Study

I arrived at the hospital where Mom was staying.

It was a large, clean, stylish facility.

I took the elevator up to the tenth floor.

Gripping the handles tight, I slowly wheeled myself down the corridor.

A moment later the sky garden came into view.

It was fairly spacious and lovingly tended, full of little charming details.

This was a hospital with many critically ill patients. Yet the place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt neither bleak nor heavy with the lethargy that so often hung over such wards.

Not bad at all.

Money really did make a difference. A quiet pang of regret slipped through me—if only I could have moved Mom somewhere like this sooner.

Not that I’d had the means back then. Truth was, I hadn’t even known hospitals like this existed.

I tightened my grip again and turned the wheelchair. My own chair was brand-new too—carbon-fiber frame, lighter than aluminum.

I rolled leisurely through the garden, taking it in.

That was when another wheelchair approached from nearby.

Same carbon-fiber frame. A nurse followed close behind, pushing one-on-one.

The chair glided slowly toward me. The woman seated in it glanced at my legs and asked,

“Does your leg hurt?”

I smiled and nodded.

“Yes. I was in a car accident and hurt my legs.”

“Oh no. That’s too bad. Hang in there.”

“I will. Thank you.”

She spoke with the pure, open simplicity of a child.

She was my mother.

Mom had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in the same accident. For a long stretch she had been completely bedridden, unable to move at all. Nearly a year of lying still—and now, just being able to sit in a wheelchair and hold a conversation felt like a miracle of recovery.

Her intellect, though, had stopped around the level of a five-year-old. And because of some lingering brain damage, she kept forgetting who I was.

I had grown used to conversations like this.

Mom asked again.

“Why’d you come, mister?”

I forced a smile.

“Ah… I’m here for a visit.”

“Visiting who?”

“My mom.”

“Your mom?”

“Yes.”

She beamed, then said with pure innocence,

“That mom is so lucky.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because her son is handsome.”

I laughed.

“Thank you.”

Mom tilted her head and grinned like a little kid.

“Hehe.”

In the middle of the garden, petals trembled in the breeze.

I told her about the changes in my daily life.

“Well… I’ve started a research lab.”

Mom’s eyes went round.

“What’s that do?”

I smiled bitterly.

“Semiconductors… it’s pretty complicated.”

“Sounds hard.”

“It is. Sigh… honestly, it feels weird. The lab sells semiconductors, but the problem is I’m the director and I barely understand them. I got those chips completely by accident. Then suddenly people started asking me questions, expecting things from me, and huge amounts of money followed… except I still don’t really know what I’m doing.”

As I spoke, my true feelings spilled out and my voice dropped without my noticing.

“Everyone thinks I’m amazing, but the truth is I have zero skill or knowledge. I just… got lucky.”

Mom looked at me for a moment, then tilted her head slightly.

“Really?”

“Yeah. All luck. I don’t know anything.”

Saying it out loud made it clear: everything had come from the Nano World.

The world’s fastest DRAM. The tower-stacked HBM. Devices my own knowledge couldn’t even begin to grasp.

Seeing the self-deprecating look on my face, Mom frowned. She clearly didn’t like something about it.

“Study.”

Study?

I lifted my head at a phrase I had heard a thousand times before.

“…What?”

“You said you don’t know.”

“That’s right.”

“Then study. I’m studying these days too. Butterflies, geese… today I learned about tomatoes.”

It was a child’s voice, yet the words struck something deep inside me.

“Haha.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

If you don’t know, study.

That was exactly what Mom had always told me back when we were both whole. Hearing her say it now made it feel as though she had fully recovered.

“Haha. You’re right. The director of a lab that produces the best products in the world should obviously study. That’s only natural.”

“Hehe. Yep. Studying is good.”

I said the words I had spoken to her countless times.

“Mom… I’ll study.”

She nodded brightly.

“If you don’t know, you study.”

“Yeah… that was the answer all along. I’d forgotten. Thank you, Mom.”

I met her eyes and grinned. Mom really was still my lighthouse.

After leaving the hospital, Jang Dae-shik and I went to an unfamiliar building.

A clean, newly built ten-story structure.

“What do you think? Given how many overseas trips you’ll likely be making, I thought somewhere on the west side of Seoul, close to Incheon Airport, might be ideal.”

The first floor opened into a spacious lobby. Floors one and two were open to each other. A building this size could easily house a thousand people.

Up on the tenth floor the view was wide and refreshing.

Had I really become the owner of a place like this?

“Chief Jang, the building is fantastic. I love it.”

“Then I’ll proceed with the purchase contract. Payment can be made immediately, so the sale and registration should be finished within a week.”

“How many employees are we planning to hire?”

“I was just about to discuss that. First I need to understand our business model. The personnel structure will depend entirely on how you intend to operate.”

“Hmm… I think we’ll occasionally release one jaw-dropping product at a time.”

“Like the DRAM and the HBM. In that case we’ll need appropriate staff for security, verification, auctions, accounting, asset management, overseas contacts, and protection details.”

I nodded.

“Chief Jang, and also—remember that professor from Korea University’s semiconductor department? The one with glasses and curly hair.”

“Shall I scout him?”

“No. That professor felt a bit… intense. Instead of him, recommend one of the doctoral students under him—someone kind, patient, with lots of tutoring experience. Ideally someone whose lectures are actually fun.”

“Who will be learning?”

“Me.”

