Chapter 2: From Agony to Opportunity

“Your ureter is blocked.”  

The ER doctor said it as if it were nothing serious, his tone dry and indifferent.  

No way.  

This pain—this agony—cannot be so lightly defined.  

I was certain that my ureter had a hole in it.  

My body was broken down from nights without proper sleep and endless drinking.  

I thought, I’m bleeding blood and guts, about to die in agonizing pain!  

The pain was enough to unfold my life like a book filled with misery.  

The sudden death of my Bumun, the struggling substitute writer life I started to make ends meet, the heartbreaking betrayal of the Ahnnae I once believed was love.  

There was nothing left in life to regret if I died right then and there.  

In fact, I had even prepared my will with the intention of dying!  

But no matter what, I never wished for such absurd pain.  

I hurriedly grabbed the doctor’s coat, who seemed utterly uninterested in my condition.  

“Then, what should I do?”  

“There’s nothing you can do. The stone is quite large, but its location is awkward, so even laser treatment won’t work. You just have to wait until it passes naturally through urination.”  

In this 21st century, in the Republic of Korea—one of the world’s leading medical countries—there was no treatment for ureteral obstruction but to wait?  

The ER doctor ignored me with a cold, resentful look and walked away.  

“Drink plenty of water.”   

The urology specialist friend I consulted was of no help either.  

All I could do was hold my trembling legs, stand in front of the toilet, and concentrate all my nerves.  

After several days of torment, a signal finally came.  

The presence of the stone, which started near my side, stabbed through my blood vessels and urethra like an electric saw.  

At that moment, having endured the pain of ureteral obstruction, I deeply respected everyone in this world who had survived it.  

“Gurgle—” 

A small, thin pellet dropped into the urine bowl.  

Looking at that roughly 5 to 7-millimeter stone, I realized: the pain of life that makes you think of death was just this small.  

After a week of recovery,  

I sat back in front of my laptop.  

This time, not to write my will, but to write.  

I couldn’t die like this.  

Even after trying to die, when I was finally freed from the torment of ureteral obstruction, I realized,  

“Why should I die when I’m not ready?”  

I would live. Even if it meant crawling through hell, I would live.  

As a writer, the way I could survive was simple.  

Write. Just write.  

I didn’t even know what to write at first, but if I kept writing, maybe something would come of it.  

Just as life somehow goes on, I believed that if I kept writing, something would come out.  

With a hardened will to live, I turned on my laptop again,  

Only to see the same system window with the same layout and content as last time pop up on the screen.  

“Do you want to start the new registration process?”  

“W-wait a minute.”  

I hurriedly closed the window and stopped the registration process.  

I didn’t want to go through that daze and torment of ureteral obstruction again by rushing into it.  

Only after enduring excruciating pain and ureteral obstruction did I understand.  

“This is a scene.”  

I stared grimly at the page displayed on the old laptop screen.  

Was the problem with this laptop? I visited every PC bang in the town to test it.  

Wherever I sat, that same advertisement page appeared on the screen.  

Just in case, I gave a middle school student sitting beside me ten thousand won to switch seats with me, but the ad appeared everywhere.  

This page called Gatflix was synchronized across all my devices—computer, phone, everything.  

Whenever I used any device, the page ad showed up.  

However, since I hadn’t signed up yet, clicking only brought up the usual system guidance message.  

“Do I have to sign up for Gatflix to know more?”  

I searched ‘Gatflix (00715),’ but, as expected, nothing came up.  

Since the name was so similar to Netflix, the global giant, I guessed Gatflix was a similar platform.  

Though it was only speculation for now, I resolved to clear this childish quest.  

Why?  

If someone really had the ability to give the penalty of ureteral obstruction in an instant…  

It was plausible that the listed reward was real.  

“The reward was definitely 10 million won in cash.”  

Is it easy to earn ten million won in one minute by typing?  

No writer in Korea—or even Hollywood—earns ten million won for just one minute of writing.  

‘Preparation is perfect.’  

For the past week, I repeatedly copied out the book ‘Lucky Day’ by hand to train myself.  

Of course, I also prepared the painkillers I got from the hospital, just in case.  

“I was just too surprised last time. I used to be someone who could type 800 characters a minute back in the day.”  

Clicking the link after loosening my fingers, the same screen appeared, and a one-minute timer started.  

With five seconds to spare, I successfully copied the sample text perfectly without a single typo.  

[Congratulations!]  

You can now watch Gatflix with the Bronze subscription!  

[A cash reward of 10 million won has been paid!]  

