The next day.
Taeseong opened his eyes and tilted his head at the app screen he had drunkenly installed the night before.
“It pays me if I lose 1kg? And a million won, at that?”
[Tutorial Mission!]
- Lose 1kg of body weight!
- Reward: 1,000,000 won
A scam.
Anyone could see it reeked of fraud.
But.
“It isn’t asking me for money, there aren’t any ads, and I can’t really see what I’d lose......”
It was not even a paid service, and it claimed it would pay him.
He wondered whether it might be after his personal data.
There was nothing like that either.
“Hold on. Did I sign up for anything yesterday?”
He remembered installing the app while drunk, but he had no memory of registering for anything or entering personal information.
And yet this Wopora app — however it had been built — knew his name, his age, his gender, and even his bank account.
The strangest part of all.
[Target weight: 159.3kg]
[Current weight: 160.3kg]
The app had his weight down to the decimal.
Just in case, he scrambled onto the scale and checked, and it was 160.3kg, exactly, not a decimal off.
“Weird. It’s not like I got hacked, is it?”
He was wondering whether he ought to stop by a carrier store and swap out his SIM when it happened.
Rumble—
Thunder and lightning broke out in his gut.
“Urgh!”
An evacuation warning, his organs twisting as if they were about to blow.
A common trait among the morbidly obese.
Taeseong scrambled into the bathroom.
Trumpets sounded, and Taeseong emerged with his bowels cleanly emptied and his face far more at ease.
“Hmm, that was a decent load.”
On the off chance, he stepped onto the scale without so much as a sip of water, and the effect was immediate.
[159.3kg]
“Oh, it dropped!”
Eating a lot and voiding a lot is not a principle that applies to elephants alone.
For the morbidly obese, past the three-digit mark, a kilo or two swings around from ordinary bodily functions.
The moment the tens digit changed, an alert rang from the app.
[Mission complete! Congratulations!]
[The mission reward will be paid out.]
A beaming yellow smiley emoji, apparently Wopora’s mascot or something like it, popped up.
Then an alert immediately appeared in the Minguk Bank app installed on Taeseong’s phone.
[1,000,000 won has been deposited into your account from ]
This actually works? Really?
A shiver ran the length of his body, and Taeseong checked the account right away.
Six zeroes. One million won, deposited without a doubt.
And the moment he had shed one kilogram of crap — no, of body weight.
[The next mission for Kim Taeseong is now in progress!]
[Weekly Mission]
- Lose 3kg within one week
- Reward: 3,000,000 won
“Whoa, that’s insane......!”
With money sitting in his account, he had no choice but to drop his suspicion that the missions and rewards were fake.
In all the world, he had never met anyone who told him to lose weight and cheered him on with cash.
A scam to steal his account information, you say?
Then it would be draining money, not handing it over.
And 3kg — for a morbidly obese man, not some skinny guy?
“3kg in a week? Guaranteed. No, if I can’t lose that I’m a lost cause.”
It was not as if he had never dieted.
Any pig has lost 3 or 4kg over a short stretch at some point.
He had burned with countless resolutions about dieting before, of course, but he had never been motivated this concretely.
***
Back to the commute.
Today too, Woojin Securities’ trading floor was busy with traders firing off buy and sell orders.
‘A diet’s a diet, and work is work.’
The moment the market opened, Taeseong was again glued to the numbers and graphs across his four monitors.
Lately the market had taken one blow after another.
Today’s biggest source of volatility was tied to the collapse of the superconductor theme.
Most of the related names either shot straight to the daily lower limit at the open or plunged more than 20%.
It had been a fantasy of a theme from the start.
But to investors dreaming of a jackpot, superconductors were no fantasy.
‘With the theme that soaked up the market’s money falling apart, the whole market’s energy has dropped hard.’
With bad news piling up since yesterday, quite a few had simply left their desks at the open, saying ‘on a market like today’s, keeping your hands off is the profitable move.’
‘Maybe I should just go get something to eat too.’
Parking his backside in a chair was not going to make the market any better.
Having decided on lunch, Taeseong headed for the commercial district near Woojin Securities.
Instead of the Chinese place he usually went, what he sought out was.
“Well, well. Never thought I’d walk into a place like this under my own power.”
A poke shop, the sort dieters flock to.
Poke is a diet dish from Hawaii, something like a raw-fish rice bowl.
“Welcome to Poke Day.”
He stepped inside to a friendly greeting from the staff, and every eye in the shop swung toward Taeseong.
Small wonder — the usual poke customers were slim young women.
Taeseong, pushing 160kg, could not help but radiate a distinctly foreign presence in a place like this.
At the kiosk by the entrance stood dozens of poke varieties, easily more than he could count at a glance.
‘Wh-why is this so complicated?’
Even now, part of him wanted to go to the Chinese place in the next building.
‘Three million won. Three million.’
Trading is not a poorly paid job, but his results were weak compared to his peers and seniors for a fifth-year, so his salary was not high, and he badly wanted that 3,000,000 won.
He worried that dithering too long would draw more eyes, but fortunately the shop had a recommended combination it put together for you.
He placed his order, sat down, and the food came out quickly.
Cabbage, carrot, cucumber, chicory, seaweed stem, salmon, and brown rice in a modest little bowl — the sight of it conjured a plate of jjajangmyeon before his eyes, but.
Taeseong scooped up a mouthful of poke with nothing but the single-minded resolve to claim that 3,000,000 won.
