Prologue — The Man of the 1%
Investment.
The act of surrendering present purchasing power in exchange for greater assets in the future.
The people who do it are called investors.
You have been liquidated.
It happens often enough in the holy land of those investors.
On Wall Street, a man's entire net worth converging on zero is nothing unusual.
Though most people never imagine it'll be them.
I was no different.
One trillion dollars.
That was the total value of the assets under my management. Even after the hyperinflation that had upended the world eroded its real worth, it remained an astronomical sum. And because I ran it with leverage, the actual capital I was moving exceeded ten times that figure.
That same high leverage was what snared me.
"We understand this was an unforeseeable accident. We also understand that you have the ability to recover. But I'm sure you can appreciate that our bank cannot shoulder a risk that may take years to resolve."
No. I'd been caught.
The danger of leverage. Of course I knew it. Under ordinary circumstances I would never have made a mistake like this.
Under ordinary circumstances.
"Get your boss on the line."
"Excuse me?"
"I said get your goddamn boss! That bitch who's been scheming in the shadows behind you!"
"I—I don't know what you mean, Mr. Lee. Please, just calm down for a moment…"
Twenty years in the securities markets. I'd learned plenty from books — and plenty that no book could ever explain. What had kept me alive on this sheet of thin ice was the latter.
And that instinct was screaming bloody murder.
Yeah. It's a lock.
I had no hard proof. Soft evidence and gut certainty, though — those I had by the handful. Every circumstance pointed to one conclusion.
If they still wanted to deny it, fine. There wasn't much I could do.
"S-Sir!"
"It's all right. I'll handle the explanation."
We'd already come this far. She must have gotten exactly what she'd wanted.
A remote video conference. The face that suddenly appeared in the lower-left corner was one I knew well.
You've been watching the whole time, you conniving bitch.
Rachel Bigger.
A female hedge-fund CEO with striking bright-blonde hair and porcelain skin. That face alone had earned her the nickname Witch of Wall Street — but the real reason was her track record. The fund she managed returned more than double the market every single year, growing with something close to magic.
"The tyranny is over. We are sick to death of your uncooperative participation in this market."
"Tyranny? So you cooked this up together and dragged me down. That it?"
"You're free to think whatever you like. You're the loser, and the fact that you've been expelled from this market will not change."
On the surface, sure.
I knew the real story. The background that had let her rise so fast in the dragon's den of Wall Street.
She must have pulled every string her bloodline could reach.
Rothschild.
A Jewish family with enormous influence over American politics and finance. She carried their blood. I never would have known if not for a chance encounter years ago.
"Mr. Lee… we are trying to help you."
"Help me?"
"Your fund may have been liquidated, but that doesn't mean your life is over, does it?"
This was a mega-fund. And given my abilities, I could weather just about any storm. My forecasts had missed five times over. Now I understood exactly why the market's movements had been so deformed.
Crunch.
No — I'd known, and I'd prepared. And I still couldn't stop it. The money and power her family commanded were simply that vast.
"Shut up."
"Oh! Mr. Lee, please—"
"You're not at the level to be listening in, so shut your mouth."
"…"
My account manager. Even Bank of America, where Andrew sat as head of sales — a ten-trillion-dollar institution — was nothing more than a single pawn in the massive con this miserable woman had orchestrated.
"You trying to trigger a second subprime mortgage crisis? This isn't going to end with just me."
"That is not something you need to worry about. We have already coordinated with the government and made every necessary preparation."
"You moved the White House just to screw me over? That's some impressive meddling."
"Thank you for the compliment."
The subprime mortgage crisis. Around 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and shook the global economy. Americans had felt a shock comparable to what Korea endured during the IMF crisis. It could happen again. My fund's assets under management rivaled Lehman Brothers at the time. Liquidate something like that in an instant and the fallout would be catastrophic.
You cunning bitch.
Humans learn. Even animals do — and America, the center of the world, all the more so. Institutional safety nets were already in place: prevent the crisis before it starts, and if it does blow, minimize the damage. They'd gone further still. Knowing my fund would be liquidated, they had already built slack into the capital flows and secured policy cooperation in advance.
It was practically The Truman Show. A national-scale con job, and then some. All that effort just to destroy one man.
"What a shame."
"What?"
"Arrogant, insolent, and not a shred of cooperativeness to be found no matter how hard one looks — and yet, as an investor, I rather respected you."
Personal feelings. In other words, this miserable woman had moved capital and power on the scale of a national budget just to cast me into hell.
Haaah…
I'd always known it would come to this. That this goddamn cursed connection would end in ruin.
"Hey. You fucking bitch."
