The Villain is Too Good at Broadcasting

After having breakfast with Jinhyukie, I scoured the part-time job listings on job sites and submitted my resume.

I later went out for lunch with my friends who lived nearby. We talked for a long time and I got pummelled on the back to commemorate my discharge.

Awful bastards.

Once it was time for me to meet with Dongsoo hyung, I threw on some casual clothes and headed over to his house.

Dongsoo hyung’s home was located in Bucheon, which wasn’t far from my place.

He lived in what was clearly a high-end luxury apartment.

Judging by the security guards regularly patrolling around the complex, it must have cost a fortune.

In addition, expensive security equipment was installed on the walls of the building.

They were so strict that I needed to go through a separate procedure just to enter the building.

After following the security guards’ instructions, I took the elevator up to Dongsoo hyung’s apartment.

Ding dong.

I pressed the bell and soon heard Dongsoo hyung’s voice coming from the other side of the door.

“Just a sec.”

There was a brief rustling sound, then Dongsoo hyung opened the door beaming widely.

“You’re here already? You’re a little early.”

“How have you been?”

“If someone heard you say that, they’d think we hadn’t seen each other in ages. Come on in.”

I followed Dongsoo hyung into the house.

My house couldn’t even compare to the size of this place.

There were probably around five rooms.

The first thing that caught my eye as I entered, was a display case filled with numerous plaques and awards.

“It’s a bit messy,” Dongsoo hyung said, handing me a glass of orange juice with cubes of ice floating inside.

“It’s a nice house.”

“I’ve been dreaming of having a luxury apartment ever since I was a kid. I saved up for years and put everything I had into buying this place, you know? Now I’m a mortgage slave. I’ve got to work hard to make money.”

Frankly, calling someone who lived in a place like this a ‘mortgage slave’ might be a little over the top.

I had barely afforded buying an apartment less than half the size of this.

This was what people called deception.

I felt a bit uncomfortable.

“You’ve looked up today’s game in advance, right?”

Since the broadcast would be starting in 30 minutes, Dongsoo hyung got straight to the point.

I answered his question with a nod.

“Yes.”

The game we’d be playing on Dongsoo hyung’s broadcast was a popular new game which had been released just last week.

Other streamers had rushed to play it, and it was said to be a masterpiece, receiving a flood of positive reviews.

The game was called Age of of Assassination, or AOA for short.

Even since Gaia Online had ushered in the 1st generation of full-fledged virtual reality games, there had been numerous releases.

Many of the new games released during that first wave were  re-released VR ports based on older PC and console games.

The same was true of AOA.

It was the sequel of a console game with a large fan base.

The game’s official name was AOA VR.

The developer was a well-established software company, and the VR version was a sensational hit as soon as it was released.

To be honest, I had wanted to play this game at least once.

While I was in the military, I had heard several times that it would be launched this year.

The videos of people playing that I had watched on my way to Dongsoo hyung’s house were enough to ramp up my expectations.

The game mechanics were very simple.

However, while the assassination of a target was still the main focus, features such as special operations were added in the VR version.

To put it plainly, the degree of freedom in the game had been significantly increased.

It was a typical trend in the 2nd gen of virtual reality games.

Dongsoo hyung looked at me and smiled.

“I set today’s broadcast as rated.”

Rated broadcasts.

Only adults who were 19 or older could watch the stream, and most content was permitted, with the exception of excessive exposure of skin.

In other words, that meant there were no sanctions against cursing.

I think he was being considerate of me.

“AOA is a pretty brutal game so it’ll be better to have the broadcast with that setting.”

“But was AOA a game that allowed two people to play?”

“Story mode doesn’t support multiplayer.”

“Huh?”

“You’re going to be the one playing.”

What?

The term Dongsoo uses here is 하우스 푸어, which is the Korean transliteration of ‘house poor’. It’s is a relatively new term in konglish, derived from working poor, which refers to people who don’t have any money even if they have a full time job. This is because either they took on way too much debt to buy the home or the value of the property plummeted following the purchase. Mortgage slave is a rough equivalent.

Side note that AOA is written in English in the raws, and this continues to be the same throughout the rest of the next arc.