Gwanjongcheonma’s Game Broadcast - Chapter 170

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 170
Hae-rang was performing bare-hand exercises inside the house.
A knock reached his ears.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
“Hae-rang. Oh my.”
His mother entered and covered her mouth with her palm.
“You’re… doing a handstand on just two fingers right now. Do you realize that?”
“That’s a rather strange question.”
Hae-rang chuckled softly, tightening his grip on his fingers.
He landed gently on both feet and straightened up properly.
His mother’s eyes had taken on the wide-eyed wonder of a girl watching a circus for the first time.
“Do all Capsule Room Pro Gamers… exercise like you do?”
“I’m not sure about that. It’s just a warm-up routine I’ve been doing for a long time.”
“If you warm up twice more, you’ll levitate. Oh, forgive me. I’m losing my mind. We have a guest outside.”
“A guest?”
Hae-rang tilted his head slightly.
There were no scheduled appointments.
Certainly not a visit to his home.
“Champion Cheon! Pleased to meet you!”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Kim Hee-sung, Head of Marketing at Rika Total Agency.”
Kim Hee-sung smoothly produced a business card from his inner pocket.
Rather than take it, Hae-rang asked again.
“Did we have an appointment to meet today?”
“Ha-ha! No, not at all. I simply wanted to meet Champion Cheon, so I took the liberty of visiting.”
“I see. Is there something specific you wanted to discuss?”
A bead of sweat.
A thin stream of perspiration traced down Kim Hee-sung’s broad cheek.
‘He’s far sharper than I expected. I can’t afford to underestimate him.’
Kim Hee-sung had already thoroughly researched Hae-rang’s background.
That he’d been broadcasting for less than a year—a rising star.
A game genius who’d appeared like a comet.
And that he’d signed a management contract with some nobody.
Someone from the entertainment industry before.
The fact that this manager didn’t appear in Kim Hee-sung’s data meant he was just an ordinary washout.
‘A nobody trying to monopolize such a prize? Absolutely not.’
There was no way he’d allow that.
Seeing Hae-rang in person like this, Kim Hee-sung was certain now.
The man practically radiated value.
Flawless, pale skin,
A face so beautiful that idols would have to step aside.
With that sharp jawline, he looked like he could slice through opponents effortlessly.
Kim Hee-sung smiled brightly and revealed his purpose.
“I came as a fan.”
“A… fan?”
“Yes! Champion Cheon may not realize it, but I’ve been watching you with great interest since you first started broadcasting. You play games exceptionally well, you’re very handsome, and unlike most streamers, you seem like a genuinely good person.”
“Ugh…!”
Hae-rang suddenly seized the door handle, swaying slightly.
This moment caught even Kim Hee-sung off guard.
“C-Champion Cheon! What’s wrong?”
“…It’s fine now. Please, continue.”
Kim Hee-sung’s eyes studied Hae-rang carefully.
Dizziness?
Or perhaps some chronic condition?
This was a detail worth noting.
But seeing him recover so quickly, it didn’t seem like a serious issue.
Filing away that he needed to gather more information about his physical condition,
Kim Hee-sung smiled knowingly.
“It’s nearly dinner time. Would you care to join me for a meal? My treat.”
“Are you saying you came to buy me dinner? You’re not looking for an autograph or a photo?”
“Good heavens, what are you saying! I’m a person with manners! How could I invade Cheon’s private life like that?”
“You seem to be doing that already…….”
“I simply! As a fan! With absolutely no ulterior motive! I just want to share dinner with you! Because I’m a genuine fan of Cheon, I want to buy you something delicious! It’s been my lifelong dream! To share a meal with my idol!”
Hae-rang turned his head, his gaze shifting toward the interior of the house.
Just as he thought.
The way he was looking for his family suggested he was hesitating to some degree.
Kim Hee-sung recognized that the moment had come to drive his point home.
“Since I happen to work at an agency, we could have all sorts of interesting conversations.”
“Hmm.”
At the word agency, Hae-rang’s gaze dropped to his own hand.
In it lay the business card Kim Hee-sung had given him.
“Very well. Let’s go together.”
Bravo.
Kim Hee-sung barely suppressed the cheer erupting from his core as he took the wheel with Hae-rang as his passenger.
* * *
Sizzle!
As if keeping time to the sound of meat cooking,
a staff member deftly grilled the meat.
