Chapter 60
Chapter 60
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: Korea
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"Phew... Listing on the New York Stock Exchange? Savior's growth is truly unbelievable."
"If I said it was just luck, that'd be too much false modesty."
Rogers faced the white man sitting across from him.
John Carmack.
The founder of id Software and the developer behind Demon Slayer, currently hailed as the father of FPS games.
'This guy's just had bad business luck. His talent is on par with Huck... well, maybe not quite, but he's still a monster.'
Rogers had never been much of a gamer originally, but since joining Savior, he'd started playing other games here and there to see if they might help with his work.
Among them, id Software's Deadzone Survival 3D and the Demon Slayer series had left a particularly strong impression.
'If Huck made an FPS game, would it be something like this?'
For games that pioneered the genre, their underlying structure felt so perfectly designed that it was intuitively hard to imagine making anything better. That's how Rogers felt.
"We're grateful you came to id Software from Savior today, but we're not looking to sell the company."
"Pardon?"
"We've already gotten acquisition offers from other places, but we still have plenty of runway left."
Rogers was taken aback by John Carmack, who stared at him with resolute eyes as he spoke.
'Did they schedule this meeting without even explaining properly?'
Rogers hadn't skipped today's listing ceremony to come to id Software for an acquisition. That wasn't the reason at all.
"I think there might be a misunderstanding. Savior isn't here to make an acquisition offer for id Software."
"Then what brings you...?"
"We're here because we want to publish id Software's games."
John Carmack's face now showed his own surprise at Rogers' words.
"Uh... um... I'm sure Savior knows this, but our games are already under contract with publishers. And you want to publish them?"
"To be precise, we want to port id Software's games to our platform and release them there."
"Savior's platform? Don't tell me Savior is entering the console business?!"
Rogers raised a hand to calm Carmack, whose eyes had widened in shock at his words.
"More precisely, it's a handheld gaming device."
"A handheld? Like Nendo's Game Boy?"
"Yes, though it's a gaming device with performance that doesn't even compare to the Game Boy."
Rogers recalled what Seon Woo-hyuk had told him when assigning him to negotiate with game companies.
—From here on out, Savior will start with handheld gaming devices and seriously enter the console market. To do that, we need to gather as many third-party developers as possible.
'Was that two years ago?'
Rogers remembered Seon Woo-hyuk talking about future plans back at the old Savior headquarters—before he left. There had been talk of consoles even then.
Of course, back then he'd thought it was too risky and outlandish, but things were different now.
'Huck, you madman—you're actually building that foundation step by step.'
The console hardware team, formed from that time onward, had completed prototype designs for a console that far surpassed the performance of Uni's GameStation Pro.
—This is the design for the console-exclusive CPU we made this time. It's still a draft and needs refinement, but it should be fine for building a prototype.
It was all thanks to Seon Woo-hyuk's monstrous talent.
If anyone who studied computer engineering could design a CPU, every CPU design firm in the world would be bankrupt. And he'd even dropped out midway, so he hadn't even finished properly.
Yet Seon Woo-hyuk's talent went beyond mere programming into CPU design itself—something Rogers simply couldn't comprehend.
'Never thought I'd feel stupid someday.'
Rogers was embarrassed to admit it himself, but he'd never met anyone smarter than him growing up.
Not until Seon Woo-hyuk moved in next door.
After meeting him in middle school, Rogers shed his arrogance and complacency.
Thinking you were superior while hanging out with a kid who debated papers with professors as a middle schooler? That would've been idiotic.
But after enrolling at Caltech alongside Seon Woo-hyuk, Rogers realized something else.
By normal standards, he was a genius.
It was just that the guy next to him was an incomprehensible existence beyond "genius" or even "monster."
"Seriously... we can sign this deal with that signing bonus and royalty rate?"
Rogers snapped out of reminiscing about the past at the sound of John Carmack's voice, trembling as he held the contract draft Rogers had given him.
"Of course. As you know, Savior isn't so hard up for cash that we'd joke around with deals like this."
"But... the existing publisher contracts..."
"id Software's deals with publishers are only for PC packages. Releasing separate packages exclusively for Savior's handheld doesn't violate those contracts, so no need to worry..."
