The Rice-Eating Hero’s Capitalist Streaming - Chapter 1
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Capitalist Streaming of a Freeloading Hero
Episode 1
Even Heroes Find Job Hunting Difficult
I was an ordinary job seeker.
That is, until I got hit by a truck on my way home and fell into another world.
‘At this point, I wonder if there’s some kind of dimensional travel principle built into the design structure of dump trucks?’
But it wasn’t bad.
Getting a job at a decent company in South Korea in 2025 was like going to war.
And even if you won that war, it didn’t exactly paint a rosy future.
In that case, wouldn’t being reincarnated into another world be better in many ways?
“Actually, this is good.”
So in a way, I was even excited.
Like the protagonists of other isekai stories, I thought I would become a hero.
That is, until I met the crazy fairy who introduced herself as ‘GM Seria’…
I was definitely thinking that way.
“Hmm. No matter how I look at it, Hero, you don’t seem to have any talent for swords or magic?”
“Wh… what do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. To beat up monsters and save the world, you need something called ‘talent.'”
“But why am I a hero then?”
“Well, you got hit by a truck, didn’t you?”
“…”
I was dumbfounded.
No talent?
Right.
I wasn’t particularly special in the modern world either.
So it was true that the word ‘talent’ never really suited me from the beginning.
But…
“Damn it, then why the hell did you send the truck?”
So I thought that at least in another world, I would have some special talent.
Besides, if they specifically picked me out of Earth’s billions of people to send a truck to, wouldn’t it make sense that they saw some talent in me?
Even crazy Seria nodded in agreement with my words.
But.
“You’re right, how could you have no talent?”
“What?”
“This truck thing, it’s not something we can send to just anyone.”
“…”
The conclusion was flowing in a strange direction.
“So let’s try to find your talent!”
“Wh, what talent?”
“Let’s find out together what Hero is good at.”
An inexplicable sense of déjà vu from the fairy’s words!
‘This… isn’t this what my mother told me when I was about 16?’
The fairy had brought up the century’s greatest unsolved problem that my mother and I couldn’t solve for over 10 years.
From that point on, fairy Seria transformed into a full-blown lunatic.
She said she needed to use the ‘beta system’ with administrator privileges, and trapped Geonyul in a place like Endless Purgatory.
“In the constellation game ‘Lyka’, there are roughly 17,895 jobs defined by the system.”
“What are you trying to say…”
“Oh, that’s based on official data from the ‘Hero Employment Bureau.'”
“…”
“But if you group similar ones into categories, the representative jobs come down to about a thousand?”
“So?”
“Let’s try them all, one by one.”
“What?”
“You were chosen by the truck! There must be at least one thing you’re good at, right?”
This was the beginning of tragedy.
My mother struggled just to support my studies, but the fairy was different.
The crazy fairy’s concept of time was very different from that of humans.
“Th, this isn’t it either?”
“It doesn’t seem like it, Hero. Ugh… this really can’t be happening!”
So I… really had to live a thousand lives in that game-like world called ‘Lyka.’
No, it was way more than a thousand times.
In some cases, she’d make me try the same class multiple times, saying there seemed to be some possibility.
“Haah… th, this can’t be happening…”
“This one’s ambiguous too…! Too ambiguous!!”
Had I spent roughly twelve hundred rounds like that?
Before I knew it, the fairy’s once cheerful expression had begun to turn dark.
But the funny thing was.
“This one’s not it either, right?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Can’t be helped.”
At some point, I had achieved enlightenment.
“How can you say such irresponsible things…!!”
“What’s next? What should I do this time?”
At first, this infinitely repeating life was definitely too painful, but before I knew it, I had gone beyond enlightenment and started enjoying it.
Even averaging 10 years per round, it was an eon of time well over ten thousand years.
I didn’t half-heartedly go through each round either.
I approached job preparation more diligently than anyone else every time, but simply failed to gain the fairy’s approval.
However.
“I really can’t do this anymore, Hero.”
“What?”
“It seems…”
Seria finally shook her head in resignation.
“For the first time in my career as a Human Resources Department manager, I think I’ll have to give up on you, Hero.”
“What? You’re giving up on me?”
“Yes. I really couldn’t find any talent in you, Hero.”
Seria had given up before I did.
“Th, then what happens?”
So I had no choice but to return.
“Back to where you originally were.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll have to go back to Earth.”
“What…?”
