Chapter 53
Having completed takeoff, Kaiser let out a sigh of relief.
“Phew...”
It was certainly a radiance he hadn't been able to unleash in recent times.
Ahmad must have been surprised, too.
If not for the power of that wine, he wouldn't have been able to produce such radiance.
Of course, his claim that he would send the Death Knights back had been little more than a bluff.
With radiance that had already begun to fade again after only a brief release, he couldn't take on that madman's legion.
That might have been different in his prime.
Still, it had been worth putting him in his place once.
‘He probably heard through some intelligence channel that my radiance had weakened.’
The government agencies were doing their utmost to keep it secret, but there was no such thing as a perfect secret.
Especially when the other side was a powerful figure who controlled a major power like France, it was even harder to hide.
That was why he'd even forced Kaiser to land in Paris and tried to throw his weight around.
Kaiser had anticipated even that, though.
He had deliberately decided to go to France after recovering some of his radiance.
He'd already known they'd pick a fight like this.
Ahmad would be confused now.
He probably couldn't trust his own intelligence channels, either.
Based on that one fact—that he'd temporarily regained his radiance—Kaiser had extracted this much of an advantage.
He'd set up every circumstance needed for his bluff to work.
Even so, he couldn't be satisfied at all.
‘I have to regain my strength.’
If he'd been in his prime, with his overwhelming power, would a necromancer like that have dared to mouth off to him?
Dared?
Even though he was still considered one of the world's strongest Hunters...
For Kaiser, who had always held that position, it was extremely hard to bear not being the absolute strongest.
While he sat with his eyes closed, lost in thought, a voice came from the cockpit.
“Lord Kaiser, we'll be arriving at Bordeaux Airport shortly.”
“Kim Segyun... He came and went recently, didn't he?”
“Yes. I heard he cleared an Impossible Gate.”
Gate liberation.
He had once again achieved an unheard-of feat, one that Russia had also managed to accomplish.
Being the first was always frightening.
For the person trying to achieve it,
and for those who witnessed it.
Kaiser had always been the one people feared, on the former side, but now he was on the latter.
He was afraid.
What kind of absurd reward had Kim Segyun received for that first-ever feat?
He was all the more concerned because, in the past, he too had cleared Impossible Gates and achieved many firsts.
That was why he needed to regain the strength of his prime before Segyun accomplished even more absurd things.
Some said reversing aging was impossible, but he intended to make it possible.
Because he was Kaiser.
He rode in the car he'd requested in advance straight to the Pétrus winery.
The road was lined with vast expanses of land full of grapevines, but the sight did nothing for Kaiser, who owned several massive wineries in California's Napa Valley.
As a through-and-through American who drank only California wine, visiting an Old World winery like this was, in some ways, humiliating.
At last, he arrived at the Pétrus winery.
Kaiser greeted the man near the front gate.
“Good day.”
“Ah, I'm afraid our winery isn't receiving visitors for a while...”
“Who are you?”
“I'm the heir to this winery.”
“Hmm. Then answer my questions with only yes or no. Understand?”
“...Why should I do that?”
“Because then you'll receive ten million dollars.”
The heir, Jean, opened his eyes wide.
“Ten million dollars...”
Even by the standards of a world-famous winery, Pétrus was small.
Recently, it had made a fortune selling a few dozen bottles of wine on a nearly artisanal scale, but...
Even that amount only came to around two million euros.
Its usual annual revenue varied depending on the harvest, but in a poor year like this one, it barely exceeded 60 million euros.
It wasn't small, but it was modest compared to corporate wineries in Napa Valley.
Ten million dollars was no small sum for a place like Pétrus.
Especially for Jean, who planned to conduct various experiments.
Sales might fall or its reputation might suffer in the process... so having money set aside would be useful.
“I'll give you ten million dollars as soon as you agree. In U.S. Treasury bonds, at that.”
U.S. Treasury bonds were practically as good as cash.
“...Go ahead and ask. But personal or sensitive questions...”
“Answer however you like. Yes or no will do.”
“Understood.”
“I've tasted that wine.”
“Hm?”
He knew the full list of people who'd bought the wine for 100,000 euros.
They were all regulars among regulars.
He didn't think any of them had resold it yet.
Except one person.
“Could you be the guest who paid 3.8 million euros—the sucker... I mean, the tycoon?”
“...I am.”
“Good heavens.”
Could someone have so much money to burn?
Well, if he was offering ten million dollars just for answering questions, what was 3.8 million euros to him?
“Was it you or your father who made that wine?”
Jean hesitated for a moment, unsure how to answer.
At last, he let out a small sigh and shook his head.
“Neither of us. But I did receive the right to sell it.”
“It isn't Pétrus wine? Then whose is it?”
“...I don't really know, either.”
At Jean's words, Kaiser smiled and shook his head.
“No, you do know.”
“How...”
“Was the person who made it Hunter Kim Segyun?”
“...No.”
“You're lying.”
Unable to shake his suspicion, Jean bit his lip and asked,
“Do you happen to have a lie-detection skill...?”
“I do.”
For a clear judgment of good and evil, a Crusader had to detect lies.
Though it had been incredibly difficult to acquire, it was a useful skill.
It could only be used face-to-face, which was why he'd had no choice but to come all the way to Bordeaux himself.
“...I can't hide it from you.”
If the other person had lie detection, then from the moment they began talking, they had the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood.
“Heh...”
Since Jean's claim that Segyun hadn't made the wine had been exposed as a lie, the maker had to be Kim Segyun.
