Park Ha-rin.
At ten years old, she was the same age as Lee Ha-yeon.
She was currently watching the video of Lee Ha-yeon’s second trial, uploaded to Neotube, for the fifth time.
“…Hehe.”
“My dear daughter, what brings such a joyful smile to your face?”
This was the query of Park Do-yoon, Park Ha-rin’s father and the chief clerk in Lee Ha-yeon’s judicial office.
“Just looking at Ha-yeon’s face makes me so happy…!!”
“Even though she’s my age, she speaks so well. She’s pretty. She’s adorable. I just want to touch her.”
Park Do-yoon, considering the last remark to be somewhat risky, dismissed it as a childlike innocent thought, attributing it to his daughter’s young age.
“But to think I have a date with Ha-yeon tomorrow!! What if I’m too excited to sleep tonight, Dad?”
“Well, then you’ll be too sleepy to go meet the judge tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Ah, no..!! I can’t let that happen!!”
Watching his young daughter wail while clutching her head, Park Do-yoon felt a profound sense of relief.
After Ha-rin’s mother suffered an accident and passed away, Ha-rin, who had always been brighter than any child her age, lost her usual vibrancy.
Ha-rin remained dispirited for a year and a half until approximately three months ago.
More precisely, Ha-rin’s demeanor shifted the moment she learned that Judge Lee Ha-yeon had been appointed as a special judge, appeared on TV, and would be working alongside her father, Park Do-yoon.
Her once-diminished chatter returned, and she began to regain her former lively self.
“Have you decided what you’ll wear tomorrow?”
“Of course I have~ I’m going to wear my prettiest and most cherished outfit. I’ve even decided how I’ll tie my hair.”
Despite having no particular connection, Ha-rin adored Lee Ha-yeon and seemed to hold her in special regard.
Even without knowing the exact reason, from Park Do-yoon’s perspective, his daughter’s regained vitality was cause for immense gratitude.
“After everything’s done tomorrow, will you tell Dad what you and the judge did?”
“Yes!! I’ll tell you every single detail!!”
****
My phone had been confiscated.
The injustice of it stung.
Yet, all I had done was show a little dedication to a game…
Surely, even game companies had to pay electricity bills, didn’t they? Maintaining servers these days reportedly required an immense amount of power.
“Unnie..? Can’t you give me my phone back now…?”
“I’ll give it back if you promise to refund it.”
“No… I’m just spending my own money on a game, do you really have to be like this?”
Seon-ah’s eyebrows furrowed into a straight line, her expression one of utter disbelief.
“Lee Ha-yeon. What ten-year-old in the world blindly spends a million won on a game? Does that even make sense?”
“Fine… I’ll try to hold back on cash purchases from now on.”
As I uttered those words, I deftly managed to snatch my phone from Seon-ah’s hand.
“Huh..? Hey, when did you take that?”
“Hehe. Unnie, you should get back to work~ I’m going to play my game~”
I glanced back at Seon-ah, who had stumbled while trying to catch me as I fled.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem seriously hurt.
“Aren’t you going to stop there?”
“Ha-yeon doesn’t have brakes, so I don’t think I can stop.”
Having swiftly exited the judicial office, I made a beeline for the restroom.
Heheh, I should be safe enough here.
Now, shall I leisurely enjoy some more character gacha?
Having spent a million won, I currently had a total of 900 gacha tickets.
Good, my goal is to “full-limit break” it (TL Note: A term in gacha games referring to maximizing a character’s potential by obtaining multiple copies).
To achieve a “full-limit break,” which requires six limit breaks, this character needed to appear a total of seven times.
Typically, a 5-star character appears once every 60 pulls on average, and there’s a fifty percent chance that it will be the character I desire…
Theoretically, that means one appears every 120 pulls.
With 900 gacha tickets, I could reasonably expect to get around five to six copies.
That was a good enough probability to aim for seven copies.
‘Let’s go..!!’
Having swiftly skipped through and exhausted all my gacha tickets, I checked my character.
Five limit breaks.
In other words, I only needed one more copy of the character.
While it was somewhat disappointing, according to the expected value, it wasn’t a bad result at all.
After all, I could just get the last one through another cash purchase…
As my fingers leisurely navigated back to the payment screen, they abruptly froze at the sight of the familiar message I had seen earlier.
[Paid purchases are restricted for users under 14 years of age.]
[Paid purchases are possible with parental consent.]
Ah. So parental consent was required every time I made a payment.
What should I ask Seon-ah?
Hmm… No matter how I thought about it, it seemed I was doomed.
“Sorry, Yuno. I wanted to full-limit break you too.”
That’s how it turned out. I’m sorry…
****
Today was the day I had planned to spend with Ha-rin, my age-mate, as we had arranged earlier.
