12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

Shin Dong-woo, president of the Kai Games, introduced me to each of the directors of the Kai Games.

“This is the chief of development general.”

“This is Chae Joong-sun. Nice to meet you.”

“Thank you. I’m Han Sang Hoon.”

I held his hand and waved it, but I put my attention on Director Tak Joon-gi, who sat in the back.

‘I thought I’d see him someday, but… I didn’t think that was going to happen today.’

He was the third-largest shareholder of the Kai Games, but he didn’t seem to directly interfere with management, similarly to me. He also didn’t have a formal title, like an outside director. But today, he showed up with the directors at this meeting where we greeted one another.

‘Has he come to see who became the first major shareholder?’

I tried to sneak a look at him, but every time Mr. Shin showed up with new faces and introduced them to me.

“This is Kim Young-ji, the finance director.”

“Nice to see you.”

“Yes, good to see you.”

By the end of the greetings, it wasn’t until the last minute that Tak Joon-gi stood up. As he moved, I could see the people next to him flinching away. They bent over and gave way to the king, as if they were the followers. Tak Joon-gi was moving forward.

CEO Shin also stood aside and said, “This is Tak Joon-gi, our third-largest shareholder.”

He only had a 5 percent stake, but they treated him as a superior. Perhaps the fact that he was the third generation of a chaebol family, and that he was a big hand in the investment industry, was a big factor. I faced him. He was quite tall, about 180cm tall, slightly taller than me. I looked up and met his eyes.

Looking closer, his image was definitely different from when I had seen him from a distance in the Garden Envy. His eyebrows were thick, his nose was big and slim, and he felt like a big man as a whole, but his eyes were small and long, so I could not tell what was inside. In addition, his lips were thin and small, so he seemed to be rather petty.

He extended his hand and said, “I am Tak Joon-gi, it’s good to see you.”

As I had done when I had met Kaiji outside last time, I greeted him, “I’ve met you for the first time. I’m Han Sang-hoon.” I spoke as if there had been no business in the Garden Envy.

He looked at me and said, his eyes shining, “Yes, Mr. Han. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The look was like saying, ‘I know you have been to Garden Envy.’

‘What the…?’

I tried to find out what his intention was. “Oh, really? Where did you hear my story…?”

At my words, he laughed and spoke vaguely, “Here and there.”

I thought, letting go of his hand in moderation. ‘This man… he’s certainly a man who I should be careful of.’

If Garden Envy was a den of snakes, then this person was the huge snake that moved them, a python. I shook hands with him last, and then followed Mr. Shin’s guidance and went up to the top of the podium.

“Now, Han Sang-hoon, who is a major shareholder of our company, will say something.”

I made the same inaugural address that I had done for the inauguration for OH Entertainment; I just changed the name to Kai Games.

“.. and full investment and support to Kai Games…”

There was no need for procedures such as having delegation ceremony like OH Entertainment. Shin Dong-woo, the founder of the company, was already at the center of the company.

“I’m confident of the success of the Kai Games…”

While giving a speech, I took a peek at President Shin Dong-woo. He looked at me in a friendly manner. Like OH Entertainment, I said, “I’m not going to touch any game development. Just make a good game.”

As I had said so, he was now able to devote himself to developing the game without any interference. I heard that the Chinese board of directors asked many things and interfered in game development.

– You shouldn’t have this white bone.-

– Let’s do this in red.-

– Please do something that will work in China.-

They had been giving such orders, and he had been quite stressed. Now that all the Chinese board members had resigned after taking over the company, President Shin Dong-woo had no one to tell him what to do with development. It was natural for him to thank me, because I had drawn thorns out from his eyes. He would be more concerned with development.

“… I’d like to ask you…”

As soon as I was done, everyone clapped enthusiastically, to impress the new owner. But one person, Director Tak Joon-gi, was like leader Kim Jeong-eun in North Korea, crossing his palm up and down and clapping slowly. He was using that manner, ‘Let’s see how you do.’

‘Oh, yeah. You’re a royal family. Is that it?’

He had probably lived being clapped at rather than clapping. After the meeting with the board members, I followed Mr. Shin’s guidance and looked around the entire company. Looking back at the game developer, it was certainly exciting. When I saw the games up on the monitor, I could see Fantasy War Ground, the big hit of the future.

“It’s a new genre of Battle Royale, which has transformed modern war into a fantasy fight with swords, bows, or magic instead of guns. We’ll be in CBT soon for the regular users.”

‘This game will be the ultimate hit that will captivate gamers all over the world.’

