Netkama Punch!!!

But alongside all the resentment, I couldn’t shake the lingering attachment.
‘Why did he give the money back?’
If he’d just taken off with the 18 million won, maybe I could’ve just forgotten about him. I could’ve convinced myself that he’d approached me from the start just ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) to scam me out of items.
But Kim Seyoung sold the staff—then wired me the entire amount, down to the last won.

Every night before bed, when I lay there replaying our conversations, it made less and less sense.
It felt like he’d suddenly cut the cord and bolted… like he was terrified I’d catch up to him.
As if there was something he absolutely couldn’t let me find out.
Sim Woohyun
So for days, I holed up at home thinking only about Kim Seyoung—until I finally made up my mind and called Sim Woohyun.

Sim Woohyun
ㅇㅅㅇ?
Looks like Yuna bought the staff from Sesam?
Weren’t you two kinda close?
News about the staff spread fast.
Yuna had posted a video of herself running a dungeon with a new staff on the global forum everyone used.
The moment I saw it, I knew it was the staff Kim Seyoung had sold.
I also remembered that Sim Woohyun had been pretty close with Yuna for a while.
That bastard chased after any girl regardless of server, so he had connections all over the place.
If you were a top player or a guild master on any server, chances were Woohyun knew you—or knew someone who did.

So, I decided to use Woohyun’s network to coax info about Kim Seyoung out of Yuna.
Because otherwise, I couldn’t make peace with any of this.
But Woohyun gave me a reluctant answer.
Sim Woohyun
Things are kinda awkward with her lol

Whenever he said “awkward,” he meant “ex-girlfriend.”
I clicked my tongue in annoyance, but I kept my cool—after all, I was the one who needed help.
Just pass along my contact info.
Tell her the staff she’s using was scammed from someone—it might get her to talk.
Sim Woohyun
......ㅇㅅㅜ

He stayed sour the whole time, but eventually, he did what I asked.
A few hours later, I got a [Friend Request] on Discord.
It was Yuna.
Yuna
Hi~ nice to meet you like this ㅠㅠ
I heard about the staff…
ㅠㅠ I should’ve looked into it more before buying

Yuna started off with sympathy the moment I accepted her request.
I noticed right away how friendly she was—almost too friendly, considering we were strangers.
‘Is she just trying to keep me from asking for it back…?’
A lot of things ran through my head, but I kept my focus on what I needed to find out.
It’s fine.
It’s not like you knew when you bought it.

Yuna
ㅠㅠㅠ
Still, I want to verify it too.
Do you happen to have the chat logs from the transaction?
She asked like she’d been waiting for me to say that.
Yuna
Oh, and I got a photo of their ID before I sent the payment!

Their ID?
But surprisingly, Yuna had a huge piece of info about Kim Seyoung.
Yuna
Yep yep!
Hold on!

Soon, Yuna sent me a photo of the ID.
“……What?”
And when I saw it, it felt like I’d been punched in the head.
Kim Seyoung wasn’t a woman… he was a man.

Yuna
Shocking, right? ㅠ He was pretending to be a girl in that clan, right…?
I was shocked too when I heard ㅠ
If I’d known ahead of time, I never would’ve bought it ㅠㅠ
Yuna
Ugh, figures… kept pushing the price up while haggling tsk tsk
She kept chatting, but none of it registered.
Honestly, the way her messages pushed the photo up the screen made me want to tell her to shut up.

I saved the image immediately and zoomed in.
“……The birthday’s… the same.”
It was hard to accept that the unfamiliar man in the photo was Kim Seyoung.
But the numbers matched the birthday he’d told me.
And of course, the name “Kim Seyoung” could have been made up, taken from this ID card.

But…
‘I only found out his name when I tried to wire him money… it wasn’t like he offered it up first.’
And if Kim Seyoung was a man, then all the weird things started to make sense.
Why he never showed his face or used voice chat,
why he dodged every time I made my feelings too obvious…

“Ha…”
I let out a hollow sigh, locking eyes with the man in the ID photo.
He didn’t look like someone who’d catfish in a game just to farm items.
He looked… normal.
So normal that even if I’d passed him on the street before seeing this photo, I wouldn’t have recognized him.

