Health Miracle
I lay on the bed, scrolling through the brokerage app as I began purchasing shares of Health Miracle. It was a small pharmaceutical company listed on Nasdaq, the exact early-game money printer that only veteran players of MegaCorp’s Youngest Son knew about. Until May, the stock hovered between eighty cents and a dollar ten per share. Buy consistently from the start, however, and it would eventually rocket all the way to eleven hundred dollars.
The reason was a drug they developed called Forest. Shockingly, Forest was a genuine hair-loss cure—the first in the world. No country or corporation had ever succeeded before, so when it hit the market the stock price went supernova.
Living in the annex of the Human Resources Development Center meant I paid no rent, and with Taira Yukiko offering to buy me a car, I had plenty of spare cash. Roughly ten million yen, give or take.
Since the price would trade sideways until May anyway, I decided to buy in gradual installments. Dumping the entire ten million today would nudge the price upward and reduce how many shares I could grab later. Ten million yen wouldn’t cause a massive spike, but there was no reason to be sloppy. Two or three hundred thousand yen a day would steadily grow my position. And once my salary started coming in, I planned to sink every yen of that into Health Miracle as well.
For the first day, I bought five hundred thousand yen worth.
“Hmm… should I tell Han Yugyeong about this?”
In the early stages of MegaCorp’s Youngest Son, money was brutally tight. The chairman of the Shinkang Group gave six hundred million won for entering Korea University at the top of the class, but that was for male characters. Female characters received only two hundred million. Six hundred million sounded like a fortune until you factored in cars, motorcycles, bodyguards, lobbying, and advertising; it vanished in the blink of an eye.
Two hundred million, then—one-third of that sum? Playing as a woman forced you to live like a miser, buying only the bare minimum. Even as a conglomerate heir, you ate the cheapest meals possible.
“Yeah. I’ll tell her. I know plenty of other sweet information anyway.”
The moment I made the decision, I dialed Han Yugyeong. She answered before the first ring even finished, as though she’d been waiting with the phone in her hand.
“Ryuta!”
Her voice overflowed with delight. Damn, even her voice was beautiful.
“Hey, Yugyeong. How’s OT prep going?”
“Honestly there’s not much to prepare, so I’ve just been studying.”
Studying because she had nothing better to do—exactly what you’d expect from the girl who entered Korea’s top university with perfect scores. I hadn’t checked her stats yet, but her knowledge, the kind that couldn’t be raised through level-ups, had to be off the charts.
“Did I interrupt you?”
“Not at all~! I was just killing time. So what’s up? Why’d you call?”
“I wanted to hear your voice, and I had something to tell you while I was at it.”
“Really? Hehe. Hearing your voice makes me happy too.”
So sweet it was almost sickening. I never imagined a stunning university beauty would fall for me this hard.
“Oh, right. A few days ago you said your grandfather gave you money for being the top admit. What are you planning to do with it?”
I asked as if the question had just occurred to me. Han Yugyeong answered without a trace of suspicion.
“Grandfather gave me two hundred million. I invested a hundred million in stocks, used ten million to hire a bodyguard for three months like you suggested, and after buying a house, a car, and everything else with the remaining ninety million, I have about thirty million left.”
The bodyguard the Shinkang chairman assigned would betray the player early in the semester. If your combat ability was low, you absolutely had to hire private security. That was why I’d told her to bring in her own bodyguard for three months as insurance.
“Then how about investing ten million of what’s left in a stock I recommend? By summer break you should see some serious returns.”
“Really? If you’re recommending it, I’ll invest no matter what.”
Her blind trust was a little overwhelming, but it saved me the hassle of persuasion, so I wasn’t complaining.
“It’s a Nasdaq company called Health Miracle. Put ten million into it. I’ll tell you exactly when to sell later.”
“Okay, hold on… Done!”
“You bought it already?”
“Yep! I put in thirty million!”
I had clearly said ten million, yet Han Yugyeong—apparently determined to prove her loyalty—dumped every won she had into it. Even thirty million yen was a drop in the bucket for a penny stock, but the chart still wobbled noticeably.
“I told you ten million. What about living expenses?”
“I can ask my parents. Thanks to you I was able to return to the family, so they can at least give their daughter some allowance.”
