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Chapter 10
As soon as I send the photo of the Neofinetia falcata today, I get a reply from the other person almost immediately.
“Its condition has improved so much!”
Just as he says, the orchid’s condition has improved tremendously. To someone who doesn’t know anything about it, it looks completely healthy now.
“I think it needs to be cared for for another three or four days. I may be able to return it to you around next Friday.”
That’s how I feel about it. If I take care of it until Friday, I think it will be able to survive well even after it leaves my hands.
“Any time is fine with me. Just let me know when you decide it is ready!”
After finishing the update about the orchid, I sit down in front of my computer.
“Let’s see how much I’ve made.”
How much money have I earned from my hobbies so far? Adding the 1.8 million won from before, the 150,000 won from the wedding hall photography, and the 300,000 won advance payment for taking care of the orchid, it comes to about 2.2 million won.
A lot of thoughts come to mind. Should I buy a one-million-won camera? Or should I save more and build a new three-million-won computer? Maybe opening a savings account would be a good idea too. Even if I only do coding jobs, I should be able to make enough to put money into savings every month.
‘Should I try cryptocurrency too?’
I used to think stocks and cryptocurrency had nothing to do with me, but surprisingly, a lot of people around me were putting money into them and making or losing money.
One senior at the institution, a public-service worker like me, apparently puts money into cryptocurrency every time he gets his monthly salary.
‘This is much better than stocks.’
I don’t even know what he is basing that on. As far as I know, cryptocurrency is more dangerous.
“Ah, I don’t know.”
Uncertain investments aren’t really my thing. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly stubborn or conservative, but I’m not looking for some lucky break either. Putting hundreds of thousands or millions of won into something I don’t understand isn’t my style.
“I’ll just play games.”
Since I had some money now, I decided to look around the game platform and see if there was anything worth buying.
30% off, 20% off, 50% off. The platform, nicknamed the “Discount Devil” because it constantly holds sales, offered new discounted games every day, but finding something that suited my taste wasn’t easy.
“Oh!?”
While browsing today’s special deals, I spotted a familiar character.
A cute female character wearing clean blue armor. Wasn’t that the same cosplay outfit Jiah had worn for the first time today?
“Farland Fantasy?”
Farland Fantasy, a top-down RPG game. The character Jiah had cosplayed was apparently the main female character from this game.
‘She kind of looks like Jiah.’
A small frame and graceful curves. The character definitely resembled Jiah.
“21,000 won after the discount.”
Not a bad price. Since this was an unexpected connection, I bought the game and immediately started installing it.
“Yaaawn~”
“Ho-yeon, did you go to bed late last night?”
Just as the nursing-care worker said, I had gone to bed after 3 a.m. last night.
Farland Fantasy was much more fun than I expected. It was a fantasy game with a high degree of freedom. You could follow the predetermined storyline, or you could create your own story however you wanted. I had even forgotten that I had work the next day.
Still, I couldn’t call it a perfect game. It felt like the developers had sacrificed convenience for fun, because there were more than a few frustrating parts.
‘Especially the party-member interface.’
You could give commands to your companions during battle, but the interface covered the entire screen, making it almost impossible to issue commands while fighting.
And the companions’ AI was terrible too. They couldn’t move and attack at the same time, so you had to control them one step at a time: “move command → arrive → attack command.”
‘They really need to fix this with a patch…’
“Oh!?”
Then it hit me.
What if I made a mod that fixed these problems and distributed it through donations? Could that complete the coding quest?
[Quest (Coding): Create a simple program and distribute it through donations, earning more than 1 million won.]
I wasn’t sure whether this could really be considered a simple program, but I was confident that I could receive a substantial amount of donations if I made it.
‘All right. I’ll start working on this tomorrow.’
The developer provided modding tools, so if I focused on it for about two weeks, I should be able to make a decent mod.
Bzzzt-
At that moment, a message came from Jiah.
“I booked the studio in Seongnam for Wednesday evening.”
She had said she would look into booking the studio, and apparently she had settled on Wednesday. This week was going to be incredibly busy.
After work today, I would get the Monstera Albo leaf from Ms. Cha, then start developing the program when I got home.
On Wednesday, I would photograph Jiah at the studio.
On Friday, I would return the Neofinetia and receive the remaining payment.
But even though I had more work to do, I didn’t feel annoyed or bothered. Everything was something I wanted to do. Since these were hobbies I actually enjoyed, I could do them happily.
A life where I could make a living doing only the things I wanted to do.
I had only just gotten a taste of that life, but perhaps this was what happiness felt like.
“Phew~”
I returned home after receiving the Monstera Albo from Ms. Cha. Thankfully, she had already planted it in a suitable pot. Now I just needed to apply my gardening ability, take good care of it, and keep growing more leaves.
After taking a shower, I immediately sat down in front of the computer. I installed the developer’s official modding tool and started making the mod.
The moment I turned on the program, I knew exactly what I needed to do. My ancient computer made things difficult in several ways, but I was able to code without getting stuck.