Thus, Seon-ah had been brushing my hair since morning.
Initially, I had attempted to style it roughly myself, but upon witnessing the bizarre shape my hair took, Seon-ah reacted with shock, snatching the comb from my grasp.
“Oh, more importantly, Ha-yeon. You did what Unnie asked you to do yesterday, didn’t you?”
Had Seon-ah asked me to do something?
Hmm… Even after careful thought, I couldn’t recall.
“The refund. Did you do it, Ha-yeon?”
You’re scary. Unnie, couldn’t you speak a little more gently?
“Uh… well…”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“I already used it all… so it won’t work. Tee-hee.”
In truth, I hadn’t even attempted a refund.
At my words, Seon-ah sighed deeply and shook her head.
“Haa… Fine. Just don’t make any more cash purchases, alright? I’m letting it slide just this once.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Answer properly.”
“I’ll consider it positively, Unnie.”
Having completed all preparations, I sent a message to Ha-rin, informing her that I was on my way.
When Ha-rin appeared at our meeting spot, she was, how should I put it…
She had a very sparkling aura about her.
“Hello, Ha-yeon!!”
“Oh, hello to you too.”
Ha-rin seemed incredibly happy.
“Hello, Unnie, too..!!”
“Nice to see you~ Ha-rin, you look so pretty today. If you and Ha-yeon are together, it looks like some idol agency might just snatch you both up~”
“Hehe, is it really that much..?”
Ha-rin twisted her body bashfully, seemingly embarrassed.
Come to think of it, the first person I met when I awoke in this body seemed to be someone from an idol agency.
I recall that person being a swindler. If I ever encounter them again, I’ll make sure they end up in jail.
“Shall we go have some fun now?”
“Mm-hmm!! But where are we going?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
“Anything’s fine as long as I’m playing with you, Ha-yeon, so let’s hurry and go!!”
Ha-rin, who had naturally taken my hand, bounced excitedly.
We’re going to a PC bang (TL Note: A Korean internet café where people pay to play video games)… Seon-ah won’t say anything, will she?
Though I was conscious of Seon-ah watching us proudly from behind, my steps led me towards a PC bang I had pre-researched, known for its delicious food.
The sign of the PC bang came into view.
“Uh… Ha-yeon, we’re not actually going in here, are we?”
This was Seon-ah’s question, the one who had been nagging me incessantly about cash purchases in games since yesterday.
“We are. Is Ha-rin not a fan?”
“No? I love games!!”
“She says she does, Unnie?”
“Well… if that’s the case.”
While Seon-ah wasn’t particularly thrilled, Ha-rin’s eagerness to go seemed to leave her speechless.
After charging 5,000 won worth of time, I registered as a member and turned on a PC.
What game should I play with them?
Games like League of Legends would probably be too difficult for beginners…
As I pondered which game to choose, Ha-rin called out to me.
“I want to try this!!”
It was an old kart racing game, one that almost everyone had likely played at some point.
I remembered playing it a few times when I was younger, though I wasn’t particularly good at it.
I’d heard it was shutting down soon. Perhaps I could relive some memories before then.
“Sounds good, that’ll be fun.”
“Can I play too?”
“Of course, Unnie!!”
And so, everyone logged into the kart racing game.
Wow, it’s been ages since I played this. What were the controls again?
While Ha-rin and I were pressing each key to figure out the controls, Seon-ah, beside us, was already running practice laps.
Now that I thought about it, I recalled Im Seon-ah being quite good at this game.
Certainly, when we went to PC bangs together in middle school, she would play kart racing while I played StarCraft.
Since my original self hadn’t been by Seon-ah’s side in this world, I couldn’t be sure if this version of Seon-ah was also skilled at the game.
Yet, just by watching her movements, I had a feeling she would be good.
A sense of unease crept in, but then again, it was just a game for fun, so what did it matter?
Listening to the classic background music of the kart racing game, we ascended onto the in-game track.
It wasn’t just the three of us; it was an 8-player free-for-all match.
The moment the starting signal blared, I accelerated forward, only to find myself in 8th place.
Dismissing it lightly as an early-game hiccup, I continued to play diligently, yet…
Regrettably, my rank remained unchanged.
What? Was this game populated solely by experts?
Seon-ah, meanwhile, was consistently in first place from start to finish.
Even Ha-rin, who appeared to be playing for the first time today, was astonishingly in third place.
I pondered deeply on how to overcome this predicament.
After much deliberation, an excellent conclusion was reached.
‘Alright. Time to block them.’
I wedged my large kart into a very narrow passage.
“Ha-yeon..? What are you doing?”
My first victim was none other than Seon-ah, who had been holding onto first place the entire time.
“Just causing some mischief.”
There’s a saying.
If you can’t have it, destroy it.
