Chapter 3. While My Main Character’s Job Prospects Keep Shrinking, My Alt Gets Offered Five Times a Professor’s Salary>
Chapter 3. While My Main Character’s Job Prospects Keep Shrinking, My Alt Gets Offered Five Times a Professor’s Salary>
It was just as Taeju and I finished painting the brand logo in the shape of an R onto the drones.
“So they want to see with their own eyes whether all fifty really operate normally, is that it?”
Resting his chin on his hand, Taeju muttered in a grave tone.
“I guess they just can’t believe a cheap drone can actually perform swarm maneuvers.”
“Is it really that difficult a technology? If you look on YouTube, there are tons of videos of hundreds of drones doing perfectly synchronized drone shows.”
From an ordinary person’s point of view, it was natural to think that way.
“Ah, you humanities bastard, seriously.”
Clicking my tongue in frustration, I kindly(?) lowered things to his level and explained.
“The ones used in drone shows easily cost over two million won each. It’s all because of the high-performance sensors. But mine pulled off movements beyond that with a drone that costs 150,000 won. With a single camera!”
“Ah, so that’s why they snapped them up even at 500,000 won.”
Taeju’s expression changed as though something had just clicked for him.
“Then… I thought you were ripping them off and selling them outrageously high, but you were actually letting them go dirt cheap?”
Taeju’s train of thought always jumped straight back to money.
“Looking at you, having a nose for money really is a talent.”
Being around Taeju taught me a lot.
Sometimes he felt like a machine optimized purely for making money.
If there really was such a thing as a genius for making money, maybe it was someone like him.
“Fine. Tell them to come to the warehouse. I’ll show them a demonstration.”
“You sure that’s okay? A bunch of suspicious foreigners showing up at your dad’s warehouse?”
“It’s not even under my dad’s name anyway. It’s just leased.”
Some time later…
Creeeak.
The huge metal doors opened, and a group of foreigners in bomber jackets and leather shearling coats came striding in.
“Роевой полет на этом хламе?”
“A swarm flight with this heap of junk?”
“Смешно. Частоты наложатся…”
“Ridiculous. The frequencies will overlap and it’ll just freeze…”
The heavy pressure pouring off those menacingly built guys speaking Russian was enough to make my breath catch in my throat.
“Doctor?”
Awkward Korean. A familiar face walked toward me.
It was ‘VodkaLike.’
“Ah, hello.”
He gave a report in Russian to a man who had entered behind him, then respectfully extended a hand toward him.
“This person is our boss.”
Unlike how badly I had panicked at the word boss, the man who stepped forward gave off a rather intellectual air.
The intelligent gaze behind his sharp glasses, and the thick hair and beard that looked deliberately untrimmed, created a strange sort of charisma.
The boss barked out a short order in weighty Russian, and ‘VodkaLike’ immediately interpreted.
“Doctor. Our boss asks that you demonstrate all fifty operating simultaneously right now.”
“Yes. Please watch.”
WEEEEEEENG—!
As all fifty drones spun up their motors at once, the sealed warehouse filled with noise so loud it felt ready to burst.
“If I stretch my hand this way, they go left…”
I lightly swept my arms like an orchestra conductor and demonstrated the basic swarm controls.
“Ooh—.”
At the sight of the fifty drones moving through the air in perfect unison, even the boss, who looked like the type who would always stay expressionless, let out a quiet exclamation.
That reaction felt pretty exhilarating, so I decided to add a little more showmanship while I was at it.
Clap.
The moment I clapped and spread both my arms wide,
the orderly drone swarm instantly broke formation and launched into chaotic, disorderly flight.
Even as they twisted their paths like mad and crossed one another hundreds of times, not a single collision occurred.
It was perfect evasive maneuvering, as if magnets with the same polarity were pushing each other away.
The murmurs of admiration from the Russian big guys grew even stronger.
I wanted to show the stability of the vision-recognition AI properly.
Step, step.
I walked straight into the middle of the storm of drones, where they were soaring and intersecting wildly.
“Опасно!”
“Dangerous!”
The Russian big guys cried out urgently, their faces turning pale,
but the drones flying toward my face like bullets only veered away at the last instant, skimming past my body with hair’s-breadth clearance.
Standing tall at the center of the giant mechanical swarm, I smiled leisurely and called out,
“So, what do you think? It works properly, doesn’t it?”
The man called Boss opened his eyes wide in shock and gave a heavy nod.
“Это выше всяких ожиданий.”
“This exceeds expectations.”
Snap.
When I lightly snapped my fingers and pointed downward, the fifty drones that had been rampaging a moment ago stopped in midair as if by magic, then all descended gently to the floor at my feet.
Snapping my fingers had actually meant nothing, but that was what you called style.
Those Russian big guys had definitely thought, That was cool as hell.
“How did you program it?”
The boss looked genuinely interested.
“Ah, first, in a simulation that’s 0.998 similar to reality, for several thousand hours…”
Just as I was about to launch into a long explanation, Taeju abruptly stepped in.
“Trade secret.”
“…And who exactly are you?”
Who exactly was I? What was I supposed to say? That I was a high school senior preparing for college entrance exams?
“I’m Ryu—”
“This is Professor Ryu.”
Taeju cut me off again and jumped in first.
“What are you talking about? Professor? I haven’t even graduated high school yet.”
“Stay still for a second.”
When I whispered quietly, Taeju shot me a look that said to trust him.
