Chapter 7. When the Goddess Waited in Front of the School Gate, the Whole School Turned Upside Down>
Chapter 7. When the Goddess Waited in Front of the School Gate, the Whole School Turned Upside Down>
“Our reels are still climbing. They’ve passed six million now.”
Taeju muttered while staring at his phone like he still could not believe it.
“What?”
I hurriedly pulled out my own phone and checked our video.
[Views: 6.01 million]
The views were still climbing like crazy.
On the screen, the video showed me slowly walking out from the middle of a storm of dozens of drones.
It was a painfully eighth-grader-syndrome-style production built around a ‘Lord of Darkness’ concept.
Damn, this is what style is all about.
It was the masterpiece born from the idea meetings Taeju and I held, our heads completely filled with useless style and nothing else.
The reaction in the comments was explosive too.
[Comments 999+]
At this point the concept itself is art, damn.
Honestly, I admit it looks cool as hell.
The drones have completely lost their minds.
Those drones have to be insanely expensive, so who the hell are those students?
Thanks to that, the number of orders began exploding as well.
At this rate, there was no way production would be able to keep up.
“Taeju. What happened with the ‘equipment’ I mentioned?”
We could not keep doing everything by hand anymore.
If we wanted to meet the order volume, we had to get automation equipment.
“I already bought it. Put it in the factory.”
“What? You already got a factory too?”
If we had a factory as well, then we could churn out drones as easily as fish-shaped pastries.
That meant the completion of a perfect ‘money-duplication system.’
With excitement building in my chest, I followed Taeju after school.
But when we arrived, the factory was a place I knew all too well.
A familiar place.
“Ta-da! This is our factory.”
Taeju spread both arms wide and introduced the place with theatrical flourish.
“What the hell. This is just your dad’s warehouse we always come to…”
I had been expecting a new place with at least some kind of decent atmosphere.
But it was the same familiar warehouse we were always borrowing.
“Sorry. I still haven’t found a proper factory site yet. There wasn’t really anywhere suitable within our budget.”
He had probably looked pretty hard in his own way.
Sadly, our budget was just nowhere near enough.
“It’s fine, I don’t care. I feel bad for your dad’s workers, but for now let’s just make them here in secret.”
Whatever the location, as long as we could mass-produce them, that was enough.
“Weapons are always best when they’re made secretly in a hidden base.”
Taeju snickered as if he were some villain from a movie.
“So where’s the equipment?”
At my question, Taeju started cutting open a human-sized object wrapped tightly in plastic over in the corner.
“This is it. Hyesung, help me take the plastic off.”
Riiip.
The plastic tore away, revealing the massive form of a three-axis automatic soldering machine.
“I got it from a factory that went out of business for four million won. I even knocked a whole million off the price. The former owner was practically crying while he sold it.”
“Well… then I guess we should make good use of it.”
With the excitement of a child, I powered up the automatic soldering machine and ran it.
I was completely satisfied with the result.
Its soldering efficiency was absolutely insane.
Not only could it handle complicated soldering jobs like the three-phase wiring connecting motors and gearboxes in an instant, but when it came to connecting the mainboard and power lines, it was far faster and more precise than human hands.
Something that would take me three hours of struggling, this thing cleaned up neatly in just thirty minutes.
“This is incredible… At this level, it feels like we could handle any amount of bulk orders.”
“Right? This guy’s going to handle all the processes you were dying over. And ta-da! There’s one more thing.”
Taeju introduced another small piece of equipment sitting neatly on the table.
“This is a desktop semi-automatic screw feeder.”
“Ah, don’t tell me this is…”
“That’s right. It lines the screws up neatly in a fixed orientation.”
“Wow… So I won’t have to destroy my fingers picking out screws one by one from a container with tweezers anymore?”
“Exactly!”
Taeju and I exchanged a bright high five in midair.
It was a deeply moving moment, the bottleneck process that had tortured us like hell finally being replaced with automation equipment.
“Haa… should we get to work copying money right away?”
As a test, we made a few drones right there.
The efficiency of the automated soldering equipment was truly remarkable.
Thanks to that, I was freed from soldering and able to focus on other development work, and the overall drone production time dropped dramatically.
The screw feeder’s efficiency was no joke either.
The grueling process of grabbing screws one by one with tweezers and fastening them was replaced by a feeder that organized them in perfect order all by itself.
Boss, I’ll line them up nicely for you. Just sit back and fasten them comfortably.
It almost felt like the machine was whispering that to me.
At this rate, whether the incoming orders were four hundred or eight hundred, it felt like we could handle all of them.
Creeeak.
Just then, the container door opened, and Ian, the goddess in charge of our company’s divine beauty, came in.
“Wow, what is all this?”
Her eyes widened as she looked at the new equipment we had brought in.
“They’re our new employees. Say hello. Automatic soldering machine and screw feeder.”
“Hello, machines. Since I’m your senior, you have to listen to me.”
Ian matched my silly joke perfectly.
Could it be that she was a genius at social life?
After glancing over things, she immediately figured out on her own what work needed to be done first and deftly got started.