Hae-rang asked Kim Hee-sung, who sat across from him.
“You said you’ve been watching since I first started streaming?”
“Yes. You see, what I do is discover promising streamers. I wander around whenever I have time, hunting for hidden experts. I was fortunate enough to catch your very first broadcast.”
“Then you must have seen when I beat Joint. That was my first day on air, when I won against Kyle with a counter.”
“Of course I remember! It was a legendary moment! Dodging this way and that! Hahaha!”
Sizzle!
Hae-rang’s eyes sparkled as he caught the aroma of the meat.
“The smell is wonderful. There are quite a few people waiting—it must be a famous restaurant.”
“Haha, naturally. Because I wanted to treat you properly, I made a reservation at a place beforehand—the owner appeared on a cooking show. Otherwise, you’d have to wait three hours or more outside.”
“To take such trouble. Your claim of being a genuine fan doesn’t seem like an exaggeration.”
“Of course it isn’t! Now, let me serve you a piece, Cheon! Aah!”
“I’ll help myself.”
Hae-rang stiffened his expression and picked a piece of meat off the grill and ate it.
Then he nodded deeply.
“Excellent. It rivals even the dishes prepared by the master chef of Cheonbong Palace.”
“Cheonbong Palace……? Who’s that?”
“Such a person exists. You should eat as well, sir.”
“Yes, you’re right. Haha!”
He seems to be saying something rather odd.
But that too had been anticipated.
There were rumors that he spoke frequently about martial arts even outside the game.
A monster consumed by his concept.
That’s the type to think of him as.
“The cut I’m grilling now is called premium ribeye. It’s the signature dish here at Woohwa-seol. Next will come the shrimp loin, and then the fan-shaped cut.”
“It’s really delicious. It melts away before I’ve even chewed it a few times.”
Hae-rang wielded his chopsticks without hesitation.
Before long, all the premium ribeye that had been on the grill was gone.
Caught off guard by the pace, Kim Hee-sung’s words stumbled.
“W-well. You certainly do eat well!”
“Yes. Perhaps because it’s food bought by a fan, it tastes even better. Could I have another order of the premium ribeye before the shrimp loin?”
“Of course! Haha! One more order of premium ribeye for us, please!”
68,000 won per serving.
If this weren’t a company card, he might have shed tears of blood with every plate cleared.
But even this company card didn’t have unlimited funds.
‘If I’d known he’d eat this much, I should’ve picked somewhere cheaper. At this rate, I’ll blow through this month’s entire limit in one meal.’
Chomp, chomp.
Munch, munch.
Hae-rang’s possessed chopstick work showed no sign of stopping.
As if conscious of Kim Hee-sung’s gaze,
Hae-rang paused his chopsticks and asked.
“Am I, perhaps, eating too much?”
“What? No, no! That’s too much! Didn’t I tell you—treating Player Hae-rang to a meal is a great honor for a fan like me!”
“That’s why I’m eating with all my heart. When you support me like this, I have to give it my best effort in return. Isn’t that only fair?”
“Ha, ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!”
This isn’t working.
Stop it, you bastard.
Don’t try so hard.
Stop living up to his expectations!
“They say that if a meat restaurant is good, their side dishes are delicious too. This cold noodles is excellent.”
After Hae-rang had finished every last bit of the cold noodles he’d ordered for dessert, he patted his stomach.
A rough calculation of the meal cost had crossed six figures.
‘Damn it. At this rate, I have to close a deal today.’
Kim Hee-sung bit his lip.
This was no longer about money—it was a matter of pride.
As a living legend of Rika Total Agency,
there was no way he could spend over a million won on meals and leave without a single contract to show for it.
“Player Cheon, looking at this cold noodles got me thinking. The noodles complement the meat so well that they actually make the meat taste even better, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“I think a streamer and manager’s relationship is much the same. Your skill is beyond question, Player Cheon, but if the noodles supporting that meat are bland, you might never receive the recognition you truly deserve.”
“Are you saying I’m the meat and the manager is the noodles?”
“Ha-ha. You’re very quick. Exactly right.”
Before Hae-rang could say anything, Kim Hee-sung pulled a tablet from his bag.
The screen displayed Rika Total Agency’s management contract.
“This is entirely sincere advice. I think it would be good for you to look over our contract and compare it with your current manager’s terms. More information never hurts, does it?”
