Share Frenzy
The public hearing had ended.
The bustling bustle of joining the imperial security force and the disciplinary action against me had vanished without a trace.
I heard the behind-the-scenes tale that the hearing committee members had been quite displeased with my long-winded speech (of course, it was words born from sincere feeling), but...
It did not matter.
*Good thing I took it easy.*
The feeling of the weight that had been piling up all this time finally lifted.
But I had not expected the aftershocks to be so intense.
- Inspector, do you know the whereabouts of Arandil Droten?
- Did you not discuss anything else with the chairman of the Imperial Privy Council?
- What is your relationship with Lord Therion?
The reporters' relentless questioning swarmed in.
Because the reporters had been sitting densely in front of the office like a spider web every single day, commuting was impossible.
- Inspector, it's me, Marian. I really can't come to work. The boss of the place where we go for lunch all the time is also going to die from the reporters.
Marian contacted me with a resigned voice.
But since I had already used up seven days of annual leave on sick leave, vacation was difficult, but instead...
"Want to drop by the chairman's office as a field trip?"
I suggested a paid leave disguised as an official trip.
Through the stone screen, Marian's puzzled expression appeared.
* * *
"Oh! The hero of the Gilorian Empire has arrived!"
Chairman Dmi-seon opened the door himself and greeted me cheerfully.
While Marian bowed to Chairman Dmi-seon, I slowly walked around the office.
Simple interior.
It was still an office that emphasized only work efficiency.
On one side, shareholders' compensation plans were densely written.
The share price crash had clearly been quite serious.
"Chairman, I'm sorry."
I knew that the chairman's company share price had fluctuated quite a bit because of my remarks that seemed to be attacking the company at the last press conference.
His cheeks were flushed.
A faint alcohol scent seemed to come from him.
"Well, the blood pressure rose, but the treatment medicine distribution helped make up for the damage, and we decided to issue more shares and distribute them to the shareholders. Thanks to that, happily, the share price has recovered."
The chairman spoke as if it were nothing.
It seemed he had decided on a free stock offering.
Normally it would be from the company's retained earnings, but in a situation like this where the stock price had crashed, it would have been difficult to do capital increase with company funds.
He was pretending outwardly that everything was fine, but it had clearly been no easy decision.
Clearly, the chairman had to empty his savings to secure the additional stock issuance volume.
I engraved the promise to repay this favor someday in my heart.
I sat in the empty seat where the chairman gestured.
"So, did you give the capital guard corps a generous reward for this matter?"
The chairman asked with a quite serious expression.
In truth, I had secured quite a lot thanks to the merit for solving the monster outbreak.
Therion had given me a trophy in front of everyone. I still did not know the performance in detail, but the power must be enormous.
On the way here, when a wild horse tried to trample me, the green light carved on the inside of my wrist enveloped my body and instantly calmed the horse.
On top of that, I had made a blood pact with the chairman of the Imperial Privy Council.
*Hah, now that I've made a blood pact with him, from now on all wild attacks on him will be completely crushed. But he should also be careful with his conduct, considering Master Arandil's name.*
A reliable older brother, no, a feeling of having connections.
But the commission had not been decided yet.
Because.
"It's still pending. The capital guard corps needs to organize a special budget."
He had called it a big favor.
While struggling alone and appearing on the press conference and then the hearing, my stomach had boiled over.
I thought I had to receive proper compensation, so I asked for one percent of the net profit from the treatment medicine.
Net profit after subtracting all kinds of costs from sales was not much, but the net profit rate of the treatment medicine was quite high.
There would be at least fifty billion crams coming to me with two million or more patients in this incident, even if it was one percent.
Bureau Chief Frida stayed silent for three minutes after hearing my words.
But I could not yield this time either. This had to be split with the chairman.
"Haha, you asked big. Well done, well done."
Even the businessman chairman Dmi-seon was satisfied with my explanation.
At that moment, a knock sounded from outside.
Knock, knock.
