Chapter 15
“I...”
Zephyros hesitated for a moment, at a loss for words, then took a deep breath and spoke.
“I’m normally a man with some decency.”
...All of a sudden?
“I know it’s incredibly rude to ask about an ability someone clearly doesn’t want to reveal... I have that much decency, at least.”
He paused for a moment, then asked again, unable to hide the faint tremble at the corners of his mouth.
“But I can’t stand being curious. What exactly are your class and ability? I’ll keep it to myself. I can’t believe there’s a ridiculous, broken class like this. It’s so unfair, I can hardly stand it.”
Zephyros all but lamented, “Back in my day, I had to take them down one by one with swordsmanship...”
I smiled and answered him.
“I’m a Necromancer.”
“What kind of Necromancer uses a skill like that? None of the Necromancer skills I know can do anything like that.”
“I’m a... slightly unusual Necromancer.”
“Unusual... Don’t tell me you have a Unique Class?”
“Yes.”
“...A Necromancer with a Unique Class. So that’s why you can’t use ordinary Necromancer skills.”
Having a Unique Class wasn’t all good.
Ahmad Triaine, the Frenchman who kept popping into my mind and making me feel like I knew him, was an ordinary Necromancer, not a Unique Class.
Though I wasn’t sure it was right to call a monster like him ordinary, that was the case, at least.
“Then you don’t need Necromancer skill books, do you?”
“No, I can’t learn them.”
One reason ordinary classes could have an advantage was that you could learn class skills from skill books.
Ahmad, who had originally been the second-generation heir to an IT conglomerate, had invested enormous sums to scoop up and learn every Necromancer skill book he could find.
Unique Classes, on the other hand, generally had no way to obtain skills except by leveling up or receiving achievement rewards.
Oh, right. I’d reached Level 10 and gotten a skill reward.
“Um, I got a skill for reaching Level 10. Would you mind if I checked it for a moment?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
When I opened my skill window, I saw a new skill alongside Undead Rise and Recall.
[Mician (Unique)]
Description: A spell created by the legendary Necromancer Avicenna. It allows the user to observe the microscopic realm and discern the properties of microscopic beings. The higher the proficiency, the smaller the realm the user can observe.
...Going by the description, it was basically a microscope.
It didn’t seem like it would be useful right away, at least.
“Judging by your expression, the skill you got as a reward is a bit of a mixed bag.”
“Well, partly. I was just thinking about how I might use it.”
“A Unique Class... You’ve chosen a difficult path.”
“You had a Unique Class too, right, Zephyros?”
He hadn’t been an ordinary swordsman, but a Unique Class called the Azure Wind Swordmaster.
“That’s true, but Unique Classes for swordsmen have it much easier than those for mages. It’s not really a fair comparison.”
“Well, I’ll figure something out.”
Honestly, I wasn’t too worried.
It was true that my current abilities were already incredible.
For a while, my current stats should be more than enough to keep clearing dungeons.
Perhaps he’d read that confidence in my eyes, because Zephyros smiled too.
**
After exiting the Gate, I asked Zephyros,
“So, what do you think? About acquiring Saeil Pharma.”
“It doesn’t look bad... But are you planning to keep coming back here to clear the Gate?”
“It takes about a week for a Gate to fully respawn after it’s been cleared. Coming once a week seems doable. Besides...”
“Oh, sounds like you’ve got something up your sleeve.”
“There aren’t that many underwater dungeons, are there? And not every dungeon is profitable. If you take accessibility and all sorts of other factors into account... the Maritime Hunters’ Association can’t just keep throwing its weight around forever.”
They could call all the shots while they held a monopoly, but they couldn’t do that if they were merely the second option.
“Once word gets out that the dungeon is being cleared reliably, we might be able to get another contract at a reasonable price. Besides, an association doesn’t mean everyone thinks the same way.”
There might be someone who needed money right away and resented the association’s decision.
They were probably willing to make a temporary sacrifice in exchange for long-term gains. But if those long-term gains never materialized, their temporary sacrifice would have been for nothing.
If that happened, they wouldn’t keep sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
After listening to my reasoning in silence, Zephyros smiled and said a single word.
“Approved.”
“...What’s approved?”
“You’ve got enough business sense to run a company.”
“Oh, then...”
“I’ll invest.”
“Really?”
Honestly, this was why I’d come here with Zephyros.
I’d planned to persuade him somehow and get him to invest.
He was pretty much the only person I could get money from, so I didn’t have much choice.
But he agreed so readily?
“Then how much equity...”
“Forget equity. I’ll lend you the money at the legal interest rate. I wouldn’t mind lending it to you interest-free, but the National Tax Service would come after us.”
“......”
What was with this guy? Was he an angel?
“A-Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
“I’ve got money to spare.”
Ah, that’s rich-people talk for you.
I could almost see a halo shining behind his head.
“Then I’ll gladly accept.”
“There’s one condition.”
A condition?
Well, it’d be strange if there were no strings attached when he was lending me money at the legal rate without taking equity.
“Go ahead.”
“Do you know what DDF is?”
What was that?
When I gave him a blank look, he continued explaining.
“It stands for Dungeon Development Fund. It’s a type of ETF, or exchange-traded fund.”
“Oh, I think I’ve heard of it. But why bring that up all of a sudden...?”
“I’ve got around 50 billion won invested in the Jeju DDF, which tracks the stock prices of companies based in Jeju.”
He really was rich.
He made 50 billion won sound like pocket change he’d just parked somewhere.
“The thing is, I got in a little late. So it’s a bit overvalued right now.”
“Overvalued...? Why?”
“Because of you, isn’t it?”