Once again, I was struck by how unusually capable Ian was.
“But Ian, midterms are coming up soon. Is it really okay for you to be working part-time like this?”
I asked because I was genuinely a little worried, and she answered calmly.
“You don’t have to worry. I already secured the grades I need, and I’ve decided on my future path.”
“Your future path? You already decided? How?”
“I decided to sign with an agency this time.”
“You? So you really are becoming an idol in the end?”
“No. I wanted to be an actress, not a singer.”
“Ah…”
Only then did I understand.
It was not that she had no interest in entertainment.
She simply had no interest in the job of being an ‘idol.’
“My first role has already been decided too, and my agency is really backing me.”
Ian was a far more mature kid than others her age.
She had already gone through intense soul-searching about her future and was now walking her own path.
I liked that about her.
Creeeak.
Just then, Taeju came back from the bathroom.
“Oh my, Director Jang Ian has arrived.”
Taeju bowed at a full ninety degrees as a joke.
Before I knew it, she had been promoted at lightning speed from ordinary part-timer to ‘director.’
“Yes, Director Choi, you have arrived as well.”
Ian even played along skillfully with Taeju’s shameless roleplay.
“By the way, Director, have you seen our president’s reel?”
Taeju naturally asked whether she had watched our viral reel.
“Reel?”
“Goodness, our company’s key executive has not seen it yet.”
And so, in that warm and lively atmosphere, we were processing the newly arrived 342 drone orders at an absurd pace.
The revenue alone amounted to a full 171 million won.
For a company made by high school students, it was an enormous achievement.
It really was true money duplication.
Meanwhile.
Beijing, China.
A man was watching the reel video on his smartphone with great focus.
Since the global short-form platform itself belonged to China,
any unusual video catching the algorithm worldwide, or any video with military value, was automatically reported straight up to the top levels of China’s intelligence authorities.
“Take a look at this. What do you think?”
A middle-aged man who appeared to hold a fairly high position handed the video to a younger man who was a military technology specialist.
“This… doesn’t make sense technically.”
The young man replayed the reel over and over, examining it slowly.
“With low-cost toy-grade drones like these, which are already out on the market, this kind of swarm-flight performance is absolutely impossible.”
The expert looked frustrated, as if he did not even know where to begin in explaining this absurd phenomenon.
“Either the entire video is an elaborate CGI fabrication generated by AI, or…”
“Or?”
“It means someone possesses overwhelming control technology that is at least ten years ahead of China.”
“Could we produce drones with this level of performance right away?”
At the sharp question from the high-ranking man, the young military expert broke into a nervous sweat and hesitated.
“My apologies. It would be difficult immediately, but… if the nation were to fully support China’s greatest scientific geniuses with massive funding, then within ten years, certainly—”
Bang!
“Does it make any sense that it would take our great China ten full years to catch up to this?!”
Unable to suppress his anger, the man slammed the desk and shouted.
“How much budget and how many talented people has China poured into technological rise all this time? Are you telling me we are inferior to the performance of some ridiculous toy?!”
The high-ranking man then turned sharply to the subordinates behind him and gave an order.
“Investigate the original upload location and source of this video without anyone noticing. Immediately.”
“Yes, sir!”
The men in military uniforms answered in unison, their voices crisp and disciplined.
Jinseong High School.
Ding-dong-deng-dong.
That day, Taeju was on class duty, so I was leaving school alone.
Even before I got to the front gate, I could hear students murmuring in excitement.
“Wow, I’ve never seen anyone that pretty before.”
“They say she’s from Seonghwa Arts High School.”
“I know her. She was super famous back in middle school too.”
The kids from other classes were all unusually excited.
I wondered if some celebrity had shown up nearby.
As I got closer to the front gate, I saw that a crowd of students had gathered there in a way that was very unlike usual.
They were all standing around, sneaking glances at someone as if it were perfectly natural for them to already be there.
“What happened…”
Outside the school gate stood someone I knew all too well.
It was Jang Ian, the full-time goddess of our company and the person holding the position of director.
“Hey! Ryu Hyesung!”
When she raised her hand high and shouted my name, dozens of students standing around the area turned to look at me all at once.
“What the hell.”
“Looks like she was waiting for him.”
“Is that her boyfriend?”
Ah, this…
It really looked like people were misunderstanding us badly.
“Hey, Ryu Hyesung! Over here~!”
Whether Ian understood the insane atmosphere or not, she jumped up and down in place, making the misunderstanding even more certain.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
When I walked over and asked, she answered with the brightest smile in the world.
“My dad wants to meet you once!”
…At that moment.
I felt, with painful clarity, every gaze around us slam straight into me.
The students nearby seemed to be completely, utterly misunderstanding ‘our’ relationship.
Ah… no. I could not let this happen.
At a time like this, at least I had to keep my head straight.
Ian’s father wanted to see me? Why? What was I supposed to do now?
My brain began calculating at terrifying speed.
I could say with confidence that it was moving much faster than when I designed cutting-edge weapons.
And so I arrived at a perfectly logical and appropriate conclusion.
…First, I should check the used-market app for strollers.