“Hmm.”
Hae-rang accepted the tablet with a nod of agreement.
Then he carefully studied the words on the screen.
‘Perfect. It’s working.’
Kim Hee-sung felt a surge of triumph.
Looking over a contract meant he’d cleared the first hurdle.
Moreover, it specified an advance in the hundreds of millions of won.
‘The management settlement rate goes up as the advance goes up, but what would some raw rookie know?’
The advance and settlement rate were two sides of the same coin.
If the streamer’s revenue didn’t come in strong, the advance could turn into a waste.
But thinking about the future earnings Hae-rang would bring in, along with advertising deals and the like,
the initial outlay would be recouped quickly with plenty left over.
Streamers who got seduced by the advance and overlooked the settlement rate
often came to regret it later—a common story in this industry.
‘Come over to us, Cheon Hae-rang. Don’t waste your time working with a manager who’s not even as good as a corner convenience store.’
Whether you looked at the agency’s scale or track record,
Choi Gang-sik and Rika Total Agency weren’t even in the same league.
Maybe that was why.
Hae-rang stared at the tablet screen for a very long time.
“I used to lead a group, once.”
From behind the tablet that covered his face,
a clear but weighty voice emerged.
‘A group? What group could someone his age have led?’
Did he join student council in high school or something?
Kim Hee-sung assumed it was something simple like that.
“Commanding many people is never easy. That’s why I strictly adhered to the principle of Reward Merit, Punish Fault.”
“Reward Merit, Punish Fault…”
Give clear rewards to those who did well.
And mete out proper punishment to those who made mistakes.
He knew what it meant.
He was only curious why he’d suddenly bring it up.
“That standard hasn’t changed since I came here. To those who approach me with sincerity, I keep faith. To those who come with falsehood, I wear a mask.”
Falsehood and a mask.
Hearing those words, a chill crept down his spine.
‘Could it be…?’
No, it couldn’t be.
Everything about Hae-rang at the restaurant had seemed like someone whose mask was easy to slip off.
Watching him eat nothing but meat without restraint, I couldn’t help but think, ‘How can someone be so lacking in awareness?’
And yet now he speaks as though he understands something?
“The day I first started streaming, I didn’t play Junli. I picked Monda.”
“Huh?”
An earthquake rippled through Kim Hee-sung’s pupils.
He’d said he’d been watching Hae-rang’s stream from the very beginning,
yet he didn’t remember which character had been played?
It was the moment his lie became glaringly apparent.
‘Did he set a trap? Or was it just flowing conversation?’
Kim Hee-sung’s face flushed with embarrassment as he clapped his palms together sharply.
“Ah! Ha-ha! Now it comes back to me clearly. I must have lost my train of thought for a moment! Monda! That’s right, of course! With that Monda, you were giving Joint such a hard time…!”
“You’re mistaken again. I didn’t play Monda either.”
“I… well… tha…”
He’d been caught out twice.
There was really no other way this could unfold.
Once Kim Hee-sung’s deception—that he hadn’t actually watched the broadcast—had been exposed,
there was no escape route left for him.
“After that, the word ‘fan’ didn’t ring true anymore. So I simply enjoyed the meat. Eating and doing nothing else seemed like the appropriate response to someone approaching me dishonestly.”
Kim Hee-sung sat in silence, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
He’d been defeated.
He’d assumed Hae-rang was a naive young gamer,
but from the beginning until now, Hae-rang had been taking his measure.
Whether he was a genuine fan.
Whether his intentions were truly pure.
Tap.
Hae-rang set the tablet down on the table.
Perhaps it was just his imagination.
But Hae-rang’s face, now visible again, looked markedly different from moments before.
“I’ll be taking my leave now.”
As Hae-rang rose from his seat, Kim Hee-sung asked urgently.
“Cheon. The contract—why did you study the contract so carefully? Even though you knew I had ulterior motives, why did you examine every detail so meticulously?”
Kim Hee-sung had surrendered.
And Hae-rang’s expression shifted into the smile he’d worn so often in his previous life.
“As you said, Director Kim—information is never a bad thing to have.”
“I’m sorry?”
Kim Hee-sung’s vacant pupils turned toward Hae-rang.
In contrast, Hae-rang’s blue eyes were sharp and unwaveringly focused.
“I wanted to see if there was anything I’d failed to provide to my brother.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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