"Then I'll sign the contract right now!"
Rogers had to work hard to calm Carmack down before he could even finish speaking, as the man grabbed a pen to sign.
"What a fascinating country."
Scarlett murmured to herself softly, the only one left in the 48th-floor executive suite of the Preston Building late at night, long after the other employees had gone home.
The desk in front of her was piled high with documents—all about various companies.
Not just any companies, but ones from a specific country. Scarlett had gone to great lengths to obtain them.
"Sambo Computer... Yeah, they've definitely got all the factories and equipment we need."
And that country was none other than South Korea.
Apart from it being CEO Seon Woo-hyuk's homeland, Scarlett hadn't known much about Korea. But the more she reviewed the documents, the more intrigued she became.
Honestly, her prior knowledge of Korea was limited to it being the site of a major war long ago.
Of course, it wasn't that she disliked Korea or anything.
'It just wasn't important.'
As a Harvard business major, Scarlett knew full well that Asia would become a market as vital as—or more than—North America in the 21st century.
But when studying Asia, business students focused on China and Japan, rarely delving into Korea sandwiched between them.
It was a matter of prioritization.
But now, Scarlett found herself regretting not studying Korea more in college.
She could hardly hide her amazement while reviewing the files, wondering how this small country had so many companies with impressive tech capabilities.
—Please prioritize reviewing the companies on the list I sent, then calculate the acquisition costs. We can't take them all, but I plan to cherry-pick the best ones.
After Savior's IPO, the first task CEO Seon Woo-hyuk assigned Scarlett was to ruthlessly carve up Korean companies.
'Huck's not right in the head either.'
Scarlett had some patriotism to speak of, but Seon Woo-hyuk's plan to scoop up distressed companies on the cheap amid his home country's economic crisis was downright ruthless.
—Better we eat them up than let someone else get fat off them.
It wasn't wrong, but it wasn't a normal person's line of thinking either.
'What makes Huck so cutthroat?'
Scarlett recalled first meeting Seon Woo-hyuk.
She'd known from the start he was no ordinary man, but to her, he acted with bold confidence as if he could see the future—yet also seemed obsessively driven, like something was chasing him.
And now he was arguably the richest guy in his twenties in America.
A normal person would bask in their success, enjoy their wealth, or at least take a break.
But Seon Woo-hyuk charged ahead like a racehorse with blinders on. Scarlett could sense there was something he wasn't telling her.
"The factory site can be anywhere, but the R&D center has to be in Pangyo, right?"
But such secrets didn't matter much to Scarlett.
She wasn't one to revel in wealth or celebrate success—she craved even bigger triumphs.
Even now, dissecting the companies Seon Woo-hyuk mentioned like a surgeon, imagining how to lowball and acquire them, kept her happy without sleep.
Especially Daewoo, the company currently catching her eye—it was a ticking time bomb ready to blow any moment.
'These lunatics are definitely cooking the books. So why is the Korean government letting it slide?'
From analysts at Goldman Sachs—her info source—who specialized in Asian firms, she'd learned Daewoo was an inflated bomb with no chance of recovery.
Whether the Korean government hadn't figured it out yet or was turning a blind eye, Scarlett had no choice but to get clever.
'Even if left alone, it'll last a year at best, two at worst. But since our CEO's in such a hurry, I'll give it a nudge.'
Scarlett planned to team up with U.S. investment banks she'd connected with post-IPO to forcibly leak info on Daewoo Group to the world.
That meant Savior wouldn't get to swallow Daewoo whole—they'd have to share with others.
But that was fine.
All Savior wanted was Daewoo's electronics division anyway.
Of course, this wouldn't fly if Korea were stable.
What country would allow foreign capital to trash-talk a domestic firm, dismantle it, and divvy up the pieces?
But Korea could right now.
'Turn Korea into the Savior Republic? No wonder working here is so damn fun.'
The South Korean government, reeling from the IMF crisis, had no choice but to welcome foreign capital.
Korea's famously closed financial markets were desperately negotiating with the IMF for bailout funds, on the verge of allowing foreign investment.
And Savior had finished preparing to enter Korea using the capital raised from its IPO.