His expression didn't change on the surface, but inside, Kaiser was burning with frustration.
Why did it have to be Kim Segyun again?!
“I can't tell you anything whatsoever related to its production...”
“That won't be necessary. I've gotten all the information I need.”
The secretary following him handed Jean ten million dollars' worth of U.S. Treasury bonds.
Jean accepted them in a daze, then said, somewhat awkwardly,
“Would you like to take a bottle of wine with you?”
“...Is it wine made by Hunter Kim Segyun? If you have any left, give me all of it.”
“As it happens, we have exactly one bottle left. But...”
“Would four million dollars be enough?”
“......”
What was this?
Was he an alcoholic?
Misunderstanding colored Jean's gaze as he looked at Kaiser.
**
At first, when the Pétrus winery put out the wine, everyone treated them like lunatics, but everything turned around with a single review from a critic.
It even sold at auction for several million euros.
The only disappointing thing was that Korean cheongju didn't yet have the same market potential as wine.
Sake had grown, too, but even its market couldn't come close to wine's.
Still, it didn't matter.
Once word of it got around, I was confident.
Saeil Pharmaceutical had become SG Pharmaceutical and joined the SG Group.
I created a small SG Distillery as its subsidiary.
They said water was important for making liquor, so I acquired a traditional liquor brewery in a place with good mountains and good water and made it a small company.
Of course, the impact this small company would have around the world wouldn't be small at all.
The first product to come out was called ‘Cheonsang (Heaven Above).’
Its English name was Celestial.
The price the brewery initially planned to charge for Cheonsang was 30 million won per bottle.
It was a fairly reasonable price.
Pétrus had sold its wine for 100,000 euros, about 150 million won, so after extracting 80% of the Nectar and leaving only 20% as liquor, I thought it made sense to sell it for about one-fifth the price... or so I thought.
But after seeing it sell for 3.8 million euros at auction, I figured we could raise the price, so we set it at 300 million won a bottle.
I'd inflated it by exactly ten times.
Naturally, the reaction was...
─Some weird distillery at Germ-Man's company? I checked out the site after seeing this liquor company pop up... Three hundred million won for a bottle of cheongju, what the hell.
└Probably just hasn't updated the price yet. Maybe they put in some random number as a sample.
─It's an error, an error. The alcohol percentage is wrong, too. How can cheongju be 40% alcohol?
└LOL, if you buy it, will they refund you?
└If someone actually buys it, that's gotta be a troll.
Far from being chilly, the response was that people didn't even take it seriously in the first place.
I suppose that was only natural...
“The initial barrier to entry really is too...”
All the company employees, Zephyros, and everyone else who'd tried it agreed it was worth 300 million won.
If so, what kind of advertising could break through that psychological barrier?
It wasn't as if an ordinary person could buy and drink liquor that cost 300 million won a bottle anyway.
In that case, we'd have to promote it to top-level Hunters and the wealthy...
That was what I thought.
“...Chairman?”
“Yes?”
“We just got an order.”
“Oh... It's not a joke order, is it?”
“No. Joke orders aren't possible, since the full 300 million has to be paid upfront.”
“Oh, then what about this order?”
After hesitating for a moment,
“Someone just ordered all the stock we'd listed online. All 999 bottles. The entire lot has sold out for 299.7 billion won.”
...What kind of lunatic was this?
Fortunately, if we gathered everything together, we just barely had 999 bottles in stock.
That wasn't the issue...
There probably wasn't anyone crazy enough to pull a prank worth 300 billion won.
“Where did the order come from?”
“...The U.S. The delivery address is in Chicago, Illinois. It says Kaiser Tower.”
No way, Kaiser...
Had he decided to drink himself to death?
**
What should he do?
After returning to the United States with a bottle of wine, Kaiser spent some time fretting and worrying.
He knew he needed to get in touch with Kim Segyun.
But now... he had nothing to offer him.
Kim Segyun had already become a major figure.
Korea was certainly a small country, but becoming a major figure who could sway that country was another matter entirely.
As long as Kaiser himself couldn't give up the dragon's head, all he could offer Segyun was the dragon's tail.
But the other man was a snake's head.
He wasn't someone Kaiser could entice by wagging just a tail at him.
That meant he'd have to split the head in two and share it, but...
He couldn't even decide whether that would be worthwhile or whether it was the right thing to do.
It was just then.
Liquor from Segyun's company appeared online at an absurd price.
“This is it!”
Kaiser was certain.
And he bought it immediately.
As a result,
he had 999 bottles of cheongju in his hands.
He didn't have time to worry about how it tasted.
All he needed to do was find out whether he'd been scammed or not.
He drank it right away.
“Pfft!”
He nearly spat it out.
What the hell was this? Why was it so strong?
Still, he couldn't spit out liquor that cost 300 million won a bottle.
He forced down the harsh drink, and a message appeared before his eyes.
[You have drunk a fragment of a beverage brewed by a god! Your faded faith finds its light again, ever so faintly!]
“...A fragment? Ever so faintly?”
Something was off.
When he raised his sword and tried to draw out his radiance...
His faith really had grown, but only slightly.
At most, perhaps a fifth of what the wine had given him.
Still, it was fine.
He had 999 bottles, so if he drank them all...
“Those...”
Only then did he notice the label.
“All...”
The 40 percent alcohol content...
“If I drink...”
Finally registered with Kaiser.
Not wine at a mere fifteen percent... but liquor at 40 percent.
And he had to drink five times as much of it, too.
“Aaaaargh!”
A near-scream erupted from Kaiser's office.