Let's Be Friends!
"Next time, you will never again… attempt to use the authority you hold to control me."
"Yes. I understand."
"No matter how much power Chairman Nail Nehru commands, if anything like this happens again, I will have nothing further to do with you."
"I sincerely apologize. I was shortsighted. Please forgive me."
Nail Nehru, a man who had stood above all others, bowed his head in genuine apology toward Jung Jinwoo.
He had assumed that announcing a visit to meet the Korean president, then having that president summon Jung Jinwoo, would make everything fall into place without a hitch. Didn't Korea's conglomerate chairmen grovel of their own accord? And Jung Jinwoo — young, from a company no one had even heard of — should have been even easier to handle.
Thanks to that arrogant delusion, he now had to grovel like this without even receiving a proper welcome as a guest.
"I'll forgive you. Anyone can make a mistake once. Now, let's talk business. How did you find me, anyway?"
At Jinwoo's words, Nail raised his left hand. A Rolex — Golden Time — gleamed around his wrist. Jinwoo had already suspected that Nail was a new member of the 20-Person Council.
"This cost me three billion dollars. I figured India ought to have at least one…"
Three billion dollars… four trillion won? Has the price shot up that much already?
"The truth is, we'd been watching Jerome. We had our radar spinning around him constantly. Strange things have been happening lately. Starting with Gold Coin… we found out Jerome made a fortune off the Wall Street crash."
Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok had said they were all watching each other. They really had their feelers in each other's business, all right.
"Then we learned Jerome had visited Korea twice, and that Aziz came with him the second time. At first I thought Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok was the man I was looking for. But then… we discovered that Jerome and Aziz had been drinking with a young Korean in Hongdae. After a thorough investigation, we also learned that Dive-In was in development."
If Nail Nehru, sitting in India, knew all of this, it meant he knew just about everything. Then again, even the National Intelligence Service seemed to have some sense of Jinwoo's stature, even if they didn't know the details.
"I see. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine."
Jung Jinwoo shook hands with Nail Nehru. It would have been nicer if they'd met under better circumstances, with a better first impression. Still — better late than never.
"Ah, and you needn't worry too much about your identity being exposed. The intelligence organization I operate is among the best in the world… not just anyone can replicate what they do."
"You asked our president to summon me. That was the end of any secrecy. What's the point of keeping secrets after that?"
That was that. Asking the President of the Republic of Korea to call Jung Jinwoo — how was that any different from putting a confirmation shot in him as a person of interest? What intelligence would other countries even need to collect? Just investigating Nail Nehru's visit to Korea would turn it all up. Entrance records at the Presidential Office, the guest list for the state dinner — grab any one of those and everyone would know.
"Ah… I see. Hahaha. I apologize."
Nail Nehru laughed awkwardly and bowed his head again.
"You have every right to be angry, Mr. Jung. Haah. I was far too careless."
"That's enough. Forget about it now."
There was no point clinging to the past and squabbling over it. The man was apologizing this earnestly — Jinwoo could forgive him once.
"Please, Chairman Jung. Sell Gold Coin to us as well. And I would like Dive-In to be serviced in India."
Wanting to push the deal forward while the mood was still good, Nail Nehru spoke quickly.
"How much Gold Coin do you want?"
It wasn't that he needed Gold Coin to buy gold. He wanted to insert himself into the global commodity supply chain that Gold Coin had built. Collecting it little by little by paying for it was one method, but as a gold-pegged stablecoin, it couldn't be acquired in bulk as easily as actual gold.
"About a trillion dollars…"
"That's far too much."
"Then eight hundred billion…? Seven hundred billion…? Six hundred…"
Nail Nehru kept calling out numbers, but Jung Jinwoo was shaking his head. The amounts were enormous — and they gave a sense of the Anandi Group's scale. No wonder the president had made such a fuss, even throwing a state dinner. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the Anandi Group owned half of India's wealth.
