Translator: SourKimchi
Streamers whose names alone anyone would recognize fired off Water Drops one after another.
The chat blew up in an instant.
-HanRiverRamen : wait hold on lmaooo what just happened
-BongcheonFireFist : chae-rin croco do-yun AND akasha?? this is insane
-SquishyCheese : streamers lining up too is freaking creepy
-RibbitKing : at this rate celebs are gonna start lining up
-NeonSign : ngl i really wanna see akasha's spirit reading
-FactInspector : wow lol now he's even recruiting big-name streamers
-FactInspector : couldve at least made it less obvious
-ChickenBox : do akasha's spirit reading first pls!
-RainbowSign : akasha-nim's spirit reading is happening today right?
Park Ji-hun watched the chat shoot upward and narrowed his brow.
Word that streamers had shown up to his broadcast and fired off Water Drops had gotten out, and now their fans were pouring in all at once too.
In an instant, the scale of what he had to handle had changed.
"Knock it off."
At that one short word, the chat faltered for a moment.
"On my stream, being famous doesn't change the order."
The chat stirred again.
-SilentRoom : oh THIS is what i'm talking about!
-BongcheonFireFist : a fair stream as always
-FactInspector : fair my ass lol he's just milking it for content
-NeonSign : still though, it's akasha we're talking about
-Daenari : do akasha-nim first!!
-SquishyCheese : i really wanna see akasha-nim's spirit reading ugh
That was when it happened.
[Akasha-nim has gifted 500 Water Drops.]
-Akasha : he said he's doing it in order, so please stop already
When Akasha stepped in herself, the chat's momentum died down a notch.
-SseomyeonMaster : everyone else is lined up and waiting too!
-VanillaAddict : akasha-nim put it well
-Ertel : on this stream being a streamer gets you no exceptions
-SilentRoom : she lined up herself and her fans are the ones losing it lol
-RibbitKing : those guys are just trolls don't get it twisted nope
Park Ji-hun skimmed the Reservation List sitting in the upper-right corner of his monitor.
That name sat at the very top.
[FactInspector]
It was the name that had been making the chat especially noisy for a while now.
'When did he even fire off Water Drops?'
It seemed he'd fired off his Water Drops long ago and had been waiting for his turn.
In that instant, a Vision flashed briefly past.
A cramped Goshiwon room. [TL Note: a Goshiwon is a tiny, cheap single-room rental, common among Korean students and job-seekers.]
Several monitor screens glowed a pale blue in the dark.
A man who hadn't even shaved properly sat slouched sideways in his chair, hammering at the keyboard.
His eyes were unusually fixated, like a man bent on tearing the mask off someone's face.
A snickering sound leaked out from the corner of his twisted mouth.
Park Ji-hun pulled his gaze away without a word.
Scrolling the list all the way down, he found Chae-rin, Do-yun, Croco, and Akasha, all four lined up in a row.
He checked the viewer count.
[Viewers : 23,112]
Far more than usual.
It was because word that big-name streamers were watching his broadcast had spread, and viewers had flooded in all at once.
-SilentRoom : that factinspector prick booked a slot even though he's never gonna believe a word of it
-RibbitKing : why even line up for a spirit reading if you're gonna act like that lol
-Ertel : that guy's known for prowling the internet broadcast gallery and picking fights on every stream
-FactInspector : why did i line up?
-FactInspector : because if it's fake i gotta expose it
-FactInspector : checking whether it's fact or not is literally my job
Park Ji-hun parted his lips.
"Next up is FactInspector. You."
***
A moment later, the Discord connection tone rang.
A short burst of static passed, and then a man's voice came through.
"Hello there."
Park Ji-hun looked at the monitor without a word.
The voice was calmer than expected.
So clean and composed it was almost unsettling.
"It really is something."
The man laughed.
"People these days fall for things way too easily. Don't you think?"
The chat reacted at once.
-SilentRoom : insufferable tone right off the bat
-RibbitKing : voice sounds totally normal which makes it even more pathetic
-Ertel : that type always acts like they're the only rational one
-NeonSign : who's the one falling for stuff exactly?
The man paid it no mind and went on.
"So I did a little digging."
Park Ji-hun stayed silent.
As if to say that if he had something to get off his chest, he should go right ahead and get all of it out.
"Usernames. People usually keep them all the same, right? Maybe that's why, but did you know that once you catch one, the rest come spilling out in a chain?"
For a moment, the chat's reactions split.
-SquishyCheese : huh?
-BongcheonFireFist : did he actually find something?
-ChickenBox : building all this suspense, where's he even going with this
-RainbowSign : let's just hear him out for now
The man snickered.
"I mean, it's nothing huge, just put in some legwork online."
"......."
"Study cafés, job-seeker forums, communities, dig just a little and it all comes pouring out."
Park Ji-hun asked curtly.
"So?"
The man spoke as if he'd been waiting for it.
"You. Up until just a month ago, you were an ordinary job-seeker, weren't you?"
The chat hesitated for a beat.
-SseomyeonMaster : eh? he was a job-seeker before?
-SquishyCheese : i mean his handle IS perpetualjobseeker but he was actually job-hunting until a month ago?
-VanillaAddict : ok that's kinda out of nowhere lol
-ask2311 : isn't he just lying tho?
As if he'd seen the chat, the man went on in a clear voice.
"People don't know any better, so sure, they can get fooled. But I just can't sit back and watch this kind of thing happen."
"......."
"The facts. They have to come to light."
At that, Park Ji-hun let out a short laugh.
