Uryat! Uryat! Work, Work! - 2
I watched the evening glow from in front of the convenience store.
....
Tuesday was drawing to a close as well.
The sun, stained red at the horizon, was slipping into the shadows of the blackened city. Even so, one light after another was coming on, and a new sea of stars was being born.
Watching that romantic scene, I looked back down at my phone.
[Balance: 25.6 billion won]
I closed my eyes.
Then opened them again.
[Balance: 28 billion won]
In the time it took to blink.
The 1.2 billion won that had gone out came back as 2.4 billion won.
The remaining payment on an overseas transfer had been waiting for several days, and now it had finally been settled.
That was a romantic sight too.
....
Credit really is wonderful.
It was basic economic common sense.
Having credit was incredibly convenient. I thought I understood that in my head, but this was the first time I had ever felt it for real.
May was always the month for building seed money and results, not for actually growing money like this.
At the start of every run, the first thing I did was prove my “qualifications.”
No matter how many lottery winnings I had, if I still had no transaction history, I was just an unemployed guy. The brokerage’s “real” door did not open for just anyone.
To evolve from an unemployed nobody into a small fish, my May goal had always been to scrape together 10 billion won by dabbling in futures and short-term stock trades with all kinds of strict limits attached.
Even then, if I got impatient and tried to jump into leveraged trades in the unofficial market, there were plenty of times I got flagged for suspicious activity and failed.
And if I got mixed up in some “scheme” by mistake,
the scary older brothers would come down on me with their cold stares.
....
But this time was different.
The 8.7 billion won I had held at the very start of this run was proof and qualification. It was also an ID card that let me knock on the brokerage’s door with my head held high.
The difference between an illegal immigrant scraping together money,
and someone who had earned citizenship and was scraping together money.
At last, I could use the May surge information I had always handed off to others myself. And the more my initial seed swelled, the more the regressor’s uncanny hit rate began to shine.
20% applied to a 10 billion won seed.
20% applied to a 12 billion won seed.
20% applied to a 14.4 billion won seed.
20% applied to a 17.2 billion won seed.
...
...
...
That was how it snowballed, almost literally. As for controlling the volume, all I had to do was shift into the appropriate board using the knowledge I had brought back with me.
....
By the numbers alone, my starting capital had risen from 6.7 billion won to 10 billion won, but in reality the pace of growth had accelerated almost tenfold...
So, as of May 17.
I had already surpassed the total assets I ended the last run with.
Right now I had 28 billion won in cash and a 4 billion won-scale “Big Plan Corporation” in the works. More precisely, I was still in the process of acquiring small and midsized firms during the incorporation phase, but even so, the speed was startlingly fast.
Maybe.
If I joined the 2x cryptocurrency surge event coming out of the U.S. at the end of May, 80 billion won might not even be out of reach... Or so I thought. After all, over there, even 40 billion won would be considered tiny fish.
....
At this rate, I could hit 100 billion won by mid-June.
There was something even more frightening than that.
Even while I was causing all this chaos, I wasn’t getting audited or monitored. It was a stark contrast to past runs, when I had merely scattered 1 billion won and the Financial Supervisory Service had practically called through the card company to ask, “Have you completely lost your mind?”
This run’s Seonwoo Taek has the business card and portfolio of a miraculous investor who made 8.7 billion won with his bare hands.
In other words....
I was no longer a mere small fish.
I was being treated as a player in the financial market. I was still on the smaller side, but I had been granted the privilege of shaping the board according to my own will.
In the sanctuary I had defined,
I could save the people I could save.
....
And this change had all started with the five-colored bracelet A-yeong had given me.
....
I looked at my empty left wrist. Maybe because I had kept fidgeting with it right up until the end of the previous run, it felt especially hollow. And every time I felt that change, I couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret.
I should have asked A-yeong where she got it.
But the regret faded quickly.
I was someone who had repeated infinitely meaningless runs without a single clue.
Now that I had even one clue, I could endure anything.
And....
It’s meaningful too.
For A-yeong.
For Do-dam.
For Dr. Jang.
For Pastor Kim.
For Father Kwon.
For Abbot Ju.
For Representative Baek Su-cheol.
For everyone who had loved me.
For every world that had stayed with me....
...I would just do my best.
With that resolve,
I thought of the problem that had been troubling me for the last few days.
