Grow With In-App Purchases



1 – Prologue

The era when people enjoyed RPG games on computers was fading, and mobile games that were easy to access anywhere, anytime started gaining popularity.

Their outrageous success with annual revenue exceeding 30 trillion won.

People flocked there chasing after the money, and the great mobile game era unfolded.

It was only natural for people to gather where there was money to be made.

New mobile games started popping up like bamboo shoots after the rain.

Similar formats, similar business models.

And the infamous ‘gacha’ system that had solidified due to the tremendous success.

Things were going crazy.

Bank accounts would be wiped clean in an instant when starting a game.

And I was one of the users playing one of those crazy mobile games.

What’s more, the game I played didn’t just have a vicious gacha system.

‘The character scenarios are too damn hard.’

Character scenarios.

More precisely, the difficulty of raising characters was too high.

Under normal circumstances, they would have made it so you could raise characters with a simple tap! But this game was made so that spending money was required to raise characters.

‘Depending on how much you spend to get good items, you can clear the high difficulties.’

It wasn’t over after summoning the characters, you had to raise them.

The fact that additional money had to be spent to raise them was bullsh*t.

‘They didn’t change it despite all the complaints.’

Wasn’t it enough to milk money through the character summons?

Why should we have to spend more money to use what we summoned?

‘They didn’t change it no matter how much people protested.’

What could be done?

We knew what we were getting into when we started playing this kind of game, didn’t we?

I just resigned myself and played the game.

To be honest, I found the difficulty pretty fun.

‘It felt good to spend money, too.’

Sort of like showing off your characters?

There were boards to boast about how much money you spent, what items you used, and how great your character stats turned out!

Naturally, the rarer the high-performance, precious item, the lower the drop rate.

Users who didn’t spend could raise their characters on lower difficulties from the start, while spenders tried their best to clear the highest difficulty scenarios.

‘Of course, characters that didn’t get investment have lower stats, and the more investment, the better the stats turn out.’

The reason I played this game was to raise my characters more wickedly than anyone else, and the more my collection was completed, the deeper I fell into the game’s pits.

Of course, I was able to do this because I was an unmarried corporate worker in my mid-30s who had a house inherited from my parents.

I had a standard of living where spending my salary on mobile games was no burden.

‘Other than games, I don’t have much else I desire anyway.’

While enjoying the game this way,

I died a meaningless death in a traffic accident.

After I died, wonder of wonders, I was reborn.

I realized that when I turned 16 in this new life.

Remembering my past life let me know I had reincarnated into the mobile game world I had played.

At the same time, I gained a special ability.

Namely, in-app purchases.

The ability to open the in-game shop, essential for mobile games.

⁘ ⁘ ⁘

“Whoaa~”

Squeak- Clop- Squeak- Clop- Squeak- Clop-

Thump! Thump!

“Ow, I bit my tongue. Why’s the road so rough?”

“Teeheehee!”

“We’re almost there, everyone get your gear ready.”

“Yes sir~!”

“Hey, wake him up. He’s still sleeping.”

“Me? Wake him?”

Thwack!

“Ow!”

“Eek, then who else is gonna do it instead of the youngest, huh?”

“……”

The youngest mercenary pursed his lips and glanced at the man curled up asleep in the corner.

With his hood down, his face wasn’t visible, just his scruffy, overgrown beard.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Eek, you think that’ll wake him up? Do it properly!”

“Ahem, uh, excuse me?”

Swish-

The youngest’s arm reached near the sleeping man’s personal space.

Tap!

“Gah!”

The man awoke in an instant, grabbing and nearly twisting the youngest mercenary’s wrist.

“Ow! It’s me! Me! You’re gonna break it!! Save me!”

Hearing the youngest mercenary’s screams, the man seemed to come to his senses and eased his grip.

Then he looked at the youngest and asked.

“What is it?”

“We’re, we’re here. I thought my arm would snap…”

“If you’re awake, get your gear. We’ve arrived.”

Despite being near the entrance, a unique, suffocating smell assaulted the man.

“Phew…”

The man took a deep breath as he slowly gathered his gear.

The carriage rolling over the rough terrain finally arrived at its destination and stopped.

The mercenaries inside the carriage poured out.

“Phewww! Hah~”

“Ulp- What’s with deeply inhaling like it’s a nice smell, Boss? You have weird tastes.”

“Listen up! This is the smell of money. The scent of cash! Right, Spook?”

“……”

Despite getting no response from the man, the mercenary leader wasn’t offended.

The reason the mercenary leader called the man ‘Spook’ was because of his unique nickname.

‘Money Spook. They say money sticks to him like glue.’

Having money stick to you like glue was lucky, but another reason for the nickname was that he would recklessly take on dangerous jobs if there was money involved, as if he didn’t make enough money in his past life so he became a ghost after dying and reincarnated.

‘He’s escaped the brink of death so many times but lives? People treat him like a ghost because they can’t believe he survived.’

Most mercenaries die young chasing money, but Money Spook survived despite frequently taking perilous jobs.

He had tenacious life force, good luck, and top-notch skills.

That was how he got the nickname ‘Money Spook’.

For a mercenary leader greedy for cash, there was no downside to taking on commissions with him.

“Let’s go~~!”

