Chapter 1370
It all started as a simple coincidence.
Given Evangeline’s massive subscriber count, she was typically bombarded with numerous sponsorship opportunities.
She received an offer for a new game that had exploded in popularity, accepting it without much thought. After all, it was all anyone could talk about! People mentioned wanting to try it out, and even those who didn’t usually play games brought it up in conversation.
Since both Moderation and Si-Woo, who were like older brothers to her, had also taken the sponsorship deal, she decided to stream with them to make it more enjoyable.
The game itself was honestly not that fun. Like most PvP-focused games, it aggressively fostered an intense, almost unhealthy competitive spirit. Some could point out the problematic implications of such mechanics, yet in the end, it was up to the individual whether they ended up playing and spending money on the game.
There wasn’t any clear answer or solution to such gamification.
As expected, both Moderation and Si-Woo, who were experienced streamers, simply finished their sponsorship quotas and dropped the game right away once the obligation was done.
It just wasn’t their kind of game.
However, they worried about Evangeline, knowing she had a shorter temper than most might expect. They gave her a warning, just in case.
- Don’t get sucked into it. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up paying for their next company building.
The game they were promoting was exceptionally devious with their monetization, where even buying a single package could easily cost from one to three hundred thousand won.[1]
Nonetheless, her two friends also knew that Evangeline had always been careful with money despite earning a lot. Seeing her being hesitant to spend ten thousand to two hundred thousand won, they figured she’d be fine.
Alas, they were woefully incorrect.
Unlike the others, Evangeline had signed up for a longer sponsorship period, so she still had quests to finish even after their broadcast ended.
While working through the remainder alone, she ran into a group blocking the entrance to a hunting ground.
[Excuse me, can you move?]
Using the nickname RabbitPrincess, she approached them, wondering what they were doing.
Yet, before she knew it, she was killed by the two players and lost all her gear. Shocked by the absurd PK system, she went back to confront them. She asked why they were doing such a thing, insisted she was just a newbie passing through and that she couldn’t hunt without her gear.
Their response?
[lol we’re controlling this area. Wanna go through? Apply on our guild site.]
Then they killed her again.
After losing both her weapon and armor, she was getting frustrated, but she couldn’t quit. She was doing a paid promotion.
Unbeknownst to her, it was a deliberate trap by the game company. If she had streamed such an incident, her viewers would’ve flooded in and crushed the bloodthirsty guild instantly.
However, the game had a bad reputation, and she only planned to play it briefly for the sponsorship, so she didn’t stream it.
The game company staff said it wouldn’t be a problem if she streamed her gameplay, yet most viewers not only didn’t want to watch it, but practically hated it, so she couldn’t keep playing on for their eyes.
On top of that, some unknown trolls had rushed in the moment she started playing the game, making things worse.
Then her eyes landed on the game’s cash shop.
It sold basic gear that beginners couldn’t possibly attain by traditional hunting.
While there were plenty of options, she needed a weapon and armor first, so she used the thirty thousand won worth of cash she received from the company and bought an equipment package before heading back to confront the enemies once more.
Since her level was low, and she wasn’t able to obtain any items by hunting, she figured she’d just rely on others for help. However, not only did they refuse to let her in, they kept pressuring her with high-level gear.
Frustrated, she went to the forums and left an anonymous post to vent. All she got back was mockery and a link to the bloodthirsty guild’s site.
[Just give up. They’re toxic as hell and hate newbies. If you look like you’ll spend money, they’ll bait you in. Otherwise, they kick you out. Worse comes to worst, you can pay them hourly to hunt.]
Wondering what kind of price they were demanding, she went into their site.
The notice posted there was outrageous.
[You can’t beat us anyway, so stop wasting your time and submit an application. One hundred thousand won per hour, with protection included.]
That was when she snapped.
She had to wrap up the deal she had made with the game company. The only thing she had left to finish before fulfilling her obligation was clearing that hunting ground.
Around that time, a guild member gave her some advice. They insisted she couldn’t win with her current loadout, suggesting she should buy the shiny hero equipment package from the cash shop.
