The Business (3)
A two-million-won used car I'd bought because running a business was simply impossible without one. I still felt awkward about having anyone ride in it, but Gyu-seon climbed in without a trace of judgment and gave a small bow of her head.
“Thank you so much...”
“Thank me later. Where's home?”
“Oh, I'll type in the address.”
When I saw the address she entered, I flinched in surprise.
Dongtan?
Hm, the Dongtan image is... no, what am I even saying? Her workplace was in Hwaseong, so living nearby wasn't strange at all.
“Ahem...”
“Sore throat? Want me to turn on an air purifier for you?”
With that, she pulled a small air purifier out of her bag. Despite its size, it was an expensive model with integrated magic technology that easily outperformed the old commercial-grade units.
“You carry that around with you?”
“Oh, no. Normally I leave it at the lab, but...”
“Ah.”
A long silence followed. Eventually I broke it and asked her a question.
“Are you preparing for anything after quitting?”
“Oh, no. I'll have to start thinking about that now.”
“No plans to continue your research?”
“Well... the bacteria technically belong to the company as assets, so...”
“The company didn't seem to treasure those assets all that much, though.”
Gyu-seon's lips puckered, and she began to sniffle.
No, that's not why I said it.
I pulled out a tissue and handed it over.
“That, uh... that waste product said to contain the elixir.”
“Yes, the Luminarion pellets.”
“Lumi... what?”
“It's a name combining 'Luminar,' meaning to glow or shine, with 'Lion.' Literally, a glowing lion. They grind up the carcasses of that glowing lion, the Luminarion, extract the elixir, and compress what's left into pellet form. That's what those are.”
“Luminarion... so that's the name of the monster from the 57th-tier dungeon.”
A glowing lion, huh. Is it just me, or does it feel less like (glowing) and more like (going mad)?
“So if you could control bacteria — how might you extract elixir from those pellets?”
“If you could control them? It'd be remarkably easy.”
Her sniffles vanished as if they'd never existed. She perked right up and pulled out her notebook again. Where does she even keep that thing hidden?
“This is the bonding structure. You only need to break the chains here. In theory, you'd find an enzyme or bacterium that targets this chain structure and severs it, but the chains are packed so tightly that it's not easy.”
“I see.”
It was hard to look while driving, but I snuck a glance and committed the structure to memory.
“This is real alchemy. Turning trash into something worth more than gold.”
“How much elixir would come out of a waste product this size?”
“From the same weight of Luminarion carcass, you get about one gram of pure elixir per kilogram. But bonded-state elixir exists at roughly the same concentration as pure elixir, and the pellets are dried and compressed. So I'd estimate at least two grams per kilogram of pellet.”
Whether my bacteria could actually pull off the extraction remained to be seen, but if it worked, that would be double the yield per weight compared to raw Luminarion carcass. A waste product people paid to have hauled away would be worth twice as much as the carcasses France imported at tens of thousands of euros per kilogram.
My heart pounded, even behind the wheel. Could it actually work? Unable to contain myself, I quietly opened my inventory and projected bacteria toward the pellets on the back seat. Then, recalling the chain diagram of the bonding structure I'd glimpsed moments before, I gave the command.
'Break down the chains. All of them.'
Amid all this, we arrived at an apartment complex in Dongtan before I knew it.
“Oh, you can drop me off at the entrance here.”
“You've got a lot of bags. Mind if I drive you up to your door?”
“N-no, that's fine. Just the ride this far is more than enough.”
She looked so flustered that I didn't press further. Letting a strange man walk you to your door was worth a second thought in these dangerous times anyway. Instead, I helped unload her bags while sneaking a look at the pellets in the back seat.
Is it done? They don't look any different...
That was the exact moment it happened.
When the streetlight's glow fell across the dung-colored pellets, something on their surface began to sparkle — tiny points glittering brightly. A sight that hadn't been there before.
I knew it instinctively. That was, without a doubt, elixir.
“W-well then, I'll head in...”
As Gyu-seon hurried toward her building, arms full of bags, I retrieved my bacterial legion from the processed pellets, grabbed my own load, and hurried after her.
“Wh-what's going on?”
She stopped short in surprise, and I plopped a pellet right on top of the pile she was cradling in her arms. With both hands occupied, she couldn't do anything about it — she just stared at me, dumbfounded.
“That one... consider it a souvenir.”
“Just one favor. When you have time, could you analyze that pellet again?”
“Sorry? What do you...”
“Don't ask, just do it once. Something will be different.”
“Ehh...”
“Here's my business card. Actually, I'm leaving the company today too. Just check the phone number.”
I set the card on top as well, then dashed back to the car before she could answer. If I set it up like this, curiosity alone would make her call. And if she just ignored it... well, I'd have to find someone else. But somehow, I had a hunch that she, of all people, wouldn't dismiss what I'd told her.
And that hunch proved right the very next morning.
When I got home, I slept like a newborn. I'd worked past midnight two days ago, gone straight to the appraisal center upon waking, spent hours sorting through the companies that had contacted me, then headed back to the Seonggwang Biotech Research Center for a night shift on top of it all. It had been a brutally compressed day, so the sleep crash was inevitable.
What woke me was the vibration of my phone.
“Mmmngh... hello...”
“Um, is... is this Kim Se-gyun's phone?”
“It is... who... oh? Im Gyu-seon?”
“Yes! It's me! I sent you a message, but... you weren't answering...”
What time was it? Seven in the morning? I'd crashed at two when I got home, so I hadn't even managed five hours.
“Yes, what is it?”
