What's the Manufacturing Cost of the Magic Additive?
"Kim Dae-ri, heading straight home today?"
"Why? You want to run from Monday morning or something?"
"What's the point of you going home early anyway? Let's just grab a quick dinner on the way."
"Sure, why not? I'd rather not draw the other teams' eyes, so how about around seven?"
"Okay."
Young-hoon had a casual drink of soju with Park Dae-ri at a samgyeopsal joint in front of the office. Lately, it seemed Hong Dae-ri had been piling stress onto Park Dae-ri as well. Young-hoon spent a good long while badmouthing Hong Dae-ri until the man's mood finally lifted.
After wrapping up the drinking session at a reasonable hour, Young-hoon got home and remembered his cousin-brother-in-law's request.
Maybe I should make a bigger batch this time — to repay my brother-in-law, and in case I need some later. Last time I only managed about five bottles, so I'll need to buy extra ingredients today. Hmm, are there any other effects it could have? Ah, whatever — too much of a hassle. I'll research that properly when I actually start the business. Now, what were the ingredients again?
Young-hoon pulled his notebook out of the desk drawer and went over the Magic Additive ingredients one more time.
"Let's aim for around twenty bottles this time. And I should try adding the Magic Additive to other kinds of wine, too."
He stopped by the mart and bought five bottles each of four different wines. He also bought exactly four times as many ingredients as last time, along with large sheets of paper for drawing a bigger magic circle.
Back home, Young-hoon first chopped the ingredients into fine pieces, tossed them into the blender, and ground them for a good while. Once the juice came out, he transferred it to a large bowl and drew the magic circle on the paper. Just like before, he set the bowl atop the glowing circle and waited about an hour, and sure enough, the circle's light faded away. In the bowl remained a considerably larger amount of clear liquid than last time.
"It said to add an appropriate amount, but with no exact standard to go by… well, that's another thing to research later. So what else should I be researching?"
True to his usual habit, Young-hoon carefully wrote out his research agenda in his notebook.
1) How large can the magic circle be drawn, at maximum?
2) Must the magic circle be drawn on paper only?
3) How long does a drawn magic circle remain active?
4) What other effects does the Magic Additive have?
5) What defines an "appropriate amount"?
6) What is the optimal amount for maximum effect?
7) Which type of alcohol produces the best results?
8) Does it work on all alcohol?
9) Where should Magic Additive Wine be stored for the best preservation of its effects?
Writing it all out, the tasks ahead looked like a mountain. For now, Young-hoon added an appropriate amount of Magic Additive to each bottle, produced twenty bottles of magic wine, and stored ten at room temperature and ten in the refrigerator.
"Hold on a second. How much should I charge when I sell this?"
In that moment, yet another of Young-hoon's strengths began to reveal itself.
"First off, how much were the materials again?"
1) 5 types of wine, 20 bottles: 50,000 won (avg. price) × 20 = 1,000,000 won
2) 3 types of mushrooms, 5 each: 10,000 won (avg. price) × 5 = 50,000 won
3) 3 types of fruit, 5 each: 5,000 won (avg. price) × 5 = 25,000 won
4) 5 types of vegetables, 5 each: 6,000 won (avg. price) × 5 = 30,000 won
Total: 1,105,000 won
Labor cost (magic circle drawing) = ?
"So excluding labor, the average purchase cost comes to 55,250 won per bottle. If I charge 500,000 won a bottle, that's a total of ten million won? Ha, getting rich is easy! Make just a thousand bottles a month and that's 500 million. Twelve months in a year, so 6 billion a year. Hmm, but would only a thousand bottles a month sell? If word gets around properly… now this is a mega-mega-MEGA jackpot."
Young-hoon drifted off to sleep on a cloud of delightful daydreams. It had been a blissful Monday.
Tuesday, October 31st. As the famous song lyric goes, it was the last day of October. Once again Young-hoon was first into the office, and he pulled out his work notebook to organize the day's schedule. As expected, the revenue closing and the closing dinner were today's main events.
The revenue closing was already 99% complete as of yesterday. Only about 50 million won remained to hit the target — all he had to do was confirm today's shipments and they were done. The dinner, however, was the problem. That bastard Hong Dae-ri rarely even bothered showing up to team dinners, yet he absolutely refused to eat at any cheap restaurant. The fact that Marketing Team 3's activity budget was in the red was entirely the fault of Cho Cha-jang and Hong Dae-ri.
One day, out of nowhere, the two of them had slapped a stack of corporate card receipts on Kim Jin-man, the team's admin officer. It was supposed to be the cost of a dinner with a dealership owner, but it came to over a million won. Since when do you take a dealership owner to a first-class hotel restaurant? The two of them had clearly stuffed themselves at some hotel and dumped the bill on the team.
