Chapter 123: The Second Golden Age

“This is unbelievable!”

“I apologize.”

“Drag this bastard out immediately… no. Bring him here, now. I’ll kill him myself.”

Park Han-woo, the PD, hurled the phone he held, shouting. Kim, the writer, and staff members who were in the meeting with him, exchanged nervous glances, their eyes darting.

A news article was displayed on the screen of the phone lying on the floor.

[Celebrity-turned-Youtuber Jo O.O: School Violence Allegations and Death Threats. What is the Truth Behind the Controversy?]

“God, this is infuriating. Has anyone reached this bastard?”

“His phone is off. His agency claims they don’t know where he is. He doesn’t seem to be home either.”

Jo O.O, the individual mentioned, was the main host of the YouTube channel Park Han-woo operated. Having gained recognition as a fairly famous supporting actor and possessing excellent conversational skills, he was someone Park Han-woo had painstakingly brought on board.

Yet, he had caused such a scandal. No, it wasn’t a fresh scandal; he had merely concealed a past transgression.

Indeed, controversies surrounding celebrities and school violence were common. Now that it had come to light, it should have been a simple matter of posting an apology on YouTube, with a nuance of ‘we are also victims,’ and denying involvement.

However, this foolish host had threatened the victim with lies, stating, ‘Burying someone like you is nothing. Shut your mouth if you don’t want to die. The YouTube team knew my personality when they signed the contract, so reporting it won’t do any good.’

“The victim is furious, threatening to sue the channel as an accomplice. They won’t believe us, even if we genuinely say we didn’t know.”

“What did we even do to deserve this?”

Park Han-woo clutched his head and stomped his foot, feeling utterly distraught. He had believed he could thrive freely after escaping the rigid confines of public broadcasting.

He harbored a grand dream of successfully establishing himself on YouTube, then leveraging his newfound recognition to return to the broadcasting station in triumph. Now, it all threatened to crumble.

“First, contact the victim and try to reach a settlement as much as possible.”

“But we didn’t do anything wrong?”

“Then what are we supposed to do? We need to put out this urgent fire. We can’t just lose a channel with over a million subscribers. If we can just get our channel name removed from the article, that’s enough, so let’s try to negotiate the amount. And start looking for the next host.”

Park Han-woo sighed, contemplating his financial situation. How had his life come to this? He had once been a promising talent, touted as a future director.

He recalled the glory of his past. Should he have remained a quiet cog in the broadcasting station, holding onto that bygone glory? Perhaps it would have been more fitting for him to simply be one of the common PDs bustling around the editing room. Was his dream simply too grand?

Exhaling deeply, Park Han-woo remembered faces he could never forget. The protagonists of his turning point in life, Jin Sa-yoon and Han Do-hoon, resurfaced in his mind.

Was the moment he interviewed them and filmed their battle scenes the first and last peak of his life? ‘There won won’t be anyone like them again,’ he muttered to himself, yearning for the past.

Among those two, the person who still often came to mind was undoubtedly Jin Sa-yoon. The Jin Sa-yoon Park Han-woo had met was devoid of arrogance or pretense, a stark contrast to his fame.

While Han Do-hoon was more publicly acclaimed at the time, Park Han-woo, having met both in person, always held Jin Sa-yoon in higher regard. Han Do-hoon, though appearing polite, possessed an unyielding, invisible wall, making even casual pleasantries difficult.

Jin Sa-yoon, on the other hand, might have seemed rude at first glance, but he was genuinely honest and unembellished. If Jin Sa-yoon were still alive, Park Han-woo would have clung to his side with all his might.

He would have lured him, saying, ‘Let’s just do one YouTube channel together. I’ll pile up money as high as a mountain for you.’ After all, there would be no one else with such viral appeal and a good personality.

As Park Han-woo’s face hardened and he fell into a daze, Kim, the writer, who had been observing him, approached. “We’ll keep trying to reach them, so please get some rest. You’ve been up for two days straight already.”

“Right. I’ll go to the break room. Though I doubt I’ll be able to sleep.”

Park Han-woo shuffled off toward the break room. He entered the dark room, locked the door, and lay on the cot, but sleep utterly eluded him.

He felt as though he could hear the mocking laughter of his peers, who would surely scoff, ‘I knew he’d fail,’ and the voices of his juniors, still building their careers at the broadcasting station.

Was this truly the end of Park Han-woo’s career? Would it conclude so emptily, all because of someone else’s character flaws? Park Han-woo surged up from the cot, fueled by a simmering rage.

He couldn’t allow it. His life was still long, too long to end like this. Park Han-woo picked up his phone again.

Even after seeing it countless times, the school violence article remained at the top of the news feed, but running from reality was for losers. He needed to confront reality again and find an alternative.

