Chapter 101

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“So it’s come to this.”

“In a way, couldn’t you say it was an inevitable sequence?”

British Prime Minister Theresa March announced her resignation.

The reason was to take responsibility for the British financial crisis.

Currency depreciation can happen in any country.

Just look at Turkey—it’s been going through the shocking experience of its exchange rate plummeting a full 40% in just one year.

But when the target is Britain, the situation becomes serious.

“They say even a 5% drop triggers talk of an economic crisis, so a full 20% is nothing short of a national disaster. Prime Minister March couldn’t have escaped that responsibility.”

In fact, Prime Minister March’s resignation had been somewhat predictable on Wall Street for some time.

She had avoided a no-deal Brexit, but with no progress in negotiations for years, her approval ratings had hit rock bottom.

But March held on.

Out of pride?

That might have been part of it, but the truth was she couldn’t leave even if she wanted to.

If she’d thrown everything aside and left saying she could no longer handle it, she would have been branded an irresponsible prime minister and faced enormous criticism.

She needed to wrap something up before leaving so that people would at least say she’d handled her resignation well, which is why she couldn’t just step down blindly.

“But this became the trigger, then?”

“Right. It served as a perfect excuse. She must have figured out that finding a way forward through Brexit was impossible. They would have calculated it too. Negotiating a peaceful Brexit with the EU was out of reach. In the end, they’d have to make a decision close to a no-deal Brexit. And honestly, we all know how that turns out.”

When there’s money to be made, Wall Street finishes its calculations faster than anyone else.

It also calculates what events will unfold in the future due to the incident, and how to profit from them.

They make investment decisions and accumulate wealth based on the thorough scenarios they generate every day.

In that sense, the outcome of Brexit was already decided the moment it was set by referendum. Britain could never leave the EU peacefully.

“Prime Minister March wanted to end Brexit well somehow, but that was impossible. Yet if she went ahead with Brexit as is, she’d become the worst prime minister in history. So she passed the poisoned chalice to someone else. People would know this financial crisis wasn’t her fault anyway.”

Director Raynold Veil thought Prime Minister March had seized the opportunity perfectly.

She had turned the shocking financial crisis—dubbed the second Black Wednesday—into an opportunity, abandoning the prime ministership and handing off the poisoned chalice of Brexit to someone else.

“Politicians will be politicians. They’re brilliant at running away.”

“But… who would be willing to drink this poisoned chalice?”

“That’s the thing about politicians. Everyone can see it’s poison, but it’s sweet poison. The sweet poison of being the British Prime Minister, no less. They’re probably thinking just like the old March: if it were me, I could definitely resolve this crisis.”

Would they become the prime minister who failed to stop the second Black Wednesday?

Or would they become the protagonist who triggered the no-deal Brexit that would haunt Britain forever?

March judged the former to be the better option.

Even though the worst financial crisis in history had erupted with the exchange rate plunging below 20%, it wasn’t a long-term phenomenon—it was what’s known as a flash crash.

Flash crash.

The term refers to a phenomenon where prices plummet dramatically in a short period before recovering.

Of course, it was slightly different from the typical flash crashes discussed in the financial world.

Because the British pound was a globally influential currency, the shock spread widely, making recovery inevitably slow.

As a result, the exchange rate that had dropped 20% recovered to 10%, but even 10% was still an extremely high level.

Still, the hopeful part was that they had at least avoided the worst-case scenario of -20% being maintained.

“Whichever way she resigned, it would have been disgraceful, but she must have figured leaving due to the financial crisis was the better deal.”

“Then wouldn’t March actually be grateful to Gwangwoon?”

“They definitely screwed her over, so she can’t be entirely grateful. But she probably doesn’t hate them entirely either. In a way, Gwangwoon opened an escape route for her.”

It was a strange and oddly funny situation.

The very company that had triggered the worst financial crisis in British history was now one she should be grateful to.

Former Prime Minister March must have been bewildered too.

“So, have you figured it out?”

Then only one question remained.

Why had Gwangwoon done such a thing?

“Was Gwangwoon really the boy who cried wolf?”

The starting point of all this was Gwangwoon’s incomprehensible investment.

His actions, which defied common sense, made the hedge funds retreat first, and in response, other financial institutions scrambled to dump their positions, leading to this unprecedented crisis.

But once the situation calmed down somewhat, the financial institutions realized something was off.

Why had Gwangwoon made such an investment?

Was it really just a bluff with no substance behind it, intended to deceive the financial institutions?

“At first, we thought Gwangwoon had made that absurd investment simply to deceive us and the world’s financial institutions, with no major issue behind it. But there was actually a different purpose. Gwangwoon had found a vulnerability in this massive financial market.”