She didn’t realize that the player was incredibly biased, already a hardcore spender.
The shining hero equipment package was 119,900 won for a bundle of ten lootboxes.
She couldn’t help but grind her teeth at the ridiculous pricing, as well as the fact that the game company had discounted it a measly one hundred won to make it look cheaper. Nonetheless, she still bought it in order to keep her contract promise.
There was a second circumstance which only exacerbated the situation. In real life, she had a unique companion with her—the rainbow slime, which occasionally granted her incredible luck. Thus, once she opened that very first box, she pulled a top-tier special item with a 0.000007% drop rate.
Suddenly equipped with an item ordinary players usually had to dump tens of millions of won to acquire, her combat power skyrocketed as she managed to move on to higher-tier dungeons and clear even them out.
Fortunately, her chosen farming area didn’t seem to be a restricted zone. After sufficiently raising her level, she grew stronger than the vicious guild members blocking the entrance of the beginner hunting grounds. It wasn’t long before she succeeded in killing them.
After that, she continued hunting to clear her quests.
However, bloodthirsty guilds like them usually had a habit of losing their minds and swarming in groups when one of their members were attacked.
Evangeline, hunting none the wiser, was caught off guard by their sudden mob attack and died miserably.
She needed to clear the quest for the second sponsorship she had to wrap up later. Yet, they kept getting in her way.
Deplorably, they even waited at her respawn point and started spawn-killing her without end, leaving her no choice but to spend more money again and run away from them.
She managed to join a rival guild and receive support against the bloodthirsty mob.
If that was where things ended, there wouldn’t have been a problem.
However, the two warring guilds started fighting like they’d lost their minds. Evangeline was, of course, left with no choice but to spend even more money for the sake of her sponsorship assignment.
Having rolled the super rare item on her very first try, she underestimated the RNG and figured she just needed to spend a little more money before everything would work out fine.
Of course, things weren’t likely to turn out the way she wanted. Those damned odds were downright brutal.
Still, thinking it’d come out, she bought a package and rolled ten more lootboxes. Once those failed completely, she snapped.
She opened her banking app to check her balance. Glancing over the numbers, she figured she had enough to cover another with her sponsorship money.
‘Yeah. I’ll just spend however much I get from the sponsorship and never take another sponsorship like this again.’
Just like that, she sank deeper and deeper into the pay-to-win RNGesus-forsaken swamp.
She instantly spent every dime she’d received from the sponsorship.
The problem was the ceiling placed at oddly ambiguous intervals in the package system, constantly making her think about the money she’d already burned.
‘Okay. Let’s just think of it as taking a small loss... Sure, Dad will scold me, but breaking a promise would stain his and our entire family’s name.’
Above all else, she couldn’t forgive the bloodthirsty guild that kept harassing her. Pulling something like that in a game everyone was supposed to enjoy made her boil with anger. Yet, it wasn’t like she could go beat them up in real life.
She was the type who couldn’t just take a loss and move on, just like Davey. Unable to let it go, Evangeline invested a little more of her own money to keep contributing to the conflict. The fight kept growing, and before she knew it, she lost sight of her original purpose and kept spending more and more.
She purchased equipment; unique accessories; special gear; buffed weapons; transformation items; swift mounts; horse armor; worm gods; gems; enhancement stones; defense stones; and even a karambit fade for good measure.
The game had an astonishing number of convoluted systems, and every time she unlocked a new one, it demanded an insane amount of money.
Fueled by a thirst for revenge, she grew stronger and stronger. Before long, whenever one of her guild members was attacked, she would lose it along with the others and smash the enemy guild to pieces.
Since she also had the skills to back up her hefty spending, her power kept rising, and at some point, she became a high-ranking officer that made even the enemy guild panic whenever they ran into her.
In the short span of one month, she had poured in an amount in the hundreds of millions of won.[2]
Unfortunately, she never received a lump sum bank statement or notice telling her how much she had spent, so she had no sense of it at all.
Her character, Rabbit Princess, had become something truly terrifying to the player base.
She pushed forward whenever she had time off her stream, and once she grew closer with her guild members, they even started calling each other things like uncle and sis.
