The Market Is Bound to Collapse
Jo Chung-sep looked around the spacious office, empty save for a few desks sitting forlornly in the middle of it, and spoke to Kim Seong-ho with an awkward expression.
"Director, don't you think we got an office that's a bit too large...? I still think something around ten pyeong would have been more than enough..."
Kim Seong-ho had stopped Jo Chung-sep when the man had been searching for a modest ten-pyeong office somewhere near Gangnam.
"It's fine. I bought the building anyway, so I simply handed over one of the remaining offices to you, CEO Jo. There's no need to worry about it."
Kim Seong-ho walked the length of the office and gazed out the window.
The one hundred million won he had entrusted to Jo Chung-sep had returned as a total of fifty-five billion.
From that sum, Kim Seong-ho had set aside only five billion, then taken out additional loans and purchased a building near Teheran-ro in Gangnam.
It was a seven-story building that had not been standing long, and he had arranged it so that Jo Chung-sep could open his new office there.
Jo Chung-sep surveyed the space—which looked to be well over seventy pyeong—and his expression grew even more awkward.
"Hearing myself called 'CEO' feels strange."
Kim Seong-ho turned from the window, looked at Jo Chung-sep, and smiled.
"You'll have to get used to the title of CEO. Just as I'm no longer a director, you're no longer an assistant manager."
At Kim Seong-ho's words—that they would have to start fresh in a new place—Jo Chung-sep steeled himself.
Someone believed in him this much; he could not betray that trust.
"Heh heh. How does it look, sir? Not bad, right?"
The real-estate agent rubbed his hands together beside Kim Seong-ho and smiled.
Seeing a man so young become a building owner, he was doing everything he could to make a good impression.
Kim Seong-ho nodded at the agent's words.
"I'll leave the building management to you from now on."
"Oh my, don't you worry about a thing—just leave it all to me. I'll handle everything so thoroughly that not a single complaint will ever come up."
Hearing that the entire management of the building would be entrusted to him, the real-estate agent grinned from ear to ear and boasted loudly.
Kim Seong-ho figured there would be no problems as long as Jo Chung-sep was in the building.
If the management ever grew lax, Jo Chung-sep would contact him directly.
Still smiling calmly at the agent who kept rubbing his hands, Kim Seong-ho made one more request.
"And if any other decent buildings come up around here, give me a call."
"You're... planning to buy more buildings?"
"If a good building comes up cheap, there's no reason not to buy it."
"Is that... really true?"
The real-estate agent's mouth fell open even wider.
From the first moment he had met Kim Seong-ho he had felt the man was a rare stroke of luck.
But he had never imagined someone with this kind of scale.
Not only was the man casually buying buildings worth over ten billion won, he already had plans to buy more. The agent resolved then and there that he must never let Kim Seong-ho slip away.
"Understood. The moment anything decent turns up nearby, you'll be the first person I call, sir."
"Then I'll leave it in your hands."
The real-estate agent repeated several more times that he would take care of everything himself and left the office first.
When Kim Seong-ho closed the door and returned to his seat, Jo Chung-sep asked him the same question the agent had asked.
"You're going to buy more buildings?"
The meaning behind the words, however, was entirely different.
After purchasing the current building, most of the remaining capital was already being committed to short positions on KOSPI futures. The question carried the weight of With what money?
Kim Seong-ho laughed lightly at Jo Chung-sep's words.
"I was just about to talk to you about that. Please, have a seat."
After inviting Jo Chung-sep to sit, Kim Seong-ho pulled over an empty chair, sat down in front of him, and spoke.
"How much have you accumulated so far?"
"Based on the KOSPI 200, I've been steadily building the position whenever it was above 100. So the amount currently held is..."
Jo Chung-sep slid a sheet of paper across the desk—figures tallied through yesterday—and continued.
"About twenty-seven billion won."
Kim Seong-ho examined the paper Jo Chung-sep had handed him, then looked up.
"Is there any way to move a little faster?"
"The amount is simply too large for that. No one dumps five hundred billion into futures all at once."
No matter how certain one might feel, no one poured five hundred billion won into a derivative product like futures.
