12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I heard the sound of the doorbell. I knew who rang the bell. It was none other than Lee Ah-young, the landlord, who was now outside my room. A text came from her during the morning today, two days after the incident.

– Can I ask you when you come home after work today?-

At the time, I was watching HTS at home. I didn’t go to work, so I didn’t need to come back home. Nevertheless, I left a reply with the time when others left the office.

– I’ll be back at six o’clock in the afternoon.-

If I said I was home, I might look a little pathetic. In fact, I was working harder than others at home.

– Good, I’ll stop by your room after 6 p.m.-

‘Why?’ I cocked my head and replied.

– Yes, I see.-

I took a look in the mirror, fixed my neck with a false cough, and opened the front door. Outside the door, the owner of the apartments, Lee Ah-young, was showing off her gorgeous beauty again today. “Hello.”

“Hello.” She seemed to not have put on any make-up, though her lips appeared to be slightly swollen, but it made me rather excited to see.

‘I don’t think there’s a girl who’s this pretty in OH Entertainment, except Oh Hyun-joo… She’s good enough to be a celebrity. I don’t know what her job is. Even if she doesn’t have a job… she’ll be fine. Maybe with the monthly rent coming out of this studio building, she lives a life of luxury.’

I was thinking about it, and she handed me something she had brought. “Well, take this.”

But what stood out more than what she handed over was her robe. She was wearing a long soft cardigan today, which was quite similar to the color of the dress I had seen then. I could recall the image of a white lady taking off her drunken pants. I was a bit stiff.

Then she said, “I made cookies in return.”

I received them and said mechanically, “Thank you. Did you make them yourself?”

“I was going to take a little off the rent, but I thought it was too impersonal.”

It was a little funny to say that she would cut my rental fee. She was also rich at around $10,000,000, but considering the money and stocks at the Invictus Investment, my assets had recently exceeded $100,000,000. I laughed inwardly, but I didn’t show it on the outside.

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

“No, I have to give you many thanks, enjoy them.”

She left and went into her room, next door to me. I came back to my living room with the cookies she had given me and sat down in front of the TV. The cookies she had made looked pretty cute. Various animal patterns were painted on a round background. I tried them, and muttered unconsciously, “… They’re not very good…”

To be honest, they weren’t as good as the cookies sold at the convenience store. They were a little hard and not that sweet.

‘She’d rather buy them for me.’

However, considering that a rich woman did this herself, this one seemed to have more affection for her neighbor. So I ate some more of the bad cookies in consideration of her sincerity.

—————————————-

I looked out of the window. The snow of the rafters was touching the window. I looked at it and said, “It’s November, and it’s snowing.”

Secretary Seo, who was holding the wheel, confirmed, “That’s right.”

It was now mid-November, two months after signing a contract with a Chinese investment firm to buy Kai Games, and a day after the disclosure.

“So when is the meeting?”

“It’s at 2:00 p.m.”

“Shall we go right after lunch?”

“Yes, boss.”

Today I was on my way to see Kai Games management. As I said to President Kwon Oh Hyuk last time, I was going to Kai Games and held an event to show the king. ‘I give you the estate of OH Entertainment.’

‘Whoo, this is the second one.’

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing to get here. It took two months, and during those two months, I’d been more focused on stock trading than ever. Even after acquiring Kai Games, I wanted to buy more shares. I wanted to eat this amazing item by myself.

Then one day, a call came from the Financial Supervisory Service.

‘Is it the poison that the stock turnover ratio has been too high to maximize returns ahead of the acquisition? No. Actually, if I think about it, I’ll just have to say that what’s coming is here. With such crazy returns on the table, it is something that I’d come across one day or another.’

I tried to put on a brave face as much as possible, as I hadn’t done anything illegal. Sure enough, they looked at my accounts, IPs, computers, and so on.

But they rather complimented me.

– That’s an amazing return. We didn’t get it right, but… This is…we’ve never seen an individual make such a big profit with an IP alone.-

– You’re a genius in investment. Really.-

– No charge.-

It was natural because I just traded stocks on the future news. It wasn’t stock price manipulation, it wasn’t news manipulation. I just bought stocks that would go up first, and sold them ahead of others. Rather, the transaction process was neat; whether up or down, I bought it, split it up, and sold it over and over again. I had only used a very formal method of reducing risk.

