The Grand Festival
Hankuk University.
"Aren't the kids coming?"
"They say they're on their way."
"No—when are they getting here?! We've got a mountain of work!"
The pathways thronged with countless students.
In two days, Hankuk University's Grand Festival would begin.
Every department, every club—everyone was scrambling to set up their booths and exhibitions.
"Hey, freshmen, do it properly~."
"Yes~."
"Did I say you could answer short?"
"Yes!"
Traditionally, the scale was massive. With preparations this extensive, the students were suffering. This year was especially unusual—the aftershock of a certain major incident that had exploded last year.
"I heard the cameras might show up again."
"Let them come."
"There's more than a few clubs itching to get on air themselves."
"Wanting to be on TV doesn't mean you get to be on TV."
All because of me. I'd only shown a tiny fraction of my skill, and I'd completely wrecked some food-industry type.
Calling him an industry professional is a stretch, honestly.
Given how low the bar is for Korea's restaurant scene, it wasn't all that strange for someone like him to be waving around a business card that said "expert."
"We have to do this too, right?"
"Work hard. I'll specially bestow my knowledge and management know-how upon you."
"Oppa has to do it too, right?"
"……."
Just a university festival. If it fell into my hands, making it a hit would be nothing. I could drop another proper bomb this year. A repeat of last time's success was already a given.
"Senior."
"Senior!"
"Yeah, I'm the senior."
"Then act like a senior and help!"
They were demanding other work now. The stock club members crowded around me, making a racket.
Excuse me? Do you have any idea how high-value a human resource I am?
Everyone has their place. If I'm the CEO sitting comfortably and drafting business plans, you're the laborers working like dogs.
"Hurry~!"
"I said I'm not doing it."
"Let's just move him chair and all."
"Oh, good idea."
"What?"
"One~ two~!"
They still hadn't grasped that fact. They hatched a sneaky little scheme around me. I'd been resting comfortably under the tent. They lifted the entire plastic chair I was sitting on.
Feels like I'm riding a royal palanquin.
They hauled me all the way out to the work site baking under the blazing sun, then scattered like they'd just pulled off a heist.
"The kids are all working."
"A true stock trader never does manual labor for the rest of his life. You lot should learn."
"Should we all take a break, then?"
Only Hye-ri stayed behind to speak to me. Of course, it wasn't that she didn't understand the situation.
If we want to keep the club's scale…
The stock club. Compared to last year, it had grown beyond recognition. Even counting ghost members, we hadn't even hit twenty. Now it had ballooned into a major club of over a hundred.
"If we don't expand the club room this time, we're in real trouble."
"Why?"
"Oppa barely comes around so you wouldn't know…, but there's a lot of grumbling among the members. Some people even stop showing up because it's too crowded."
For a departmental club, the participation rate was extremely high. That wasn't purely a good thing. Club room size. Cram too many people into a tight space and the discomfort index skyrockets.
Which is exactly why we have to deliver results at the festival.
Hankuk University's club regulations were progressive by Korean university standards. For a school that called itself Hankuk University, of all things.
"Is it because it's not Joseon University?"
"Huh?"
Club rooms and activity funds. They redistributed everything every year in a very fair way. The previous year's evaluation, membership numbers, and festival performance all factored in. But last year—
"We were a new club with low membership, so the budget proposal didn't pass well."
"Even after I advertised us that hard?"
"Please do it one more time."
It was true the club had been weak. As club president, Hye-ri was sharpening her blade.
I keep telling her I work with my head.
It was my club too. No reason not to lend a hand. I just didn't want to do it physically.
"Can't I just give them money?"
"Would that work?"
"No, can't I just have them build us one?"
"Ooh~ the rich man's way of thinking."
Sweating buckets under the scorching sun and wasting my youth on pointless labor? No thanks.
That's what I make money for.
Bluntly speaking. Humans always pay opportunity costs. And the rich substitute money for them. The chairman of the board would be grinning ear to ear and prostrating himself. Half a joke, but I could absolutely do it.
"Then you'd get instant awkward silence, you know?"
"Why?"
"If people feel like their effort has no value, they won't feel like putting in effort either, right?"
"Hmm."
Hye-ri turned serious. She was docile when I was inside her, but normally she stated her opinions cleanly and clearly.
That's why I can trust her with running the club.
Bright personality, smooth social relationships. Even someone like Hye-ri had her worries.
"I'm the same way, you know."
"You?"
"Senior drops stock picks like some kind of oracle, so I don't even feel like studying stocks myself."
She was by no means a thoughtless kid. If anything, she was the thoughtful type.
I did that without meaning to.
Results over process. Getting them hooked on the fun of making money had been my plan. It was the easy path. But enough time had passed for her to notice the side effects.
"It seems like it'd give me a headache, so I don't even want to, though."
"You know well."
"But still…, the others shouldn't end up like that."
