12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I took a shower early in the morning, got dressed, and left the apartment. As I walked out of the apartment, I saw Ah-young’s apartment next door.

‘She is sleeping now, right?’

I’d been in and out almost every day lately because I’d been eating breakfast, but it was a pass today. I told Ah-young, “I’m afraid I’ll have to go to work early tomorrow, because I have something important to do.”

Ah-young sometimes wanted to be with me, but she didn’t protest when I said, “It’s important.” That was a good thing, it was cool. I took the elevator down to the basement and drove my Bentley out of the underground parking lot. The intersection of Gangnam Station was quiet at 6:30 a.m. Gangnam Station, where my apartment was located, and Nonhyeon Station, where the company was located, were just two blocks away. If there was no traffic, I would be there in ten minutes.

Hmm~ Hmm~ I hummed and drove Bentley. On the other side, a yellow Lamborghini passed me by.

‘Well… is that low car worth driving?’ I didn’t know because I’d never ridden one. ‘This time, my class will be raised… Shall we buy one?’ I changed my mind after thinking about it. ‘Yes, if I get the Master Class today, I’ll go with Secretary Seo and book a Lamborghini.’

What I felt from my recent relationship with Ah-young was that my consumption pattern was still unchanged. Of course, as I got more money, I bought this and that without looking at the price tag, but I didn’t spend much money on the luxury items as I just thought, ‘Why do I need that?’

Since I was a child, the DNA from growing up in a poor family was so deeply embedded that it was not easy to spend money. Ah-young, on the other hand, knew a lot about luxury goods and bought them with the monthly rent she received. She’d learned to spend money reasonably since she was young.

‘Yes, I’ll spend some money, too… I make too much money, but I don’t spend it.

‘The rich are good at spending money. If the rich earn money and do not spend it, the money will not circulate in the market. Of course, I’m paying money in the form of “salary employment,” but that’s a little short of it. I have to spend more money to feed others.

‘I will buy a Lamborghini… the one I saw at the Bentley store the other day. What was it? Flying Spur? I’ll buy another one, too.

I thought of things to spend more money on while waiting for a short signal.

‘Money… where should I spend it?’ Come to think of it, there was one thing I wanted to try since I was young: owning a club.

‘I’ve seen that in a web novel before. The main character who returned to the past became the owner of a club and managed a soccer team. Was it… “A Club Owner from the Future?”…’

I used to go to K-League soccer field with my family. I didn’t know about our Chungcheong-do team now, but it was still quite weak at the time, so I remembered that they had lost the game helplessly to the Seoul metropolitan team that day.

‘Wait a minute… If I get the news in 12 Years After…’ I had a rough idea of the sports category in the news 12 Years After-the list of 2030 World Cup national team.

‘If I get a piece of that news, I can set up the future national team players to our team in advance. Of course, the growth process is important for athletic ability, but we can’t deny that talent takes precedence.

‘If I do that, it would be a lot like holding onto a big stock.’

‘No, it might be better to advance to the EPL like the novel. If I get an article or two, like [2034 FIFA Best 11] or [2038 Ballon d’Or Winner], I can order a scout, “If you go to a place called Santa Fe Rosario in Argentina, you’ll find Lionel Messi. Get him.” or “If you go to an island called Madera in the west Atlantic, not mainland Portugal, you’ll find Cristiano Ronaldo. Bring him in.”‘

I might be able to build up a team that way.

‘They say that since Juventus hired Ronaldo last year, the stock market in Italy has increased by 30%.

‘Then I can sweep up rising stars with a small amount of money. I’ll just need the club to have a perfect youth education facility. How much does an EPL club cost?’

I had such fanciful thoughts as I arrived at my company. I was trying to get into the basement parking lot of the company, and I saw a car which I was used to: a Genesis, the most expensive Korean-made large car. It was my car when I was a working stiff. I pulled over and waited for a moment for the car to stop.

Soon Secretary Seo came out and told me, “Oh, boss. You came to work early?”

“Yes. I have something important to do today.”

—-

I took the elevator with him. Secretary Seo pressed the seventeenth floor with the president’s office. The fourteenth to the seventeenth floor were all embedded with the logo of our company, Invictus Investment. Originally, only one floor was used, but it increased as the company grew and had more employees.

‘Oh, yeah, before I buy an EPL team…’

“Secretary Seo, does the landlord still want to sell this building?”

“The last time Jang asked indirectly, he said he wanted to sell it at a price higher than the market price.”

“Really?”

“Our company is so popular that… He thinks this would be an opportunity and he is asking for ten million dollars more than the market price.”

“Well… that is a little bit detestable.”

“Right.”

“We’ll move out of here. There are vacancies in Gangnam these days.”

“That’s right.”

I arrived on the seventeenth floor while I was talking to Secretary Seo. I spoke firmly to Seo, who sat down in front of the president’s office. “Today, I don’t want to see anyone before 9:10.”