With that resolve, Park Han-woo opened YouTube. It was crucial to understand the fast-moving trends on YouTube rather than dwelling on useless news articles. Only then could he gauge public opinion and sentiment.

“Huh?”

Park Han-woo made a bewildered sound and rubbed his eyes. Just moments ago, various clickbait channels had been covering the celebrity-youtuber’s school violence, but now the feed buzzed with new videos.

[Massive Explosion on South Pacific Island. Cause: Esper Han Do-hoon?]

It was the top-ranked video on the trending list, with an overwhelming number of views. Park Han-woo, as if entranced, tapped on the video. A colossal explosion erupted with a thunderous roar, and a magnificent spectacle of black ash spread across the ocean unfolded.

Though the video, shot from a ship far from the island, was of poor quality, it certainly had a peculiar element. It didn’t look like a natural phenomenon, no matter how he viewed it.

Unsurprisingly, the comments reflected similar reactions.

@koo00e24

– I thought it was a clickbait video, but it’s real?

@user-gh22-14

– What happened? Another terrorist attack?

– Probably not a terrorist attack. I went and watched the original foreign video, and that place is an uninhabited island.

@lilly3111liy

– Han Do-hoon’s hair isn’t even visible, but look at that title. So much clickbait.

–  You idiot, just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean it’s not him. If it’s not Han Do-hoon, how else would that much firepower appear?

–  It could be a weapons test.

– There’s no existing weapon with more firepower than Han Do-hoon. If you don’t know, just shut up.

@poolchan

– I don’t know about anything else, but Han Do-hoon is incredibly handsome.

–  A sudden worship session here?

–  His face wasn’t even shown.

–  Annoying. What’s so great about a guy who abandoned Korea and moved to an international alliance that you’re praising him? He’s a traitor.

– Yeah, the Korean headquarters is also part of the alliance. Ignorant people getting all worked up.

Watching the heated arguments in the comments, Park Han-woo stared intently at the video. He replayed it from the beginning and even watched it at 0.5x speed, but the result was the same.

The phenomenon of the atmosphere shimmering like a heat haze, followed by everything on the ground igniting, was an advanced technique of temperature control rather than direct flame-throwing, and it was clearly Han Do-hoon’s preferred method of attack.

Han Do-hoon personally burning down an uninhabited place. That was truly strange. Come to think of it, there wasn’t just one oddity.

He had recently heard news from a former colleague who had become a reporter. It was under embargo, so it couldn’t be published, but apparently, someone impersonating Jin Sa-yoon had been appearing at various Esper Alliance headquarters, distributing strange propaganda flyers.

“Hmm.”

An impersonator of Jin Sa-yoon had appeared, and Han Do-hoon was acting strangely. No matter how he thought about it, this was no ordinary matter. Park Han-woo’s eyes gleamed.

The despondent expression that had clouded him moments before had vanished without a trace. Many people had impersonated Jin Sa-yoon over the years. Swindlers pretending to be Jin Sa-yoon, offering various excuses like possession, reincarnation, or divine blessings, were too numerous to count on both hands.

However, throughout the countless appearances of Jin Sa-yoon impersonators, Han Do-hoon had never personally intervened. But this time, he had acted. And he had done so in a hurry, without even the leisure to manage civilian videos.

So, what if, just what if, the real Jin Sa-yoon were alive…?

Ding-dong!

At that moment, his phone screen changed, and a ringtone sounded. The name displayed on the screen was the writer he had just spoken with.

PD-nim. We reached the actor. He said he’ll record an apology video first, then step down. He’ll also pay the settlement himself, so you don’t have to worry.

“Good. Good. That’s excellent. Truly excellent.”

Then it seems we need to contact the victim and write a channel announcement.

“Alright. Then Kim, please handle that. I have somewhere urgent to go right now.”

What?

Through the phone, Kim’s bewildered voice was audible. Park Han-woo paid no mind, sprang up, and put on his jacket.

“And about the next host for our YouTube channel. I don’t think we’ll need one. It seems we’ll have to close the channel.”

–What? PD-nim, did I hear that right? You said it was resolved!

“I know. That’s a very good thing. It makes winding things up easier. When the settlement comes next month, make sure the staff get their severance, and divide the remaining money among yourselves. Please take care of the arrangements.”

True to a million-subscriber YouTube channel, the next month’s settlement would exceed tens of millions of won, but such paltry sums meant nothing to Park Han-woo now.

This was a scoop that would instantly restore him to his former glory. No, it was more than just that. This would be an opportunity to gain attention not only in Korea but across the entire world. His keen intuition, quick to discern trends, shone sharply.

“I’m leaving the country right away.”

Park Han-woo instinctively knew. This was the moment his second golden age was about to begin.

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