Chapter 17
Chapter 17: Yu Ji-a (1)
"Oh wow."
Baek Jin-woo's eyes went wide.
Holy shit!
Unbelievable!
"Why is everything so expensive?"
Browsing through Summoner Beast prices in the Marketplace gave him a bit of a reality check.
He had expected it, but it was even pricier than he'd imagined.
D-Rank stuff is dirt cheap, huh.
What is this.
Starting from C-Rank, each one costs as much as a compact car?
Swipe, swipe!
Baek Jin-woo scrolled down his phone screen, quickly absorbing the information.
The prices went roughly like this.
C-Rank averaged around 20 million won.
The good ones went for as high as 100 million.
B-Rank average?
Even more insane.
The average was around 200 million won, and the good ones exceeded 500 million.
A-Rank and above?
There were no listings at all.
Probably priced at whatever the seller felt like asking.
S-Rank was obviously nonexistent.
When he actually thought about it, prices like this were inevitable.
A B-Rank Summoner Beast could be obtained from a High-grade Summoning Scroll at a 1% chance.
That meant an expected value of 100 scrolls.
With each High-grade Summoning Scroll priced at 3 million won, 100 scrolls came out to exactly 300 million.
So with 300 million you could get one B-Rank and five C-Ranks……
That's how those bizarre prices came about.
"Ha."
Truly ridiculous.
In Battle of Summoners it hadn't been quite this bad.
There was clearly a gap between reality and the game.
He finally understood why someone of Park Chang-seok's caliber was making do with just 3 C-Rank Summoner Beasts, and why Baek A-jin had called her Shadow Elf an aristocrat.
I wonder what A-jin's would list for.
He tapped the magnifying glass icon at the top right of the Marketplace tab and typed in ‘Shadow Elf’.
[Shadow Elf (C-Rank)]
[42,000,000 won]
[Quantity: 8]
"Insane."
42 million?
Baek A-jin, this girl.
"She was way richer than me."
Baek Jin-woo's pitiful bank balance currently held only 6 million won.
But well.
He hadn't planned on spending that money anyway.
He had a separate source of income in mind.
"Ahem."
He closed the Player Web and searched through his contacts.
Park Chang-seok had said it.
Contact this number directly and he'll help you right away.
[Headquarters Staff—Hwang Tae-seop]
"This is who I need to pitch to."
Baek Jin-woo nodded and began writing something down.
It was a breakdown of the core units he needed to gather for the Weekly Dungeon going forward.
***
"Congressman."
Thud thud!
Hwang Tae-seop, having received Baek Jin-woo's text, immediately went to find Park Chang-seok.
"What."
"Player Baek Jin-woo has made a proposal."
"What?"
Park Chang-seok, who had been flipping through documents, shot to his feet.
A proposal meant—give us what we need and he'd hand over the information!
"What did he propose?"
His voice trembled.
This was the moment he'd been waiting for, so it was only natural.
"Just a moment, here it is."
Hwang Tae-seop rummaged through his phone and shared the contents of the received message.
It was a list of Summoner Beasts.
Beside each entry, the quantity and price were helpfully noted.
[Summoner Beast Purchase List]
1. Combat Marshal (C-Rank), 1 unit, 18,000,000 won.
2. Radiant Priest (C-Rank), 1 unit, 35,000,000 won.
3. Spotted Komodo (B-Rank), 1 unit, 150,000,000 won.
4. Wind Falcon (B-Rank), 1 unit, 300,000,000 won.
5. Titanium Golem (B-Rank), 1 unit, 300,000,000 won.
6. Horned Fairy (C-Rank), 1 unit, 50,000,000 won.
7. Frost Cat (C-Rank), 1 unit, 100,000,000 won.
8. Sky Dolphin (C-Rank), 1 unit, 10,000,000 won.
9. Sky Wyvern (B-Rank), 1 unit, 200,000,000 won.
10. Lava Drake (C-Rank), 3 units, 50,000,000 won each.
"What the hell is all this?"