“This has never happened before… but it seems like this time, the truck was delivered to the wrong person.”
According to Seria, I had become the first hero since the beginning of time to fail at job hunting.
“Thank you for your hard work, Hero.”
“…”
Having failed even at hero employment, I returned to Earth after exactly ten years.
The tens of thousands of years in the world called Lyka seemed to be 10 years on Earth.
Honnnnnk-!!
Well, I fell back onto the middle of the road and almost got hit again right after returning.
Compared to what had happened during the countless eons of time, this could be considered a very minor incident.
‘Really… this is Seoul, isn’t it?’
Though I felt reluctant, my steps were already moving instinctively.
The place I had returned to was the crosswalk on that path home from ten years ago.
So naturally, my steps were heading toward ‘home.’
During the process of countless eons, emotions like ‘longing’ had been greatly diluted.
But now that I was actually back in Seoul, I missed Mother.
“Wow… the world has changed so much?”
But as I walked thoughtlessly like that, I soon had no choice but to stop abruptly in front of a large banner.
[Hunter Recruitment Notice]
“What… is this?”
Inside that banner…
I discovered that tedious name I thought I’d never see again, in a different context.
[Recruitment Period: Until January 30, 2035.]
[Number of Recruits: Around 5 people]
[Qualification Requirements: Lyka Level 30 or higher.]
‘Lyka… you said?’
Surprisingly, on Earth after 10 years… the beta test game [Lyka] that I had played for thousands of years had been ‘officially released.’
* * *
During the countless hours I spent with the fairy, the word I heard most from her was ‘official release.’
“Get your head on straight!”
“Mistakes won’t be tolerated in the official release version!”
What ‘beta test’ meant, what ‘official release’ meant.
From my perspective, I couldn’t understand any of it conceptually.
Anyway, she mentioned the official release several times a day.
So one day, I asked Selia.
“What exactly is an official release?”
“Uh… well…”
“Where and how exactly are you going to release this thing?”
And there was a time when I heard a clear answer to that.
“Countless dimensional realms exist in the Other World.”
“So they say.”
“And we administrators call those dimensional realms ‘servers.'”
“…?”
“But Lyka hasn’t been released to all servers yet. One of them is the ‘Earth’ server where The Hero originally lived.”
“What happens when it’s released?”
“A gate will open on Earth, right?”
“Uh…?”
“A gate that allows access to the official version of ‘Lyka.'”
But even after hearing this story.
Honestly, I had never even thought that a gate might have opened on Earth while I was gone.
So I was flustered.
“…A gate?”
On the way home.
And in the plaza in the middle of Seoul Forest…
Whooooom-!
A gate with exactly the same appearance as the one I had seen when accessing the beta version was open.
‘Really [Lyka]?’
But the shock I received couldn’t possibly be greater than that of a mother discovering her son after 10 years.
“Oh, my goodness!”
In front of the apartment recycling area.
Mother, who discovered me on my way home, lost consciousness and collapsed right there.
* * *
The house was the same.
The only thing that had changed was my younger sister, who had become an adult during the 10 years, born in the same zodiac year as me.
“What, what is this. Really… it’s my brother?”
Surprisingly, during the 10 years, my parents had never moved even once.
Even Father’s convenience store in front of Seoul Forest Station was exactly the same as 10 years ago.
They said it had to be that way.
Because their son might return someday.
Because they thought they shouldn’t be absent when their son returned.
“…”
I thought all emotions had dried up and disappeared, but hearing that story made my heart heavy.
Being dragged to the Other World had nothing to do with my will…
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but feel sorry.
“Father took out loans and sold the car and everything he could sell to hire Hunters to find you… but he couldn’t sell this house for that reason.”
Ten years ago, the day I went missing.
Not long after that, ‘gates’ began opening for the first time.
Moreover, the gates that were initially created worldwide weren’t the ordinary gates peacefully(?) open in Seoul Forest, but dangerous irregular gates.
So my parents had been thinking until now… that I had been sucked into a gate.
Still, the banner attached in front of Father’s convenience store was a bit embarrassing…
[Looking for Missing Person]
[Name: Geon-ryul Lee]
[Age at time of disappearance: 26 years old]
[Current estimated appearance]
[Photo]
“What’s this estimated appearance?”
“…”
“You didn’t just put up Father’s photo, did you…?”
Seeing my parents who had become desperately poor because of me, my desire for employment surged incomparably higher than 10 years ago.
