before I’d worked out exactly what she was after.

“…What’s your reason?”
“Personal interest in you, most of all. Having watched you for a long time… I found it deeply pitiable.”
“…”
“The sight of you drifting further from the truth instead of reaching it… and the sight of you living off a loathsome Hero named Cha Huigyeong — both were truly pitiable.”
“That’s…”

I started to say something and bit down on my lip instead. I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. If I hadn’t awakened the ability, I’d still be living on the money Cha Huigyeong gave me.

“Furthermore, I know how and why your father died.”
“…What did you say?”
“Hoo-hoo. What a good face.”
“You know about my father’s death? Then—”
“Surely you are not about to ask me to simply tell you?”
“…What do you want?”
“A good question.”

— Snap!

The moment Belia flicked her fingers, something set on the desk floated up and came to a stop in front of me. A small business card.

Beyond Villain, Strategic Analysis Office, staff… Im Taeseung?

My name was written on the ominous black card.