12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

I walked up the subway stairs and came back to the crosswalk in front of the company. If I came here, I would look over the ground like I had dropped something.

[Loans for up to twenty thousand dollars on the very next day.]

[A beauty is on standby 24 hours.]

[Call now, 8282 Chauffeur Service!]

But again, there was no more of the flyers that I had seen.

‘And that’s… It must be a chance for only a few of the chosen ones to receive.’

I crossed the crosswalk with that idea. When I took a good rest over the weekend and crossed this road on Monday morning, I thought I would die, like I was crossing the Styx into Hell.

‘Huh, there isn’t much left.’

I felt light on my feet today when I thought about it. I was going to work for one more month and then resign.

‘Beep.’

I swiped an employee ID, came into the company and found the office quiet. I looked at my watch and it was 8:30. Today, I came to work ten or twenty minutes earlier than usual. It was not because I was suddenly fond of the company. It was because something more important happened to me than work at the company.

It was because of the email coming in at 8:55 a.m. I sat in my seat and turned on the computer. Although it was not a work hour, I opened a work screen and turned on another window to enter my email account. The mailbox still contained 999 spam emails.

“Hoo…”

I took a deep breath, stretching my hands out like an athlete before I entered the game.

‘Whatever information comes in, I will quickly analyze it and then find the best way to make money.’

That was my idea. I wiggled my feet slightly and waited for the email to come. Over time, Kim, who had joined the company at the same time, came in, and Heo the loathsome, also came in to work.

“Hey, Han Sang-hoon, you came early today.”

“Hmm.”

It was finally 8:55. It was time for fate. I refreshed my mailbox, somewhat nervous. And after a while, the email came.

[S. 12 Hours After]

But there was something a little different. S. was on the front.

‘What is this?’

I thought about it and clicked on the email. My curiosity was soon solved.

[Silver Class Member Mail]

Ah, it was Silver’s S. I looked down the email.

—————–

[Silver Class Member Mail, Subscription Period left: 30 days.]

[Politics Economy Society Life/Culture World IT/Science Entertainment Sports’]

[You can pick three categories a day, click on the titles. You can subscribe to only one news item a day. Please select three categories. You can apply for a Gold Class Membership. Open the guide.]

——————

The above was as directed. If there was a slight difference, there was a place to check in a square next to the category. It looked like I clicked on them and chose three. But before I could choose, I was curious about the Gold Class guide.

‘What’s better with the Gold Class?’

I clicked on ‘Open’ at the thought of doing it. The closed contents opened, and the guide came out.

——————

[If you deposit one million dollars at N bank account 777-777-777-777-777 and the receiver 777, the monthly service is updated immediately, and you will receive an upgrade to Gold Class Membership Service. We’ll repay you with a service that you won’t regret.]

——————

‘Eh?’

I counted from the zero number of the amount written once.

‘One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand…’

It was one million dollars.

‘One million dollars?’

It was a big, choking amount. It was an amount I could not imagine right now, with two thousand dollars in my account. It would be worth applying for after a few months of saving money diligently in the Silver Class.

‘By the way… What’s the Gold Class benefit? Why aren’t they telling me? They don’t even say what they are going to do if I give them one million dollars… Do they want me to send one million dollars without asking or questioning?’

I wondered such questions, but the phrase in the back, ‘We’ll repay you with a service that you won’t regret’, came into my eyes. In fact, such a remark was a formal one, whether to invite Internet subscribers or to sell mobile phone services, so it was one that I passed by even when I saw it or heard it… but it was written in this email and gave me a strong sense of trust. For some reason, if I sent them one million dollars, it would have a ten million or a hundred million dollar effect.

‘All right, well, I’ll be right there collecting one million dollars in the Silver Class.’

Thinking of that, I closed the Gold Class guide and returned to the article above.

‘I can see the titles of the three categories first, right?’

I first clicked on the box next to the Economy. Then, a line of headings came up below it.

[Economy – President Mario Draghi considers quantitative reduction in case of recession.]

It was definitely huge in size.

‘Isn’t Mario Draghi the president of the European Central Bank?’

He was one of the world’s economic leaders. As he was the EU’s economic leader, the global economy was moving back and forth on a word of his. The quantitative reduction would be a very important bit of news. But I thought I did not need to read this article now, because I only had two thousand dollars in my bank account right now. I then clicked on Life/Culture.

[Life – Tomorrow, rain all over the country. Take your umbrella.]

‘Oh, this is…’

I could get all the news out of the title without having to read the full text. I was hoping to get a lottery number to win, and I was not satisfied with it.

‘No, thinking of it, if the news comes… should we draw lots first?’

Lotto draws took place on Saturday night. So, if I wanted to aim for it, I should choose the Life/Culture only on Saturday afternoon.

‘I had to think more and choose…’

But I learned the lesson this time and it was enough. I clicked on the Sports for the last time.

‘Please, this should be on…’

[Sports – Utah Jazz beats Los Angeles Lakers to clinch third place in the league.]

‘Yes, I got it.’

I almost screamed in the office. As expected, this Sports category was a possible shot. Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers. Following baseball and soccer, it was basketball this time. I remembered seeing it on the Proto OMR card. It remained to see how much power difference of the two they were.

‘Anyway, with this one thing, I can earn quite a bit.’

With that thought, I uttered yells of delight inward. But then, Heo called me. “Ah, Han, regarding the portfolio you sent me yesterday, come here.”

“Ah, yes.” I wondered what the matter was. I approached him, thinking about it.

He pointed to his monitor and said, “Look at this, the letters are too small.”

He was not pointing out the contents, but he was nagging about a little thing.

‘If the letters are small, you can raise their size. Don’t you do it alone?’

But he scolded me with it. “Lately, director Zhang has needed reading glasses. I said you should be writing big, didn’t I? Huh?”

This guy seemed to think I was a stress reliever, and he was trying to feel superior when he saw me panicking about “Yes.” However, unfortunately, I was not the same person I was last week. I said with a straight face. “Oh, really? I’ll do better next time.”

“What?” He was rather surprised by my dignified reaction. He must have been surprised since I had never been rebellious.

He said, embarrassed, “Hey you… if you keep doing this, it will be reflected in the personal performance assessment.”

That came up again. He seemed to think it was a leash that bound me. Well, it was not very wrong. If it went wrong, my yearly salary would be reduced, and my promotion would be affected.

But when I heard him, I rather grinned and said, “Well… then, I can’t help it.”

“What?” Having been fucked twice, Heo could not say anything if he was speechless. He probably did not know that I was no longer so obsessed with my little salary, with this damn promotion within the company.

‘Huh, I’m no longer a dog with a neckline, but a lion. A lion with wings,’ I thought, and I told Heo, “I’ll go back to my seat then. Call me if you need anything else.”

When I said it with dignity, he looked at me blankly and said nothing. I laughed at him and left.