The Vessel
The profit duel.
LeadingDeadCatBounce versus Sonik-jwa.
Their taut, hard-fought duel ended with a strangely hollow anticlimax.
A grand slam had just left the park.
The big one. Every stock trader on earth wants it. Landing it is never easy—especially when you have your entire seed on the line.
No wonder the boards were losing their minds day after day. It was every retail trader’s wet dream made flesh. He had done it. More than that—he had proven exactly why they called him Sonik-jwa.
Please save me……
Fame was inevitable. He was the living ideal of every retail dreamer—the theoretical maximum made real, and they had watched every step of the process with their own eyes.
True believers were forming inside the community—deep roots, a thick fanbase that never doubted. At the same time, everything that had come before simply vanished. The earlier minor buzz was never even mentioned again.
Fuck!
Competition? They weren’t even playing on the same level anymore. Yong-su could feel the current shifting under his feet.
He was trading like a man possessed for one reason only: he had to close the profit gap with Sonik-jwa. And it wasn’t impossible. The sole difference between them was a single thing.
Fuck, he put a full billion on it.
Credit. Leverage. He hadn’t used any. You could balloon a seed up to 2.5×. Profits scaled with it. Compound that and the returns became monstrous.
But it was a double-edged sword. Bigger upside meant bigger downside—that was just math.
……
The larger the seed, the larger the profits. Handling that required a vessel large enough to hold it. The single wall between him and Sonik-jwa—Yong-su was tasting its true height in real time.
Uterus Company │ 175,232 shares │ −10.21%
Unrealized P/L │ −102,765,700
A 10% drawdown was something he could stomach—if he hadn’t used credit. In reality it was −25%. A full quarter of his entire seed, gone. One single losing trade had become a critical hit.
And that wasn’t the end of it. A billion won was a different unit of weight. The market felt that mass.
“Who just dumped two hundred million?”
“The guy who got stuck earlier, probably. Keep pushing it down. Lower~ keep going lower.”
The Illicit Stock Manipulators running Uterus Company. Of course they were watching the order book.
Yeah, you need to drop it before we launch~
Someone just bought a huge block? If the price rose he’d take profit—that was obvious. No reason to let that happen. The bigger the size, the more carefully they managed it.
Bitter medicine. Yong-su sold and ate the heavy loss. He gritted his teeth. But it was still fine. For now.
How much have I made this month already.
He had been printing money nonstop. One mistake was allowed. Within parameters. And he hadn’t even gone all-out yet. He still had dozens of allies.
Sonik-jwa only made money for himself. Yong-su ran a Leading Room.
Yeah. I’ll use these guys.
He could pump a stock. Bigger profits, easier profits. Of course some people would lose money. Dump a full billion at once and there was no way the market wouldn’t feel it. The bagholders might come after him. Didn’t matter. The stock went up. Failing to sell the top was their own fault. All he did was point at a ticker that would rise.
Click, click.
He had been eyeing one recently.
A bit too much of a gamble so I was avoiding it, but…
In the stock market, those were exactly the ones that ran hardest. Because nobody expected anyone to actually buy them.
Metal-related names had been moving well lately. Commodity prices were rising. L&C Metal was a music stock—they specialized in composing and distributing heavy metal. Every now and then it got bundled with actual metal stocks. The company name had “Metal” in it, so the ridiculous mix-ups happened. The Illicit Stock Manipulators were probably involved too. Reasons didn’t matter. As long as the price went up.
The chart looked pretty clean as well.
There’s definitely an accumulation zone. Definitely.
It was a bear market. Most names had been crushed. L&C Metal was holding up relatively well. Buying pressure kept coming in. Considering music stocks were still weak overall, it was suspicious. Only one explanation.
Because the Illicit Stock Manipulators were accumulating. They would spin the metal-stock narrative and float it hard once. Plenty of those absurd names had run lately. Sonik-jwa had made money eating exactly those. No reason Yong-su couldn’t do the same. The Leading Room members would help too.
Mind made up, Yong-su hit the buy button.
One billion won. No—two billion. On top of the credit he layered one final finishing move.
One shot at life.
If Sonik-jwa was rolling a billion, he was running double that. He would hit it big in one swing. One upper limit and that was six hundred million. If it hit consecutive limits…
He swallowed hard.
An enormous sum, from a single trade. He waited for that day, swelling with hope for a bright future—
“Hyung-nim!”
“Yeah?”
“L&C Metal is getting flooded with retail. Want us to shake them a bit?”
Yong-su’s read had been correct. The Illicit Stock Manipulators had been quietly gathering L&C Metal. For an operation. Bundle it as a metal name and float it. Lately the market loved absurd spikes. Retail that used to hesitate now jumped the second an article hit—just to catch a few crumbs.
“It’s fine. Actually better. Accumulation’s already done.”
“Then…”
“Maybe float it day after tomorrow? Watch the flow and maybe even go for consecutive limits.”
That frenzy. It was the fertilizer that made operation stocks grow. A bear market was actually better for running plays. Normal buying pressure was gone. Plenty of people had lost money. They flocked to the operation names.
“Hyung-nim!”
“Yeah.”
“Today’s the day we float L&C Metal, right?”
“No. Situation changed.”
“What??”
The reverse also applied. In a bear market you bought operation stocks because there was nothing else. But—
There was something called the FOMC—the Federal Reserve meeting that set U.S. rates. The minutes had just dropped. More dovish than the market expected. Mild tone. Investors were cheering.
Looks like we’re back in a bull market for a while.
The Illicit Stock Manipulators were financial people in their own right. Not the old days of gangsters strong-arming company presidents. They monitored the global economy and factored it into how they moved prices.
“So we’re not running the play?”
“Who the hell buys this garbage in a bull market? Would you?”
“Uh…”
“Aigoo, you idiot.”
Prices had fallen hard recently. Good stocks were lying around cheap.
When real quality is sitting there, who’s buying fakes.
L&C Metal. Especially an ambiguous piece of trash like this. The inventory they’d gathered was a shame, but it couldn’t be helped. Actually it was fine. Thanks to the retail that had piled on lately, the price had already jumped decently.
“At least we won’t take a loss, right?”
“Loss? We’ll even pull a little bonus.”
“Oh~.”
They could take a reasonable profit. When the market opened they would fake a little push, then dump the whole thing. The size was large. Unloading would take time. They needed technique so the retail wouldn’t cut and run.
“What about the retail that followed?”
“What else? They’re getting completely wrecked.”
The correction was over.
