The video uploaded by YouTuber Bak Junho had a far greater impact than expected.
He wasn't a million-subscriber YouTuber for nothing.
Even his baseline views were in the hundreds of thousands.
On top of that, he was chosen by the algorithm.
Many people watched Bak Junho's video and followed it.
But the real reason was something else.
The recipe was just too good.
It wasn't difficult.
It didn't require special equipment.
It didn't take a long time,
nor did it use expensive ingredients.
If anything, it was the opposite.
Yakgwa, which no Korean wouldn't know.
And sugar, and more sugar.
Mart, internet.
Ingredients that could be easily obtained anywhere.
Watching the making of it, you'd feel your arteries clogging,
but seeing the laughter that burst out like a leak during the tasting made you so curious.
'Just what is that thing?'
'Is it really that delicious?'
'Is there some hidden secret?'
That made people want to follow it even more.
As content, it was perfect.
Within days, various YouTubers began following it one by one.
[I Made the Trending Burnt Yakgwa Jelly]
[A Yakgwa Dessert Made Ready to Get Smacked by Mom]
[I Melted and Burnt Yakgwa]
[You'll Cuss Seeing This. But Trying It, It's Honey-Sweet?]
[Is It Okay to Eat Yakgwa Like This? Why Is This Delicious?]
[Yakgwa+Sugar+Torch=? Do You Approve of This Combo?]
The video titles were all similar.
Thumbnails too: sugar, yakgwa, torch, fire, and even scrunched-up faces.
But the reactions were always the same.
Crunch.
Pfft.
Pfft-haha.
The scene where they failed to hold back laughter.
These moments piled up repeatedly.
People's curiosity grew bigger and bigger.
'What is that thing to make them act like that?'
'No wonder it's curious.'
'Should I try making it too?'
'Is there anywhere that sells it?'
If you had just eaten it without watching the cooking process,
it might have ended as just a slightly unique, tasty dessert.
But once you know the process of mincing yakgwa, pouring sugar, adding gelatin, and burning brown sugar, your brain instinctively rejects it.
You shouldn't eat that.
Something bad will happen if you eat it.
But your mouth reacts differently.
'It's delicious.'
A crack forms between a person's cognition and senses.
That crack burst forth as laughter.
In the end, it became a challenge.
It wasn't just play for YouTubers.
Ordinary people jumped in too.
Whenever two or more people gathered, they made this.
And they filmed the reaction and uploaded it.
They made it at home,
at school,
and at work.
It became a social phenomenon.
The reaction came immediately.
The first place to react was the local mart.
[No Yakgwa]
[No Yakgwa Available]
[No Yakgwa. No Restock Planned. Won't Answer Even If You Ask.]
Yakgwa disappeared from marts.
Yakgwa wasn't an item that sold well.
Yet the yakgwa corner was completely empty.
Nothing was left.
People turned their gazes online.
But that too sold out.
The lights at the yakgwa factory wouldn't go out.
A worker in his 60s who had spent his whole life making only yakgwa felt puzzled.
"What is this? Why is this happening? Why is there so much volume?"
"Something is trending on the internet, I heard?"
"But is it okay to make this much? I'm worried."
"I don't know either. They tell us to make it, so we make it."
"The overtime pay is nice, but I'm worried about leftover stock."
"The boss will take care of that."
"I don't know. Pour more grain syrup over there."
"Yes, sir."
The machines ran without rest.
They sold almost before they could be packaged.
The smell of sugar filled the factory.
********
K-ORIGIN SCHOOL / FOOD LAB class time.
"Allicha. Did you see this?"
A classmate held out his phone.
On the screen, a Burnt Yakgwa Jelly challenge video was playing.
Actually, the most surprised by the Burnt Yakgwa Jelly challenge were Allicha and his classmates.
The video Allicha had uploaded, [K-ORIGIN SCHOOL / FOOD LAB Dessert Practice], was exploding in views and comments.
"What? The views already jumped past a million?"
"Subscribers are already at a hundred thousand too. Allicha, you've already hit Silver."
"Look at the comments. Just how many are there? I'm so jealous."
They had never expected this level of reaction.
They never thought anyone would watch Allicha's YouTube.
Allicha was bewildered.
The blatant jealousy and envy around him was a bit uncomfortable, but not bad.
Just a few days ago, Allicha had been envious of the other students.
The situation had reversed in an instant.
Even so, there was nothing Allicha could do now.
It felt like he should do something,
but there was actually nothing he could do.
He just felt a little good, that was all.
.
.
.
But Jang Dohyeon, who watched that scene, thought differently.
'That has plenty of marketability.'
'It's a recipe that can be fully automated.'
'It could become an achievement for K-ORIGIN.'