“…Pardon?”

“I’m the director of the research institute and my knowledge is still lacking. I’ve decided to study from now on.”

Jang Dae-shik’s eyes widened.

“As expected of you, Director… I respect that deeply.”

For the time being I returned to Lucky Repair Shop.

Our entire staff still consisted of just me and Chief Jang. The new headquarters contract wasn’t finalized yet. The shop was cramped, but it was enough for two people.

“Chief, you can use this computer.”

“Thank you.”

“If you get hungry, the snack drawer is over here.”

“Oh, chocolate-flavored. I like those too.”

And so the two of us worked out of the tiny repair shop.

Chief Jang’s duties included recruiting, finalizing the JH Research building purchase, sending the HBM for appraisal at domestic labs, arranging insurance for the HBM, contacting American auction houses and staying on top of that process, plus serving as my personal secretary. Quite the load.

My job was simple: study.

It felt like he was doing far more work, but we would hire more people soon enough. For now he was my right hand.

Or rather—since he was the only one—both my right and left hands.

“I’ll get some studying done.”

We each focused on our tasks.

There was endless material in the world to learn, but two things mattered most to me right now.

First: the products I would put up for auction. Embarrassing as it was to admit, I had been auctioning items without fully understanding what they even were.

Second: the latest technology trends. Everything I released was a semiconductor—cutting-edge ones at that. People kept proposing collaborations left and right, but I needed at least a basic grasp of the landscape.

A college dropout from engineering school and a small repair-shop technician only went so far.

I started with the appraisal report on the HBM we had submitted.

I opened the one from Korea University first. That professor had been obsessively thorough, which made me trust the findings more.

Well… I get that it’s ridiculously overpowered, at least.

Even the name was hard. HBM—High Bandwidth Memory.

The report was dense, but this was an age where everything could be searched.

So it means the “width” of information transferred at once is much wider.

Last time, DRAM was a product that moved information back and forth extremely fast. This HBM was fast and moved a huge amount at once.

I took notes while studying.

It delivers lots of information quickly, so even one of them is thumbs-up!

Through that process I finally began to understand the HBM the Nano World had sent.

Next subject: the latest trends.

Everyone wanted my HBM, yet I didn’t even know which products actually connected to it. That felt wrong.

After a solid stretch of studying, Chief Jang and I took a short tea break.

“Director, how about giving a brief presentation before the auction? At the auction house itself.”

A presentation.

Basically: “Here’s what my product can do—please bid high.”

Studying hard and then presenting the product… it was starting to feel like I was becoming a real research director.

“Sounds good. Let’s prepare it.”

“Then I’ll draft a presentation based on the appraisal reports the universities sent.”

“Please do.”

Somehow Chief Jang’s workload kept growing. Well, we would hire more people soon enough.

Bzzzzz.

My phone rang—not the Nano World smartphone, just my regular one.

001…

Unknown number. An international call, no less.

I let it ring and cut it off. Voice phishing was rampant these days; an international number was automatically suspicious.

Bzzzzz.

It rang again.

I cut it again.

Lately strange places kept calling—obscure charity foundations and the like. No one was supposed to know I had made a hundred billion won, yet money scent was impossible to hide. When I ran the repair shop no one ever called like this; somehow they had sniffed it out perfectly.

After I rejected several calls in a row it paused… then rang once more.

Bzzzzz.

“Huh?”

This time the name on the screen was:

Wilson Hwang of Mvidia—the man who had gotten my number at the last auction. I answered immediately.

“Yes?”

Fortunately Chief Jang was right there and could interpret on the spot. Come to think of it, I needed to study English too.

“Mr. Kim! Has Aaron tried calling you by any chance?”

“Aaron?”

“Aaron Merks.”

“Aaron Merks… the electric-car guy?”

“That’s the one.”

Ah… so the calls I had just been ignoring belonged to Aaron Merks.

“Why would Aaron call me?”

“He’s wondering whether you’re preparing something again after the RAM. He said people should live for dreams, not money. He wanted to invite you to open the multi-planetary ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠age of humanity together. Come to Mars with him, he said. But since you weren’t answering, he asked me to pass the message.”

I blinked, thoroughly bewildered.

“Ah… multi-planetary humanity.”

The conversation was heading straight for Mars.

Wilson’s laughter came through the phone.

“Anyway—when are you going to show us the second one?”

“I’m preparing a presentation, but…”

“Oh! You’re giving a presentation? Perfect timing. CES is next week—how about it? A lot of people are waiting for this. I’ll arrange a spot in the special main hall.”

“CES… me? In the main hall?”

“Yes. If you’re going to present, where else would be better?”

“I see.”

“Can you make it?”

“Ah… yes. I’ll need to look into flights.”

“No need. Aaron said he’ll send the plane. Talk soon.”

“Okay.”

Click. The call ended.

I stared blankly at the phone in my hand.

“He’s sending what?”

Aaron Merks was sending a plane. Whether that meant a plane ticket or an actual airplane was still unclear.

And CES—the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas, the world’s largest showcase of cutting-edge products. Every major big-tech company spent a full year grinding their teeth preparing for those stages. Tens of thousands of eyes watching. Tech enthusiasts around the globe following every announcement.

“And I’m… supposed to stand there?”

I turned my head. Chief Jang was looking at me with pure honey ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dripping from his eyes.

“Chief Jang… I think I need to study.”

I needed to study.

A lot.