"…Excuse me? What did you just say?"
"Is the only thing you've ever acknowledged in your whole life the house prices in your neighborhood? A woman who talks back to the Fed Chair point for point. So in the end you just got jealous and used your connections to crush me."
I had been sentenced to destruction as an investor. And the most dangerous person in the world is the one with nothing left to lose.
This fucking bitch for real—!
Twenty years ago. Back when both Rachel and I were still green, our paths had crossed.
"You are always so vulgar. Extreme, impulsive language that rattles the public psyche and cracks the market. Looking back, removing you from this market was the best decision I ever made."
"The vulgar one is how you looked in bed."
"Wh-what…?"
We'd slept together once. The kind of thing that happens between a man and a woman. My one miscalculation:
A virgin at that age? You've got to be fucking kidding me!
Of course, I'd enjoyed it thoroughly at the time. There's no rarer delicacy than a gently raised sheltered virgin. To toy with a proud woman and leave my mark on her — one of the most satisfying moments in a man's life.
"The two of you were close in the past…?"
"N-no! That lunatic is spouting nonsense!"
"Your pussy tasted fucking incredible, you whore."
"Shut up!!!"
A piercing shriek so intense I winced without meaning to. For a second I thought my eardrums had ruptured. Even so, there was something I couldn't look away from.
Rachel's face had gone scarlet.
"H-he's talking garbage. Don't you dare believe a word. That man is just thrashing around in desperation!"
"I understand, Ms. Rachel. An excessive reaction is exactly what he wants…"
"I—I can't believe this. What on earth would I have been lacking that I'd ever— with the likes of you—"
Color had finally returned to her face. She'd looked roughly like that the first time I'd fucked her, too.
Turning the lights off that night is the regret of a lifetime.
It was an old affair. Nothing resembling evidence remained. She would never admit it herself. But her expression was the most vivid proof of all. The Witch of Wall Street, famous for her poker face, had completely lost her composure.
"This bitch was a total piece of work the first time I met her, but after she got a taste of dick — kyaaah~."
"Kya—kyaaaaaah!!"
"What's the matter? If it's nonsense, you can just ignore it."
We'd enjoyed ourselves for a while. A face straight out of Hollywood, a body that tapered just right, skin like clean porcelain. Of course the world is full of pretty women. What can't money buy? But a virgin with a sharp mind is a rare find.
…I just didn't expect her to give me indigestion.
The problem was that her mind was a little too sharp. I'd thought the family talk was a joke back then.
"Y-you're not going to take responsibility? Surely not…?"
Enormous attachment. Lose one virginity and she acted like the world had ended. I brushed her off and cut contact.
I never imagined that would be the start of a long and bitter entanglement.
"Ahem. I will concede that I made certain errors in my social relationships during my student years."
"Look at you, acknowledging things that aren't house prices for once."
"…Be quiet."
That was when it started. The mere mention of the word "virgin" made her lose her mind.
Because of this bitch I can't even eat kimchi from a proper ancestral house brand anymore.
Prestigious family plus virgin. It was enough to give a man PTSD. Couldn't she just forget it like a normal person instead of clutching it for a lifetime?
Crunch.
And now it had come to this. One trillion dollars? What made me angrier was the reality that I'd lost to a woman like her.
"So the two of you really did know each other…?"
"We simply! Knew each other. Me, dating a pig like that? As if that could ever happen."
"…"
To the same woman who used to squeal like a sow.
Regrettably, Rachel wasn't wrong.
Crunch.
Candy. When I'm stressed, I take in sugar. The nature of work that burns through mental energy makes it something of a necessity. I'd been overdoing it. Especially lately, with so much to be stressed about.
Fuck.
An excuse. I'd already ballooned long before this. I was a long way from the man I'd been in those younger days.
"Mr. Pig. Care to run your mouth one more time? Who dated whom, exactly?"
"Says the grandma with the sagging tits."
"Th-they have not sagged!"
Rachel was the same. The luster had faded. No one escapes the marks of time. Wrinkles had settled in; her jawline had thickened. No matter how advanced cosmetic technology became, there was a limit to what it could hide.
And yet an aura of beauty still radiated from her, impossible to conceal. The gravitas that came with age only added to her presence.
"Ahem! Conversing with you is genuinely unpleasant. Is it impossible for you to hold a discussion without resorting to vulgar language?"
"Like I said — the vulgar part is the sounds you make when you're getting fucked."
"Put a sock in it!!"
That passage of years. Knowing it only made this cursed connection all the more wretched. Who would have thought a foul-tempered old maid would end up standing in my way?
