[Total suspected hacks reported: 12,000 times — Monster rookie Min Cheol-woo signs with KM Games]
[Live ‘hand-cam’ streaming doesn’t stop hacking suspicions. Will Min Cheol-woo’s debut game end the controversy?]
[KM Games requests the public to refrain from asking questions about Min Cheol-woo…]
[Streaming platforms like Twitch, AfreecaTV, Chzzk designate ‘Min Cheol-woo’, ‘Cheol-woo’, and ‘SteelRain’ as banned words. Why?]
[SteelRain spirals into downfall. Is a pro comeback possible?]
How did my life end up like this?
I was the most promising prospect, and now I’m stuck in a holding cell.
I don’t know.
Shit, I really don’t know.
No matter how hard he tried to figure it out through his hangover haze, Cheol-woo couldn’t come up with an answer.
A debt of 100 million won.
That was the inheritance left behind for Cheol-woo and his sister by their parents, who died holding hands in a joint suicide.
The two had boldly said they were starting a business, but after the pandemic hit in 2020, they started losing contact.
Three months before the official end of COVID, they were found dead from sleeping pills.
A rough calculation showed the debt far outweighed any assets.
Cheol-woo and his older sister, Yuri, immediately gave up their inheritance.
But they couldn’t ignore the private loan taken out under Yuri’s name.
A debt that had been around 20 million won had ballooned to 100 million.
“Hey! Stop going to the PC bang and get a job! Work!”
“I told you, I’ll pay it all back at once when I become a pro gamer!”
“You little shit! You think I gave up the Olympics for fun!?”
Right as a spoon clattered against the floor, Cheol-woo quickly bolted from the house.
This damn house.
Since they lived in a one-room apartment with a curtain as a wall, gaming at home meant constant nagging.
It was easier to go out.
“Tch… I was gonna send you the 1 million won I won from that online tournament, but now I don’t feel like it…”
To his sister, Cheol-woo was just a game-addicted loser.
But he had confidence.
Rhythm games, card games, puzzle games, FPS —
It was his hobby to play any kind of game, get ranked #1, get bored, then move on to the next.
Of course, after the family fell apart, he focused solely on popular FPS games that could earn him money.
The result? He’d become a well-known player who got reported for hacking dozens of times a day.
Even without using any illegal programs, once your report count passed a certain threshold, your account got auto-banned.
Sure, emailing the devs got the ban lifted eventually, but it took way too long.
So Cheol-woo’s solution: create endless new accounts and toss the banned ones.
The account that started as ‘SteelRain_1’ had now reached ‘SteelRain_456’.
“You little shit! You think I gave up the Olympics for fun!?”
“Sigh…”
His sister’s shouting echoed in his head, and a deep sigh slipped from his lips.
After they were suddenly kicked out of their home, Yuri had to give up her place on the national kendo team and start working as a model just to pay rent and buy food.
If I had at least helped out with a part-time job, the debt might be down to 50 million by now.
If I don’t make it as a pro gamer this time, I’ll give it up clean and go work in a factory.
With that resolve, Cheol-woo walked into the PC bang.
“Alright. Rank 1. Let’s go get it.”
The game he chose was Raiders, the FPS sensation sweeping the world.
Even in Raiders, his talent shone through.
He submitted his stellar results to various pro teams, but he was rejected every time.
To be precise, it wasn’t that he didn’t get any offers — it’s that Cheol-woo wasn’t satisfied with what he got.
Most teams wanted him to join as a trainee.
From there, he’d have to compete with other trainees, move up to semi-pro, and finally, if things went well, reach the first-tier pro team.
Even in the best-case scenario, that process would take at least a year.
A year? That was plenty of time for his sister to absolutely destroy him.
So Cheol-woo’s condition was always the same: “I’ll only join as a first-tier pro.”
And no one was willing to meet that demand.
Except for one.
— “Interesting offer.”
— “If you can reach #1 in solo rank, we’ll sign you.”
— “You’ve got until the end of the month. We’re launching a new first-tier team next month.”
Only one place: KM Games.
KM Games was a team under a relatively small company that had received a little investment from South Korea’s major conglomerate, Geummyeong Group.
Basically, it was one of those “octopus arms” of a big corporation, set up with a ‘maybe we’ll buy it if it does well, dump it if it doesn’t’ kind of attitude.
This new first-tier team? Obviously low budget.
And it was just as obvious they’d disband it the moment results didn’t meet expectations.
But Cheol-woo didn’t care about any of that.
All that mattered was that this contract would wipe out the debt in one go.
From that day on, Cheol-woo treated the PC bang like a day job and grinded for that #1 rank in Raiders.
Getting into the top 10 wasn’t too difficult — but from there, the resistance was brutal.
