The Storm We Cannot Stop

September 7th. Late at night.

I sat at my desk, staring hard at the computer screen.

"...These guys are way too good."

Chin propped on my hand, I glared at the monitor. Our team was holding its own, to be fair. Zenith Games had been rocketing day after day, exactly as expected, swelling our account; Min-jae's Hyunbo Computer had found its floor and staged a clean rebound; and Han Jae-yi's defensive stocks were pulling their weight too.

An 8 percent return in a single week. For an ordinary fund, that would be a full year's harvest.

'The problem is those bastards in first place.'

LimitUpChasers. Exactly what the name promised — a pack of lunatics. Financial statements, corporate value, none of it registered with them. They were beasts who watched nothing but the news and dumped one hundred percent of their seed money into whatever theme stock was hottest that day. They'd lucked into riding the biotech wave, and just two days ago they'd struck gold again with stem-cell stocks.

'At this rate, the gap only widens.'

The game stock sector we'd ridden had peaked. The news of Kingdom 2's successful paid launch was already fully priced in. Starting tomorrow, profit-taking sell orders would come pouring in — in other words, the momentum was dying.

"We have to rotate."

Tomorrow, September 8th. The last trading day before the Chuseok holiday. Once tomorrow's market closed, four straight days of holiday would begin.

'And then Maemi will come.'

I pulled up a news window. On the weather service's forecast page, Typhoon Maemi's projected path glowed on the map — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still out over the sea near Okinawa, Japan. The media was reporting only that it "could develop into a large typhoon."

People didn't know yet that this vortex had already locked its crosshairs on the Korean Peninsula, just days away.

'...Ha.'

A corner of my chest grew heavy. Maemi's wounds were far too deep to simply celebrate this as a money-making opportunity. The giant cranes at Busan Port bending like taffy, the coastal cities drowning in brown floodwater — the horrific scenes played behind my eyes. Countless people would be displaced, and lives that couldn't be spared would be lost.

'Knowing doesn't mean I can stop it.'

I wasn't Superman. No one could stop a natural disaster. It was a bitter pill, but the survivors had to go on living — and I was in a position where I absolutely had to find opportunity even inside this catastrophe.

Sentiment, brief. Judgment, cold.

'The scenario is clear.'

Breaking-news banners would plaster the airwaves twenty-four hours a day for the entire holiday. And then Monday, September 15th, the day the market reopened. The market would be paralyzed with fear and tumble hard — but typhoon-related stocks alone would open with a gap up. Which meant if we didn't buy in advance tomorrow, there'd be nothing left to buy no matter how badly we wanted it.

'I have to convince Han Jae-yi to sell all of our Zenith Games and move that money into typhoon theme stocks.'

The question was what to buy. Rolling my mouse, I sorted through the candidate sectors. Reconstruction, or waste management?

'Most people think reconstruction first.'

Buildings collapse, so you need cement and construction machinery — stocks like Ssangseong Cement or Seonjin Construction. But there was a catch: they were too heavy. To retake first place in a high school tournament, we needed a nimble stock that could hit the daily limit, a clean 15 percent in one day, and construction stocks were too fat in the rear to manage more than 3 or 5 percent.

'Then waste management?'

Inseong E&T, Onntech — the companies that hauled away what a typhoon left behind. Definitely lighter than construction, with market caps small enough for speculators to toss around like toys.

'And yet something's still missing.'

I crossed my arms and sank deep into my chair, groping through the memories of my past life. September 2003, right after Maemi passed. The waste stocks had risen — that much was true. But were they the leaders? The stocks people went mad over, climbing day after day?

'No.'

Waste was obvious. Anyone could predict it, and the market reacts to the obvious without ever falling in love with it. The market loses its mind only when fear and survival are fused together. So what remained after the typhoon passed and the water drained away? Not just trash.

"...Right."