“Come on, why does everything have to be my fault?”
Zephyros burst out laughing and elaborated.
“It’s the market pricing in expectations ahead of time.”
“Expectations...?”
“The next Impossible Gate is on Jeju Island. Since you cleared the Gate in Chungju, people are hoping you might clear that one too.”
The world of stocks was truly mysterious.
So just because I cleared the Gate in Chungju, everyone was already chugging down the assumption that I’d clear the Jeju Gate, and the stock price had risen in anticipation?
“Whether that priced-in optimism collapses back to the actual value, or you live up to it and push the price even higher, depends on one person.”
Anyone who wasn’t an idiot could guess who that person was.
“My shoulders suddenly feel a lot heavier.”
“Want to make them heavier? I’ll reduce the principal by the amount of this fund’s return. Of course, I won’t increase the principal if the fund drops.”
“...So, if the return is 100%...”
“Your debt would be forgiven for free.”
Even if it didn’t reach 100%, a return of around 50% was entirely plausible.
As far as I knew, RHS’s stock price had actually risen by about 70%.
If I managed to clear the Gate on Jeju Island that had been designated impossible to conquer—
The Impossible Gate—I’d bring in an enormous profit.
Of course, that was only if I cleared it.
That said, I wouldn’t lose much if I failed to clear it, either.
Basically, it was an incredibly good deal for me.
“And I’ll make a profit to match.”
It was a good deal for Zephyros too, since he had 50 billion won tied up in the fund.
If I didn’t clear the Gate, he’d end up losing money. But if I did, he stood to make a huge profit.
“I don’t see any reason to refuse.”
I was planning to take on the Stage 11 Impossible Gate on Jeju Island anyway.
A lot was suddenly riding on it, but nothing had really changed.
**
Once Zephyros stepped in, the acquisition of Saeil Pharma proceeded smoothly.
As he’d predicted, the banks agreed to forgive 50% of the debt.
At best, the banks could recover only a portion of the company’s 12 billion won in assets against its 48 billion won debt. Of course they’d agree if they could recover 24 billion won instead.
I borrowed a little over 20 billion won from Zephyros and put the 15.2 billion won in immediately needed funds into the company.
Now a mid-sized pharmaceutical company with 200 employees was entirely mine.
I was saddled with debt, though...
“This is incredible.”
Ms. Gyuseon’s confident voice eased some of the burden on my shoulders.
Everyone from the executives to the hands-on staff was gathered there.
Gyuseon, who had just taken up the position of CTO, continued.
“Saeil Pharma’s flagship product is a fatigue-relief medicine, right? It’s made with Cardiovibre, extracted from the hearts of Sawblade Ichthyosaurs.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
I’d heard of Saeil Power Q before. It was a famous fatigue-relief product.
It must have been doing well enough for them to consider acquiring a dungeon themselves.
Though that was what drove them to ruin...
If Saeil Pharma had been in good shape, its product would have competed with the fatigue-relief pills we were going to make.
“But I ran some experiments with the researchers here, and Cardiovibre has a synergistic effect with Elixir. So even if we use only half as much Elixir, it’ll be more effective than the fatigue-relief pill I made before.”
“W-Wait... Then...”
Elixir’s efficiency would double?
Ms. Gyuseon had said so before.
Whether you sold Elixir as is or made it into a fatigue-relief pill, the unit cost was about the same.
But if its efficiency doubled, you could get twice as much for the same amount of Elixir by selling it as a fatigue-relief pill rather than as Elixir.
“Of course, since we have to add Cardiovibre, it won’t be exactly twice the price...”
“That ingredient is common as dirt compared to Elixir, isn’t it?”
“That’s true...”
Cardiovibre was a compound found in the hearts of all ichthyosaur-type monsters.
It improved blood flow and circulation.
Naturally, it was incomparably more common than Elixir.
If adding a little of it doubled Elixir’s efficiency, the value would be beyond measure!
“Let’s start mass production right away. Factory manager in Cheonan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long do you think it’ll take to begin mass production?”
“The recipe isn’t much different from the existing one, so we should be able to start production quickly with a few modifications to the current equipment!”
The factory manager, who’d narrowly escaped becoming unemployed, shouted with enthusiasm.
“Design team.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When do you think you can have a draft of Power Q Elixir ready?”
“We’ll have it finished by tomorrow! We can just make the packaging and overall look a little more upscale than the existing Power Q.”
Power Q was already famous in the fatigue-relief market, so there was no reason not to use the name.
We just had to add ‘Elixir’ to the end and give it the image of containing Elixir.
“Um, sir. But will we be able to source enough Elixir?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
I’d already extracted Elixir from the pellets we’d collected the first time.
To keep it quiet for as long as possible that Elixir could be extracted from waste, I’d made Mincheol hyung the public face of the waste collection company.
From the outside, it would be hard to connect Saeil Pharma with the waste collection company.
“All right, everyone. You’ve all been through a lot.”
At my words, the employees’ eyes wavered.
A few of them even had tears welling up.
They must have been under enormous stress, worrying that the company would go bankrupt and they’d end up unemployed.
Having been an ordinary employee myself until recently, I couldn’t help understanding how they felt.
“I know you’ve all been worried.”
Usually, when a company on the brink of bankruptcy was finally acquired, that brought its own problems.
The employees were often made to make sacrifices in the name of sharing the burden.
For example, their wages might be frozen or cut.
I knew some employees had been voicing concerns about whether that might happen to them.
“But I think that after all your hard work, the time has come for better days. Your efforts will be rewarded.”
Now—
for me and for them—
the jackpot we’d been waiting for
was right before our eyes.