“A vulnerability?”

“The quantitative trading system.”

The quantitative trading system is essentially automated trading.

While you might think automation is a recent development, its history dates back to the 1970s.

From then on, it gradually evolved, and recently, by integrating with AI—which has swept through the Go world and expanded its influence across all fields—it has been continuously pursuing algorithmic trading.

Already, most major financial institutions had adopted quantitative trading, automatically executing massive volumes of trades down to the second.

“The problem is that while the automated system executes trades according to predetermined programming, when a scenario that even the developers couldn’t predict occurs, the system doesn’t consider the subsequent fallout and forces a position liquidation.”

“Then the unpredictable scenario you’re talking about—don’t tell me…”

“Some lunatic betting billions of euros on the downfall of Britain.”

Who could ever have predicted that some wealthy madman would bet billions of euros on Britain’s collapse?

“And the system automatically liquidated positions in response to the sudden surge in volume. I found out that some financial institutions tried to shut down their systems in a hurry, but it was already too late.”

Only then did Raynold also picture the situation in his mind.

The trading system began forced position liquidations as programmed, and like falling dominoes, this cascaded to other financial institutions, forcing them to dump their positions as well.

With all the financial institutions dumping their positions simultaneously, everyone panicked and began selling one after another. Even other trading systems that hadn’t malfunctioned joined in the sell-off, and this chaos ensued.

“They say a financial institution’s crisis starts from the smallest things.”

Looking back at financial history, there have been companies that went bankrupt for truly absurd reasons.

An employee accidentally enters the wrong purchase volume and loses all the money.

They file their taxes incorrectly and get hit with a tax bomb, forcing them to close shop.

This incident was a financial accident born from overconfidence in quantitative trading and AI technology.

“What’s the overall damage situation?”

“Large financial institutions like ours that got the information quickly actually made some money. We all dumped our positions together and averaged out. However, small and medium-sized financial institutions that were slow on the information had no idea what was going on. They just got pushed around from every direction and were completely wiped out.”

Companies that invested solely based on quantitative trading suffered the most.

“And the British mainland has taken an enormous blow. It’s impossible to predict what will happen going forward. The EU, which had been trying to avoid Brexit discussions, has suddenly become proactive because of this crisis.”

“They’re going to cut it off preemptively since Britain’s economic crisis could spread to them?”

“That seems to be their stance.”

Britain had been completely devastated.

This was because the country was heavily dependent on imports and therefore extremely sensitive to exchange rates.

At this point, Raynold grew curious.

“But why did they target Britain specifically, and not some other country?”

If they knew the vulnerability of the quantitative trading system, they could have attacked another country besides Britain.

“Perhaps political reasons were also mixed in. There was the no-deal Brexit crisis, and by giving Prime Minister March an escape route, the possibility of retaliation was somewhat reduced. Above all, since this was a venture involving Gwangwoon and financial institutions from around the world, it would be ambiguous to punish anyone in particular.”

“No. Even so, something feels off.”

Why Britain specifically?

Raynold was convinced there must be another motive.

* * *

“Wow…”

“Is, is this amount even real?”

The employees who had successfully recovered all the money scattered across Britain stared at the figures before them, their mouths agape.

I, too, let out a faint laugh at the amount that hardly felt real.

“25 trillion won. To think I’d see this kind of amount in my lifetime.”

“Honestly, Britain was collapsing more than we expected, and I was worried about what we’d do if we couldn’t recover the money.”

Short selling ultimately relies on the premise that the other side doesn’t go bankrupt and holds out until the end. If the other side collapses entirely, no matter how well you short-sell, there will be no one left to pay you.

But this was an amount that far surpassed hundreds of millions, billions—no, trillions of won.

Therefore, if Britain had collapsed completely and there was no one left to pay us, our investment would have been wiped out along with it.

However, fortunately, Britain had not completely collapsed.

Thanks to that, we were able to cycle through positions all night and recover our investment.

“So now we…”

A full 25 trillion won.

From Japan to France, and now this time, Britain.

While I made the investment decision, it was ultimately thanks to our team members grinding it out that we were able to absorb such a massive volume.

So now it seemed like it would be fine to give them some time off.

“Yes. I brought the materials you asked for.”

“…?”

“I thought the president would definitely be looking for this. All company valuations in Britain have dropped due to this financial crisis. Of course, blue chips are still expensive, but we worked with the research team to meticulously review which stocks might be worth investing in, and this is the report we compiled.”

I blinked a few times at the report that now appeared automatically.

The team members noticed my expression and immediately jumped to their feet.