....
What should I name the investment corporation?
Really, there was a very simple answer.
Big Plan A
To me, A was special now.
There were so many emotions packed into a single letter of the alphabet.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the single most special letter of all.
And yet....
This run, the owner of A already claimed it in advance, so if I use it too, that’s a little...
Just as I was thinking that,
the owner of A approached beneath the dim sky. Even in the dark, her yellow hair shimmered as it swayed, and she wore a smile not even a baseball cap could hide.
She waved at me.
"Taeek oppa-!"
!
I stood up from the chair. Then I walked toward A-yeong.
Step.
Step.
The distance kept narrowing.
The dozens of meters between us.
Even during those few seconds, a lot of thoughts ran through my head. They were thoughts I wouldn’t have had in the first place during any other run. And with them came the regressor’s appetite, slowly lifting its head.
I needed a great deal of courage.
In the end,
I gave in to greed.
Just a little.
I raised my hand and waved back.
It was an awkward gesture.
It felt as if I had opened a window in a room full of dust.
Cough.
Cough.
Crippling awkwardness burst out of me.
I forced open my stiff, breathless mouth and said, “Welcome. It’s good to see you.”
!
A-yeong smiled brightly. Then she waved both hands even more vigorously, like a big dog wagging its tail.
“Yes! I came again! It’s nice to see you again after so long too!”
....
It’s only been three days.
....
Thank goodness.
She took it well.
I nodded.
“I see. Welcome.”
?
A-yeong tilted her head.
“You’re not asking why I came...?”
“....”
True enough.
I had said that before.
“What brings you here?”
Another thing that felt awkward in this run.
The fact that A-yeong remembered my past behavior made me uneasy. Those actions, which I had carried out on the assumption that they would vanish, being preserved in the log called “memories” felt both welcome and sorrowful.
Memories and regrets
coexisted like two sides of a coin.
If one side remained,
the other remained too.
....
Ah....
So now.
Those actions really were impossible to take back.
Even for a regressor, there are things that can’t be undone. If I’d known this would happen, I should have acted a little more warmly...
Toward the benefactor who had saved my life,
my manners had been nothing short of rude.
So I made an excuse to my indifferent past self.
“I thought that question was meaningless by now.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no need for a reason for you to come, A-yeong.”
“Why?”
“Because the break room and the convenience store are your space...”
“Why?”
....
I looked at A-yeong.
As expected, she was grinning like a little troublemaker. With her hands clasped behind her back, she rocked her shoulders and tapped one foot, as if waiting eagerly for the next answer.
A-yeong said, “Why?”
....
Really now.
The “next” she wanted was painfully obvious.
But.
This “next” could not go there.
Not yet.
Because I like oppa.
The bond was continued.
When I thought about how even A-yeong’s confession had vanished amid the changes in the regression,
....
If that voice and the trigger for the change really were because of A-yeong’s confession...
If that was why it had disappeared, then I could not jump to conclusions too soon.
Whatever conclusion I reached,
the regression would only leave wounds behind.
The price of stopping the sandcastle as it collapsed.
At the very least, I would only be able to answer after I had completely uncovered what regression was for, and how it worked... in full. Things like the whereabouts of the five-colored bracelet, for example.
The rest will only be possible after I’ve escaped the regression.
And for the sake of her dream.
I changed the subject.
“By the way, how is Project A coming along?”
“Ah! You changed the subject! You cowardly maaaan~!”
A-yeong protested playfully. Then she jabbed the brim of her baseball cap into my chest. The impact was bigger than I’d expected, but I gritted my teeth and endured it.
“...By the way, how is Project A coming along?”
“Wow, acting clueless again.”
“...By the way, how is Project A coming along?”
“Pfft! Hahaha! Oppa, why do you keep saying the same thing? You sound like a broken robot.”
....
What was so funny about it, I didn’t know.
A-yeong doubled over laughing.
“Aha ha ha!”
....
Still, seeing that she wasn’t hurt by my dodging the question and was laughing as if the world itself were coming apart made me feel relieved.
Laughing along was difficult,
but I could manage a slight smile.
In the end,
what I wanted was her happiness.
“Heh heh.”
“Hehe, oppa, your laugh sounds really suspicious. You were thinking something shady, weren’t you? Like plans to toy with the world using money...”