Rotting ground. Contaminated water. And the secondary disasters they spawned. What people truly feared was never the collapsed buildings — it was the calamity that came next.

'Ah!'

Lightning split through my mind. Yes — this was it. Not construction, not waste management. This was the real theme that had set the autumn of 2003 on fire.

"That's it. That's what it was."

A cold smile spread across my lips. Reconstruction? Waste? All wrong. This battle was going to be fought somewhere else entirely.

"Found it. Well then — shall I put in advance buy orders on my own account first?"

The day before the Chuseok holiday, the moment morning classes ended, we gathered in the clubroom.

"I like the vibe in here."

Han Jae-yi crossed her arms, looking satisfied. "That first-place team swaps out their holdings practically every day. Bio yesterday, some entertainment stock today, from what I heard. Keep that up and one wrong step sends them straight into the abyss."

"Exactly. We're stable, so even if we just dig in and hold, the top ranks are as good as ours."

Min-jae chimed in. Both of them looked perfectly content with the current portfolio.

Han Jae-yi turned to me. "Seon-woo, no problems, right? Let's rest our hands today and ride out the holiday on this portfolio as is. Once the market reopens after Chuseok, we'll read the situation and react then."

The safest choice. Heading into a holiday, the textbook play is to either cash out or carry your existing positions through.

But I shook my head. "No. We need to rebalance."

"Rebalance? You mean adjust the weights?"

"Past adjusting the weights. We need to swap out the stocks entirely." I took a long, deep breath and opened my mouth. "Let's sell all of our Zenith Games today."

"...What?"

Han Jae-yi's eyes went round. Beside her, Min-jae's jaw dropped.

"Are you out of your mind? Zenith is the one hauling our team's returns along by the collar. It's up another 3 percent right now — why on earth would we sell?"

"Yeah, Seon-woo. The forums are still full of people saying it's got more room to run..."

"That's exactly why we sell." I kept my voice flat and firm. "There's an old maxim in this business, isn't there? Leave while the applause is still going. This is precisely that moment."

"No — I'm asking for the reason. It's going to climb higher, so why get off now?"

Han Jae-yi's face said she couldn't accept it. Fair enough. Who wouldn't wince at being told to spit out a candy they were still sucking on?

"Sector rotation."

"Sector rotation?"

"Yes. Money in the market never pools in one place. The game stock theme has been leading this market for over a week now. It's about time the money that smells profit packed up to hunt new prey."

I drew a circle on the blackboard. "It's not that Zenith Games' or ND Games' business value got worse. But what pushes a price up is, in the end, money — supply and demand. When that money drains away, the price has no choice but to bleed."

"Then what's the next theme?" Han Jae-yi asked, arms crossed. "Is there even an alternative out there? Pharma and biotech have been running on fumes for ages, and construction's in the gutter."

I pulled the materials I'd prepared in advance from my bag and spread them across the table. A hundred words were worth less than one look.

"This."

Printed on the A4 sheet was a satellite image marked with a red arrow, beside a map of the Korean Peninsula.

"A typhoon?" Han Jae-yi's brow creased. "You want to sell game stocks over this?"

"Yes. As you can see, the path is anything but ordinary. There's a high probability it cuts straight across the Korean Peninsula during the Chuseok holiday — at record-breaking strength, at that."

I delivered it with grim conviction, but the reception was ice cold.

"You trust the weather service? Do you know they get it wrong every single time? Just last week they promised rain and all we got was blazing sun."

Min-jae nodded along. "He's right, Seon-woo. Even my dad assumes the forecast is backwards when he goes fishing. They've called typhoons that then fizzled out more than once or twice."

Just as I'd expected — they didn't believe me, and why would they? The Meteorological Administration's credibility was rock bottom in this era. The supercomputer hadn't even been introduced yet, so the forecasts wandered off target constantly. To these kids, Maemi was just another typhoon in the annual parade, one that would sprinkle a little rain and drift on by.

'Then again, nobody knows until they've lived through it.'

