Chapter 8: Preorders, Cosplay, and Calculated Chaos

December 1st.

With the December Surf (Seoul Festa) just a few weeks away.

“What…”

Min Hayoon realized that something unusual was happening.

-Ding.

-Ding.

-Ding.

-Ding.

At some point, the bank app started going crazy with notifications.

They were all deposit notifications.

Of course, there’s nothing strange about receiving deposit notifications.

She had posted about her booth on the Girl’s War gallery.

It’s not a strange thing.

It’s actually a good thing.

-Kim Myung-jung (RRWEB/M9’Navel)

-Kwak Ki-hyun (Girl’s War/Super High School Level Commander)

-…

“How did these guys even find out?”

The strange thing was that people from other Girl’s War communities, whose origins she couldn’t trace, were sending money while revealing their affiliations.

And the amounts weren’t small.

“75,000 won, 75,000 won, 35,000 won, 75,000 won again, 30,000 won, 15,000 won…”

Min Hayoon, realizing that things would get complicated if she just watched, turned on her laptop.

She filled both screens of her laptop with bank transaction records and pre-order survey records, and opened a new Excel file to compare the merchandise order quantities with the actual deposit amounts.

After spending several hours matching the merchandise order quantities with the actual deposit amounts, she used a formula to sum up the resulting sales…

“Oh…, crazy…”

7,015,000W

It was a whopping 7 million won.

It was an explosive achievement in just a few days, and the status window, which she hadn’t checked in a while, was already…

[Current Revenue / Target Revenue]

10,000,000W+ / 10,000,000W

It declared that it would give her the promised reward on January 1st, saying that she had made a total of over 10 million won in revenue by combining November’s sponsorship revenue and commission revenue.

“But, what will the reward be…”

It wouldn’t be some nonsense like ‘The time you spent working to earn 10 million won is the reward itself’… right?

If the status window was omnipotent enough to kill a healthy young man in his 20s, turn him into a woman, and even rewind time…

“Is it going to give me a fatigue immunity cheat or something…? So I can draw forever without sleeping?”

Min Hayoon was getting ahead of herself, even though the status window hadn’t said anything about the reward yet.

Although she resented the status window for turning her into a woman because she didn’t draw furry illustrations, she believed that if it had a human heart, it wouldn’t try to brush her off with a trivial reward.

“Right? Status window? Can I get my hopes up?”

#

Min Hayoon even tried to subtly probe the status window, but there was no response.

She thought that if she could establish some kind of rapport with the status window, it wouldn’t threaten her life with these strange missions…

But if the status window remained silent, there wasn’t much she could do.

Instead, it was time to prepare for Surf, which was only a few days away.

“Let’s see, the sales sheet…”

Pre-orders accumulated so far amounted to 7 million won.

The number of full package buyers was a whopping 80.

The proportion of full package buyers was much higher than expected.

The ratio of full package sales to other sales was 6 to 1, an overwhelming gap.

It was an indicator that she had instantly captured the majority of users who were just waiting for the right moment to open their wallets.

“Of course. Who drew these? It’s natural that they like it so much.”

Heh.

A proud smile lingered on Min Hayoon’s face as she examined the sales sheet on her laptop screen.

Although the production cost is not calculated, the fact is that Min Hayoon made 7 million won in sales, and 3 million won in sponsorship and commission.

“Good. This is so good…”

The money is accumulating at an overwhelmingly faster rate than in her previous life.

She felt like she needed a decisive blow to turn Girl’s War users into a loyal fan base…

Since Min Hayoon had always been less resistant to the idea of cosplay, it didn’t take her long to find the answer.

Judging by the current rate of sponsorship, she could easily gather around 150 full package pre-order buyers before Surf started in December.

As soon as she hit 150, she could announce, “I’ll do a cosplay!”, take a picture of HK-M4’s outfit hanging on a hanger, and upload it…

That would spread through the community, creating a crazy amount of publicity.

This Surf booth will be a huge hit.

“I need to adjust the schedule, so I’ll place an additional order around now…”

After quickly taking care of the order issue, she immediately went to a site that sells cosplay costumes and props.

Since this would also take some time for delivery, it was safer to order in advance.

“Oh, there are so many pretty ones.”

A smile filled Min Hayoon’s face as she browsed the cosplay shop.

The ultimate otaku dream is to become the character themselves, and now Min Hayoon could do that.

#

After Min Hayoon ordered the cosplay costume.

“This is it!”

Finally, she reached 150 full package pre-order buyers.

That’s 150 people who pre-ordered the full package.

If you include the pre-order buyers who just bought one or two acrylic stands, the pre-order sales alone amounted to a whopping 15 million!!

“Who am I? Of course, I have to make this much!”

Min Hayoon was someone who had never fallen out of the top 100 on the Pixiv rankings since she got on track, and she had a considerable number of loyal supporters.

Min Hayoon was someone who had steadily received sponsorships equivalent to a full-time worker’s salary for years in an industry where unauthorized sharing of sponsor-only illustrations was rampant.

15 million in sales at a highly visible fan event like Surf?

This is just the basics.

“It’s done. It’s done…!”

Min Hayoon, clenching her fists tightly, couldn’t hide her smile, and she opened a web page and entered the Girl’s War gallery.

Then, she created a post and inserted a screenshot of the cosplay outfit that was still in transit.

“Thanks to the support of Girl’s War users, we have finally reached 150 full package buyers.”

“I’m not familiar with other Girl’s War communities, so I would appreciate it if you could share the news there too.”

Tap, tap, tap…

Min Hayoon tried to act as if she didn’t know much about the community while also expressing her intention to repay their support.

The loyalty of a fandom isn’t built elsewhere.

You have to hold events for your supporters from time to time to solidify the foundation of your loyal base.

“Is this good enough?”

After spending about an hour carefully writing a long thank-you post, Min Hayoon uploaded it and smiled as she watched the comments pour in.

-Wow!!!!

Author!!!

-Cosplay!!!

The best!!!

-Please take a picture with me.

Hehe.

-But why are these guys excited?

They only know this person is a woman, they don’t even know what she looks like, right?

-Shush, shush, you punk.

-Seriously, you have no tact.

-See you at surf!!

There was one strange comment in the middle, but those kinds of people wouldn’t even do pre-orders anyway.

“So, the M4 cosplay props will arrive around the 12th…”

Coincidentally, two days after that, on December 14th and 15th, the largest subculture event in Korea, Anime & Game Convention, also known as AGC, will be held.

Since this is also a prominent subculture event, many cosplayers will be there, just like at Surf…

“Since I’m going to cosplay anyway, should I go to AGC and cosplay too?”

Suddenly, Min Hayoon thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go.

Since Min Hayoon was also a hardcore otaku with a deep love for the culture, she had often participated in events like AGC.

When she went and took pictures with cosplayers, they often gave her QR codes with their Instagram addresses.

“I should make a bunch of QR codes for sharing my Pixiv address too. If I give them out to 100 people, 50 will visit my Pixiv, 25 will follow me, and even if only 5 become sponsors…”

600,000 won!

Her annual income will increase by 600,000 won!

“There’s no reason not to…?”

Although she was planning to cosplay anyway, wouldn’t it be nice to create a chance to recoup the expenses of buying cosplay props while she’s at it?

Min Hayoon, who was seriously obsessed with money, typed ‘how to make a QR code’ into the search bar and spent the night thinking about the design of the printing paper.

The day of the decisive battle was approaching.