Then, the long-awaited bill arrived.
For the first time, Evangline foamed at the mouth and fainted. Terrified, she immediately deleted the game, crawled into bed, pulled the blanket over herself, and trembled in deep thought.
‘I’ve lost it. I’ve completely lost it. I have to hide this, no matter what.’
Luckily, since she’d used her personal card, no one was directly monitoring her money.
If she had used another card, Al Hajat would’ve noticed right away, and Davey would’ve found out immediately.
She quickly emptied her other account to refill the balance and used every method she could to cover it up. That taken care of, her antics seemed to vanish without any issue, and she even started to think everything would be fine.
She had spent a huge amount of money, yet since Davey had once deposited an enormous sum into her account just in case she ever ran short, she’d avoided the worst-case scenario of overdue bills.
‘If I knew this would happen, I should’ve made a credit card with a limit. I never thought I’d spend like this.’
Getting caught was pure coincidence. Out of concern, Perserque came to check on her and went to her lair to spend time with her.
At that moment, Evangeline was in the middle of selling her character. Technically, the sale of a player character was against the game’s terms of service. Still, because such trades were common, Moderation and Si-Woo had told her to just sell it quickly, even if at a lower price.
They told her that with how much she’d boosted and farmed her account, she could at least recover the principal amount, so they urged her to do so before things turned worse.
As they helped her, they couldn’t hold back their sighs.
At that moment, a heavy spender ready to drop insane amounts of money showed interest in buying her account for around 300 million won, so she rushed to sell it. Normally, a whale like her wouldn’t have gotten back even a tenth of what she spent. Thanks to the Rainbow Slime, however, she’d nevertheless hit insane luck and ended up with gear worth several times more than what she paid overall.
From the buyer’s perspective, even spending three hundred million wouldn’t get them even half of what she had, so they wanted a quick deal.
Once Perserque arrived, she simply saw Evangeline’s character listed on the site and thought she was playing a game.
A game? Sure, it was fine to play games.
Perserque quietly watched Evangeline immersed in the ‘game’ with a gentle smile.
However, the moment she checked the name of the game, a chilling thought crossed her mind. She quietly asked, “Evangeline, is that your character?”
“Yes!” She didn’t even sense the danger, lost in the thought that she could actually recover most of her money. The fact that her guard had gone down with time didn’t help.
“It looks expensive,” her mom lightly commented. “What kind of equipment is that?”
“Ah, Mom! Just a second! I’m about to sell it to this person!”
“Oh... Even standing still, it has such fancy wings.”
“Right? They say if you try to pull this, you can easily spend tens of millions of won. To get it, I spent two hundred—” Evangeline froze mid-sentence and turned around.
The buyer kept sending chat messages, but she couldn’t give even a single word in response—Perserque was glaring down at her coldly like a grim reaper.
“That’s strange,” she began. “From what your father told me, the way this game works... you become stronger the more money you pour into it. Yet, they’re buying your account for three hundred million? I’m sure that person isn’t out of their mind.”
“Ummm. Mom, so, what had happened was—”
“Did you just say you spent two hundred or something to pull that? Am I mistaken? Given the offer you’ve received, that doesn’t sound like it means two hundred won... don’t tell me it’s two million?” She smiled gently, yet it didn’t reach her eyes.
‘Shit. I’m screwed.’
Cold sweat poured down Evangeline’s back.
“Evangeline O’Rowane... tell me right now how much you spent.”
While Perserque had no intention of scolding her just for spending money, she’d begun to get a bad feeling, so she pressed Evangeline for answers.
She stammered, unable to answer and trembling in place.
Perserque immediately left the room and called Hyun-Ah. It didn’t take much trouble for her to find out how much she had spent. Of course, the moment Hyun-Ah realized the amount, she was horrified too.
Spending money on games was fine, but going far beyond what you could handle was beyond reckless.
When Perserque, freshly furious, returned to Evangeline’s room, the little rascal had already run off.
Davey suspected that the Gourmet Research Society had snitched and tipped her off to the pursuit, but it had just been bad luck.