And that long, long relationship—
"This bitch is picky as hell in daily life, but in bed she's so obedient it's unreal. Stick a cock in her and she just freezes."
"Ah…"
"Don't listen to him! I'll sue you. Are you going to shut your mouth right this second or not?"
—was about to end.
In this world, money is everything. I had lost my entire astronomical seed capital.
"I—I truly cannot believe this. Your final thrashing is sexual harassment? You really have fallen as far as a man can fall!"
"What, getting hot and bothered remembering the old days? Want me to fuck you again?"
"…I would like to bury the past in which I once associated with you as a dark chapter of my personal history."
The Witch of Wall Street. The woman who had created a new market terror called "Five Witches' Day" could no longer control her emotions. Her long eyelashes trembled. She bit down on her lower lip, desperately holding herself in check.
"Ah — perhaps you're thinking of a comeback? Scheming to beguile investors with that clever tongue of yours and raise fresh capital. Not while I still draw breath—"
"If you helped me, who knows."
"Excuse me?"
"If you shot a sex tape with me, I mean. That'd be enough material to triple Pornhub's stock short-term — hell, with the right PR, maybe even tenfold."
"You #$^&#$%$!"
A rare spectacle. If it ever hit the internet, it would be a major story among investors, no question.
"I was a fool to feel even a shred of pity. Very well, Andrew. I understand perfectly."
"Yes, Ms. Rachel."
"Buy every top-tier cybersecurity stock immediately so that this vulgar conversation never leaks. Exercise controlling interest. Right now!"
She must be pretty damn nervous.
I had no particular desire to sabotage her. In my current state, no one would believe a word I said anyway. I just wanted one last round. A little banter with the woman who dragged old memories to the surface.
"Can I say one more thing?"
"Hmph! It's too late to beg now. I will thoroughly ensure you never set foot on Wall Street again—"
"Your pussy was incredible."
"You fucking bastard!"
And the real tasting. Not getting to smack that arrogant bitch's ass was the regret of a lifetime.
A man is a creature who wants to act tough in front of a woman, after all.
A comeback? That only applies up to a certain point. Even someone like me, who'd been through every storm imaginable, felt the strength drain out of him on a day like today. So I'd settled for needling her. The truth was, I was the one thrashing around.
Work requires passion.
It's not that I'm short on money.
Even after losing 99.99% of what they own, the tycoons of Wall Street still hold wealth ordinary people couldn't dream of in a lifetime. Take the bottle sitting in front of me right now.
Macallan 1946
Macallan. The Rolls-Royce of the whisky world. And this was an exceedingly rare vintage even among Macallans. Three thousand bottles had once existed across the globe; over the long years they had been consumed until only a single bottle remained. Its value was, quite literally—
Whatever the highest bidder will pay.
A rich man can go broke and still last three generations. There's a reason that saying exists. Sell off the household goods alone and you'd never want for food or shelter.
Creeeak—
And yet people still make the extreme choice.
I opened the window. Looking down from the hundredth floor of a building on Wall Street, the center of global finance, the view was nothing short of magnificent.
People look smaller than ants from up here.
The failed tycoons of Wall Street must have thought the same thing. A few hundred million at best. Whatever you try with the leftover pocket change, your heart doesn't race. So they fell.
Here on Wall Street, not every year but every week, someone whose name you'd recognize ends their own life.
Yeah, just kill yourself and it's over~
It wasn't really a joke. I simply didn't want to die that way.
Pop!
I'd planned to open this as a victory toast once the whole affair was over. It wasn't that I hadn't considered I'd be cracking it for a different reason.
Even if I'm going out, one bottle of whisky is fine, right?
Hard liquor. I twisted off the cap and poured it straight down my throat. Liquid worth tens of millions of dollars slid down with a sharp, electric burn.
A deep sherry richness. Peat that cut even deeper. The provocative scent of oak and tobacco that should have stabbed the nose.
Glug. Glug.
I had no leisure to savor any of it. To me right now, it was nothing more than a bottle to get drunk on.
When I come to, I hope something — anything — is different.
Macallan 1946 was, true to its name, a whisky distilled during the Second World War. Perfectly suited to a man who had become a loser.
An aging body. Ruined health. Passion that had already gone missing.
I no longer had it in me to think the word "again." If that was the life waiting for me, better to vanish like the forgotten tycoons of Wall Street.
The second subprime mortgage crisis. The liquidation of a hedge fund that had driven investors worldwide into panic closed as a dull non-event. The market, which had plunged as far as −15% that day, finished at −1% thanks to the government's swift response and the extraordinary cooperation of every major institution.
I had been nothing more than America's 1%.