Then again, would a guy with a diamond spoon like Hong Dae-ri really be short on cash? No. Cho Cha-jang probably picked up the tab. Either way, those two are just strange people.
While Young-hoon was lost in these rambling thoughts, everyone except Hong Dae-ri had arrived at the office. Park Dae-ri glanced around and leaned over to him.
"That bastard Hong Dae-ri. The guy who got bailed out yesterday is late again today."
"I know. There's just no fixing that guy."
"Why doesn't he just quit? It's not like he has any intention of actually working."
"Who can read his mind? We just have to shrug it off."
Work began, and only after nine-thirty did Hong Dae-ri saunter lazily into the office. Truly a man impossible to like.
Ten minutes later, Cho Cha-jang called the final closing meeting of October. Nothing special came of it — just the usual meeting. But perhaps looking to toot his own horn, Cho Cha-jang tossed out a casual remark.
"We hit our target this October thanks to Hong Dae-ri, so everyone, give him a round of applause."
Everyone clapped with perfunctory effort, their expressions baring their true feelings for all to see. The fact was, everyone knew Hong Dae-ri hadn't done a single thing properly. The mobile phone delivery had been a reward for the dumping he'd arranged at the electronics market — and even that was a sham delivery. The actual shipments had been handled by the team members excluding Hong Dae-ri. In a word, that bastard had done nothing but take a dump on the work.
Cho Cha-jang wasn't ignorant of this fact either. As the atmosphere turned frosty, Manager Kim hurried to break the ice.
"Team Leader, where should we hold the closing dinner today?"
"Manager Kim, how much is left in our team activity budget?"
"Currently we're 500,000 won in the red, but the bonus coming in this month is 4.5 million won."
"Then that puts us at plus 4 million won, right? Well, we earned this bonus thanks to Hong Dae-ri's stellar performance, so let's give him full authority over it. What do you think, Hong Dae-ri?"
"Well, like you said, Team Leader, we got the bonus this month because of me, so let's just do a proper spread at a hotel. I'd say budget about 500,000 won per person…"
"Is that so? Then let's do it Hong Dae-ri's way. Hong Dae-ri, handle the reservation for us."
"The InterContinental Hotel Restaurant should work. Around seven in the evening. Their steak is pretty decent."
"There, you all heard Hong Dae-ri. It'll take time to get from Yeouido to Gangnam, so let's leave around six. Everyone be ready early — don't be late."
"Understood."
"Alright, everyone go on out. Hong Dae-ri, stay behind a moment."
Once every team member except Hong Dae-ri had filed out of the conference room, Cho Cha-jang spoke up, ever so casually.
"Hong Dae-ri, how was your trip to Japan with your mother? Did you have a good time?"
"Oh come on, Team Leader. Traveling with my mom — how much fun could I possibly have? She's looking to acquire a hotel in Tokyo this time, so I just went along as part of the due diligence."
"Your mother is expanding into Japan now?"
"Tell me about it. At her age she should just rest at home — where does she get all this ambition…"
"She's doing it all to hand it down to you, Hong Dae-ri. Look on the bright side."
"With my older brother around, a hotel will be hard to come by. She'll probably give me a department store or two instead."
"Well, regardless, I'm counting on you, Hong Dae-ri. I'll be relying on you down the road."
"Don't worry. When I inherit the department store, I'll put you in charge of professional management, Team Leader. Honestly, what do I know about running a business?"
"Right. Even if it's just words, I appreciate it, Hong Dae-ri."
While this farce of a conversation unfolded in the conference room, Young-hoon and Park Dae-ri were venting their own spleen at their desks.
"Hey, Kim Dae-ri. Is Hong Dae-ri out of his damn mind? Since when does a team dinner mean 500,000 won a head at a first-class hotel restaurant?"
"Tell me about it. But honestly, watching Cho Cha-jang fawn all over him disgusts me more. What kind of team leader is that?"
"Ugh, so the bonus we worked ourselves to death for gets swallowed up in one meal."
"Just like they say — the bear does the tricks, and the Chinaman takes the money. We busted our asses cleaning up that bastard's mess, and he gets to take all the credit."
"Hey, Hong Dae-ri's coming out. Quick, pretend to work."
Despite it being the most important revenue-closing day of the year, Marketing Team 3, oddly enough, had nothing to do. The other teams, by contrast, were holding some meeting for so long that there wasn't the slightest sign of them coming out. In Young-hoon's judgment, the game was already over. They might as well be singing a victory hymn — but apparently that was easier said than done.
Just as his frustration knew no bounds, a KakaoTalk message flew in from Hye-in.