....
I wasn’t.
After laughing like that for a while,
we slowly walked toward the convenience store.
A-yeong spoke with a slightly hesitant expression.
“Calling the summer live prep ‘Project A’... does that seem a little too self-important? Bigman-nim told me to send over the paperwork, so I had to come up with it in a hurry and turn it in... but it feels like I’m trying to show off, so maybe it’s just stupid...?”
....
“Also, my mom said the same thing. She’s worried because Jae has said my naming sense has always been kind of old-fashioned. Even when we formed ABCD, Clara unnie said, ‘Using our real Japanese names as stage names is a bit...’ Do-dam and Sajang-nim hated it too.”
....
Hearing that,
I came to a sudden stop in front of the convenience store door.
....
Hmm.
I had thought it was a pretty decent naming sense.
But to people who knew the circumstances, it apparently wasn’t all that great.
It feels like a good virtual name, one that captures the desire to meet the lost past again in the virtual world.
But objectively speaking,
with me and A-yeong in favor and four people against it....
Maybe the strange sense is on my side.
I accepted that.
“Still, I like it.”
“Really?”
“Even if other people don’t understand it, there’s still something you want to express yourself.”
“Hehe, somehow I really do get along well with you, oppa.”
“I’m glad. But objectively speaking, it wouldn’t hurt to take some cues from Clara or Representative Baek Su-cheol’s sense. After all, in matters like this, the majority tends to carry a more mainstream code.”
“Oh my, really?”
A-yeong said,
“Then should I change this ‘Project A’ thing...?”
....
“I like it.”
“Kukuk, understood. Investment office manager. Please make sure Bigman-nim understands.”
“It’s just a title on a business card, so store manager would be fine too.”
“No, thanks. I’m going to call you oppa.”
....
I hesitated, then spoke.
“So, is Project A going well?”
A-yeong nodded brightly.
“Yes! Of course! The lesson instructors have been secured, we’ve got another place for the members to practice, and also... the music, the merch, and um...”
“I see. You’re making good progress.”
“Hehe, you can tell just from hearing that?”
“Of course.”
“But there’s a problem.”
“What kind?”
A-yeong let out a little “heee-ing” and drooped her eyebrows into a miserable expression. Then she said in a voice so quiet it was almost swallowed up, “I can’t get a performance venue...”
....
Hearing that,
with a faint ache in my chest,
memories from the previous run passed through me.
And I remembered a new number, along with a new resolve.
....
[Balance: 28 billion won]
It was also due to swell to 80 billion won before long.
....
What the hell.
Just....
Buy it.
If I have to spend 20 billion won, then securing a proper venue should come first.
So I said, “You don’t need to worry about that part.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it will all be handled naturally.”
“Hehe, I don’t know what it is, but... it sounds mysterious when you say it, oppa.”
“I see.”
“You look like a total behind-the-scenes mastermind.”
....
*
Even after the sun set,
the lights of the big corporations did not go out.
But Jeong Yu-ri was trembling in her dark private office. When she wore heels, they clacked against the floor; without them, the anxious bouncing of her bare legs was almost a bonus.
An unmistakably disheveled sight.
And yet Jeong Yu-ri was staring at the screen with bloodshot eyes.
“...It really went up.”
As a first test of the List before the market closed,
the screen showed the accumulated profit results. She had put in 20 million won of personal funds and bought and sold according to the timings on the List. As a result, her money had more than doubled.
More than 200% profit.
Money approaching her annual salary.
She had earned a year’s pay with only a few clicks.
It felt as though the value of labor had been reduced to scrap paper.
....
Suppressing the dopamine and exhilaration climbing up her throat,
Jeong Yu-ri looked at the next list with trembling eyes.
[Wednesday short-term surge stocks]
[F Pharmaceuticals merger and acquisition news, minimum 50% guaranteed]
[*Caution: if capital over 100 million won is invested, there is a possibility of suspicious transaction classification. Using less than 100 million won per account is recommended.]
[Y Tech AI new technology announcement, minimum 50% guaranteed]
[*Caution: it will plunge at 1:12 p.m., so respond quickly.]
....
How considerate.
She had followed this advice and gotten more than 200% back.
“100 million...”
Jeong Yu-ri’s throat bobbed.
....
Should she go
a little...
further?
---