“…But if he went that far to lie, why run away?”
The burst of anger I felt fizzled out just as fast.
Even knowing the truth, the questions wouldn’t go away.
So he lied. Fine.
He never treated me nicely anyway—he was probably one of those guys I’d fought with before.

Which only made it stranger.
If you hated someone and tricked them into handing over expensive gear,
shouldn’t you keep going—squeeze more out of them, or vanish with the money?
Why the hell did he give it back?

Whispers – General Party Clan Chat
PSesam: What if
PSesam: The person you thought was a girl
PSesam: Turned out to be a guy—
PSesam: How would you feel?
That last conversation I had with Kim Seyoung suddenly came back to me, making the whole thing even more unsettling.

Now that I thought about it, that question was basically a test.
What had I said back then?
‘Freak… I’d beat the shit out of them…’

I said it assuming nuna had been tricked by some creep.
But as soon as I said that—
Kim Seyoung had gone cold and vanished.
“…Oh.”
A new possibility hit me, and a nasty taste filled my mouth.
The sullen, expressionless face in the ID photo stuck in my mind.

* * *
Since then, whenever I thought of Kim Seyoung, I’d throw myself into my work.
There was a major update going on, so I focused on filming videos, editing thumbnails—
and time passed quickly enough.
The problem was, his name would still randomly pop into my head and stop me in my tracks.

Every time I thought about Kim Seyoung, two emotions tangled together.
One, of course, was rage. A need to get payback.
‘If I ever run into him again…’

Wouldn’t it be okay to land at least one hit?
But alongside that was this weird, unexplainable feeling.
Maybe the reason he disappeared…
was because he felt guilty.
Still, it pissed me off.

‘If you felt guilty, you should’ve apologized.’
You don’t just throw money at someone and vanish like it never happened.
Because he disappeared without apologizing, I couldn’t even forgive him.
And that pissed me off more than anything.

The fact that I was still thinking about him like this—
was all his fault.
Yuna
Whoa, you live around here too??
No joke, I’m just two stops away from you!!
During all this, I’d stayed in touch with Yuna about the staff,
and we’d become pretty casual with each other.

Yuna
Wanna meet up this weekend? lol I’ll buy
But for some reason, I felt nothing.
Even though I knew she was interested in me—
She was treating me exactly like I had treated Kim Seyoung.
‘Why is this so boring, though.’

Even when I chatted with Yuna, I felt no spark.
She was nice, sure…
but the way she always had four things to say in response to every sentence of mine—it was a bit much.
‘Did Kim Seyoung feel like this too?’
That thought hit me out of nowhere.
I clenched my lips in irritation.
My pride hurt. I was annoyed.

‘At this rate… maybe I really should hire a PI.’
Maybe finding him and ending this would finally bring me some peace.
But just before I sank too deep into that thought, Yuna messaged me again.
Yuna
Actually, I found out something about that netkama
Hard to explain here
I’ll show you this weekend lol

Huh? Found out what?
Yuna
Didn’t that person say they worked for the government or something?
She sounded weirdly confident.

Yuna
So I asked a friend for help
He works at one of those national call centers
He said that for public employees or quasi-government workers,
the duties are all assigned based on job title
So if you know their name and field, you can find out where they work lol
Yuna
He sent me someone with the same name lol
Not sure if it’s a guy, but there are only two people it could be
The moment I read that, my heart started racing.
And as if she sensed that, Yuna continued:

Yuna
I’ll show you while we grab lunch!!
Can’t you send it now?
Yuna
He told me not to forward it anywhere ㅠ
Said I shouldn’t leave a record of it

In other words, she wanted to give me the number for Kim Seyoung’s workplace—in person.
What time do you want to meet?
She didn’t answer for a few minutes, then finally replied, half-scolding:

Yuna
Around 1? lol
Seriously, you ignore everything I say
but bring up the netkama and suddenly you’re laser focused lol
I didn’t deny it.
But I didn’t need to—Yuna already understood what I was going through without me saying a word.
I’ve been like that, huh? lol

Yuna
You got scammed out of 18 million—I’m letting it slide because of that!!
She still didn’t know that Kim Seyoung had actually given me the money back.
I hadn’t told a single person.