“Oh boy… I psyched myself up but this smell’s no joke. We didn’t take a wrong turn, did we?”

“Listen, you’re already wilting at this level? If we were close enough to see the contaminated zone with our eyes, you wouldn’t even be able to breathe and would’ve collapsed by now!”

“Well, they do say that unless you’re an Ascended, you need special gear just to barely endure going into a contaminated zone, right?”

“That’s right, it’s not chump change so bums like us can’t even dream of those places. Only the highest of nobles can enter.”

The mercenaries were talking about the contaminated zones.

Contaminated zones referred to the land, about 60% of the world, that had been turned into places humans could not inhabit.

Spaces uninhabitable for humans that ceaselessly spawned ‘monsters’.

Now, 100 years after the existence of contaminated zones first became known, humanity barely survived on the remaining 40% of the land, avoiding the contaminated zones.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely humanity passively suffering at the hands of the contaminated zones.

As time passed and the contamination started spreading to intact land, humanity succeeded in discovering methods to purify the contaminated zones.

“Hurry hurry!”

In addition, evolved humans were born that could freely breathe even inside contaminated zones.

They were the true ‘heroes’ that could actually purify the contaminated zones.

Humanity lavished every reward on the heroes, raised them, then threw them into the contaminated zones once grown.

After shedding the blood of hundreds, thousands, humanity finally succeeded in protecting the 40% of the land.

Of course, they couldn’t let their guard down yet.

It took a long time to raise a single hero, while the monsters of the contaminated zones bred rapidly.

“Hmm, still hard to breathe. Truly a place I just can’t get used to.”

In these precarious times where the 40% erosion rate barely held,

there were existences loitering near the contaminated zones to make ‘money’.

They were ‘mercenaries’ who came near the contaminated zones to hunt monsters.

The mercenary leader looked around before placing a hand on someone’s shoulder and speaking.

“But I feel much more at ease with you here.”

“…..”

The reason the mercenary leader was so carefree was because he planned to piggyback off Money Spook for this job.

With Money Spook, they could earn a lot of cash and fighting the monsters would be much easier too.

He had a reputation for skill alone, no?

Despite the mercenary leader’s praise, Money Spook didn’t readily open his mouth.

He casually glanced around before brushing the hand off his shoulder.

“Heh, so stiff. Doesn’t seem to be any around, so let’s move.”

The mercenary leader smiled awkwardly as he withdrew his hand and spoke.

The reason they had come near the contaminated zone today was to hunt ‘monsters’ living here.

“Phew, suffocating.”

“Wear your mask properly, kid. Eager to kick the bucket early?”

Monster byproducts fetched extremely high prices.

Moreover, they had received a request for specific monster byproducts, so they were expecting to earn more than just the circulation price.

Of course, only if they could find the requested monster.

“Should we go in deeper?”

The mercenaries couldn’t enter the contaminated zones themselves.

Their target was monsters pushed out from the contaminated zones.

“Just do it quickly, will you? The spook’s here, right?”

“Now now, we just started and you’re already whining? We’re helpless if he doesn’t want to do it.”

Finding monsters pushed out from the contaminated zones was extremely difficult.

In the first place, the monsters themselves preferred the contaminated land.

So they needed to take time searching to find monsters.

If they got lucky wandering around, they might coincidentally discover a monster separated from its group, earning them money.

‘Pretend to search hard!’

The mercenary leader urged the mercenaries to work with meaningful glances.

With good luck, they could complete the request in a day and head back. With bad luck, they might search for a month without finding a single monster trail.

In that regard, Money Spook had the ‘luck’ to earn his reputation.

The reason the men asked the spook for help was also because he had outstanding ability at finding monsters.

‘About time he does something.’

The mercenary leader stealthily checked the spook’s location.

He had already heard the rumors about Money Spook.

As long as you treated him well without provoking him, the spook wouldn’t betray your goodwill.

“It’s not the request target, but I seem to have found traces.”

“Oh! You found something?”

See that?

After Money Spook started searching near the contaminated zone, it only took him a few hours to quietly point out traces of a monster.

“What do you think it is?”

“Hmm, judging by the traces it seems to be a small fry.”

“hehehe! Even if it’s small fry, it’s good we found it quickly. Ain’t we lucky. Let’s go!”

The mercenary leader licked his dried, cracked lips with his tongue.

“Everyone gather! We’re gonna earn some sweet pocket money.”

The mercenary leader moved the mercenaries to head out together.

Money Spook led the way at the front, guiding the mercenaries.

After following the traces for a while,

they soon heard the cries of a monster not far away.

Crrk- Chk chk chk!

Crrk- Crrk? Woo… Crrrk- Chk chk chk!

Yap! Chk chk chk!

‘A cobalt!’

The poisonous spines on their backs and claws sold pretty well.

The mercenary leader had experience dealing with cobalts.

He immediately recognized it from the cobalts’ unique cries.

It sounded like they were eating something.

‘I knew money comes rolling in when I’m with this guy!’

Since it was a monster on the weaker end, the mercenaries grinned widely at their luck.

The leader used predetermined hand signals to direct the mercenaries and ambush the cobalt.

Luckily, the cobalt was happily chewing on a deer’s entrails.

It hadn’t noticed the mercenaries approaching until then.

A mercenary with a bow took aim at the cobalt.