Seo Hyoju (2)
At Dad's question, I asked one of my own.
"Just how incredible does a proposal have to be for you to actually agonize over it?"
I knew my father's ambition. I hadn't, not really — but once we started working together, I saw exactly how badly he wanted the number-one seat in the industry.
Money, of course. It could simply have been the money. Honor or cash, it didn't matter: to get there, Gwangjin Distribution had to become number one, and the only way to do that was to keep putting the name in front of hunters, auction after auction. We weren't a department store that specialized in selling gear, so outside the auction floor there were precious few chances to make ourselves known to ordinary hunters, let alone to the guilds.
Guilds would pound the pavement looking for a cheap, decent distributor, sure. In the end, though, what mattered most for a hunter logistics firm in this market was the scale and the capital to put whatever someone needed into their hands the moment they needed it. On that front we could never beat Yoo Hyunjong, with a conglomerate sitting behind him as parent company. Everyone from second place down through tenth was thrashing just as hard against the same disadvantage.
Maybe that was why he was hesitating.
"They say we could end up a distribution company under Geumbit."
Not a flat come work beneath us, I figured. The terms hanging off the offer came close enough to amount to the same thing.
"A stable supplier matters, you know. They said they'd contract with us for nearly everything the Geumbit Guild needs to operate. We'd be supporting whatever the Geumbit Group requires on top of that."
It was an attractive offer. The success Dad wanted for his company didn't have the Geumbit Guild waiting at the end of the road, but if a giant like that were solidly absorbing our logistics along the way, we could reach the end far more steadily than we could now. And the important part was that we wouldn't be folding in as anybody's subsidiary. We'd supply the Geumbit Guild and still go on doing our work as a distributor besides. An exclusive supply contract with a name like that would buy us trust from other guilds in a hurry, and they'd come knocking just to open a line of trade.
The credibility we meant to build at auction, built instead on something steadier — the giant that was Geumbit. Looked at that way, it wasn't a bad deal. Even if the auction fell apart, hunters would only be mildly disappointed; if they needed something, they'd come looking regardless. Call it choosing the Geumbit Guild in place of the auction.
"Then what's the problem?"
From where I stood, there wasn't much to agonize over. Not if you looked only at the outcome. Raise our standing at this auction all we liked — whether we could reap more than what Geumbit was offering was anybody's guess.
"If we go that route, I may not be able to meet your price on most of what you bring in from here on, Suhyun."
"Ah."
A deal was a deal. The Geumbit Guild would never do business at a loss. From their side, what Gwangjin was moving was good product at a price they could live with, which was why they were dangling terms like these in the first place. Whether they'd keep matching the figures I quoted now, once rift-dimension goods kept coming in steady, was another question.
In the end Gwangjin Distribution would have no choice but to bend as far as it could toward whatever number Geumbit demanded — and then the whole thing would flip. They wouldn't be able to pay what I asked.
"I think the things you bring are only going to get bigger, and worth more. That's why I'm hesitating."
"Hm. Guess that makes me the bad guy, then."
"...Huh?"
Dad, who believed in me. Twenty-six years shut in my room, and after a few weeks he trusted me enough to walk away from the stable road. Paying faith like that back was the least a son could do.
"No, hold on—"
I left him wavering and stepped out of the room.
Seo Hyoju was midway through a cup of tea. I picked up the contract as I spoke.
I'd meant to tear the papers — a refusal nobody could mistake — but the moment I actually took in the two of us, face to face, I stalled. So I simply held the contract out to her instead.
She didn't look particularly surprised, or offended. She studied me with open curiosity.
"The son is the one declining?"
"Ah."
Does this look a little strange?
"It's the inheritance I'll be taking over once Father passes, so..."
"...Pfft."
"You crazy bastard!"
"Aigoo. I'm sorry."
Right. A person really does have to get out and live among other people. I'd thought I'd grown up — swept in looking sharp — and somehow turned a perfectly serious atmosphere into something deeply weird.
Seo Hyoju took her leave.
"Please don't take the offer too much to heart. I'm the one who made things rude in the first place. It was an attractive item, and one I needed badly enough that I wanted to mobilize everything the Geumbit Group could bring to bear. I won't hold this against you, and it will have absolutely no bearing on any future dealings. If it ever does, expose it on the spot."
That was the maturity of someone who, young as she was, already led the Geumbit Guild's Third Team. People assumed she'd been handed the seat for being Geumbit Group royalty. Meet her, though, and there was clearly a person under the name.
"Trying to wedge my way in through the tie with Gwangjin Distribution didn't work, so I'll have no choice but to give tomorrow's auction everything I have. I'll be sure to make today's rudeness right."