It was a laugh of disbelief.
He leaned back in his chair and asked.
"Is that everything you dug up on me?"
"Huh?"
"That I was a job-seeker? Yeah, that's right. There was a time I was one too."
He hadn't named his handle PerpetualJobSeeker for nothing.
"And that makes me a fraud? That's your conclusion?"
The man fired right back.
"Then I'm supposed to believe someone who was job-hunting right up until yesterday turned into some uncannily gifted shaman overnight? Who's gonna buy that? Isn't it a lot more believable that a broke-ass jobless bum gave up on everything, slapped on a shaman gimmick, and started raking in cash by scamming people?"
"You."
A cold voice.
"Jobless, and yet you told your family you're attending S-University?"
"......!"
On the other end of the Discord call, his breathing went faint.
The chat got loud.
-RibbitKing : wait? he's not an s-university student, he's unemployed??
-VanillaAddict : huh? it was all a lie??
Park Ji-hun didn't stop.
"You know forgery of private documents is a criminal offense, right? And your mom, not knowing any of it, was so proud she cried her eyes out."
The man's breathing turned ragged.
"What, what kind of bullshit are you......!"
But Park Ji-hun's voice stayed calm.
"Every time a call came from home you got anxious and snapped at your mom for no reason. Always on edge that she might call the school to check up on you."
The man snapped back desperately.
"You got proof? I said do you have proof!!"
"You'd know that better than me, wouldn't you? The lies didn't stop at one or two. Want me to keep going?"
"......."
"A guy who tears other people's lives wide open in the name of finding the facts."
Park Ji-hun drove the final nail in.
"And his own life turns out to be one big fake?"
***
The other end of the Discord call went quiet for a moment.
The voice that had been grilling him so crisply just moments ago cut off as if it had never been there.
Only the sound of ragged inhaling came through now and then.
Without changing his expression in the slightest, Park Ji-hun spoke.
"If you've got nothing else to say, get lost."
The man couldn't reply right away.
"N-no. I said it's not true......."
It was a tone no one had heard from him before.
The composure he'd had while tearing others down was nowhere to be found.
The chat flared up.
-RibbitKing : him suddenly stuttering is hilarious lmaooo
-NeonSign : guess he really did lie about getting into s-university?
-RainbowSign : why'd factinspector suddenly shut up?
-ChickenBox : he finally met his match lmaooo
The man muttered.
"This is......this is completely insane......."
"Forging the acceptance papers, too."
The man's breathing turned sharply ragged.
"And deceiving your mother, who goes out to the dawn market alone to scrape together your rent and living expenses."
Park Ji-hun added one more line.
"You're gonna deny all of it? You remember how hard your mother cried when she heard you'd gotten in, don't you? That's exactly why you still can't bring yourself to say a word."
"You, you must have looked into my background, that's the only way, but, but how? I never told a single soul......?"
Park Ji-hun's sharp gaze, the kind that seemed to see straight through everything, came through the screen.
"I see everything."
In that instant, the man's Discord call dropped.
The chat completely lost it.
-SilentRoom : lmaooo did he chicken out and bail?
-ask2311 : wait it just ends like this??
-Hakparam : factinspector change your handle starting today lol
-SquishySquishy : factinspector my ass he's a fake college student lmaooo
-RoseBlade : this is definitely getting doxxed to the forum yikes
Park Ji-hun watched the chat scrolling up without pause.
The chatter that had been crying fraud and fake just moments ago had vanished without a trace.
***
After that, the consultations kept coming without pause.
Park Ji-hun read the Spirit Readings for the remaining people on the queue one by one.
Each time, the chat filled with a mix of reactions about getting chills and a flurry of Water Drop alerts.
"......Whoa. He digs all the way down to the bottom of a person."
Chae-rin muttered, sounding thoroughly unnerved.
Do-yun and Croco just stared at the screen, saying nothing.
The streamers still left in the Discord room had gone quiet at some point too, just watching the broadcast.
Having just watched FactInspector crumble, no one could bring themselves to speak up easily.
It wasn't until the small hours of the morning that Park Ji-hun finally wrapped up the Spirit Reading broadcast.
"That's it for today."
Disappointed chat messages kept rolling in.
-SilentRoom : it's over already?
-RibbitKing : factinspector pulling a pants run today was hilarious for real lmaooo [TL Note: a "pants run" is bailing in such a panic you'd flee without your underwear.]
-Daemain : he's already been doxxed on the streamer gallery lmaooo
Park Ji-hun gave the chat a quick skim and ended the broadcast.
Afterward, just as he leaned back against the chair and was slowly catching his breath,
his phone rang.
It was Woo-sik.
"Yo."
The moment Park Ji-hun picked up, Woo-sik spoke in an excited voice.
"What?"
"You didn't know tomorrow's Settlement Day, did you?"
"Huh? Tomorrow's Settlement Day?"
It was news he'd been completely in the dark about.
"If you go to the Settlement page it'll show how much is coming in tomorrow. It's only half a month's worth so it won't be much. Maybe around 5 million won? Go check."
Park Ji-hun opened the admin page right away.
The Settlement breakdown of the earnings piled up over the past two weeks appeared on the screen.
Even after deducting the platform fee and taxes, the money left over was.......
The instant he saw the figure, Park Ji-hun sucked in a sharp breath.
"......Is this right?"
Woo-sik asked urgently.
"How much is it, seriously?"
Park Ji-hun muttered, looking at the screen.
"15 million won."
"......Holy shit."