“What about Jang?”

I shook my head and spoke decisively, “Not even Vice President Jang. Today, if he has a report, just let him wait.”

Secretary Seo nodded, “Yes, boss.”

As soon as I entered the president’s office, I turned on the computer and took a seat.

I’d been eating the breakfast Ah-young made every day, and so I felt a little hungry, but I held back. Today was an important day. At 8:00, the email arrived.

[Master Class Skill Guide]

I clicked on it without hesitation. There was a familiar phrase inside.

[Congratulations, Han Sang-hoon, who has been promoted to Master Class. Master Class can also be used and enhanced by investing points in each skill.]

It was repeated, but I still read it carefully to see if there was any difference.

[The cooldown time of an active skill is based on the same thirty-day as the subscription period. There are currently four different skills available for the Master Class. There are ten skill points that are not currently allocated.]

I’d been given ten points this time. ‘Ten points.’ I looked further down the scroll, rethinking the number briefly.

[People Search Lv3 (Active skill – three points required)

There is one more slot for searching for people. It will be available with other passive skills applied.

Ranking News Lv2 (Active Skill – two points required)

In a specific category out of the news, you can receive first and second place news with high cumulative view counts. It’s available twice. It will be available with other passive skills applied.

Future News Lv5 (Passive skill – five points required)

You will receive another news 12 Years After with the existing news. Its format is the same as the existing news, and active skills are also available the same way. This passive skill is overlaid with other passive skills.]

[Infiltration Report Lv1 (Active Skill – seven points required)

We will send a reporter to a specific target. The reporter will conduct a thirty-day intensive

investigation into the target and bring in one article that will not be reported to the established

press after thirty days. When you are sending a reporter, you can specify what to

investigate.]

There was nothing really new or different in the skills. There was nothing to worry about. I made a quick decision. ‘Let’s get this straight. Tak Joon-gi is a problem, too. I don’t know what kind of obstruction I’m going to have from him.’ Come to think of it, I was a little lucky in the last Bisang Construction, as the future news had an article about the corruption case.

‘If Jung Gi-woong had been caught a little over a year later, not next February, I wouldn’t have been able to implement justice. If I have this news, I can even get “the news that doesn’t appear in the article.” I now have the power to make news and articles that don’t appear in articles through Oracle News.

‘Okay, let’s take Infiltration Report, investing seven points. I’m still using the others enough.’

What was a bit disappointing was that I wanted to get the news 12 Years After. I was curious, but it was simply a matter of curiosity.

‘It is a far-fetched future thing like science fiction news, and it won’t make money. Of course, it will be necessary to plan for a long time, but it won’t be too late when my assets are over a billion dollars, after I get my Grandmaster Class later.’

I took the Infiltration Report right away. Then, its description was changed.

[Infiltration Report Lv2 (Active Skill – ten points required)

We will send a reporter to a specific target. The reporter will conduct a fifteen-day intensive

investigation into the target and bring in one article that will not be reported to the established

press after fifteen days. When you are sending a reporter, you can specify what to

investigate.]

Nothing else had changed, but thirty days had been shortened to fifteen. I knew it would be getting better, but I didn’t know how much it would be getting better.

‘Let’s use it once.’ My remaining points were three. The remaining skills were People Search and Ranking News.

‘These three points are… for People Search.’ I invested them in People Search to match my score. Ranking news had been used every month, but it didn’t work often, because there were times when it became money and times when it didn’t. On the other hand, People Search was useful in one way or another. The slots were not short, but they might not be enough if I thought about them in the future. Now there were thousands of people I had directly or indirectly hired.

‘All right, then, like this.’

A congratulatory message came out when I took a skill, [Congratulations. You’ve been promoted to Master Class.]

And a follow-up notice was there, [Upgrade your news to Grandmaster Class! A ten-million- dollar subscription fee is required for the promotion to Grandmaster Class.]

Fortunately, the subscription fee did not change, either. Ten million dollars a month was not a small amount of money, but it was fully affordable now. The next thing that mattered followed.

[In addition, as a qualification, you have to govern more than ten listed companies in your own country, with the combined market capital of the listed companies exceeding ten billion dollars.] Now, it was demanding specific market capital, as well as the number of companies I would have under my wings.

I made a rough estimate. ‘What I now control now is one billion dollars of Hyun Young Pharmaceutical and eight hundred million dollars of Kai Games. If I add up the rest… will it be approximately two billion dollars?’

That was about it. It meant I would have to put more than eight billion dollars more under me in the future so I could go up.

‘Well, it’s not very difficult. It’ll just take a while. I thought I could make it in a few years. In a year or two, if I did well…

‘All right, all right, then…’ I went down the scroll further, thinking about it. But it finished with a phrase that I had never seen before.

[You have selected the Infiltration Report skill for the first time. Reporter Crow will come to see you. Please specify the place and time to meet.]