"……Well, Player Baek Jin-woo is asking us to buy all of it. Not a single one excluded. At the lowest listed prices on the Marketplace, he says."
"What?"
Park Chang-seok was dumbfounded.
He was asking Headquarters to buy all of this?
How much did this even add up to?
Swipe.
Scanning the screen and doing the math quickly in his head, the total came to him almost immediately.
"……1,313,000,000 won?"
Good grief.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
If that were remotely feasible, would Park Chang-seok be stuck using C-Rank Summoner Beasts?
Headquarters' budget allocation was an extraordinarily strict process, with every won's usage scrutinized and challenged by each congressman.
Show even the slightest gap?
A story would run immediately and you'd become the nation's villain.
Obviously your congressional seat would be gone, and if it went badly you could end up in prison for embezzlement.
"This is beyond my authority……. And what information does he say he'll provide in exchange?"
"Similar to last time. He says he'll share his secret method for Time Attack on the Weekly Dungeons."
"Weekly Dungeon?"
Park Chang-seok's eyes lit up.
"He specifically said Weekly Dungeon? Not Monday Dungeon or Wednesday Dungeon?"
"Yes, he specifically said Weekly Dungeon."
"Hoooh."
If that were true, it would be enormous.
How the nation had gone wild when the domestic record for the Tuesday Dungeon was broken!
And now he was saying he could break records from Monday Dungeon all the way through Sunday Dungeon?
The entire nation of Korea would celebrate.
The problem is the money.
There was no way Headquarters would just hand over that budget.
They'd say to produce the information first and then the budget could follow.
But that wasn't the right approach.
What mattered most right now was the trust between Headquarters and Baek Jin-woo—faith!
He didn't want to disappoint Baek Jin-woo.
"For now, understood. I'll bring this to the Director."
Park Chang-seok tossed aside his documents.
It seemed he'd need to have a direct conversation.
***
The result?
A flat rejection.
"Argh, that old man sitting in his back room! Stupid geezer!"
Bang, bang!
Still unable to cool his temper, Park Chang-seok stormed around his office slamming his fists on desks.
"This is a real chance for Korea to make proper progress, why won't he approve it! Ha."
"Honestly, it was a bit of a stretch."
Yu Ji-a, watching him from the side, muttered to herself.
There was nothing to be done.
It was a government institution.
Even Headquarters could only invest in information once it was confirmed reliable.
What if Baek Jin-woo pocketed those Summoner Beasts and defected overseas or joined a gang?
That kind of accident couldn't be ruled out.
"……But is that information reliable?"
"It's reliable. I told you before. My read on people. It's reliable. Aaaargh! Damn it! This is why our country stays dead last!"
"……"
He wasn't wrong.
Didn't the rotten congressmen also play a part in Korea being a backwater in Summoning?
They weren't so different from regular politicians.
If every congressman were like Park Chang-seok, Korea would become a developed nation in no time.
Yu Ji-a thought, smiling bitterly.
Thump, thump!
Still fuming, Park Chang-seok continued stamping his feet hard against the floor.
"That Director. That bastard. I knew it ever since he started meeting with Lim Hee-su regularly. That man. He's taking money. A hundred percent."
"Congressman. There are ears around."
"In here? It's just you, me, and Byeong-jin. Who else?"
"Six ears is plenty."
"……What kind of terrifying thing is that to say?"
"Anyway, the Director said to bring evidence. Or show him the clear first, like last time, and make the request after?"
"That's what he said, sigh."
The problem was that Baek Jin-woo had stated the Time Attack would be impossible without those Summoner Beasts.
That was understandable.
It was the same logic as not being able to Time Attack the Tuesday Dungeon without the Spotted Komodo.
"For now, those Summoner Beasts need to be purchased with public funds somehow……"
"Right."
It was then that Yu Ji-a ran her tongue over her lips and clicked her mouth.
It was instinct.
The instinct felt only by someone with the blood of the nation's top conglomerate.
"If that information is real, isn't this genuinely huge?"
