Chapter 63
“She cried until she was exhausted and fell asleep. I put her to bed and came out. You can take her with you when she wakes up.”
“...Thank you.”
After giving instructions to the bodyguards, Ms. Gyuseon came over to me and smiled.
Thank goodness she was all right.
Damn, I never thought they’d come after Ms. Gyuseon.
I should assign her some bodyguards from now on.
“I told you to go wait at the lab.”
“How could I just leave? I don’t know what she might do.”
“Aren’t you being a little prejudiced? She just seemed like a kid.”
“Good grief.”
To think Kaiser’s granddaughter, who’d seemed utterly heartless, could act like that...
It felt strange.
“Our CTO isn’t going anywhere, right?”
“Me? Where would I go?”
“Even if you want to leave, don’t. I’ll make sure you get paid well, too.”
“Huh? I don’t really need that. I already have plenty.”
I was doing my best to take good care of her, after all.
Still, I couldn’t exactly overpay her like Kaiser had offered.
That kind of money... only crazy bastards could offer it.
“That’s not what I need.”
“...What do you need, then?”
“You, CEO.”
“......”
When a lifelong single hears something that romantic, their heart starts fluttering.
“There’s something I want to do.”
“What is it?”
A movie? A meal? I’d be happy to buy her anything...
“I’ve hit a bit of a wall in my recent research into the behavioral patterns of Magnetospirillum magneticum. I think I could work it out easily if you helped me, CEO. That’s why I’ve been waiting for you.”
“......”
“...Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Shall we go?”
I was wrong to get my hopes up!
**
Sofia Heinrich boarded a private jet bound for the United States.
What she held dear in her arms were two large jars of yuja tea.
Hugging the jars of yuja tea as she sat curled up with her knees drawn to her chest, she murmured.
“Grandfather... can you beat Kim Segyun?”
Before, she hadn’t even dared to doubt it.
No matter how strong Kim Segyun was, she’d believed her grandfather, Kaiser, was so far beyond what the word ‘strong’ could express.
But now...
That belief had been shattered completely.
Just like the barrier created by Aias’s Sevenfold Necklace had been smashed to pieces.
A massive crack had formed in her blind faith in her grandfather, Kaiser.
Through that crack, her trust in him was slowly draining away.
“If Grandfather can’t beat Kim Segyun...”
Under the belief that ‘only strength rules everything,’ the person she ought to follow...
might not be her grandfather.
Such an unwelcome thought suddenly popped into her head.
She immediately ruffled her hair, trying to forget it.
But she still couldn’t stop thinking that way, and a small sigh escaped her lips.
At the same time.
“If that happens... will I get to see him often?”
Remembering the warm yuja tea, she smiled bashfully.
**
Just a month after the plan was drawn up, the state-run undead repair center began its soft opening.
It was located on Yeongjong Island.
It might have seemed unusual, but it was a very sensible choice.
For one thing, the site was spacious.
And there were areas far from residential neighborhoods.
Even in a world that had grown used to undead, most people would rather not see walking corpses in the middle of the city—unless they lived in a crazy city like Paris.
If they opened a repair center where undead came in every day, there’d be an uproar about property values dropping.
Besides, its biggest advantage was...
It was close to the airport.
Incheon Airport was on Yeongjong Island, after all, so it was no exaggeration to say the center was right next door.
In other words, the state-run repair center wasn’t planning to limit its clientele to Korean necromancers.
“They plan to suck foreign currency dry. That’s all.”
That was Zephyros’s assessment.
The base repair fee was set at half the usual cost, and Korean Hunters would receive additional discounts based on various factors, such as their ranking and contributions to the South Korean government.
Hunter Sa Myeong-jin, Korea’s highest-level necromancer and ranked fourth, would probably only have to pay around 10% of the standard rate.
Since the standard repair cost was 10% of an undead’s production cost, that meant paying just 1% of the production cost for repairs.
Needless to say, the global necromancer community went into a frenzy.
Far more people than the necromancers who’d flocked to the auction flew to Korea, even during the soft-opening period.
Another reason they were flocking in was that the soft-opening discount cut the price to 25% of normal.
The American billionaires Daniel Krug and Elliot Sage, whom I’d met before, also flew back into Incheon Airport on their private jets.
The two first entrusted the center with their Supreme-tier Death Knights, which had cost around $4 billion each to make.
At the usual repair cost of $400 million, a 75% discount brought it down to $100 million.
Even so, it was a huge sum.
Still, even for billionaires, there was no reason not to come when they could stop by Korea briefly and save $300 million.
“Y-Your undead has been fully repaired.”
The necromancer, who had to work at the repair center three times a week for twenty years as part of mandatory service, spoke in a trembling voice.
The two billionaires, idols to necromancers, and their Supreme-tier Death Knights—the products of outrageous spending...
Even those Death Knights were effortlessly restored by the Alois Priest undead.
“Wow, it really does get fixed.”
“...To think I gave up on an undead this ridiculously overpowered just to save a mere $2.5 billion. I seriously feel like cutting off my own wrist.”
“Tell me about it.”
The two grumbled.
At this point, its performance was good enough to easily justify spending around $2.5 billion.
Back then, they’d decided it was better to save that money and add one more Supreme-tier Death Knight, but now they’d completely changed their minds.
And so, on the very first day...
The state-run undead repair center, which was only in soft opening, brought in a total of 700 billion won.
Even after subtracting all expenses, including salaries, net profit would easily top 600 billion won.
There was no business in South Korea that brought in this kind of money.
Minister Jeong In-hyeon of the Awakened Management Bureau let out a cry of joy when the report came in.