"Not at all. If anything, I'm sorry for turning down a good opportunity."
"Mr. Suhyun."
"Yes?"
Lingering like this in the narrow entryway was embarrassing enough that I was about to slip off toward my room when she called me back.
"Could I have your business card?"
"...Mine?"
"Yes. I'd really like to apologize properly for today."
"It's fine, though..."
"Oppa. Have you lost it? Hand it over, now."
"I don't even have a business card. What am I supposed to give her?"
"Then give her your number, hurry!"
I was a man, too. Also a twenty-six-year-old brat who hadn't lived much of anything. After that embarrassing scene, hearing that she meant to see me again left me oddly pricked. Mom and Dad were both watching, though, and I could always dodge her later with some vague excuse — so I gave her the number, and Seo Hyoju left.
The ruckus that had kicked off around eight didn't wrap until past ten.
"Haaah."
Tension finally gone, Dad sprawled across the sofa still in his suit, not even bothering to get the jacket properly off.
"Dad. You're really not going to regret this?"
Kim Sujeong asked. I was wondering the same thing.
"You two. Your dad just went all in on you. Keep doing exactly what you're doing, so we can sell for more than we'd have gotten out of Geumbit."
"Obviously. Dad. What we've got right now is honestly nothing. Just trust Oppa."
"As long as I don't drop dead, we can do it. Dad."
"...Should I just bring the leather jacket home? You want to wear it, Suhyun?"
"Just sell it for a fortune."
With that he didn't even wash. He changed clothes and was out cold.
"Did Hyoju unni text you?"
Kim Sujeong, already carrying on as if the woman were her own unni, wanted to know whether Seo Hyoju had been in touch.
"No. You think she grabbed my number because she likes me? She took it so she could hold the son hostage and squeeze Dad."
"Hmm... you think so? Yeah, fair. Why would someone like Hyoju unni go for someone like Oppa..."
"You picking fights again these days?"
"Ugh, I'm sleepy. I'm going to bed. Good night, Boss."
Kim Sujeong disappeared into her room, and Lee Jihyun followed her in as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Why doesn't she go home? Sleeping over at someone else's house...
And so the night before the auction slipped past.
On the way home, Seo Hyoju was smiling.
"Secretary Jang."
"Yes."
"There was an alchemist supplying potions to Gwangjin Distribution, you said."
"Yes. Active independently, as an A-rank alchemist."
"And the Recovery Herb? Herb of that grade can't have been easy to get in bulk."
"Nothing confirmed, but about two weeks ago a solo hunter briefly sold Recovery Herb in large quantities at Hangang Market, then vanished. I suspect that was it."
"Hmm. A solo hunter... Did you find out who?"
"All I heard was that he was a young man. Quite handsome — and that he drew a sword on the merchants trying to corner the stock and threatened them."
"Handsome, and completely off his rocker..."
Somehow, a person she had only just met came to mind.
"How fascinating."
"Ma'am?"
"Fascinating..."
She looked at the number she'd taken down, and the smile rose again.
"An interesting person."
Somehow she had the feeling she'd be seeing him often. The feeling that she was supposed to. It rose in her on instinct.
Her head for business was anything but ordinary, either. Her grandfather, chairman of the Geumbit Group, had told her she was born for it and ought to run the company — but Seo Hyoju liked being a hunter.
"I have to buy it. That leather top, tomorrow. How much have we prepared?"
"As you instructed. Twenty billion won in cash we can deploy immediately, and another forty billion in assets that can be liquidated on the spot."
The secretary didn't waste breath on anything so useless as whether they really needed to prepare that much.
That even an A+ leather armor piece, however expensive, generally never cleared ten billion won — Seo Hyoju knew that as well as anything the secretary had dug up. But this was a privilege she had never once used. If she was going so far as to draw on the group chairman's personal assets, she had a reason.
"I have to buy it. No matter what. Only if I buy this can I swing the next one in our favor, too."
Seo Hyoju was glad she'd visited Kim Gwangjin's home today.
By her usual standards, it had not been the household of some thoroughly modest hunter-logistics outfit. An apartment in a reasonable location, at a reasonable price — and inside it, an A-rank alchemist, and a son who rendered decisions without the slightest filter in place of a father who was, after all, the head of the company.
What if that son was the owner of the Recovery Herb no one could trace?
Then the A+ armor that had surfaced from nowhere might be tied to him as well.
In that light, the number she had saved today under the name Kim Suhyun might be an extraordinarily valuable catch. Worth more, even, than the humiliation of being shut down so coldly after the Geumbit Guild had offered a single company an exclusive contract.