Every queue he entered, he ran into pro or semi-pro five-man squads.
Because of Raiders’ team-based nature, solo queueing against pro five-stacks was no easy feat.
“Today’s the final day before rank reset. Most of the pros camping in top ranks won’t log in. If I win 24 straight games before the reset, I can theoretically reach #1.”
24 straight wins, all as first-place team finisher.
Time-wise, he could’ve fit 25 matches, but factoring in potential delays from account suspensions due to hack reports — and having to re-log on new accounts — 24 was the realistic cap.
It was a near-impossible challenge.
And yet…
“YES! I did it!”
Cheol-woo pulled it off in style.
Three minutes before rank reset, he managed to capture a screenshot showing himself at #1.
“Yuri! I signed the contract! First-tier pro! They’re even giving me a signing bonus!”
“What?! For real?!”
Just as promised, Cheol-woo was able to sign with KM Games.
The signing bonus was 100 million won.
A pathetically small amount by pro standards, but more than enough to clear Yuri’s loan shark debt.
“Oh, and… I got a girlfriend too.”
“Girlfriend? How old is she? Is she in college?”
“She’s 26. Six years older than me. Right now she’s… well, she’s looking for a job.”
“Find someone else.”
“Ugh, why?”
Two weeks before the team launch, Cheol-woo had been introduced to her by his manager.
Yeah, there was a bit of an age gap.
Yeah, she was unemployed.
But she was cute, had a great body, and an easy-going personality.
For Cheol-woo — in his first-ever relationship — she was perfect.
Yuri had voiced a lot of concerns at first, but eventually, even she stopped complaining.
After all, Cheol-woo had single-handedly cleared a debt of over 50 million won.
And technically, since the debt was under Yuri’s name, he wasn’t even obligated to help in the first place.
She didn’t really have the right to nag anymore.
One week until the league started.
The team was officially launching the next day.
The night before this big milestone, Cheol-woo had gone out drinking with some old friends and came back completely wasted.
And to his surprise, his girlfriend was already there waiting for him at the team dorm.
“Whoa, you’re here already? I thought you were gonna be late?”
“Ugh… felt like I was about to black out, so I came early.”
“Wanna have a drink? Just a light one.”
“Sorry, Yuri, I seriously feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
“I’ll make it super light. Like juice.”
“No, no, seriously. I shouldn’t drink anything more.”
“Want some water, then? Here, take this.”
“Nah. I’m just gonna sleep. I feel like I’ll do something stupid if I stay up. Sorry. I’ll talk to you in the morning…”
“……”
There was something in her eyes.
Something off.
Something that didn’t sit right.
There was a strange vibe.
Like she was hiding something.
Even through his drunken haze, Cheol-woo picked up on it.
He refused the drink she offered and headed straight to the bedroom.
He blacked out as soon as he hit the bed.
While his consciousness faded, he felt something—like a sharp, prickling sensation in his elbow.
And he thought he heard someone say, “Hold still, just a sec.”
Was it a dream? He didn’t know.
“Open up! Open the damn door!”
What the hell…?
BAM BAM BAM—
The pounding noise snapped Cheol-woo awake.
His head throbbed.
His body felt heavy.
His elbow… ached.
There was a nasty bruise where something had happened, though he couldn’t remember what.
Who the hell’s outside?
Before he could process anything, a loud cracking sound echoed through the dorm—
The door lock was ripped open with a metallic screech.
“Min Cheol-woo! Come out! We know you’re in there!”
“There he is! Master bedroom!”
“Wha… what…?”
“Turn everything upside down. The drawers, under the floor, under the mattress—check every damn corner.”
It was chaos.
At first, he thought they were thugs.
But when more people poured in wearing police uniforms, he realized—they were detectives.
Even as Cheol-woo sat there, barely aware of his surroundings, officers were tearing through the place.
Ripping open closets, peeling off wallpaper, rummaging through every possible hiding place.
Then—
“Found it!”
“Oh?!”
“Is it legit? Get it tested right now!”
“Confirmed. Methamphetamine.”
“…With all that money, and you go for cheap garbage like this?”
“Min Cheol-woo, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent—”
What… what the hell is this…?!
Click.
The cuffs snapped around his wrists.
Even as he flailed, confused and overwhelmed, Cheol-woo had no clue what was happening.
That’s when a reporter slipped in between the officers and snapped a photo.
A shot of Cheol-woo stumbling around, dazed—like he was high.
[KM Games pro gamer Min Cheol-woo found with 6 kilograms of meth in personal residence… ‘Shocking’]
(Photo)
—The police raid site. Pro gamer Min Cheol-woo appears visibly intoxicated as he stumbles through the scene.
That day?
It was front-page news.