President Kang Min-guk was smiling brightly, too.
It was the moment a black-hole-like state-run business appeared, one that would suck up foreign currency from around the world for a long time to come.
**
While the government was raking in money...
So was I.
The problem was that I was far too busy.
“Cheonsang aside, Cheonha is selling out almost as soon as it hits the market.”
“...People are buying liquor that expensive?”
Cheonsang cost 300 million won, so there was no need to mention it, but Cheonha wasn’t exactly cheap either.
Cheonha 40-degree cost 3 million won, 30-degree was 500,000 won, and even the 20-degree version cost well over 100,000 won.
“People’s income levels have improved lately, haven’t they? The economy’s booming.”
Wasn’t this the greatest economic boom since Dangun founded Korea?
After the dungeon market opened, many economic reports had predicted stagnation and a downturn, but thanks to President Kang Min-guk’s decision to push through aggressively, the KOSPI was hitting new highs every day.
No one could call it ‘Box-Pi’ anymore.
“Cheonha’s gotten so hard to find that it’s even being resold. There’s no way we can think about overseas sales right now.”
“Resold?”
“For Cheonha 40-degree, I hear people are marking it up almost threefold.”
“...That’d be nearly 3 million won already. They’re paying 9 million won for it to drink?”
“Reviews from the YouTubers who attended the tasting event said it was the flavor closest to Cheonsang...”
Well, 9 million was better than 300 million.
“...Should we put out a lower-end line than Cheonha?”
“Would that be possible?”
“Hmm.”
Cheonsang couldn’t be mass-produced because I had to focus meticulously on controlling the bacteria, and Cheonha was practically a by-product of that process, so mass production was out of the question.
“I think I need to give it some thought...”
If I brewed liquor in large quantities, used Gluttony to wipe out all the bacteria that spoiled the flavor, and controlled any bacteria that grew excessively at the same time... I might be able to do it.
There’d obviously be no Nectar formation this way, but I should be able to mass-produce decent liquor with fairly consistent quality.
Put simply...
It would have the complex flavors of cheongju, while also having the refined taste of sake...
I thought I could mass-produce something slightly lower in quality than Cheonha 20-degree.
The country had money now, and people were living well...
They couldn’t keep living on nothing but green bottles, could they?
**
When I finished work at SG Distillery and returned to the pharmaceutical company, Ms. Gyuseon happened to be at the Gangnam headquarters.
“What brings you here?”
“CEO, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“...It’s not something you need for your research again, is it?”
“No, it isn’t. This time it’s a report.”
“All right, go ahead.”
I was listening to her without giving it much thought when...
“I’ve successfully reverse-engineered the rapid external injury recovery potion and the internal injury recovery potion.”
Had I heard her wrong?
“What?”
Aren’t those rare items that only come from dungeon-clear rewards and the like?
“You mean the potions I know?”
“That’s right.”
“You... reverse-engineered them...?”
“That means we can mass-produce them now.”
Holy crap.
Only a Hunter would understand what that meant.
Powerful medicine that could heal external and internal injuries in any situation.
In dungeons that allowed multiple people to enter, you could get support from a healer, but not every dungeon allowed groups.
There were also instance-dungeon types that forced you to go solo.
When running those instances, this was practically a must-have item.
Its nickname was ‘an extra life.’
Naturally, everyone wanted an extra life on hand.
There was a lot of demand and little supply, so the price was obviously astronomical.
But what Ms. Gyuseon was saying now...
was practically saying she could make extra lives.
“Of course, the ingredients aren’t exactly cheap.”
“Ah, I figured.”
“Now I understand why the alchemy community’s attempts to reverse-engineer it kept failing. It contains Nectar.”
Ah. Nectar...
That dampened my excitement a little.
“Of course, it doesn’t contain much. There’s only an infinitesimal amount, but even that tiny amount has quite an effect.”
If it was only an infinitesimal amount...
That might not be so bad.
She showed me a vial containing a small amount of Nectar and said,
“I think this much would be enough to make around ten thousand bottles.”
Ten thousand bottles from that tiny amount?
What was this, a potion that Nectar had merely swum through?
No, what that meant was...
“Selling Nectar itself is risky, and there isn’t an established market price for it.”
That was true.
“So I think it’ll have more added value if we make it into potions and sell those.”
...This woman, Im Gyuseon.
Was she starting to get the hang of business now?
Exactly.
Just as an Elixir is more valuable than an elixir,
and a Power-Q Elixir, processed one step further, is more efficient per unit of raw material...
If we made Nectar into potions and sold them, we could create enormous added value.
“Let’s get started right away.”
All right, let’s start cranking out some potions.
But Ms. Gyuseon’s expression was a little hard to read.
“I thought you would know.”
“...K-Know what?”
“This. It isn’t an item that came from a dungeon.”
What did that...
“Gasp!”
My eyes widened on their own.
The decisive difference between a finished item obtained from a dungeon and an item made from dungeon by-products...
was whether it was exclusive to the Awakened or not.
So if they had the same performance, the latter was naturally more valuable.
Because even non-Awakened could benefit from the effects of a dungeon item.
And in this case...
the potions, which until now had only existed as finished dungeon items...
“...will be available to non-Awakened too?”
“Yes, that’s right. I thought you’d realize right away.”
Ms. Gyuseon said, puffing out her cheeks in a sulk.
She had every right to be miffed.
This was an effect so enormous it made my head spin.
The number of Awakened had grown, but 90% of the world’s population was still non-Awakened.
A potion that could be used widely by them...
“This is a revolution in medicine.”
The ripple effects were impossible to even imagine...
By now, only a hollow laugh kept escaping my lips.