First Investment
"So this is what a day like this feels like."
Siyun muttered flatly to himself.
6.6 billion won. It was an amount he could barely believe.
Things had gotten somewhat better since joining Hansan Securities, but everything before that had been nothing short of hell.
Enduring childhood alone was no easy feat. With food and even a place to sleep to worry about, he'd never had the luxury of devoting himself entirely to his studies.
By some stroke of luck, he'd made it into a business school in Seoul.
Student loans had carried him safely through to graduation, but covering living expenses meant he could never take a break from part-time work.
First thing's first—I need to pay off the loan.
Until the inheritance came through, Siyun's one and only goal had been money. Having lived with so little for so long, he'd set his sights on the profession that earned the most, and the choice he'd landed on was stock trader at a securities firm.
In college, he'd placed in a mock investment competition hosted by Hansan Securities not once but twice. Afterward, he'd kept his instincts sharp with small-scale stock and cryptocurrency trades.
He'd been confident in his investing ability—which was exactly why he'd never imagined he'd end up working in a warehouse like this.
"Life's a real comedian."
The moment he got the boot from the company, a maternal grandfather he'd never even laid eyes on left him an inheritance. And not in cash, either—in Bitcoin.
The plan had gone a little off the rails.
He'd intended to grow his money by investing his salary from the company. Now there was no need to scrape anything together. The seed capital was already firmly in his hands.
"More importantly, for now..."
The work in front of him had to come first.
He had barely enough time to finish the morning deliveries.
Siyun hurriedly pushed his cart out of the warehouse.
By the time the deliveries were done, his back was drenched in sweat.
What am I even doing right now?
He'd joined this company to become a trader, and now his primary job was running packages around. Even to himself, the absurdity was staggering.
With the morning deliveries complete, he was heading for the freight elevator when someone came running up, out of breath.
"Excuse me!"
One look told him who it was—Assistant Manager Min So-hee.
Iced Americanos clutched in both hands, she was catching her breath.
"Hah. Ha... Why do you walk so fast?"
"Sorry?"
"I've been chasing you since the far end of the hallway. I could not keep up."
"Really? I didn't even know you were following me. But... is something the matter?"
"This. Come have coffee with me."
She waved the coffee with a bright smile.
When they reached the shared break room, Min So-hee handed one over.
"Thank you."
"It's rough, isn't it? The work?"
At twenty-six, she was a year younger than Siyun yet outranked him. She'd made Assistant Manager in just two years—an unusually fast promotion. Her personality was gentle and unassuming, but when it came to work, she was utterly fearless.
"I'm fine."
Siyun answered without a flicker of expression.
Yet Min So-hee's face was strangely animated, practically buzzing.
"Really? I heard warehouse duty is a one-man operation. You're not falling behind or anything? No overtime or anything like that over there?"
She asked with wide, round eyes.
Her curious face was as bright as a child's.
"No overtime. Nothing particularly hard about it, either."
"Then why is your forehead dripping with sweat? You're usually like a robot. Wow~ now that I think about it, I didn't know you had a human side like this."
Siyun wiped his forehead with his sleeve and tilted his head. Min So-hee's energy was unusually high today—something told him there was news of some kind behind it.
"Something happened, didn't it?"
His question hit the mark; Min So-hee flinched in surprise.
"Work? Well, it's just..."
"What is it? Don't tell me Manager Kim is coming back?"
"!!!"
Min So-hee visibly jolted.
She gave an awkward laugh, then laid the truth bare.
"Actually... it's been decided he's taking two weeks of unpaid leave. The Sanil Chemical and LT Industries M&A news was already floating around on the internet, so it's ambiguous whether it counts as insider trading."
"Manager Kim started buying up LT Industries shares before any of that hit the internet. He was even planning to bring in outside capital."
"That's..."
She knew it too, of course.
She understood exactly how things had come to this.
Audit teams may nominally be independent, but in practice they were anything but. They could hardly be expected to lead the charge on something that would hurt the company.
If this matter were reported to the Financial Supervisory Service, it could blow up into a criminal case—which was no doubt why the decision had been made to bury it internally.
"It doesn't matter."
"Sorry?"
Min So-hee, whose head had been sinking, looked up at Siyun.
"What I wanted was never Manager Kim's punishment. I found out he was doing something wrong, but as a new hire, there was no way I could have stopped him myself. The only thing I could do was report it to the audit team. And thankfully, the situation didn't get any worse. If that's the case, then it worked out."