I swallowed a sigh. I could be certain, because I knew the future — but there was no way to prove my foresight to them. Which left exactly one option.

"You're right. The weather service does miss constantly. I know that." I conceded it easily. "Whether the typhoon comes or not, only the sky can say. But..."

I pointed at the monitor — the money-flow window of the HTS. "Money flow doesn't lie."

"Money flow?"

"Look at this. The foreign desk, which had been buying Zenith Games like lunatics for the past week — their buying snapped shut this morning." On the screen, the red bar graph of net buying stood frozen at today's date. "Meanwhile retail buying is exploding. What do you suppose that means?"

"...A changing of hands." Han Jae-yi murmured it half to herself.

"Exactly. The smart money is already slipping out the back, and the retail crowd that sprinted in late after reading the news is absorbing everything they dump. A textbook top signal. Typhoon or no typhoon, technically speaking, taking profit now is the correct move."

Silence.

Han Jae-yi stared holes into the monitor. She could shrug off a weather forecast; she couldn't shrug off the data sitting right in front of her. Her eyes were wavering.

Then Min-jae quietly raised ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his hand. "Noona."

"...Huh?"

"I'm with Seon-woo on this one."

"Min-jae, you too?"

"You're the one who taught us, Noona — investing isn't gambling, it's responding. Seon-woo even showed up with the data prepared. That doesn't sound like baseless talk to me."

Han Jae-yi shut her mouth for a long moment, at a loss. She couldn't very well argue with a junior quoting her own investment philosophy back at her. At last she let out a deep sigh and nodded.

"...Ha. Fine. You win, you win." She swiveled her chair around to face me. "You're right. That foreign money flow turning did bug me, if I'm honest. We've banked plenty already — better to pocket it than get greedy."

"Good call."

"Fine. Full liquidation of Zenith Games. So what are you doing with the money? Holding cash through the holiday?"

I shook my head. "No. We're buying the typhoon theme stock I mentioned."

"Hey, I just told you I don't trust the weather service."

"The weather service can be wrong — the market's fear never is. If the typhoon never comes, we lose nothing. If it does come, it's a jackpot. Think of it as an insurance premium."

Han Jae-yi wore the expression of someone who'd given up trying to reason with a madman, but she didn't push back again. "Fine. I did agree to trust you as one of our strikers, after all. So what's the stock? Construction? Waste management?"

"No."

I walked to the blackboard and wrote down a new name.

"Daejin Bio? That's a fertilizer company."

"To be precise, a company that makes fertilizer and veterinary pharmaceuticals."

"A typhoon is coming and you want fertilizer?" Han Jae-yi and Min-jae tilted their heads in perfect sync.

"When people hear 'typhoon beneficiary,' they all reach for the same two things — construction to rebuild the wreckage, waste management to clear the debris. That's one-dimensional thinking. Think in time lags instead." I kept my voice level as I laid it out. "The typhoon passes, the water drains away — what's left behind? Not just trash. Saturated soil, and germs."

"Oh..."

"Flooded farmland breeds swarms of pests and blight. Livestock face a rising risk of epidemic. So what's the very first thing the government does? Disinfection. They'll spray disinfectant across the region, and support fertilizer to bring the land back to life." I rapped my knuckles on the blackboard. "Anybody can haul garbage. Disinfectant and fertilizer are essentials. On top of that, this company's market cap is tiny — a modest push of demand and it flies. While the whole market stares at waste ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stocks, we'll be the ones who've already cornered fertilizer for disinfection and rural recovery."

Han Jae-yi stared blankly at the blackboard for a long moment — then burst out laughing. "What... what exactly is rattling around inside that head of yours?"

"Common sense and logic."

"Oh, your 'common sense.' Who on earth calls that stuff common?" Even as she shook her head, her hands were already flying across the keyboard. "You got me. I admit it. Buying Daejin Bio."

"Thank you."