At the very least they would hedge to reduce risk, yet Kim Seong-ho had placed every last won into a naked short position on futures with no hedge at all.
Jo Chung-sep still thought Kim Seong-ho was taking this gamble because he had already bought the building.
Even if he lost the entire five hundred billion, the building would remain, and compared with the original investment, five billion was hardly a small profit.
But contrary to Jo Chung-sep's assumptions, Kim Seong-ho was not gambling.
Stroking his chin, Kim Seong-ho spoke again.
"If you're using 100 as the baseline, what about lowering that line a little? Down to 95 or even 90?"
"Director!"
"I'm not a director anymore, so you can just call me Kim-hyung."
"How could I possibly do that? To me, once a director, always a director."
Jo Chung-sep insisted that it did not matter whether the title was still accurate, then immediately laid out the danger in the proposal Kim Seong-ho had just made.
"Director, if the index suddenly turns and starts rising, the account will melt in an instant."
With a serious face he explained why he had been accumulating only above 100.
"We have to prepare for the worst. We didn't even mix in options as a hedge. If the index goes the other way, there's nowhere left for us to lean. That's why I've been waiting for the best possible levels—above 100. Director."
Jo Chung-sep shifted his chair a little closer to Kim Seong-ho and continued.
"If you want to buy more buildings, wouldn't it be better to pull the remaining capital out now and buy with that? Just stop the short positions with the twenty-seven billion already invested."
That way, he argued, even if the worst happened they could still keep twenty-three billion. He tried to persuade Kim Seong-ho with every ounce of urgency he possessed.
The investment Kim Seong-ho was making was simply that dangerous.
Yet Kim Seong-ho saw it differently.
"No. What I want is to deploy the rest of the money as quickly as possible and lock in every position. Even if we end up filling at slightly worse prices, once enough time passes even those bad prices will look good."
"Director, why the rush? I don't understand. I didn't want to say this, but..."
Jo Chung-sep hesitated, then forced the words out.
"If we go this naked, we become a target for every other participant. No—we've almost certainly already become one. The other investors might even join forces just to push the index higher so they can clean out your capital."
In any gambling den, once a mark walked in the other players tried to devour him, and right now the market's mark was Kim Seong-ho.
"Don't worry. That won't happen."
"Director, you can't be that optimistic—"
"No. It absolutely will not happen."
At the firmness in Kim Seong-ho's voice, Jo Chung-sep let out a long sigh.
"Haa..."
He drew another deep breath and spoke slowly.
"Director, I understand if your pride is hurt. But this is—"
"This has nothing to do with pride. Regardless of whether they try to clean me out or not, the market is bound to collapse."
"What? The market is going to collapse?"
Jo Chung-sep stared silently at Kim Seong-ho, who spoke with absolute certainty.
There was not a shred of doubt on the man's face; even asking What do you mean? felt difficult.
Kim Seong-ho spoke first to the stunned man in front of him.
"So please fill the positions as quickly as you can. We don't have much time left."
He glanced at the calendar still hanging on the wall—left behind by the previous tenant—and added,
"Less than two weeks remain."
At those words Jo Chung-sep could only nod. When the man even named the exact timeframe, the refusal stuck in his throat and refused to come out.
Seeing Jo Chung-sep's expression, Kim Seong-ho smiled lightly and rose from his seat.
Walking back toward the window, he said,
"There's no hurry with the buildings. Prices are already cheap enough, but they'll get even cheaper. When the time comes I'll buy them with the money we make from this."
Jo Chung-sep turned and stared at Kim Seong-ho's back with a look of pure disbelief.
From the assumption that the futures short would never lose money, all the way to the plan of buying buildings with the profits—there was not a single sentence Jo Chung-sep could accept.
Yet to Kim Seong-ho, who had already lived through the years ahead, the prices of buildings in Gangnam were destined to fall even further, and he knew exactly which event would cause it.
Thinking of everything that was about to unfold, Kim Seong-ho gazed out the window at the buildings along Teheran-ro with a look of pure enjoyment.
"Hello?"
Kim Seong-ho took the receiver Lee Gyeong-eun handed him.