"I could stretch it to two hundred billion dollars."
"Understood. That much… should put out the immediate fire."
"Immediate fire? Why are you so fixated on Gold Coin? There are dollars and euros."
Jinwoo had to ask.
"Gold Coin already accounts for twenty-two percent of commodity supply-chain transactions. It looks as though it will overtake the dollar and the euro soon. As you well know, the dollar and euro are influenced by Western hegemony — they use them as tools to swing the market however they please."
Most people seemed to think along similar lines. As reserve currencies, the dollar and euro were riddled with problems born of political situations and those countries' internal affairs. They even used them like weapons of attack. To escape the hegemony that held the world in its grip, the world needed a currency that was extremely stable, yet untouched by any single nation's politics. Gold Coin, a gold-standard stablecoin, was the optimal alternative to the dollar and the euro.
Hearing Nail Nehru out, Jung Jinwoo nodded.
"And I would like the Dive-In service currently in development to be offered in India as well. India, the land of the Vedas and Hinduism, is a paradise of infinite stories."
"Your domestic industry is quite active too, isn't it? Bollywood, for instance."
"Yes, that's true. But after experiencing it just now, I'm even more convinced. If Dive-In becomes widespread before we're prepared… Bollywood is finished. At first they'll make a fuss about protecting India's content industry. But if it's publicly available as a global service, can they really protect it? Unless they seal off the country like North Korea and completely block foreign influence, it's impossible."
"Remarkable foresight."
Ko Yoon-seok, who had been listening quietly, murmured the words.
"If Dive-In is serviced in India, the shock will be significant. But in the long run, we can draw Bollywood professionals into Dive-In. Then I-Contents, which has stagnated, will explode with growth again."
"I-Contents?"
"If Korea has K-Contents, then India has I-Contents."
"Ah…"
As Nail Nehru explained, both corners of Oh Gong-tae's mouth kept climbing. He was feeling the deep satisfaction of watching something he had created spread its influence across the entire world.
"We're about to open the service… it would be difficult to include India in Dive-In's first public launch. Think we can bring India in, Director Oh?"
"It'd be a stretch, but if the Indian side prepares well, it might be doable."
"The Anandi Group will do everything in our power, so if at all possible… please include India in the first service launch. I beg you."
Nail Nehru, who had been arrogant and puffed up in front of Korea's star-studded lineup of conglomerate chairmen, was now bowing his head toward Oh Gong-tae.
"Understood. Let's give it a shot. I'll try, Chairman."
Oh Gong-tae nodded, looking at Jung Jinwoo.
"All right. We'll include India in the first phase of service. But the Anandi side will need to prepare aggressively. You'll have to lift all regulations from the central and local governments, copyright included. Munpia is the foundation of everything, so please cultivate India's web novel authors so that Munpia's Indian service runs smoothly."
"Don't worry. We already have a complete plan. Because of the caste system, India is overflowing with capable, formally educated talent that's rotting away unused. Young people who would risk their lives for a chance to earn even a dollar a day. We'll make the Indian Munpia servers crash from the traffic."
In truth, building the Munpia site itself didn't require particularly advanced technology. But because Munpia was the foundation of the Dive-In service, activating Munpia was more important than anything else.
"Whew… that's going to be a problem. We'd need to triple the current hardware for it to run smoothly… and we'd have to build a data center in India too."
"How much more money do you need?"
"Roughly… four hundred trillion won? About three hundred billion dollars."
"The Anandi Group will cover that."
Nail Nehru spoke readily, as if seizing the initiative. He had money to spare, after all.
"We have that much ourselves, so you needn't worry."
At Ko Yoon-seok's words, Oh Gong-tae and Nail Nehru's eyes flew open.
"South Korea's dollar reserves aren't even five hundred billion dollars."
"Our chairman is exceptionally gifted. He's buried a great deal of wealth all over the world."
"Ahhh…"
Nail Nehru swallowed hard, the gulp loud in his own ears.