“I’ll go earn money now, Mother.”
“You will?”
So I guess I should challenge employment again.
“Now I really… need to get a job.”
“By what means.”
Although I couldn’t become The Hero, I have experience from rolling around in Lyka, so couldn’t I become a Hunter?
“I… trained as The Hero for over ten thousand years, you know?”
Of course, Mother didn’t seem to find her son’s enthusiasm very reliable.
“Geonyul.”
“Yes?”
“You weren’t… dragged into some religious group, were you?”
“…”
“It’s okay, my son. It’s enough that you’re back. We can earn money somehow.”
Mother’s daughter had a similar opinion.
“Employment? That won’t be easy, brother?”
“Why?”
“The paradigm of job preparation has completely changed from 10 years ago.”
But when I briefly skimmed through the workbooks my sister brought from her room, my shrinking confidence could become full again.
[Hunter Manager Civil Service Exam In-depth Interview Past Question Analysis Book]
[Item Appraisal Technician Written Exam Final Problem Set]
…Omitted…
[Digging Into Monster Caretaker Certification]
‘No matter how I look at it, this seems easier than TOEIC and TOEFL prep books from 10 years ago?’
Anyway, I’m a veteran who’s been preparing for the hero job for at least tens of thousands of years.
Even if I lacked talent all this time, I put in more effort than anyone else.
With a little exaggeration, I felt like I could get at least half the questions right if I started solving practice problems right now.
“I can understand the other stuff, but what the hell is a Monster Caretaker certification? Do they even raise monsters on Earth?”
“If you want to get a job at a Monster Protection Organization….”
“This world has lost its mind.”
“Was it sane 10 years ago?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly normal back then either.”
Seeing my sibling who had become jaded by the harsh realities of life over the past 10 years, I couldn’t help but sigh.
“But weren’t you 14 ten years ago?”
“Right?”
“Do you remember what the world was like back then?”
My sibling glanced sideways at Mother.
“A 7th grader was solving calculus problems.”
“….”
“That honestly wasn’t normal either, was it?”
Right.
That’s how it was.
Unlike me, my sibling who had talent for studying became a victim of the advanced learning culture.
As the memory came back, I felt a bit of sympathy for my sibling.
“You’re right about that.”
As we continued chatting about this and that, Father also returned home.
“You… you…!!”
Father also burst into tears, but fortunately didn’t collapse like Mother did.
“Seeing you return safe and sound….”
“You’re deeply moved?”
“I suddenly feel so sorry about all the money I spent on Hunter commission fees, son.”
“….”
“Anyway, welcome back.”
From what he said, he didn’t seem much different from 10 years ago either.
“Father.”
“Yeah?”
“Actually, our house… You didn’t avoid selling it because you thought property values might go up, did you?”
“Ahem, ahem.”
Anyway, even though I thought this family had been erased from my mind, reuniting with them made my heart feel quite warm.
The world felt somewhat harsher, but thanks to my family, positive energy bubbled up in me for the first time in a while.
So well, I could get a Hunter certification and find a job.
Or if I could just access Lyka and farm some equipment….
‘Isn’t this a world where making a living wouldn’t be a problem?’
Even though I was a beta test player, and an unqualified hero who couldn’t even defeat the Demon King after playing over a thousand rounds.
No matter how different the official release is from the beta version, I don’t think I’d be unable to catch something like a goblin, right?
‘Just because it became the official version doesn’t mean goblins suddenly turn into trolls, right?’
They said that if you could just handle the lowest-grade monsters like goblins, you could easily earn three to four hundred thousand won a month before taxes.
‘Still, in my last playthrough I was cutting down Death Knights… Maybe I could even take down ogres?’
Honestly, I was getting more greedy….
But this is a bit dangerous.
‘No, don’t get cocky. Geon-ryul Lee? You have no talent.’
Even after pouring eons of time into the beta version, didn’t I ultimately fail to obtain even hero qualification?
Life should be lived thin and long.
Knowing your place is also a very important virtue in living life, isn’t it?
Creak-
As I chatted with my family, night had fallen before I knew it, and returning to my room for the first time in 10 years, I flopped down on the bed.
Coming home after so long left my head quite complicated.
‘Let’s just rest without thinking about anything for now.’
During my time with that crazy fairy, I don’t think I ever got to rest this comfortably even once.
So I could probably clear my head and rest for a few days.
With such thoughts, I gradually drifted off to sleep.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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