12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

“Tiriri ~ Tiriri~” The alarm rang.

“Ha—”

I rubbed my eyes, got up from the bed and looked at my smartphone.

‘Saturday morning, 8:30.’

I used to sleep until the sun was up on Saturday, but I had set the alarm early today, because that email was coming soon. I got up, went into the bathroom and started to take a shower. I felt stiff in my back and my neck, as I had been working late last night.

‘They said you would only get a turtle’s neck and a herniated cervical disc from company life…’

I relieved the pain by putting the hot-water shower on it.

‘Sang-hoon, let’s just endure a little bit. Maybe you will change your life today.’

I finished showering and sat down in front of my laptop reverently, as if I were going to work. After the shower, it was 8:50 a.m. I had five minutes before the email arrived. I went to the news section of the portal site for a while.

[Politics Economy Society Life/Culture World IT/Science Entertainment Sports]

The news was exactly the same as the categories of the mail.

‘I’d like to go after the Lotto if I could…’

Yesterday when I had left work, I found that the winning number of the Lotto was in the Life/Culture category. However, there was a problem here, so even if I would choose a Life/Culture category, I would have a very low probability of getting a Lotto winning number.

If I chose the Life/Culture category, something weird might come out, like ‘Today’s Living Point – add salt when the food is bland.’

When an article like that came up, I would get nothing.

‘No matter how much it shows me the future, is this too unkind?’

I waited for the email to arrive very impatiently.

‘It’s 8:55.’ And when the time came, I opened my old mailbox.

[12 Hours After]

It was here. I clicked on it and the contents of the email were the same.

[Politics Economy Society Life/Culture World IT/Science Entertainment Sports]

[You can subscribe to only one news item a day.]

‘It looks like… What is realistic is sports. Toto, Proto! It’s possible!’

I gulped down once and clicked on the Sports category.

‘What’s coming out of it?’

The title of the article was Spanish football news.

[Shocking Defeat of Real Madrid by Deportivo!]

‘Real? Real Madrid?’

[Real Madrid suffered a shocking defeat today. On the second round of La Liga, Real Madrid, where they met the visiting team Deportivo at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, strongly pressured Deportivo in the early part of the game, as if proving an overwhelming power difference, but the mood turned sharply when defender Pepe left the game at fourteen minutes in the first half, receiving a red card and giving Deportivo a penalty kick. As a penalty kicker…]

I scoured the article quickly. Whenever I went to and from work on the subway, I often read articles like these or web novels, so I read the article quickly without realizing it. To sum up, Real Madrid, the strong team, met the weak team Deportivo and was expecting an easy victory, but the game turned around early in the game as the main defender handed out a penalty kick with a red card. With one more goal in the second half, the game was over 2:0.

‘Okay, let’s go get some Toto.’

I began to dress up for my outing. I had heard that I could buy Toto on the Internet, but I decided to look for an offline store. As I had never bought this Toto, Proto, I thought it would be better to ask this and that at the store with the information I had, and then make the best bet. Wearing a short-sleeved shirt, I left the house.

I lived in a studio near Nakseong University Station. When asked why I lived here, the answer was simple: the low rent. In any case, this world was about all the money. Anyway, there was a Lotto store near my studio. I reached the Lotto store with a few steps. When I opened the door, I found a black-faced, scrawny old man guarding the counter.

“Welcome.”

He greeted me roughly with his eyes glued to his smartphone. I thought he was that unkind. I first stood alone in the Lotto Proto. There was a complicated OMR card and a game timetable in front.

‘What the hell is all this?’

I don’t understand anything from my first visit. I called the owner.

“Mister!”

“Yes?” After I called him, he took his eyes off his smartphone and showed interest in me.

“Here… what do I do to bet on the Real Madrid match?”

“Ah…” He came up to me and said, “What do you want to buy? Real Madrid… La Liga doesn’t have Toto, and you have to buy Proto.”

“Proto?”

On my primal question, he first checked the dividend.

“There is a game tonight… Real Madrid vs. Deportivo. 1.08 times to win, 3.01 times to draw, 10.4 times to lose.”

I looked at it and said, “Well… do I have to buy this?”

“Yes, but I don’t recommend it.”

“Why?”

“You only get 1.08 times if you win. You can earn only 80 dollars for a hundred dollars purchase.”

I said, pointing to 10.4 times next to it instead of 1.08 times. “Instead, it’s 10.4 times as long as they lose.”

“Well, that’s because there is a low possibility. Deportivo is either in the bottom, or in the second place from the bottom. Real Madrid can’t lose.”

I recognized it was a good bet. There was a low probability of Real Madrid’s defeat. It meant a high dividend. At the words of the mister, I smiled and said, “I’ll buy this: ten times on the loss of Real Madrid.”

“Are you sure? Really?”

“Yes, I want a big hit.”

“Okay, well… But for the Proto, you have to buy two games tied up. Choose another one.”

I opened my eyes wide to the words.

“Yes? Do I have to buy another game tied up?”

“That’s how the law of our country for the Proto works. You can’t bet on just one game. You have to tie up the Real Madrid game and another.”

I had to think a lot. All I knew for sure was that Real Madrid would lose tonight.

“Ah… I don’t want to bet on another…”

When I hesitated, the mister said, “Well… how about this one? Barcelona vs. Las Palmas. If you buy this in a bundle, you can just skip it.”

Barcelona was also a strong team that was comparable to Real Madrid.

“1.06 times to the Barcelona win. If you pick this one, well… It’s a forced binding, but… Those who play the Proto try to bet on these certain matches when they don’t have anything to choose.”

The dividend of 1.06 times was lower than that of 1.08 times for the victory of Real Madrid. This meant that the winning chance was even higher. I thought for a while.

‘Real Madrid certainly loses… But I don’t know about Barcelona… No matter how strong Barcelona is… It’s possible that anything could happen. But… is the unexpected result going to happen twice a day? What if Real Madrid and Barcelona can’t win at the same time?’

I thought it would be worth a bet. I decided to listen to the man.

“All right, then, I’ll bet on the loss of Real Madrid and the win of Barcelona.”

“Then, on this OMR card—”

With the help of the owner, I bet that Barcelona would win tonight and Real Madrid would lose. The final dividend rate was 11.024 times with 10.4 times multiplied by 1.06 times.

‘Okay, if Barcelona plays the match properly, I will win 11 times my money.’ I thought about it and handed him the ticket.

He asked me when he got the ticket. “How much do you want to buy?”

“One thousand dollars.”

One thousand dollars was half the money in my account.

At my words, he glanced at me and then asked again, “One thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me strangely for a moment. “Okay, I’ll give you a betting ticket for one thousand dollars.”

He picked up the betting ticket for one thousand dollars and gave it to me.

As I accepted it, I thought. ‘What’s the matter…?’

It was later that I learned that the legal bet for Proto for one person was only up to a hundred dollars. In these offline stores, it was an implicit act that happened publicly.