Bullet Loaded
The moment I finished loading the bullet, a chill ran down Smith’s spine. The instant our eyes met, he instinctively understood. ‘This guy… he’s dead serious.’
Those eyes—steady as stone, brimming with madness. He really intended to dump the entire loan into stocks!
I bit my lip hard.
His voice rose with desperation.
…….
We weren’t communicating at all. This wasn’t a human anymore—it was a beast that had given up on humanity. That damn baron was dead set on wringing the loan out of him. In that case…
‘There’s only one way.’
He had no choice but to slash the value of the collateral and reduce the loan amount!
With a trembling hand, he pointed at the amount field.
Desired Loan Amount: 3,000,000 gold
Roughly three billion won in Korean currency. Naturally, it referred to the monetary unit, not literal gold coins. Allen tilted his head with an innocent expression.
Allen smoothly snatched the contract from the branch manager’s hand and launched into a real-estate PR offensive.
‘Who the hell would pay that much for a piece of rotten real estate in the middle of nowhere!’ The silent scream echoed inside his chest.
Allen continued with shameless confidence.
He flashed a truly wicked smile.
Heritage did exist. The problem was that it was only heritage. To package such a white elephant so beautifully…
‘Should I tell him the truth?’
No, he had to endure. Even a rotten sea bream is still a sea bream. The man was a titled noble. If a commoner offended his mood, there was no telling what punishment might follow. The most painful part was… the amount he had quoted perfectly matched the maximum limit for a first-class credit rating. A five-hundred-pyeong mansion and thirty thousand pyeong of land would be appraised at roughly six million gold. Applying the countryside collateral recognition rate of fifty percent produced exactly that figure.
Allen flipped to the very last page that the branch manager had yet to see.
…….
‘Damn it… he’s annoyingly thorough…!’
A noble who had even brought a lawyer. He couldn’t win this easily. In this situation, the branch manager’s final card was—
Cut me open. We don’t have the cash.
A desperate attempt to defend at half price. Allen gave a light nod. For a moment, color returned to the branch manager’s face.
‘Yes! I managed to cut it in half—’
BOOM!!
A thunderbolt struck the branch manager’s head.
‘How does a country bumpkin even know about checks!’
Allen snorted inwardly.
‘That’s what you’re thinking, right?’
In Korea, if you wanted to withdraw more than a branch’s cash reserves, you had to either make a reservation or request a check. He hadn’t known whether the same system existed here, so he had consulted Rohena.
— What if I try to take out a loan and the branch says their vault doesn’t have enough cash?
— Ask them to issue a check. The branch manager can just process the paperwork and send it to the central bank in the capital.
— Huh? They have checks here?
He could never forget the look on her face that said, What kind of idiot am I dealing with? In any case, the branch manager no longer had any escape route.
At the merciless urging, the branch manager signed the loan contract in a daze. A short while later, he received thirty checks, each worth one hundred thousand gold.
I tapped the bundle of checks to straighten them, slipped them into an envelope, and tucked it deep inside my coat pocket.
I smiled with satisfaction and pressed my hat down firmly. I was about to leave the manager’s office when I paused and glanced back at the half-broken man.
When you thought about it, he had simply done his best to protect his own livelihood. ‘If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to approve a loan for someone like me either.’
He was practically a ruined noble. What could possibly justify lending him three million gold? It looked like even more hair had fallen from the top of his head in the last few minutes.
‘Ah, whatever. I’ll do him a favor.’
I turned back and gave the branch manager a hint.
I grinned leisurely.
With those final words, I left the manager’s office and crossed the hallway.
"Ah!"
I ran into Glen, who was walking while carrying a stack of documents. The moment she saw me, she bowed at a perfect ninety degrees.
"Ah, yes."
The greeting felt awkwardly formal, so I returned a slightly embarrassed nod and exited the bank. She stared blankly at my receding back, then turned and entered the branch manager’s office.
Creak—
"Branch Manager, I’ve brought the approval docu… Hic?!"
She was startled—no, she was downright horrified. No matter what happened, the branch manager always laughed heartily and never lost his composure. Yet right now, he looked as if he had lost the entire world.
The branch manager let out a sigh so heavy it seemed to hollow out the ground.
The branch manager muttered with unfocused eyes.
Glen’s eyes bulged as if they would pop out.
It was an amount a common salary worker like Glen could never even dream of seeing in her entire lifetime.
‘I heard rumors that the family was going bankrupt, but I guess a noble is still a noble.’
The branch manager added in a dying voice.
Watching the gloomy branch manager, Glen quietly set the stack of documents on the table.
Creak. Clack.
As Glen left the manager’s office, the word the branch manager had uttered lingered in her mind.
‘…Rachel Mining?’
Her eyes shimmered with a mysterious light.
After leaving the bank, I headed to the territory’s transit station.
Golden Horse House
The wooden sign, weathered by time, looked exactly as I remembered. Although it was Allen’s memory, there was a veteran coachman here whom I knew well.
Ding.
I stepped inside and raised my voice.
At my call, a white-haired middle-aged man emerged from the office.
The station owner, Hudson. When I was young and traveled often, I frequently used the carriages here. I hadn’t seen him in the past few years while buried under debt, so meeting him again after so long felt warm.
D-Day was March 9th. One week later, the Magic Amplifier would be invented. From that moment on, all mining-related stocks would surge at once.
‘Because the components contain various minerals.’
The core material among them was Arcanium. Then the news of a massive Arcanium vein discovery in the Delos Mountains would break. At that point, Rachel Mining’s products would draw attention and its stock price would skyrocket.
‘Then every stock exchange across the land will turn into pure chaos.’
While others rushed in like moths to a flame, I would leisurely watch the bull run from the sidelines. That was why I had set such a tight schedule. I needed to reach the stock exchange within a week.
‘And buy three million gold worth of stock at the bottom.’
Hudson nodded.
The old man turned his head and shouted toward one of the rooms.
There was no answer.
The old man stormed into the room, fuming. Left awkwardly standing in the lobby, I offered a sheepish farewell.
Bullet loaded. Carriage reservation complete. I returned to the mansion with light steps.