After that, Perserque summoned Megalodria and took off.
To break the legs of that fearless daughter.
* * *
“What do I do?! What do I do?!!” Evangeline stomped her feet, trembling.
The messages kept coming in.
[Hello? Where did you go in the middle of the deal?]
[Are you not selling?]
[Hello?]
‘Seriously... this guy has no idea what I’m dealing with right now...’
She belatedly recalled that her phone could be tracked and hurriedly turned it off, but she couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t even recall how things had ended up so messy.
She needed help. By that point, if she were caught, it wouldn’t just be Perserque—Davey, Illyna, even Aeria would storm over to chew her out.
Also, that wasn’t all.
Even Super Ribbon, who was always kind, or Willow, who actually liked her, might try to break her legs.
“I need help... someone’s help...”
Her mind raced, trying to think of someone who could help her escape. She had to buy time and explain things to someone and acquire their assistance. If she sold the account, she could recover her money.
That way, she would at least avoid the worst-case scenario.
Even though she knew it sounded unlikely, she was terrified and grasping at straws.
‘Al Hajat?’
No. He was kind, but strict about reckless spending.
Then who? The Gourmet Research Society?
‘Hmph. Yeah right.’
She knew that trusting those traitors would just get her tied up and dragged back even sooner.
‘Then that leaves...’
Her eyes widened.
‘Right. I have them!’
She quietly returned to her lair and used its power to jump to Tionis.
‘I’ll run there while mom’s searching Earth!’
She manifested her massive wings and shot into the sky.
It wasn’t far. She’d been there before.
After flying like crazy, she spotted the massive imperial palace and hurriedly landed in the middle of its courtyard.
“W-who are you?! State your, or, w-what brings you here?!”
“I—I need help! Knights! Grandpa! Great-grandpa! Uncle!!”
Hearing her tearful plea, the flustered imperial knights quickly guided her inside. It wasn’t the first time she had shown up in a teary-eyed flurry.
The emperor was always busy. Showing up the way she did was usually foolish.
“Your Majesty, Lady Evangeline O’Rowane has arrived. What should we do?”
A minister’s voice rang out, “Haaah. I’m in the middle of a state meeting! Do you have no sense?!”
Evangeline, pale-faced, stomped her feet anxiously, and the knights couldn’t help but feel concerned seeing the usually cheerful girl like that.
They wondered what could’ve happened for her to rush there in such a state.
Then—
“Do you have a death wish, minister? My granddaughter’s here to visit, and you dare complain about her interruption?”
The terrified minister stammered, “Y-your Majesty... please forgive me!!” as a stern voice followed.
A stern and commanding voice called out, “Let her in.”
Once the doors opened, Evangeline saw Emperor Deorte el Lyndis on the throne, with Crown Prince Alberth beside him.
“G-Grandpa... Uncle...”
The emperor stared at her sternly for a moment. Then—
“Oh, my dear granddaughter! Come here.” He spread his arms with a bright smile, and Evangeline burst into tears and ran into his embrace.
Even though she and Aeria weren’t related by blood, he knew exactly what she meant to Darian.
Frankly, the emperor was already famous for doting on his beloved granddaughter.
“There, there. My sweetie pie, what brings you all the way here? Did you miss your grandpa?”
The ministers looked stunned by how different he seemed from moments before, then Alberth quietly signaled them to leave, and they quickly withdrew.
“Your Majesty, you should say it properly. She came to see her uncle.”
“Silence, you fool! This is my empire—why would she come to see someone like you?!”
“Your Majesty...”
“Grandpaaa!!” She buried herself deeper in his arms, crying even harder.
His gaze sharpened. “Who did this? Who scared my granddaughter like this? Who dares?!”
‘Mom and dad...’
That’s what she should’ve said. Yet, because her grandfather treated her so kindly, all her tension melted away.
She cried in his arms for a long time.
However, no one in that room knew that Aeria, having heard the news, was already searching for Evangeline in a furious state.
1. About $200 USD ☜
2. 100 South Korean won = $0.07 USD. Each 100m won is about $67k. You’ll do well to remember the exchange rate ☜