I was typing away at the keyboard so intensely that before I knew it, it was already 10 p.m.
It was December, and it got dark early, so I had decided to go meet my mother every day when she returned after closing the restaurant.
‘Could there be a better son than me?’
If all these hobby-based businesses went well, I would hire more people so my mother wouldn’t have to work at the restaurant anymore.
Before I knew it, it was Wednesday, and the work was progressing much more slowly than I had expected.
Modifying the companion interface wasn’t particularly difficult, but the AI was considerably more complicated because it involved changing the game’s fundamental systems.
On top of that, my old computer was making everything even harder.
‘If I make one million won from donations for this, I’m replacing this computer first.’
“Why are you so late!”
Jiah, who was waiting for me at the bus stop with her arms full of borrowed costumes, complained.
“Sorry. Taking care of the evening clients at work took longer than expected.”
“We only rented it for one hour. Hurry up.”
Fortunately, the bus arrived quickly. After about forty minutes, we arrived at the studio in Seongnam.
“I’ll go change. Set everything up.”
There wasn’t much to set up anyway. The studio only cost 30,000 won per hour, and it was incredibly bare. There were only a few lights and a white backdrop.
‘Maybe I should have bought a camera.’
On top of that, my only photography equipment was my phone camera. I probably should have borrowed a camera like I did for the wedding hall job.
“Hey! Come help me!”
Meanwhile, Jiah, who was changing clothes inside the changing room, called for me.
“Why?”
“Put this decoration on my back.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah! I’m already fully dressed.”
When I opened the changing-room door and went inside, Jiah was wearing her cosplay outfit on top and tight white shorts underneath. She turned her back toward me.
“Put that on.”
“Okay.”
I needed to take at least twenty photos, and if possible, more than ten photos for each costume. I planned to select only the highest-quality shots and use them for the photo book.
Because I had arrived late, there were only forty minutes left on our studio rental. Considering the time needed for changing clothes, we had to work insanely fast if we wanted to get the number of photos we needed.
“Done!”
“Go outside and wait!”
I quickly went back outside. From inside, I could hear the rustling sounds of Jiah changing clothes. A few minutes later, she came out after finishing her makeup as well.
“Hurry, hurry!”
There was no time to comment on how pretty she looked or how well the costume suited her. We repeatedly struck poses and took photos as quickly as possible.
“Whew… This is tiring.”
“Told you.”
We had taken the photos so quickly that I could barely remember how we had done it. Fortunately, we managed to get at least seven usable photos for each costume.
After returning to Anyang, we were about to go our separate ways when Jiah stopped me.
“Want to have a beer?”
“Beer?”
“Yeah. We need to eat dinner.”
It was a little strange to connect dinner with beer.
“Let’s have chicken and beer. My treat.”
Somehow, Jiah seemed to be in a particularly good mood.
So we went into the chicken restaurant she suggested, ordered two 500ml glasses of beer and some fried chicken, and waited.
“How are we going to sell the photos?”
Perfect timing. This was a business too, after all. We needed to settle things like how we would divide the profits.
“There are sites where you can upload and sell photos. They’re usually for selling photos that can be used commercially, but we’re not going to let people use our photo book for commercial purposes.”
“Then will people actually buy it?”
“It’ll just be a digital photo book for people to look at. If we set a reasonable price, I think it’ll sell pretty well.”
I had already done plenty of market research by browsing those sites.
Photo books by cosplayers sold much better than ordinary photo books.
Especially in China, the demand and supply were enormous.
“Let’s split the profits fifty-fifty.”
“Huh? Really?”
Jiah looked surprised as the fried chicken was placed in front of her.
“We’re not strangers, and I couldn’t think of you as just a model I hired for money.”
“Ah… R-really?”
“Yeah. I want to think of us as partners who worked on this together.”
“Partners…!”
Those words seemed to move Jiah.
But I was being sincere. Rather than simply paying her a small modeling fee, I wanted this photo book to become a joint asset belonging to both of us.
“How much do you think we’ll sell?”
“Who knows? It depends on how we set the price.”
I was confident about the quality of the photos. The problem was the price.
Digital photo books with around fifty photos usually cost less than 10,000 won.
“The photos turned out really well, so part of me wants to charge more. But if it’s too expensive, hardly anyone will buy it.”
No matter how pretty the model was or how well I photographed her, in the end, it was still just a cosplay photo book. To ordinary people, it might even look similar to other photo books.
“I’ll leave it to you. I think you know more about this than I do.”
As she said that, Jiah raised her beer glass.
“Let’s have a toast. We’re business partners now, aren’t we?”
“I guess we are.”
I raised my beer glass as well, and we clinked them together.
“Thanks for becoming my model.”
“I should be thanking you for making me look so pretty.”
Our eyes met.
Without either of us knowing who smiled first, we both broke into bright smiles.
Jiah, who had once been nothing more than one of my high school classmates with whom I had almost no connection, now felt like a very close friend.
I wonder if Jiah thinks of me as a friend too?