“If the materials are insufficient, I’ll go get more right away!”

“Ah, no. That wasn’t what I meant. Actually, you’ve all been working so hard lately, I was thinking of giving you some time off.”

“Time off!?”

Since it was an overseas market, I knew they’d been practically living at the company lately, unable to sleep properly, focused solely on trading.

“So let’s take it easy for a while. Since you’ve already given me the report, I’ll just take a quick look at this for now.”

“Yes!”

At the news of time off for the first time in a while, smiles blossomed on the employees’ faces.

Having earned this much money, I was thinking of taking a break myself.

I’d catch up on games I’d missed, take a trip abroad with my family.

There were also quite a few personal matters to attend to.

Looking at this report, it seemed unlikely we’d need to go through another ordeal to invest. Even if there were opportunities, it would just take a few clicks…

“Hmm?”

But was that my arrogance?

At first, the report seemed perfectly fine.

But as I moved on to the next section, suddenly everyone started going crazy with excitement.

‘Wh-why is this happening?’

It wasn’t just one or two items.

My intuition was racing at breakneck speed through companies in a particular field.

As a result, my temples felt like they were creaking from an engine overload.

“…”

I quickly closed the report.

Because if I looked any longer, my head was going to explode.

Then I looked at the team members.

“…?”

Where to go on vacation, how to spend the holiday.

The team members, who had been happily fantasizing about their vacations, saw my expression and their faces gradually froze.

It seemed like the vacation would have to be postponed.

* * *

“No damage on our end?”

“No. Nothing has surfaced yet. Our Kangsung isn’t deeply tied to Britain. Also, the EU is pushing through Brexit very quickly to preemptively block the financial crisis originating from Britain, so it seems the damage won’t reach us.”

Kang Seong-ho let out a sigh of relief.

“Phew. President Jeong—that guy should at least give us a heads-up when something like this happens. He really startled people.”

“Since there was no damage coming to Kangsung, he probably just kept quiet. If anything, if we use this opportunity well, we might be able to acquire raw materials at even cheaper prices.”

“As long as there’s no damage to us, that’s a relief. But… what happens to Britain now? From what I’ve heard, this damage is no joke.”

“‘Unpredictable levels’—that seems like the right way to describe it. Even though it was a flash crash, the exchange rate dropping 20% is virtually unprecedented. You can consider it more than double the impact of the Black Wednesday that George Soros triggered back in the day.”

The shocking part was that this incredible feat had been carried out by none other than a Korean company—Gwangwoon.

But looking at the results, it wasn’t Gwangwoon alone—virtually all the major financial institutions had joined the fray and hammered Britain, making it difficult to single out and blame any one party.

“Britain has now become a complete outcast. Just like Japan. If they hadn’t pursued Brexit and had maintained their position in the EU until the end… they might not have suffered this much damage. Their response would have been much faster, too. And every European nation would have stepped up to punish Gwangwoon for daring to attack Britain.”

“But since Britain acted like a jerk first, it’s okay?”

“Yes. The European nations probably even enjoyed watching from the sidelines. Of course, the financial crisis spreading to them would be a problem, but deep down they must have found it satisfying. Britain had committed every kind of outrageous act, after all.”

This was more than just vicarious satisfaction.

To see the mighty Britain suddenly brought so low—you never know what will happen in this world.

Moreover, the fact that the strategy to bring Britain down like that had come from a single person’s mind was, on one level, terrifying.

Perhaps Jeong Jin-ho had calculated this far.

That by targeting Britain for attack, everyone would cheer rather than condemn.

“However, Chairman. Gwangwoon is showing some strange moves right now.”

“Strange moves?”

“Yes. After the British market turned out like that, I thought they’d pull out all their funds and withdraw… but they’ve suddenly started continuously pouring money back into Britain.”

“Into which field?”

“Pharmaceuticals. For reasons unknown, they’re continuously acquiring pharmaceutical companies that went down together due to the financial crisis.”

“…?”

Of all things, pharmaceutical companies?

And the pharmaceutical industry was currently going through a major crisis.

Crisis theories were being raised to the point where even large pharmaceutical companies were being told their future was in jeopardy.

“The British pharmaceutical sector is even worse. The financial crisis dealt a fatal blow, and they’re all collapsing.”

“And yet Gwangwoon is still buying them?”

“Yes. And they’re pouring a considerable amount of money into it.”

Even though Jeong Jin-ho had invested in various fields, he had never even looked at pharmaceuticals.

And his next move after bringing Britain down was to acquire all the pharmaceutical companies in that country…

Was he trying to create an elixir of immortality?

Or…

“What, is some epidemic about to break out somewhere?”