Tap, tap-tap. The sound of orders being fired off filled the room as the cash from the Zenith Games liquidation flowed into Daejin Bio. I'd loaded my own account with Daejin Bio the night before, too — every last won of it.

"And... we're set."

Han Jae-yi slammed the Enter key and leaned back into her chair. "The dice are cast. Spend the holiday praying. Pray that, just this once, the weather service gets one right."

She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said it like a joke. I couldn't laugh. The forecast would be right this time — and the price of that accuracy would be horrific.

September 11th. The Chuseok holiday had begun, but the air in the Pyeongchang-dong living room was a world away from festival cheer.

On the TV screen, a weather reporter was shouting into the wind, staggering against the rain.

In the satellite image, the enormous vortex gaped open like a maw about to swallow the Korean Peninsula whole.

'So... the future hasn't changed.'

My hands clenched. Against everyone's complacent assumptions, Maemi was grinding north at historic strength. By tomorrow night it would make landfall on the Gyeongsang coast and scour away everything in its path.

"Aigoo, what are we going to do about that. I just hope the damage stays small..."

Mother murmured anxiously at the news screen. Seon-ah beside her looked frightened.

"Mom, look — the reporter keeps wobbling. It's scary."

"It'll be all right." Mother soothed her, but her own face was grim. The TV was already running footage of ships moored at the harbor being torn loose and swept away by the waves.

'I am not Superman.'

Even with the power to know the future, I couldn't stop a natural disaster. I couldn't bend that typhoon's track or still the wind and rain. Tomorrow, countless people would be displaced; someone, somewhere, would lose the ground they stood on. And I had finished preparing to make money off that disaster through stocks. Merciless, yes — but that was the physiology of capitalism.

'And yet...'

That didn't mean I could fold my hands and spectate. The bare minimum of duty — and whatever my power made possible on top of it. If I turned away from even that much, I'd be nothing more than a monster drunk on money.

"Mother."

"Hm? What is it, Seon-woo?"

I spoke without taking my eyes off the TV. "Busan looks like it's going to get hit hard. The news is calling it a once-in-a-generation storm — once it makes landfall, there'll be a flood of displaced people."

"I suppose so. That is worrying."

"And recovery crews will pour in from all over the country. Soldiers, police, firefighters."

I let the pause hang for a beat, then continued as though I'd only just decided. "What do you think about putting our Seonjin Resort Busan branch at their service?"

Mother's eyes went wide. "...I'm sorry?"

"As lodging for the recovery teams. Once the typhoon passes, they'll be soaked in mud with nowhere decent to sleep. They'll need somewhere with hot water and hot meals waiting."

Mother could only stare at me, words failing her. Seon-ah looked equally stunned.

"And nobody's going to book a vacation in a disaster zone anyway. If it's going to sit empty regardless..."

"You thought of all that, Oppa?"

"The news just... got me thinking." I added it with calculated nonchalance. "If this gets bad enough, the government offices will come requesting cooperation anyway. Better for us to step up and offer first than to hand it over grudgingly when they ask. It reads better for the group's image, too."

Even measured coldly, the ledger came out ahead. Before Father passed, the group had endured a string of investigations, and its image had never recovered. Mother taking the CEO's chair hadn't changed that. But threaded through that calculation, too, was a small debt of my own conscience.

"...Seon-woo."

Mother's expression shifted by slow degrees — from surprise, to quiet pride, to something thick in the throat. "You're right. It's a... a truly good idea."

She snatched up her phone at once. "Yes — I'll call the Busan branch manager right now. Tell him to clear the rooms if trouble comes and have the restaurant ready to run around the clock."

"Thank you, Mother."

As she stepped out to make the call, I sank deep into the sofa. The stone that had been pressing on a corner of my chest felt a shade lighter.

'I've done what I can.'

All that remained was to survive the coming storm and grow that power larger still — because only then could I protect far more of what mattered.