"Siyun..."
Min So-hee had absolutely no idea what was going through his expressionless face.
Is he really okay with this? He tried to stop the corruption, and ended up being the one who got hurt for it?
Siyun drained the rest of his coffee, stood, and gave Min So-hee a small bow as he gripped the handle of his cart.
"Thanks for the coffee."
A week later.
Siyun had fully adapted to inventory management and deliveries. You'd never guess his hands had ever touched a keyboard for anything else.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
"Morning deliveries all done... low stock re-ordered... report sent to General Affairs..."
He glanced at the clock. 11:30 a.m.
He'd cleared the backlog of orders and still had time to spare. They did say humans were creatures of adaptation—sometimes he almost suspected he had a talent for this job.
Inventory staff didn't have set break times. On paper it was an hour and a half, but in practice, any time left over once the work was done counted as break time.
Certainly, when things got busy, it was a mad scramble—but there were easy days like today, too.
Siyun pulled out his laptop.
He searched for real estate on a portal site and began combing through listings.
Where he lived now was a one-room studio in Singil-dong.
5 million won deposit, 400,000 won a month.
He intended to move.
He had no idea how long he'd keep working here, so he'd decided to look near Yeouinaru Station, close to Hansan Securities.
"Hmm..."
He skipped right past the jeonse listings.
Jeonse scams were rampant these days, after all.
He also put off buying an apartment or house for later. He had assets worth 6 billion won, but with prices as inflated as they were, the timing wasn't right for a purchase. It wouldn't be too late to buy after he'd grown his money further.
And then one listing caught his eye.
16 pyeong of floor space.
A ten-minute walk to Hangang Park.
An officetel with a view of the Han River from the living room.
"10 million won deposit and 2.2 million a month?"
In the past, it would have been too expensive to even glance at.
But now, it was no burden at all.
He'd bounced between goshiwons and tiny studios since high school, so a 16-pyeong officetel might as well have been a royal palace to Siyun. Without a moment's hesitation, he called the realtor.
"Hello, this is Yeoui Real Estate."
"I'm calling about an officetel listing."
"Which one did you have in mind?"
"The fifteenth floor of Hangang Pine Land. Is it still under contract?"
"Not at all. You're welcome to come see it anytime."
"Then let's say I'll visit tomorrow."
Tomorrow happened to be a Saturday.
He agreed to meet the agent and hung up.
"A Han River view officetel, huh..."
Even as the words left his mouth, Siyun tilted his head as if he still couldn't believe it.
Back in the warehouse after lunch.
The place had come to feel as comfortable as home.
Siyun spread out his laptop in the cramped office and logged into the crypto exchange site.
There was important work left to do.
He needed to liquidate some of his Bitcoin.
He had to come up with the down payment for the real estate contract, and he intended to start investing in earnest as well. Once on the site, he transferred the coins from his personal wallet to the exchange.
Click.
Of his fifty Bitcoin, exactly half were up for sale—he'd decided to sell twenty-five.
The order type: market price.
The twenty-five Bitcoin sold instantly, and the proceeds landed in his exchange account.
Withdrawable Balance: ₩3,354,210,000
3.35 billion won.
He withdrew everything to his bank account, then moved 1 billion of it into his stock account. There was a stock he'd been keeping an eye on for years.
An AI development company that had gone public earlier this year.
The stock price was at rock bottom now, but his judgment said it was about to take off.
Click. Click.
"Your buy order has been executed."
With that automated voice, the purchase record for Brain Systems appeared in his stock account.
Stock: Brain Systems
Buy Price: ₩5,210
Shares Purchased: 191,920
Total Value: ₩999,903,200
It was his first investment since inheriting the Bitcoin from his maternal grandfather.
Securities firm employees' personal stock trading was monitored rigorously by the company. Dealers and brokers in particular had to go through a cumbersome pre-approval process before making any trade.
But Siyun was in General Affairs.
Demotion had its perks.
When it came to private trading, there was a definite advantage to his position.
For just a moment, he looked away from the screen.
And the account on his laptop display was already rippling upward.
Current Price: ₩5,370
Total Return: +3.07%
Total Profit: +₩30,707,200
Five minutes after buying in, and he was already up three percent.
Thirty million won in profit.
Not a bad feeling at all.
"Alright. Let's go."
With those words, Siyun closed his laptop.