“Oh! Success!”  

Before I could even savor the joy of success, a heavy thud sounded, and something dropped onto the floor.  

On the floor lay two bundles of fifty-thousand won bills.  

I quickly checked my surroundings—no holes in the walls, no open windows.  

The bundles had literally dropped from thin air.  

Swallowing my saliva nervously, I carefully picked up one bundle of cash.  

“One, two, three, four, five... thirty-five... a hundred.”  

No matter how many times I counted, each bundle had exactly 100 bills.  

Gatflix had really handed me 10 million won in cash.  

All for passing a typing practice of moderate difficulty.  

I thought this was a cruel trial to create ureteral obstruction in a fool like me, but this was truly worthy of a 600 level.  

Moving to the Gatflix page!  

Carefully clicking the link, a new window filled my laptop screen.  

It was a homepage indistinguishable from other 017 sites, with a black background and a red letter ‘ㅇ’ logo.  

It had the usual basic functions like member info, account management, and user guide.  

Moving to the user guide page, my questions about the viewing method were answered.  

[Gatflix allows you to watch content differentiated by level through ‘Viewing Passes.’] 

[‘Viewing Passes’ can be acquired as quest rewards.]  

[First-time members receive 4 free ‘Viewing Passes.’]  

The method was simple.  

“If I can get Viewing Passes by clearing quests... is this quest another typing practice?”  

Beneath the guide was a button linked to the quest window.  

With my current typing skills, I could type out any unfamiliar text fairly quickly.  

Click.  

The dry mouse click sounded, and the usual system window popped up.  

[Bronze Quest (#1)]  

[Sign a contract for a new drama project.]  

[Success reward: 4 free Viewing Passes, 20 million won in cash.]  

[Proceed] / [Give up]  

My eyes went straight to the rewards first.  

Four Viewing Passes and 20 million won in cash.  

Though I hadn’t seen any Gatflix content yet, I liked the fact that the cash reward had doubled.  

“A new drama contract, huh.”  

I had opened my laptop originally to write anyway, but now being told to sign a new drama contract made me a bit nervous.  

No matter how fast I wrote, it took a month just to finish the script for the first episode.  

Considering that a mini-series of 16 episodes required at least 6 months to plan and prepare four scripts, it was a long journey ahead.  

“I don’t even have any ideas on what to write right now...”  

For now, I thought it best to use the four free Viewing Passes.  

To see if there was anything worth watching, I returned to the main page to browse the work list.  

“What the—these are all titles I’ve never seen before?”  

Being a drama writer, I had watched far more shows than ordinary people.  

From Korean dramas of the 2000s, to Japanese dramas of the 80s, and classic masterpieces—at least hundreds of movies and dramas.  

Yet all the works on Gatflix had thumbnails of actors and actresses I had never seen before.  

» Recommended Popular Korean Dramas  

[To the Tall Gentleman ] 
 
[Rating: 5.0]  

[Blindingly Beautiful]

[Rating: 4.9]  

[Love is Everything]
 
[Rating: 4.5]  

The four Viewing Passes I had were all the passes granted for initial membership.  

I could watch only four episodes no matter what I picked, but that wasn’t the real issue.  

“There’s only one thing I can watch at my level?”  

[Twin Love] 
[Rating: 2.0]  

I had never seen a drama with the same title before, and both the actors and writers were all unknown names.  

I searched online, but no results came up—as if it were some isolated Korean drama from a parallel planet.  

“Sigh, a rating of 2.0 is a bit worrying. But there’s nothing else I can watch.”  

Still, the fact that it starred completely unknown faces made it interesting enough to use a Viewing Pass.  

Using a free Viewing Pass,  

I purchased episode 1 of .  

After confirming the notification, I pressed the play button, and a clear intro video played.  

With bright, upbeat music, it looked like a typical Korean romantic comedy.  

The lead roles were Twin Brothers, so one actor played both brothers simultaneously.  

As kids, they were adopted into different families—one poor, the other wealthy.  

The younger brother from the poor family was an assistant director dreaming of becoming a film director, while the elder brother, the rich family’s heir, lived like a delinquent.  

I wasn’t expecting much, but from the start, the detailed direction showing the twins’ contrasting personalities and situations was impressive.  

Props, music, cinematography, and the delicate acting of the lead actor playing two roles—all were outstanding.  

Even though only ten minutes had passed since episode 1 began, I was completely immersed.  

When the female lead suddenly appeared in front of the assistant director,  

I couldn’t help but exclaim,  

“Wow. This is seriously addictive.”