“The, the pellet you gave me yesterday... what did you do to it?”
That was fast. She already analyzed it?
“You've already run the analysis?”
“When I brought it home, the elixir had already crystallized on the surface! I was so shocked I analyzed it right away, and... it's really... the bonded chain structure was broken!!”
Oh right, that glitter on the surface.
“So that was the crystallization.”
“Y-you knew, didn't you? You knew and asked me to analyze it anyway, didn't you? I, I really...”
“How was the purity?”
“I extracted almost 99.9% of the residual elixir inside! Nothing left over! This is completely insane!”
“That's a relief.”
“A relief? This isn't just a relief... it's a revolution! A total...!”
“Gyu-seon.”
“Yes?”
“You're loud.”
My head is going to split open this early.
“S-sorry...”
“No, it's just — it's morning, so keep it down so you don't wake the neighbors...”
“Yeees...”
“Also, I'd appreciate it if you kept this quiet for the time being.”
“Sorry? Why? If this gets out...”
“Right, the price of pellets would skyrocket like crazy.”
“Oh...”
“So let's make money first.”
We couldn't hide it forever, after all. Elixir didn't fall from the sky — if I suddenly started sourcing and selling it, people would ask questions. Then pellet prices would shoot through the roof. Even then, as the only person alive who could extract elixir from pellets, I wouldn't be hit too hard, but I'd no longer be able to get them for next to nothing like now. I needed to stockpile as much as possible before that happened.
“Sorry? We... us?”
“Yes, I want to go into business with you, Gyu-seon. Interested?”
Honestly, the technique of extracting elixir from pellets whose chain structure I'd already broken wouldn't be that difficult. If that were all there was to it, I wouldn't strictly need to work with her. The real reason I wanted her in this business lay elsewhere.
“You're well-versed in bacteria and microbiology, aren't you?”
“I-I did major in that...”
“Perfect, then.”
I'd already done my homework before passing out at home. Before being recruited by Seonggwang Bio, Im Gyu-seon had double-majored in molecular biology and materials science at MIT, specializing in materials research fused with molecular biology. Strictly speaking, she was on a heaven-and-earth level compared to a high school graduate like me. Having crossed paths with someone like her, I genuinely wanted her on my side — and it would help my awakened abilities along the way, too.
“I'll make sure you can do any research you want. And unlike Seonggwang Bio, I'm not lying.”
Seonggwang Bio had probably promised her the same thing when they recruited her. Of course, a conglomerate's patience hadn't lasted five years. In contrast — sure, even if I succeeded spectacularly, money alone wouldn't let me outstrip a chaebol giant. But I had something they didn't: the ability to control bacteria at will and undead-ify them to overcome their weaknesses. That ability would absolutely appeal to a research-obsessed nerd like her.
As if answering my conviction, a voice finally came through from the other end after a long pause.
“Something like this... you're supposed to discuss in person... b-but I'm positive! As long as I can do research, anything works for me...”
“Great. Get some more sleep, and call me when you're up. I'll head your way.”
Good, research is settled. The remaining problem was how to source the pellets. If I just asked for Luminarion pellets, anyone would find it suspicious. Going back to work at the company? Not a chance...
“Hold on...”
My eyes landed on a corner of my one-room apartment — where a pile of trash had vanished without a trace. Trash I'd clearly eliminated with bacteria yesterday, supposedly as an ability test. Which meant...
“Could I process dungeon waste the same way?”
My mind began racing. After following the thought for a long while, I picked up my phone and dialed someone.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Min-cheol hyung. Got a minute to talk?”
It was Min-cheol, who'd worked alongside me yesterday.
“Yeah. Hey, punk, you quit as of today, right?”
“Yep, that's how it worked out.”
“You could've said something yesterday. I'd have bought you dinner.”
“I was too wiped out yesterday.”
“Fine. Let's grab a meal sometime.”
“Sure, hyung. Anyway, there's something I want to propose... you've got all your clients' contact info, right?”
“Clients? Well, yeah.”
Occasionally, on busy days like yesterday, he'd fill in on pickup runs, but Min-cheol was fundamentally a sales guy. You might ask what manual labor a salesman was doing, but that's small companies for you. His real job was going around pharmaceutical companies and labs winning waste-disposal contracts.
“Hyung, want to start a business with me?”
“What kind of nonsense is that now?”
“I'll pay you double your current salary. No more grunt work — you'd just do sales.”
“Are you... out of your mind?”
Who would believe the guy who'd been doing grunt work beside them until yesterday, suddenly claiming to start a business and offering double their salary?
“Hyung, look at what I sent you on messenger.”
It was the contents of the contract offering me a 500-million-won annual salary. I blurred out most of it and sent only the amount.
“...Don't tell me... you awakened?”
“Yep. That's the contract I was offered. My salary is 500 million won, after tax. Hyung.”
I had no intention of signing that particular contract, of course. But 500 million a year was enough money that an employee wouldn't have to worry about capital.
“No, why not just be a hunter? What's with the business?”
“I'm doing it, that's final. Answer fast — I've got it all planned out.”
“Right this second...”
“You'd be managing director. Managing Director Jang. Can you pass that up?”
“Ugh, let me think about it.”
“The offer's good until tonight.”
“Got it. Hanging up.”
I'd said tonight, but I had another hunch the reply would come within hours. Somehow my hunches had been dead-on lately.
And the last call I made was to...
“Zephyros! Could I see you for a moment?”
One way or another, starting a business required seed money, so I'd have to pick one of the companies behind that stack of business cards. And somehow, Zephyros was the one I wanted to talk to first.