“I see. Professor Ryu…”
It seemed like the boss had badly misunderstood something. Was this really okay?
As he nodded, ‘VodkaLike’ handed me a bundle of cash wrapped up in newspaper.
It was 25 million won. Only when I felt the thick weight of it in my hand did the reality of the situation truly sink in.
An immense sense of accomplishment rushed over me at the fact that I had really sold something I made and earned money from it.
“Doctor. We’ll contact you again.”
It was just as ‘VodkaLike’ turned to leave after once again dropping that meaningful line about getting in touch.
“Ah, just a moment.”
I had prepared one more ‘gift’ to give them.
They were people willing to spend 25 million won on drones, so I thought they might like this toy too.
“This is complimentary. It’s a drone interceptor.”
I pulled out the prototype Version 2 drone interceptor, explained how to operate it, and gave it to them as a gift.
The man called Boss showed even greater interest in that than he had in the fifty drones.
The freebie had been a success.
After they left, Taeju and I sat side by side eating cup noodles and talking.
“Hey, what was with the brand logo and the Professor Ryu thing?”
“Marketing. People will see the R and think it’s some kind of maker brand. And if they hear it was made by a high school graduate, who’s going to like that? But if you say professor, people go, ‘Ah, I see,’ and nod along.”
“Well, true enough. Professor Ryu… I kind of like it.”
“You psycho. Hey, let’s split the money.”
After subtracting the principal and dividing the pure profit seven to three, the amount that came to me was 12.25 million won.
“It feels weird, making this much money.”
To earn that much the usual way, I would have had to spend months repairing broken computers. If I tried to make it through part-time work, what would it have taken, six months? A year? Yet that amount had come in all at once.
“This… I don’t think we can let this end as a one-off.”
Looks like Taeju had caught the scent of money again.
“So what are you proposing?”
“Let’s commercialize it.”
“Commercialize it? Can high school students even run a business?”
“It’s possible. If we keep receiving bundles of cash like this, the National Tax Service might investigate us. Unless you’re planning to keep stacking money in some container forever.”
I agreed with Taeju.
Earn money legally, and with that money, I make more weapons.
If the money problem was solved, then I could make as many weapons as I wanted.
So I immediately founded a proper ‘toy company’ under our joint names.
The equity split was still seven for me and three for Taeju. Amazingly, it was Taeju himself—the one providing the capital—who proposed that unequal arrangement first.
“Foundational tech companies are supposed to have the engineer as CEO.”
“So what should we call the company?”
“The CEO should decide. If possible, make it something cool. Something with a ‘Stark Industries’ kind of vibe.”
“Hmm… how about ‘Science Facility’?”
“Oh, that’s actually pretty good.”
Our great first office was an old shipping container sitting by itself in a deserted vacant lot.
It was land owned by Taeju’s father, so we got it for free without paying a single won in rent.
In truth, any other rental office would have been absurdly expensive for our budget anyway.
CIA Headquarters, United States.
(Translator’s Note: CIA — The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It was established in 1947 and serves as the country’s main foreign intelligence and analysis agency.)
The emergency response conference room was bustling under a heavy atmosphere.
A man sitting with his legs crossed, staring absentmindedly at the beam projector screen, listened to the briefing.
“We’ve received intelligence that the Russian military is conducting tactical training with a new type of drone.”
The woman pressed the presenter button and changed the screen to the next slide.
“Its appearance is that of a common civilian ultra-low-cost drone worth about one hundred dollars. But please watch the following video.”
The screen changed again, and a video began to play.
“Its maximum straight-line speed is slow, but the instant judgment it shows while evading obstacles is far more precise and agile than what even a professional drone racer could control.”
Click.
The woman changed the slide again. Her voice grew even more serious as she continued.
“Most critically, there were no nearby control signals or personnel whatsoever. Which means…”
“…You’re saying it’s a completely autonomous unmanned AI drone based on self-directed flight.”
The man who had kept his mouth shut the whole time muttered in a low voice.
“Has a Russian big-tech firm seriously entered the defense market?”
“We still do not know the force behind it for certain. However, although it is currently being used only in training, there is a very high likelihood that it will soon be deployed in real operations.”
The man who had been sitting motionless like stone let out a short sigh.
“Find out immediately where this thing is being researched. Search everything, from Russian tech companies to university professors. Every last one of them.”
The moment those heavy words left the man’s mouth, the once-still CIA emergency meeting room began moving again with the frantic pace of a full-blown crisis.
“Grrrgh…”
“Why is he snoring from morning homeroom onward? Hey, wake Hyesung up.”
“Hey, get up.”
Taeju in the next seat shook me awake in a hurry.
“Ryu Hyesung. Every time you sleep like that, the door to employment gets narrower for you. Got it?”
“Ugh… y-yes, sorry.”
Ding.
I secretly checked my phone under the desk.
It was a notification from the used-trading app.
It was from ‘VodkaLike.’
[Professor. We disassembled and studied the drone defense turret. It was quite astonishing.]
[Thank you.]
They took apart something that had been perfectly fine? I had worked hard to build that thing.
Did that mean they were going to buy more turrets now that they had broken it?
[Would it be possible for you to work at our facility?]
[Excuse me? What do you mean all of a sudden?]
[We can offer you five times the annual salary of a Korean university professor. We ask for your help.]
What the hell. What was this supposed to mean now?
I had literally just gotten scolded by a teacher for shrinking my prospects of finding a job, and now, out of nowhere, a job offer had come flying in.