When he'd first said he would buy a trillion dollars of Gold Coin, that figure had actually been mixed with bluster. A trillion dollars — wasn't that enough money to seize global hegemony? It wasn't impossible if he scraped it together by force, but a trillion dollars would let him dominate Gold Coin's circulation ecosystem and pursue an India-centered hegemony. Of course they would never allow that.
Yet the Jung Jinwoo standing before him was speaking as if three hundred billion dollars could be pulled together at any time. Without so much as a change in expression. His intelligence team had estimated Jung Jinwoo's assets at around five hundred billion dollars. Even accounting for the fortune he'd made from Gold Coin, the Guyana oil war, the Wall Street crash, and the copper-price surge…
Suddenly, Jung Jinwoo appeared before Nail Nehru like a vast mountain range. Once you know your opponent, you can see the range within which they can move. But the man before him — Nail couldn't even gauge the extent of his capabilities, the wealth he possessed, or the financial power he could mobilize.
Ah… so that's why he looked at me like I was nothing.
He must have looked like a nouveau riche showing off because he had a little money. Strutting in front of the President of Korea, looking down on the five major conglomerate chairmen — hadn't he been putting on airs? Ordering that extraordinary man around through the Korean president. Without even knowing who he was dealing with. Thinking about how pathetic he must have looked in Jung Jinwoo's eyes, Nail felt his fingers curl with sheer embarrassment.
"We'll have to split the Dive-In shares anyway. Let's have you invest thirty trillion won — five percent of the two hundred trillion already invested, plus the four hundred trillion still to come."
"We'll gladly put up that much."
They had given Jerome and Aziz ten percent each. They'd have to ask those two to put in more money as well.
"It might even come in cheaper. We've been using Genvidia chips for the accelerators… but AMK just released a new product, and we're testing it. It only costs a fifth of a Genvidia chip."
At Oh Gong-tae's words, Ko Yoon-seok frowned. That kind of high-level information should have been discussed when Nail Nehru wasn't in the room.
"Um, Mr. Jung! Could we speak privately for a moment?"
Nail Nehru looked at Jung Jinwoo as if he had no interest whatsoever in what Oh Gong-tae had just said.
"Very well. This is a laboratory, so we can step outside."
Jung Jinwoo went out of the lab with Nail Nehru.
"Go ahead. What did you want to say?"
"Well, that is…"
Nail Nehru hesitated, then carefully began.
"I heard that you became friends with Jerome and Aziz."
"And?"
"I know I made a mistake, but… to undertake a great enterprise like this… or even if it weren't about business… I was hoping I could become your friend…"
Nail Nehru spoke shyly, like a high school girl confessing to a boy she liked. Jung Jinwoo quietly looked at him. Nail was five years older, wasn't he?
"I know that in Korea, it's hard to be friends with someone older. But… that doesn't apply with people from other countries, does it? I know it's an unreasonable request, but… I've come all the way to Korea…"
"All right!"
Jung Jinwoo thrust out his hand.
At Jinwoo's words, Nail Nehru's face lit up.
"R-really… l-let's be friends!"
He'd just asked to be friends, and now he was the one who was shocked. Jung Jinwoo and Nail clasped both hands tightly.
"When Jerome and Aziz come later, let's drink Magic Green Bottle together."
"Jerome and Aziz too?"
Nail Nehru's heart was pounding. Hadn't he paid a fortune for Golden Time just to join the 20-Person Council?
"A friend's friend is a friend. Right?"
To become friends with Jerome Musso, a figure of global stature, and Prince Aziz, who wielded powerful influence across the Arab world… it was like a dream. And even more astonishing than those two was the fact that Jung Jinwoo — this unfathomable, extraordinary man standing before him — was clasping his hand.
"R-right. Jinwoo… khh. Thank you so much for considering me a friend."
What's with getting all moved, too.
Jung Jinwoo clapped Nail Nehru on the back with an empty hand.