"Huge! Beyond huge, it's massive! Headquarters is just too stupid to see how massive it is!"
"Even from where I'm standing as a youngster, I can feel it's massive. Honestly, selling that information to Headquarters for a mere 1.3 billion……. That feels a bit off, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"Mmmm. More than a bit off, actually."
Yu Ji-a closed her eyes slightly.
Her mind began turning with sharp, rapid precision.
She was someone who had taken a sharply increased interest in Summoner Beasts—and specifically players—over the past 3 years.
"What is it, what are you saying."
Even as Park Chang-seok, the congressman, pressed her impatiently, Yu Ji-a focused, deep in thought.
Time passed.
"That money, you know."
"Yeah."
"What if I put it up instead?"
"……What?"
Park Chang-seok's eyes went wide.
What was she saying now?
***
Daeseong Group, Yu Ji-a.
The granddaughter who received the most love from her grandfather, Yu Byeong-cheon.
She did in fact hold a stake in the group and was in a position to participate in the battle for management rights.
Supporting her father with her shares meant it could become hers later on.
But.
She had no interest.
And she also disliked the sight of blood relatives tearing at each other's throats.
She simply held onto her shares for her father's sake and poured all her passion into being a player.
And.
Recently, a player had emerged who interested her more than anyone else.
That was Baek Jin-woo.
A mysterious first-year gamer.
A man who disliked drawing attention to himself, yet seemed to know quite a lot of information that didn't exist anywhere in Korea.
And he was no pushover either.
He even knew how to deal with the government.
He definitely smells like money.
She had inherited Yu Byeong-cheon's nose for money and it was absolutely impeccable.
The single business idea that surfaced in her mind was management—a solo management firm.
A support company dedicated solely to managing Baek Jin-woo.
Wasn't it the same as Headquarters' Talent Management Team?
No, it's completely different.
Frankly, from Yu Ji-a's perspective, Headquarters was a collection of idiots.
Idiots who couldn't grasp the value of information and had no concept of investment.
The value of the information Baek Jin-woo holds is at minimum in the tens of billions.
Being capable of Time Attacking meant the dungeons could be cycled through faster, and the value of that in the current moment would be astronomical.
And most businesses invest boldly where expected returns are high.
1.3 billion?
It was worth throwing at him even if she was fine losing it entirely.
Headquarters moved conservatively at times too, but only when the risk burden was too great.
And one more difference from the Talent Management Team.
A management firm distributes profits in proportion with the player.
In other words, a Win-Win relationship for both parties.
Once Baek Jin-woo got a taste of the money, he'd be more proactive about sharing information.
Instead of the current state of both sides cautiously feeling each other out, they'd become a complete team.
If she started this business.
She intended to give Park Chang-seok a stake as well.
Under the condition, of course, that Park Chang-seok not leave Headquarters.
The connection to Headquarters could also become a source of the management firm's strength.
He'd love it anyway.
Yu Ji-a smiled inwardly.
She could picture the bearded man laughing heartily—Ahahaha!—saying he was making money and being patriotic at the same time.
Back in the office.
"You're really saying you'll put that money up? 1,313,000,000 won? That much?"
Park Chang-seok, stunned, stared hard at Yu Ji-a.
It wasn't the look of a superior regarding a subordinate.
It was the look of someone gazing up at an untouchable heir to a fortune.
"Yes, but."
Having finished her deliberations, Yu Ji-a flicked her nails with a hint of tension.
"Before I put the money in, I'd like to meet him one more time."
"Who, Baek Jin-woo?"
"Yes."
Just because she'd thought it through didn't mean it would all come together.
The most important thing was Baek Jin-woo's own intentions.
Yu Ji-a intended to meet him once more.
Whether it was business, romance, education, or hiring—every human relationship came together only when both sides were a perfect fit.
Baek Jin-woo would judge Yu Ji-a, and Yu Ji-a would judge Baek Jin-woo.
"We'll talk details after that. For now, please excuse me for a moment."
Whoosh!
Yu Ji-a stood, straightened her clothes, and walked out of the office.