Most of the people who surveyed me looked at me in doubt at first, but later said, “I envy you.” They told me, even secretly, that if I could just give them one good source… They seemed to want to ask me like that.

‘The people of the Financial Supervisory Service are also people, so why wouldn’t they want money? They aren’t able to trade stocks because of their profession.’

I was rather worried that they would ask for the purpose of the monthly subscription fee of $10,000,000 rather than the record of stock trading, but it never happened. Whether the people of the Financial Supervisory Service were authorized to do that, or were not willing, or the Customer Service had blocked it by secret forces…

In any case, no one asked for the whereabouts of the $10,000,000 every month. As a result, I had only gained fame among government officials for my predictive genius, and being neatly good at stocks. I was cleared of any charges, but even if I was innocent, there was a point in this that I would have to run my business legally clean, whether it was individual money or company money.

I said to the secretary, “Secretary Seo, how is it going with the reinforcement of the legal team?”

“Jang says it’s going to take a while, he doesn’t know any legal professionals. He seems to be working with his past contacts.”

“Well, if he doesn’t know them, he’d better be careful.”

“Yes.”

I looked out the window and thought about the advice of Jang. I consulted with Jang, who had many experiences, during the FSS investigation.

“The Financial Supervisory Service has come to my house.” I did not want to reveal my personal history, but I said it was an important issue.

At the end of my words, Vice President Jang said, “If you are proud of yourself, it will not be a big deal.” At the same time, he gave a slightly different opinion, “If you can, you’d better make connections in politics, as well. It will be good in the long run.”

If it was a little wrong, it was an illegal and cohesive connection. However, it seemed to be a good thing to get on the line in reality, because if I got out of the eyes of government or government officials, I might make an unnecessary problem for me or my company. If I didn’t have to exchange something worthwhile, I should also be open to politicians if I could.

‘Politicians…’ I was not very attracted, but I couldn’t help it. I thought if I made a lot of money, it would be all done for me.

While I was thinking about it, Secretary Seo drove the car through Cheongdam-dong and into Samseong-dong, where the sign ‘Kai Games’ was visible in the Samseong-dong building.

I thought, ‘Now this is our company’s, too’ as I picked up my phone and went to the Kai Games stock board, a day after I had announced the acquisition. On the bulletin board, the reviews about our company were mainly followers.

– Invictus? What is this? Do they have any money? They’d better have someone with money to make it a success. Please keep investment and advertising tight.-

– I’ve never heard of or seen this company. The Chinese company tried to earn money through this game company, but they seemed to given up and sold it.-

– Looks like this company recently acquired OH Entertainment. Better than the Chinese company.-

– This company bought entertainment and a game company. Han Sang-hoon? What the fuck? 29? Fucking little bastard.-

Stock bulletin boards were always a mess. The swearing was also habitual.

‘When the stock price rises, these people will cheer…’

I checked the stock price this time, and it seemed to rise slightly after we announced that our company had acquired Kai Games, then it turned around and went down that day. The public still didn’t seem to know our company’s name, but the acquisition itself was likely to make our company famous. Kai Games’ new Fantasy War Ground would bring huge profits to Invictus Investment, Kai Games, me, and all of us.

‘Okay, then we will go straight ahead and proceed with the Blue E&M.’

I clenched my fist with all my strength, and in the meantime, Seo drove into the building with Kai Games, and pulled over in the underground parking lot.

—————————————

I went into Kai Games with Secretary Seo.

“Welcome, CEO Han.”

Inside, the CEO of Kai Games, Shin Dong-woo, was waiting for us. I shook his hand, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Shin.”

He was quite large, about six feet tall, and fat. He was nearly three hundred pounds. His face had a typical round shape. He looked gentle with his glasses. The preliminary report of Vice President Jang said, His game development ability is excellent, but he is a CEO who shows a slight lack of management. He was good at development, but his activity seemed to be a little low.

He opened his hand and said, “Come with me, the directors are waiting for you.”

I followed him to the inner conference room and entered; there were a lot of people waiting for me.

‘Huh, another handshake storm.’

I thought about it and went inside. But inside, I saw a familiar person. Everyone stood up to see me, but he was sitting alone and looking at me arrogantly. He was Master T, Tak Joon-gi of Suyeon Group…