“Hmm, that’s better than I expected.”
If you assumed the morbidly obese only like greasy meat dishes, you would be wrong.
Just as an elephant builds its bulk on tons of fruit and greens.
Fortunately, Taeseong liked bibimbap-style dishes with herbs and vegetables in them too.
The one disappointment, if he had to name one, was that a diet dish naturally meant small portions.
‘Is this going to fill me up?’
He had his doubts, but if he was going to drop 3kg in a week, controlling his food was mandatory.
Just then.
“Huh? Assistant Manager Kim?”
A familiar voice came from behind him.
He rotated his considerable bulk to look back, and Associate Kang was standing there with a tray holding a bowl of poke.
“Assistant Manager, what are you doing here?”
“Eating? As you can see.”
“Ah, right. I asked something completely obvious, didn’t I. Mind if I sit next to you?”
“Ah...... Sure. Whatever’s comfortable.”
Associate Kang sat down across from Assistant Manager Kim without a trace of hesitation.
‘Figures. This kind of place suits someone like Hyeona.’
Anyone could see Kang Hyeona was a woman who managed herself rigorously.
From what he had overheard before, she went to the gym every single day after work.
Slim, clear skin, thick healthy hair — honestly, she was not the sort of person who belonged in a place like Woojin Securities, saturated with the smell of middle-aged men.
“If I’d known you liked poke, I’d have brought you along ages ago. I come here almost every day.”
“Ah, so this is your regular spot.”
“Yes. It’s the only poke place around here. And it’s a bit awkward to come with the rest of the office.”
That figured. Manager Jeong and Department Head Park Geonil usually picked hearty Korean food, like stir-fried pork, cutlets, or pork-bone soup.
“What a relief. I’m honestly still awkward about eating alone, so from now on you can be my lunch buddy, Assistant Manager Kim.”
“Sorry? M-me?”
“Yes. Actually, working here lately......”
Associate Kang leaned toward Taeseong and whispered.
“I’ve put on a little weight, so I think I need to manage it hard for a while.”
“Ah, ah.”
He wanted to shout ‘what weight?!’ but Taeseong simply nodded and lowered his head.
‘If even someone like Kang Hyeona is dieting over a little weight, I really need to go at it hard this time.’
There was one thing that worried him.
“I’m not sure I can keep coming here, though.”
“What? Why? The poke here is pretty good, isn’t it?”
“No, the poke is good. It’s just that I feel a bit self-conscious.”
“Self-conscious? About what?”
Taeseong silently turned his eyes to their surroundings.
At the end of that gaze were the other customers.
They were all pretending not to look, but the thought that someone among them was snickering at him had eaten away at Taeseong.
“You came to this poke place to eat clean, right, Assistant Manager?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then why worry about other people? You gained the weight, you’re losing the weight. The strange ones are the people who stare and snicker behind your back. Isn’t that so?”
“Well, well, you’re not wrong, but still......”
“Working at eating clean is something to be praised for, not something to feel self-conscious about. So don’t give it a second thought.”
Associate Kang’s words gave him a little confidence.
“Still, poke really is too small a lunch for you, isn’t it? That’s only natural. It’s not just about your weight — even women have trouble getting full on this. One moment.”
Associate Kang got up from her seat and went to the kiosk.
She picked out something extra, collected it from the counter, and came straight back.
“A protein bar. Almost no carbs and high protein, so it fills you up well but the calories are tiny. Eating it together should hold you a lot better.”
“Oh, then I’ll go buy my own. You bought that one, so you have it, Hyeona.”
“Come on, this is plenty for me. Instead, take me with you next time you go somewhere like a poke place. Deal?”
An angel.
An angel named Kang Hyeona had descended into Taeseong’s world, which he had believed was nothing but darkness and gloom.
“I never talked with you outside of work, Hyeona, so I had no idea — how do I put it, you have an incredibly...... healthy mindset. I’m envious.”
“Envious of me? I’m over here wondering when I’ll ever be a trader who pulls her weight in this company like you do, Assistant Manager Kim.”
Associate Kang, not even a junior trader yet, let out a long sigh, as if the path ahead were hopeless.
“Ask me anything you’re curious about, anytime. I am a senior trader, after all.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. Heh heh, today I got a meal buddy and what feels like a reliable senior at work. I’m in a good mood.”
Perhaps it was thanks to eating with Kang Hyeona.
Even after finishing his thimble-sized poke, Taeseong barely managed to hold back the urge to go buy something more.
After that, for a week, Taeseong gritted his teeth and went to the poke place with Associate Kang every lunch.
When evening came, the urge to open the delivery app and throw a merciless calorie party rose in him like smoke up a chimney.
Every time, he held out by looking at Wopora’s cash reward.
And so, a week later.
[Target weight: 156.3kg]
[Current weight: 156kg]
[Mission complete!]
Taeseong cleared the mission with room to spare.
And with a full 0.3kg beyond the target, at that.
“I-I did it!”
Taeseong balled his fist at the sight of the 3,000,000 won that landed in his account.
And Wopora’s next mission arrived immediately after.
[A new monthly mission is being provided!]
[From now on, you may receive additional rewards through bonus missions!]
“Not a weekly mission but a monthly one?”
[Monthly Mission]
- Lose a further 5kg within one month
- Reward: 5,000,000 won
[Bonus Mission]
- Perform 20 consecutive push-ups without rest.
- Reward: 24 hours of future stock information