She was ice-cool about it. In the game you could call your parents for money when you were broke, so it tracked. With the stock tip delivered, we chatted about random things. She said OT would be held in Chuncheon over three days—Friday through Sunday.
“Ryuta… I miss you.”
“Then come visit the week after next. Fly in Friday and we can hang out through the weekend like it’s OT.”
I missed her too. This week she had freshman orientation, I had a company dinner Friday, and a date with Aris lined up from Saturday evening through Sunday. Looking at my schedule, I really was living like a man with no free time.
“For real? You’ll actually meet me if I come to Japan?”
“Of course~! Why wouldn’t I?”
“Hmph. Okay then. See you Friday the week after next~!”
“Sounds good. Let’s hang up. Go back to studying, and I’ll review what I learned at work today.”
In truth I hadn’t learned much of anything, but I really needed to piss, so I ended the call.
“Okay, talk to you later!”
When I came back from the bathroom, a KakaoTalk message from Han Yugyeong was waiting.
Along with the cheerful message she had sent a photo of herself lifting the black T-shirt she wore, deliberately exposing her breasts. Damn. That really did give me strength.
“Idiot! What an idiot!”
Kurakake Kuma cursed viciously. He could not forgive that insolent new hire. The brat was probably acting cocky because he carried the Taira name, but that surname only meant anything for direct descendants. Kurakake Kuma had memorized the entire family tree descending from Taira Danzo and had never once seen the name Taira Ryuta. Knowing the newcomer was a collateral branch member, he felt no particular pressure.
The Taira family existed only for the chairman. Even the direct eldest son, Ichiro, had yet to properly secure his position. A collateral? He might have parachuted in through connections, but that was the end of the road. No family mistreated its branch members more ruthlessly than the Tairas. They loved purges so much that almost none remained. If a fight broke out between him and a collateral, everyone would side with the higher-ranking Kurakake Kuma.
“Stupid bitches. One decent-looking guy shows up and they go into heat, wagging their tails like dogs…”
Mimata Chieri and Shinone Misano had simply helped the new employee adjust, but in Kurakake Kuma’s eyes they were shamelessly throwing themselves at the newly arrived handsome collateral member of the Taira family.
In truth, Kurakake Kuma held the rank of deputy section chief at Taira Trading—one or two levels above the Human Resources Development Center. Though he had studied well since childhood, the gloomy and unattractive Kurakake Kuma had always suffered from women avoiding him. Convinced that a major corporation would finally let him meet women, he had entered a top university and joined the Taira Group.
Yet nothing changed. No matter how hard he tried, women still ignored him. Then one day he discovered a certain manga. It told the story of a superior in a similar situation who blackmailed a subordinate’s wife into sleeping with him.
The moment he read it, lightning struck the top of his head. So this is how you can have a woman…! He was thirty-nine years old at the time.
He began by raping his boss’s wife, then photographed the act and blackmailed the boss himself, turning the wife into his personal sex partner. Once he realized the method worked, he repeated the pattern. He deliberately assigned subordinates to tasks where failure was likely, then used the excuse of “covering for them” to rape their wives as well.
But long tails are eventually stepped on. The year Kurakake Kuma became deputy chief, everything exploded. Fortunately it wasn’t a superior’s wife, but his affair with a subordinate’s wife was exposed. He was forced to pay ten million yen in compensation, and fearing his colleagues would learn of his other victims, he could no longer contact any of the women he had collected.
In Japanese society, where face was everything, such a scandal normally demanded immediate resignation. Kurakake Kuma, however, was a creature that knew nothing of shame. He stubbornly clung to his position. In the end he wasn’t fired, but he was demoted to the Human Resources Development Center.
At the time of his demotion, his former superior had warned him: “I know you slept with my wife. If you wave your dick around over there, I’ll hire yakuza to kill you.” The threat kept him quiet for two months. But a man with Kurakake Kuma’s raging libido could not be restrained by fear forever. Just as he was preparing to resume his activities, the new hire Taira Ryuta arrived.
For two months he had used his age and deputy team-leader position to oppress his subordinates and slowly shape the office atmosphere to his advantage. Taira Ryuta’s arrival had introduced the first small crack in that control.
“Heh heh… That’s right. He’s only a new employee. A rookie’s influence can’t stop me.”
Kurakake Kuma decided to treat the newcomer’s arrival as an opportunity. At the upcoming company dinner he would carry out his plan. The target was…