'It's too good to waste.'
Jang Dohyeon already owned several franchises.
His business sense was second to none.
He read the newspaper every day and checked YouTube daily.
He kept up with internet communities and industry reactions without fail.
Considering everything together,
this wasn't a simple issue.
It wasn't a trend that would flash and disappear for a moment,
but rather something that would spread bit by bit and become a massive wave.
It felt like a wildfire burning fiercely.
But if they left it like this without doing anything, the ember would surely die out.
Or some random person would make a product and cash in.
It was a scene you saw countless times in the food service industry.
The sight of random people making money off others' items or recipes.
He couldn't let that happen.
Jang Dohyeon asked Allicha.
"Allicha, how about making your recipe into a product?"
Allicha was at a loss for words for a moment.
It was something he had never thought of.
He knew his recipe had become an issue from the YouTube reaction,
but he had never thought it could become a product.
He had only thought it was a simple fleeting incident.
"A product? My Burnt Yakgwa Jelly?"
"Yeah."
"Can that be made into a product?"
"Plenty."
Allicha asked several times to confirm.
But every time he asked, Jang Dohyeon answered firmly.
That it was possible.
He said they'd talk to K-ORIGIN SCHOOL first,
and if that didn't work, Jang Dohyeon would invest his own money to commercialize it.
"...If I can, I really want to do it."
Allicha said.
It was something that happened suddenly, but he didn't want to miss this opportunity.
A product made with his own recipe.
Allicha wasn't stupid enough to let such an opportunity slip away.
.
.
.
Jang Dohyeon gathered some documents and went to Gwon Sangyeol.
Together with Allicha.
"Teacher Jang Dohyeon. Welcome."
"Yes."
"And you must be student Allicha?"
"Yes."
"Nice to meet you. Shall we sit and talk?"
The three sat around a small table.
Jang Dohyeon was the first to speak.
"I have something to tell you. We developed something called Burnt Yakgwa Jelly during class. That recipe—"
Hearing those words, Gwon Sangyeol immediately cut in and spoke.
"Ah! That's great. The story I wanted to tell you was exactly that."
"Excuse me?"
Gwon Sangyeol brought documents from his desk.
They contained reactions related to Burnt Yakgwa Jelly, the recipe, market analysis, and more.
"The YouTube reaction is tremendous. The item is good, the recipe is good too. We can't just let such an item pass by. Let's commercialize it."
Jang Dohyeon was somewhat deflated.
He had prepared materials to persuade.
If K-ORIGIN refused,
he had been thinking of commercializing it separately with Allicha.
But K-ORIGIN already had commercialization plans.
They had even finished preliminary investigations.
Then commercialization was okay.
The problem was the conditions.
Gwon Sangyeol opened his mouth first.
"The conditions are the issue. First, we'll bear all the costs for commercialization. Please focus only on the development process and quality for Allicha and the teacher. I'm asking you."
"That's what Allicha and I should do."
It was only natural.
With the recipe creator present, it was nonsense for someone else to make the product.
The quality would be highest if Allicha did it.
Jang Dohyeon was also planning to help with the development process rather than the recipe.
Simplifying the recipe,
or helping with the automation process.
He wanted to share what he had experienced while doing business.
"We'll give 20 million won each for participating in the commercialization project."
"And we'll pay Allicha a 100 million won scholarship for recipe development."
"Ah. Of course, if the product sells, the royalty is separate. We're thinking about 3% of net profit, but let's decide that as we proceed with commercialization."
20 million won for participating in the project.
This meant both Allicha and Jang Dohyeon would receive 20 million won each.
They would separately pay Allicha 100 million won as a scholarship.
It was an incentive concept.
The most important thing was that they were paying royalties.
And a full 3% at that.
No one knew how much Burnt Yakgwa Jelly would sell.
So they didn't know what amount 3% would be,
but giving royalties meant
they recognized Allicha as the recipe provider.
They were groundbreaking conditions beyond what Jang Dohyeon had imagined.
He had worried that they might be offering a contract close to a slave contract to naive students.
That was why Jang Dohyeon had taken the lead.
But no.
The opposite was true.
The conditions were so generous he wondered if they could afford to give away this much.
Looking beside him, Allicha seemed so surprised he had forgotten to breathe.
Unable to say anything, he just stared at Gwon Sangyeol.
Soon he spoke.
"I think it's too much. I'm grateful enough that you're commercializing it."
Gwon Sangyeol answered with a smile.
"It's not too much at all. This case will set an example for other students. 'If I just come up with an idea, if I just make it, the school takes care of the rest. They give scholarships and lifetime royalties too.' Doesn't that sound like tremendous motivation? We are creating a precedent right now. The stronger the precedent, the better."