She had grown. The process of getting to know herself. If the results hadn't differed because of it, that would have been fortunate enough.
As for the rest of them…
I was raising them with a purpose. Cultivating capable talent who would work at my fund in the future. For that, the club had to prosper. And there was one more condition attached.
"No point getting a hated image stuck on us, right?"
"Sound logic."
"Hehe."
"Sometimes—very rarely, about once per Halley's Comet orbital period—I suppose I can do it."
"How much do you hate it?"
I had to become a respected senior. Nobody wants a CEO they hate.
What a pain.
It actually affected work efficiency. Even calculating it coldly, I couldn't find anything wrong with Hye-ri's words.
"Me too."
"Hm?"
"I want to make more memories with Oppa."
"When you put it like that, it's hard to refuse."
"♡"
On the emotional side as well. No matter how calculating I was, I wasn't devoid of human feeling.
If I had been a pure student…
I never had been. From the root, I was the kind of human who never followed the common sense other people decided for me. But in terms of romance—if I were living a normal college life, I would have wanted a cute girlfriend like Hye-ri.
"Oh~!"
"Senior's working too."
"Got a problem with that?"
"Let's do it together!"
So I went along with it. "Youthful hardship is worth buying" was a proverb I could never accept—but.
Memories, huh.
Sweating together was, in fact, an unforgettable memory.
We decorated the booth with the members. The area. Compared to last year, it was incomparably larger. Based on membership and performance, we'd been assigned a much wider plot.
"This is dog-shit hard."
"What are you whining about over that?"
"You always walk around carrying four liters of milk jugs, so of course it doesn't feel heavy to you."
"Hey."
That much more work had to be done diligently. Sora was also participating in the labor, wearing work gloves.
Does she get +15 attack power or something?
I had no idea how she was so strong. Probably from hauling milk cartons around all the time.
"Good work, everyone!"
"Good work!"
"Ahh~ I'm exhausted."
"It was hard!"
After dozens of members threw themselves at it, the rough shape of the booth was complete. No matter how grueling the work, results brought a sense of reward.
Stocks aren't like that, though.
You can work your ass off and still just lose money. Compared to stocks, this might be far more tangible and have its own charm.
"I'm fucking exhausted too."
"Senior only worked one day."
"Only one day."
"Just one day!"
"Big Bang's one day after another."
That kind of simple labor. It wasn't work suited to me. And it wasn't like I'd refused to help for no reason.
The work I have to do anyway…
Was the contents. No matter how impressive a restaurant looks, if the food tastes bad, customers don't come.
"We've been thinking about it too."
"Thinking?"
"Yes."
"So you do think, huh."
"Ugh."
If I stepped in, it would be truly simple. I'd pull in industry-top-tier insight that had already passed real-world testing. Not just taste. Cost-performance, cooking process, labor efficiency—I'd set up a restaurant that couldn't help but succeed.
"A snack bar might be good. Like ramen or tteokbokki."
"Tteokbokki!"
"I love tteokbokki so much!"
Apparently they'd brainstormed among themselves. I'd been too busy with recent broadcasts and travel to drop by the club. The university festival period wasn't far off. It was admirable that they'd already planned the bar concept and menu, but—
I was wondering when tteokbokki would come up.
The female ratio was quietly high. Influence of Hye-ri being club president. And Korean women—Korean women had a disease where they die if they can't eat tteokbokki.
"If you're making tteokbokki, you have to stir all day, you know?"
"You mean we get to stare at tteokbokki all day?"
"Happiness."
"A dream."
"Utopia."
"Crazy bitches."
Among all 37 OECD countries, Korean women's tteokbokki dependency was at the most severe level, according to a report once published by Professor Mid Talon of the Department of Genetic Engineering at Noxus Medical University.
Anyway.
A high-labor food. It looked decent on the surface. In actual business, it was 180 degrees different. The more hands-on work required, the higher the chance that restaurant would fail. Even professional chefs weren't exceptions.
"Try stirring that while sweating buckets in early summer. You'll want to die."
"Ugh…."
"That does sound right."
"There's no air conditioning here either."
I gave them the realistic talk. Only then did the students, filled with dreams and happiness and utopia, come to their senses. Nobody wants to suffer like a dog if they can help it. Just when I thought persuasion was going smoothly—
"But we can still boil ramen, you know."
"You look like you couldn't even boil ramen."
"What?"
Sora made a sulky face. In her own way, she'd apparently brainstormed hard with the club members.
My IQ 150, your IQ 150. Plotting a perfect strategy with a combined 300 points of brainpower only happens in Kim Seong-○ comics.
Even so, it couldn't compare to a single expert. Apparently I had to teach them that obvious fact.
"If you try my ramen, you'll change your mind."
"You want me to go eat ramen?"
"?"
I decided to go try Sora's ramen.