Jo Chung-sep's voice came through the line.
"Director, it's Jo Chung-sep."
"How did it go?"
Kim Seong-ho asked the question and smiled at Lee Gyeong-eun, who stood opposite him.
A moment later Jo Chung-sep delivered the news Kim Seong-ho had been waiting for.
"We've filled the entire short position. Twenty-one thousand two hundred contracts in total."
"You've done well."
"Director... there's something else."
Just as Kim Seong-ho, having heard the answer he wanted, was about to thank him and hang up, Jo Chung-sep continued.
He then relayed a rumor currently circulating in the market.
"There's a rumor going around about Dubo Steel."
"A rumor?"
He asked as if he had never heard of it, yet a deep smile was already forming at the corners of Kim Seong-ho's mouth.
Unaware of that fact, Jo Chung-sep continued in a grave voice.
"Word is that the Dubo Group is in serious financial trouble, and Dubo Steel is right at the center of it. From what I'm hearing, people are even saying Dubo Steel might go bankrupt before long."
"I see."
"Didn't you say the Ilhyeon Group had invested in Dubo Steel?"
"That's right."
"I heard it was three hundred billion won... If anything goes wrong..."
Fearing he might be talking nonsense, Jo Chung-sep abruptly cut himself off.
Kim Seong-ho merely laughed lightly and replied,
"Understood. If any other news reaches you, let me know."
Realizing that Kim Seong-ho's voice held not the slightest trace of panic, Jo Chung-sep said nothing further about Dubo Steel.
He simply promised, as requested, that he would call if anything else came up, and ended the conversation.
Confirming the line was dead, Kim Seong-ho set the receiver back on the cradle.
Lee Gyeong-eun, who had waited in front of him the entire time, asked with open curiosity,
"What was the call about?"
"It was CEO Jo."
"I was the one who answered and handed it to you. Of course I know it was CEO Jo from Future Asset. That's not what I'm asking."
On the day they had decided on the name Future Asset, Kim Seong-ho had taken Lee Gyeong-eun to the building and introduced her to Jo Chung-sep.
So she already knew exactly who the man was.
Lee Gyeong-eun gave him a look that said, You know perfectly well what I'm curious about, then stepped closer and linked her arm through his.
"From what I could hear on this side, it sounded like good news. Tell me a little. What did he say that made you smile like that?"
Seeing the expression on Kim Seong-ho's face, she had instantly recognized that whatever Jo Chung-sep had called about was pleasant.
"Hahaha, nothing special. Just that we'd finished investing the money sitting in my account."
"Come on, that can't be all. When you were about to hang up, CEO Jo said something more, and after hearing it you grinned just like this."
She mimicked the way the corners of his mouth had lifted and looked up at him.
She was confident that if she used her charm, Kim Seong-ho would tell her even if the secret could bring the world down.
Yet the reason would reach her not from Kim Seong-ho's lips, but from somewhere else entirely.
"Huh? Chief of Staff, didn't you already leave for the day?"
Seeing Hwang Do-beom, who had already gone home, re-enter the house, Lee Gyeong-eun looked puzzled and asked.
"Something urgent came up, so I returned. The Chairman will call for you shortly—don't go upstairs. Wait in the living room for a moment."
"Father is calling for us? Why?"
At her question, Hwang Do-beom, already heading inside, paused for a second and stood still.
His lips moved as if he intended to explain, then he simply turned his head and said,
"You'll hear it from the Chairman soon enough. He'll call for you any minute, so just stay down here and don't go up to the second floor."
With that, Hwang Do-beom strode quickly toward the study where Lee Tak-hyeon waited.
Lee Gyeong-eun tilted her head and looked back at Kim Seong-ho.
Somehow she felt he already knew the reason.
And she was right—Kim Seong-ho knew exactly why Hwang Do-beom, who had already left for the day, had returned.
Looks like the rumor CEO Jo heard has become reality.
As Kim Seong-ho simply stared toward the study without a word, Lee Gyeong-eun opened her mouth to ask—only to find she could not.
Lee Tak-hyeon's roar exploded from the study with such force that the roof of the Pyeongchang-dong house seemed to shake.