The door opened, and the secretary entered carrying three bottles of mineral water.
"Isn't this the trendy mineral water these days? It's water directly produced by elves from Aurelia Gorge."
The mineral water on the table looked refreshing at first glance.
The elves' unique exquisite design engraved on the bottle caught my eye.
"Chairman, isn't this Ibion?"
Marian happily grabbed the mineral water bottle.
"Right, a young person like you knows it well."
Now that I looked, this water seemed to be frequently seen in recent advertisements.
Because of the rare quantity, an article came to mind about it being preferentially supplied first to some prestigious private schools and high-end Silver Towns.
I opened the wooden lid and poured it into a glass cup.
And as I was about to drink it...
"How is it? Does it feel like the whole body is being purified?"
The chairman asked while leaning his body forward.
An expression full of curiosity like that of a child.
It was not even drunk yet...
*Was this guy always this cute?*
The chairman Dmi-seon I met in a private setting, not an event, always showed new sides.
Now that I looked, his toes in the slippers seemed to be wiggling...
Well, that was not important.
"Chairman, this is super special! It's like... the whole body feels light. It feels like the mind is also calming down!"
Marian's expression when she drank the water was full of joy as if she had experienced something special.
"That's right, that's it. The elves' pure natural recovery power was administered, so the inflammation in the body disappeared, and at the moment of drinking, fatigue was recovered."
The chairman, watching this scene with a pleased expression, looked at me with an expectant face.
*Hurry and say it.*
I brought the glass cup to my lips and gulped it down.
And when I put the cup down, the chairman and Marian looked at me with sparkling eyes.
I carefully parted my lips and said.
"Mmm... It's refreshing, but?"
The chairman looked at me with a disappointed expression and asked again.
"...Is that all?"
Marian also chimed in.
"Inspector, isn't there a more creative way to express it?"
Between the chairman and Marian, who were disappointed and blaming me, I was being pushed into a corner.
But I could not find any special point in this water.
If I had to find one.
"The water bottle looks very high-end."
"..."
"Hmm... Should I sell the shares?"
The chairman muttered to himself with a gloomy gaze.
He folded his arms and tapped his own arm with his fingers while muttering something.
If it was such a symptom, it was clearly...
"Chairman, did you buy Ibion stock?"
He had bet his own money.
"I sold one of my villas to secure the additional stock issuance. Isn't that loss something that needs to be made up!"
The chairman spoke as if spilling the beans while emitting an alcohol scent.
* * *
It was the time when I had just been hired as the rookie prosecutor in South Korea.
South Korea was in the midst of a stock investment boom.
You and I scraped the money in our bank accounts, and the daring ones even borrowed on credit, and we all rushed toward the dream of asset growth by buying and selling stocks.
The popular phrase that came out then.
When the stock price was soaring,
We all shouted "Gazaa!",
When the stock price was struggling at the bottom and falling underground,
We shouted "Yeong. Cha. Yeong. Cha." and encouraged each other.
From newborn babies to seniors in their forties, the era when everyone opened stock accounts.
I did not ride the wave but stubbornly devoted myself only to savings accounts.
Stock accounts?
- I don't know even ten lines.
Investment?
- I don't have a stock account!
My consistent answer to the questions from people around me about how I invested my salary.
Because I was a person who did not invest money in anything I was not confident about myself, wondering how it differed from gambling.
Also, because of my occupational characteristics, I had met too many arrogant swindlers, so I may have been even more pessimistic.
Anyway, I personally did not invest in stocks.
I did not particularly recommend it to others.
But in the Gilorian Empire, this place had more insane investors than South Korea.
Chairman Dmi-seon sitting opposite me was pressing his face into a stone video screen the size of a palm and concentrating.
"Hmm..."
After poking at various things without speaking for a while, he lifted his hand to the stone video screen as if he had made a decision with a low groan.
The stone video screen vibrated slightly in response, and blood was drawn from the chairman's fingertips.
Then, glowing blue.
