The Rice-Eating Hero’s Capitalist Streaming - Chapter 110

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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 110

Constellation’s Game [Lyka]

HBC Headquarters in Sangam-dong, Entertainment Department’s 3rd Conference Room.

Even though it was already late evening, well past quitting time…

The conference room lights showed no signs of going out.

In the stale air, the smell of cold delivery coffee mixed strangely with the sweat of production staff who hadn’t been home for days.

“…Hah.”

FD Jeongmin Lee, who had gone home only to be called back out… was rubbing his tired eyes while looking up at the large monitor in front of him.

The screen displayed real-time data graphs for the 20 teams currently undertaking the 【Midas’s Garden】 mission.

But Jeongmin’s gaze was fixed on only one graph. An absurd bar graph that was piercing through the ceiling and ascending to space while other teams were crawling on the floor.

[Team 1 (Leader Geon-ryul Lee): +5,738 LP (In Progress)]

Looking at that overwhelming figure, Jeongmin unconsciously rubbed his face.

This was… the kind of number that would have been mistaken for a display error if they hadn’t received the play records.

‘What the hell is this guy doing?’

Of course, as a friend, it was naturally pleasant to see Geonyul performing well.

Especially since the better this guy showed himself, the more his own position as the one who recruited him would rise.

But there had to be limits.

The results currently being monitored were… literally at the level of a ‘disaster.’

‘Ugh… he’s already in first place, couldn’t he tone it down a bit? Ugh.’

Jeongmin wasn’t the only one whose insides were burning. Main PD Jang Seyeon and field supervisor Director Kwon were also examining the data with serious expressions.

“PD-nim. This… what do we really do about this?”

It was Director Kwon who broke the silence. He held out his tablet PC with an almost tearful expression.

“If we calculate scores like this, the balance is just completely destroyed. I ran simulations and there’s no answer.”

The screen Director Kwon displayed showed the expected score distribution laid bare.

The current situation was clear.

Out of 20 teams total, 2 teams had dropped out midway, 15 teams had finished clearing…

And 3 teams were still inside the labyrinth. The problem was the gap in their ‘performance.’

“As you can see, most teams are in the red as expected. Average between -100 to -300 LP.”

“…”

“Only three teams made a profit. Seong-hwan Lee’s team with +380 LP, Kwon Yuna’s team with +125 LP. And…”

Director Kwon couldn’t bring himself to continue and just pointed at the screen. That overwhelming figure that didn’t need to be spoken.

[Team 1: +5,738 LP]

“Does this make any sense? The gap with second place is over 15 times.”

Director Kwon shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“What’s our scoring criteria for this mission? It’s relative evaluation based on ‘final profit,’ right?”

“That’s right.”

“So according to the original plan, we set first place as 100 points and score proportionally…”

“…If first place is 5,700 points.”

“Yes. Even Seong-hwan Lee’s team in second place gets 6 points out of 100. The rest have negative scores. The whole picture just falls apart.”

Jang Seyeon frowned and pressed her temples firmly.

She was also a veteran PD, but this was her first time dealing with this kind of ecosystem-disrupting species.

She had expected participant Geon-ryul Lee to be a wild card, but she never imagined he’d become a ‘disaster’ that would overturn the entire game.

“How did this even happen? Is participant Geon-ryul Lee’s capability really this overwhelmingly superior?”

To Jang Seyeon’s bewildered question, Director Kwon shook his head.

“Not exactly. Of course his combat performance is excellent, but that’s not everything.”

Director Kwon sighed and brought up the analysis data.

“This isn’t money earned simply by being good at hunting. This team maximized farming efficiency by accepting losses early in the labyrinth to stack buffs.”

Flipping through slides, Director Kwon’s explanation continued.

“And with the seed money they gathered that way, they pushed the compound interest system to its limits.”

“The compound system?”

“Yes. They perfectly understood and utilized the structure of money making money. And decisively…”

Director Kwon flipped the screen to point at the scene where the golden lion exploded.

“Even luck was on their side. They encountered the hidden stage ‘Collector’s Room’ that appears with extremely low probability. By taking out both the boss and rewards there, their assets grew exponentially.”

Director Kwon swallowed dryly as his mouth went dry.

Jang Seyeon asked again.

“Collector’s Room? Why wasn’t that considered during the planning stage?”

“Because it’s a stage that doesn’t even have information on the Awakened Wiki. I looked into it… it seems to be a hidden stage that’s never been known to exist. So we had no idea such a thing existed either.”

“Hmm…”

A miraculous figure created by skill, strategy, and even divine luck combined.

It was the result of utilizing the ‘capitalism’ system designed by the production team more perfectly than the production team itself.

After hearing the explanation, Jang Seyeon let out a hollow laugh.

“Ha… He’s really something else.”

Then she nodded and fell into thought for a moment.

‘Still, the first reveal of a hidden stage. This makes for pretty decent broadcast material.’

But that was a secondary problem… first they had to solve this balance collapse that had occurred.

After a moment of silence, Jang Seyeon spoke as if she had made a decision.

“There’s no choice.”

“Pardon?”

“…Let’s overhaul the scoring method from scratch.”

“Then how…”

“Scrap the relative evaluation. The existing evaluation method won’t work with this data.”

Jeongmin Lee and Director Kwon’s gazes fixed on Jang Seyeon’s mouth, and her lips slowly parted again.

“Teams that made a profit get a perfect 100 points regardless of amount, all treated as top scores equally. The rest of the teams in the red get points deducted based on their deficit amount – let’s switch to an absolute evaluation method.”