I’d been looking around the whole company like that.

“Then I hope you work hard to the end.”

“Yes, of course!”

——

After a last-minute goodbye with Shin, I returned to the underground parking lot.

As soon as I got into the car, Secretary Seo said, “That Fantasy War Ground looked so interesting when I saw it in front of me. I think it’s going to be a big hit.”

I nodded, “Sure. I told you that it’s going to succeed.”

Secretary Seo looked at me in a rear-view mirror. “I think you have an amazing perspective. Really.”

“No, no.”

But then my cell phone rang, and a text came in. It was an unknown number, but I could tell who sent it by looking at the text.

– This is Master T. I would like to see you at the cafe on the second floor, in front of the Kai Games. Duros.-

Director Tak Joon-gi, Master T, wrote the text and sent it with my nickname in the Garden Envy. He knew that I had attended the meeting he had hosted.

‘But how did you know that?’

I had time to recuperate and reflect. I’d only been to the meeting once and never given my name there. I’d only seen him once in the distance. He was surrounded by people and didn’t even have time to see me.

‘What possible scenario…’

There were only two possibilities that I could think of right now: first, Kaiji, Director Lee Won-jae, made a statement to him. Second, Section-chief Kim Hye-sook, who had given me an invitation to Garden Envy, sold the information.

‘… Who was it?’

I was thinking about it, Secretary Seo started the car. Of course, it was time to get off work. I stopped him, “Secretary Seo, wait a minute.”

“Yes?”

“Wait here for a moment… No. Go on home. I’ll get off here.”

“Yes?”

“It’s because I’ve got some personal business to do around here. Go ahead.”

At my words, Secretary Seo tilted his head, but he obeyed my order.

“Yes, sir. Boss.”

I crossed the crosswalk at the green light. On the second floor of the building across from Kai Games, there was a large dessert cafe, as Director Tak Joon-gi had said. I thought as I entered the building, ‘Why is this guy calling me… …what the hell is he trying to do?’

I doubted him. But no one could cheat on me. I had an eye for the future. Even if someone was trying to tie me up with a lie, I was confident that I would resist it. Entering the cafe, Director Tak Joon-gi waved his hand at me from the inside corner. I approached him and sat down and said, “Why did you ask me to meet you?”

At my words, he grinned and said, “No, well… It wasn’t because of something. I just wanted to see you personally. As you know… I like excellent investors. By the way, you are a 29-year-old man with $60,000,000 assets. It was very interesting.”

He seemed to know only with the assets of Invictus Investment.

‘It’s $160,000,000, not $60,000,000.’

He couldn’t have imagined I had earned $60,000,000 more in my personal accounts in two months after investing $30,000,000 into Invictus Investment. Even if he was a member of the royal family, a human was only a human being. No person with power could know the future. That meant, no matter how much he held his form in front of me, it just seemed ridiculous in my eyes.

He said, tapping his finger twice against the window where the Kai Games looked. “I’d like to ask you, by the way. Why did you buy this company?”

I answered simply, “I think it’s a good game company.”

He looked at me with his snake-like eyes, having hands on his chin. “Is that just about it?”

“Yes. I enjoy investing in game companies. Isn’t the sale all for the game company? It’s good because it’s simple. If the game hits, the stock price goes up. If it fails, it goes down. I approached it in that sense. Especially this beginning… it is considered to be a work of both stability and novelty by mixing fantasy with the popular Battle Royale genre.”

He didn’t seem to know much about the game. Even though he was in his forties, I felt like he couldn’t understand anything when I was talking about the Battle Royale genre.

‘But if he were a son of a rich family, would he have played a game? He was probably golfing and traveling abroad at that time.’ I asked him the same question, “Why did you buy this company?”

He once again said with a sizzling smile at my words. “I’m confident that I can sell it and make money.”

I asked him implicitly, “Well… did Director Tak have a good view of the game, too?”

If he pretended to know here, he was 100% lying. But he began to laugh openly at my words. “Hahaha!”

As I tilted my head, suddenly he looked straight at me and said one more thing, “I don’t know the game.”

It was a remark that I didn’t understand with common sense. He didn’t know the game, but he bought the game stock.

But he twinkled his eyes and said, “But I still know the stock. You know, stocks are a kind of pyramid scheme, a trick game.”

At the remark, I thought once again, ‘This man is a dangerous man.’ But nevertheless, I decided to listen to him more.

‘A crisis is an opportunity in the stock market. If this person tries to put me in danger, that will be an opportunity, too.’

I grinned at him and said, “That’s right.”