After poking at various things again for a while.
Blood was drawn from the fingertips.
The stone video screen spewed blue light.
For about ten minutes, while repeating this process silently, the chairman's complexion turned pale.
"What are you doing?"
The chairman looked up at my question.
"I'm selling stocks. Just a moment, I still have ten thousand more shares left."
To trade stocks in the Gilorian Empire, blood authentication was required.
The so-called blood-selling stock.
This was the current state of the stock market in the Gilorian Empire.
* * *
"No, is there no other way? Every time I trade, I have to draw blood to authenticate!"
At my words, the chairman Dmi-seon, who had been taking iron supplements, looked at me as if he were looking at slime.
"Why are you like this to someone who knows."
The card that the stock management office had pulled out as a special measure after the issue of name borrowing in the investment boom in the past Gilorian Empire became a problem.
It was [I authenticate my identity with my own blood.]
From then on, blood-selling transactions were recognized as a matter of course, and as a result, day traders were suffering from chronic anemia.
Still, since it was money involved, people were still devoted to trading while eating their own flesh.
"I understand why you're worried. Please reduce the amount of transactions a little."
I told the chairman Dmi-seon, who was pouring wine, and handed him milk instead.
It was written on the milk that it was calcium 200 times enhanced.
"Even so, I'm fine with that amount. The guys doing 'Ruby' transactions these days can barely walk like humans only after receiving the blessing of the shrine."
The chairman spoke as if tossing it casually.
"Ruby? Are gems being traded these days too?"
"This person is a complete outsider in the economy. You don't know what Ruby is? It's a place that developed a great new material."
The chairman continued his explanation with a puzzled face and then threw a question.
"What do you think is the chronic problem of the Gilorian Empire industry?"
I thought deeply and carefully chose my answer.
"Wage discrimination?"
"..."
The chairman sighed and shook his head.
"Chronic mana shortage phenomenon!"
"Ah..."
Mana shortage phenomenon.
The Gilorian Empire relied on magic stones for the power of industry.
Magic stones were eco-friendly, high-efficiency resources.
However, magic stones came from mines or defeating monsters in dungeons, but the problem was that their quantity was significantly insufficient.
So, synthetic magic stones made by secretly mixing magic stones and fossil fuels were used.
Chairman Dmi-seon was running a business that made big money from the brokerage, manufacturing, and sales of magic stones and synthetic magic stones.
Even for the underprivileged classes or industries that could not handle this, they used regular fossil fuels, which we usually know as wood,
But this was not enough to produce sufficient mana power.
It was enough only to heat food at home and eat it.
There was no choice for industrial use.
The chairman's explanation continued.
"However, the Ruby side said that they developed a synthetic material that could maximize efficiency if they processed magic stones above a certain temperature! The stress they're receiving from this these days has reached the top of their heads."
The chairman sighed deeply.
A new material that could generate much stronger energy than existing magic stones...
If true, it was like a blessing for the Gilorian Empire, which was suffering from chronic mana shortage.
Everyone would be hooked.
It was understandable that it was reacting fiercely in the stock market.
But.
"Isn't this an overly innovative technology?"
It was a question.
It was natural to doubt that a material developed that was like magic or, no, there is magic here... a miracle material appeared suddenly.
As if agreeing with my thought, the chairman nodded his head.
"Excessive innovation is fraud. But people only believe what they want to see. Look at the stock chart of Ruby company. It is soaring upward in a flashy way."
The chairman stood up from his seat with a frustrated expression.
"First, we will investigate whether Ruby's claim is true. If it is really true, we should propose a merger or push in investment funds immediately."
The chairman looked at the shareholders' compensation plans densely written and said as if making a vow.
Then, turning to me,
"You also seem to have made a big profit this time. How about investing in a solid company? Our company is open too."
At that moment, he changed his businessman complexion as if all the drunkenness had disappeared and spoke.
I looked at him with a listless expression and said.
"I don't have a stock account either."