Both men nodded at Jang Seyeon’s explanation.

Certainly in the current situation, this was the most reasonable plan.

‘Well, it might be a bit unfair from Geonyul’s perspective…’

Jeongmin felt regretful too, but it was an unavoidable choice.

Anyway, the program’s success had to continue for Geonyul to benefit more as well.

But this didn’t solve all the problems either.

The real problem was just beginning.

“Scores aside… the bigger problem is the ‘carryover.'”

At Director Kwon’s point, the conference room atmosphere grew heavy again.

The original planning intent for 【Midas’s Garden】 was to allow the team LP gains and losses determined here to be carried over to the next mission, the 【Temple of Gold】 labyrinth…

At this rate, the balance would be completely destroyed.

“If they go in with 5,000 LP as is, the next broadcast won’t happen.”

Director Kwon shook his head seriously.

“The Temple of Gold boss monster… with 5,000 LP they could just bribe it with money and send it home. There’d be no tension or anything, the broadcast itself wouldn’t work.”

“…Hah.”

Jeongmin had to agree on that point too.

They needed to create broadcast content, but solving everything with money right from the start and clearing in 5 minutes?

That wouldn’t be variety entertainment, it would be a broadcast accident.

“But we can’t just take it away either.”

“Of course not. What right do we have to take LP earned through legitimate strategy.”

“That’s exactly why this is driving me crazy.”

A dilemma. Then, Jang Seyeon, who had been thinking with her arms crossed, casually threw out a comment.

“Then, the only method is… just distribute it individually.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m saying we settle the team assets directly to the participants. Scrap the carryover system.”

Jang Seyeon’s words continued.

“We’ll just change the rules to distribute it proportionally based on contribution… and deposit it as prize money into individual accounts.”

“Ah…”

“The justification is solid too. It fits the <capitalism> theme, and since it’s a real benefit for the participants, there won’t be much resistance either.”

It was certainly a clear solution. But Director Kwon’s expression still wasn’t bright.

“The idea is good… but then we’ll have to change the mission content from scratch, won’t we?”

They had made the carryover system from previous results the main framework for the labyrinth missions.

This is where things got complicated.

In other words, scrapping the entire plan.

It meant they’d have to create new missions starting from the very next one.

“Well that…”

A hollow laugh escaped from Jang Seyeon’s mouth.

“We’ll have to pull an all-nighter, won’t we?”

“…”

“Ugh…”

The meeting between the three continued.

They had somewhat figured out how to resolve the current situation…

But to avoid disrupting the broadcast schedule, they had to reach detailed conclusions by today.

And like this… when about another hour had passed.

“Alright, I think we’ve got things roughly sorted out.”

Producer Jang Seyeon looked at Jeongmin Lee with a meaningful expression.

“Now what’s left depends on FD Jeongmin Lee. Right?”

“…”

Director Kwon’s eyes widened in confusion, not understanding what this meant…

“Please have a good talk with him. You can handle that much, can’t you?”

Jeongmin immediately understood what this meant.

‘Sigh. I’ll have to figure out how to handle this well.’

The fact that Geonyul was Jeongmin’s friend was something only Producer Jang Seyeon knew among the production team.

So Seyeon’s current request was asking him to gauge Geonyul’s reaction.

‘Well, if I were Team 1, I might feel a bit wronged in this situation.’

Actually, there was no problem on the surface.

After all, the rules changed in today’s meeting had never been disclosed to the participants.

Nevertheless, if Team 1 felt they weren’t being treated well compared to their performance, they could reasonably have complaints.

So this could be considered a request to take care of that concern.

“If they seem too disappointed with simple settlement, we could also consider using the LP from teams that made profits in Midas in different ways for the 2nd or 3rd missions.”

“Understood.”

“Anyway, please talk it over well… and let us know the results?”

“Yes.”

After the meeting ended.

Jeongmin, who was about to head home from work, eventually slumped down in the monitoring room.

Since he had come back to the company anyway, he thought he’d watch until Midas’s Garden was finished.

“Oh, FD! Didn’t you leave work already?”

“I left work and came back to work.”

“Oh my…”

So when about another hour had passed like that.

“Ugh, it’s finally over.”

“What time is it now?”

“Wow, it’s past 1 AM.”

Confirming the final results of the labyrinth mission, Jeongmin couldn’t help but sigh deeply once again at the unrealistic score.

Team 1’s score, which had already been anomalous, had been inflated by another level from there.

[Team 1 (Leader Geon-ryul Lee): +9,624 LP (Completed)]

At the end, they even found some hidden clear route, resulting in this ridiculous outcome…

“Wow, this is really amazing!”

“Did Team 1 really achieve the first clear of Midas? Not a semi-clear?”

“This is going to cause a huge stir when it airs, right?”

He didn’t care about that; he was just tormented by the catastrophic numbers.

The bigger this number got, the heavier the burden in his heart became.

‘If Team 1 participants… choose team mission advantages instead of settlement. That’s when things will really get complicated.’

If they made that choice, not only the remaining labyrinth missions but also the 2nd and 3rd missions would have to be scrapped and replanned.

If such a disaster came to pass… Jeongmin would definitely not be able to go home for at least several weeks.

‘Please… save me, Geonyul…’

But there was one fact Jeongmin couldn’t know at this moment.

All these worries of his… were actually completely useless worries.

Right now, the person in question, Geonyul, who had cleared all missions and was returning to the dormitory…

‘9600LP… this is such a waste…’

Was actually licking his lips thinking about the LP tied up as team assets.

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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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