Jang Dohyeon nodded.
It was correct.
The school hadn't been established long.
There were no standards yet.
Gwon Sangyeol was trying to create that standard.
A big-hit recipe came out during class.
But if the school did nothing?
No rewards, no business plan?
Then that was the end of their relationship with the school.
They would learn at school and start businesses elsewhere.
But on the contrary, if the school took responsibility for everything.
The compensation was certain.
Waving the carrot of being able to do business and have your rights guaranteed?
Would there be any need to go elsewhere?
They would contract with the school immediately.
The moment people think 'The school is trustworthy,' the items and content K-ORIGIN possesses will increase infinitely.
When new items or good ideas come out, they'll run straight to the school.
They'll link their business with the school.
Jang Dohyeon thought Gwon Sangyeol had truly used his head well.
This wasn't a teacher's mindset but a businessman's mindset.
A method of buying up early at a low point.
A method of giving appropriate compensation to countless sprouts and preemptively securing them.
But he really liked that method.
He was satisfied.
He now understood his words about making K-ORIGIN into a platform.
Suddenly K-ORIGIN became more interesting.
Jang Dohyeon smiled softly.
********
A detached house on the outskirts of Tokyo.
An old man stood by the pond.
Seeing the old man, koi fish flocked to him.
The old man fed the koi as if training them.
One by one by one.
The koi rushed to open their mouths wide to eat it.
The old man watched that sight with interest.
The old man wasn't raising fish,
but rather seemed to be taming them.
Then a man in his 50s opened the door and entered.
The old man turned his head and looked at him.
When their eyes met, the man in his 50s immediately bowed respectfully.
"I am Kuroda. I have come to see the Chairman."
"You're late."
The old man spoke slowly.
"I apologize. I was abroad due to customs issues."
"Let's go inside and talk."
The old man headed into the house first, as if he had no interest in the man’s excuses.
The man in his fifties carefully followed the old man inside.
.
.
.
The old man’s name was Minase Haruo.
He was the chairman of the Seiwakai.
Seiwakai in Japanese.
In Korean, it became Cheonghwahoe.
In other words, it was the root and original form of Korea’s Cheonghwahoe.
Korea’s Cheonghwahoe was nothing more than an organization created in imitation of the Seiwakai.
Cheonghwahoe called the Seiwakai its father organization.
However, there was one decisive difference.
If Korea’s Cheonghwahoe was a gathering of operatives who moved for Japan,
if it was an organization that carried out orders handed down from Japan and acted on its own for Japan’s sake,
then the Seiwakai was a gathering of people who thought and made decisions.
It was, quite literally, the leadership.
There were not many members, but every single one of them was extraordinary.
Enough to move Japan itself.
Such people gathered and made decisions.
Once they decided and sent those decisions down, the rest simply carried them out accordingly.
Korea’s Cheonghwahoe was merely one of the organizations that handled orders handed down from the Seiwakai.
.
.
.
The two men sat facing each other with teacups before them.
But their postures were completely different.
Unlike Minase, who sat comfortably, Kuroda was kneeling.
His posture looked somewhat uncomfortable, but he seemed not to mind in the slightest.
“Something troublesome has come up.”
Chairman Minase spoke first.
His tone was calm, devoid of emotion.
“I heard from Akiyama. I heard that Korea’s Cheonghwahoe has collapsed, and that Seo Gwangho has disappeared as well.”
Akiyama was Chairman Minase’s secretary.
She was the woman in her forties whom Minase had told, a few days earlier, to summon Kuroda.
She not only carried out Minase’s orders, but also handled his personal errands.
“Which brings me to this—should we not send Korea a little gift?”
Chairman Minase spoke quietly.
But the meaning contained within his words was terrifying.
He was telling him to attack Korea.
Kuroda immediately understood Minase’s intention.
“What sort of gift shall I prepare?”
He knew what Minase meant,
but even so, he had to confirm it once more.
What kind of gift he should send.
He had to ask the chairman’s will.
He needed to know the scale, the duration, the field, and so on.
“Since Korea blew away Cheonghwahoe, we should blow away something of theirs as well. That’s the only way the accounts balance.”
“I’ll take down one Korean company operating in Japan.”
Kuroda spoke lightly, as if choosing an item in a shop.
Since Cheonghwahoe in Korea had been eliminated, Kuroda thought it only right to take down one Korean company in Japan.
“No. Damage the Korean mainland. Make them uncomfortable. Stifled. Unable to do anything.”
“Understood.”
Kuroda bowed his head as if he understood exactly what was meant.
Kuroda left the Seiwakai and gathered his people.
A plan to attack Korea was being formed.