Chapter 82

===================

Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

“Rusk, which suffered the biggest damage from the last WannaCry hacking incident, probably won’t recover.”

At an executive’s report, Chairman Hwang’s eyes twitched.

“No. Even so, isn’t Rusk pretty big? They were once the world’s largest shipping company. Didn’t they say they operate over 450 ships?”

“Yes. But they don’t actually own the ships, so it’s probably less than that when counting ships leased from charter companies.”

“Even so, it’s Rusk, right? Did they really get hit so hard during the ransomware incident that they’d close?”

“The ransomware incident was the decisive blow. Trust was shattered, so more work flocked to our Gwangwoon Shipping.”

After the shipping business collapsed once, only companies that had strengthened their foundations survived.

And the largest among them was Rusk.

But after suffering trillions of won in damages during the ransomware incident, they finally raised the white flag.

“So now the Danish government is also debating whether to rescue them or dismantle Rusk and sell it off to various places.”

That means Gwangwoon Shipping’s last remaining competitor is disappearing.

“What does President Kim want to do?”

“Preferably we should eat it. We already have a lot of work, and it’s hard to handle all the volume. If we take over Rusk too, our Gwangwoon will handle over 70% of global shipping business.”

Over 70% of the world.

That means bringing in hundreds of trillions of won worth of work.

“But if it goes beyond 70% to 80-90%, that’s dangerous. We could get caught by monopoly laws various countries are wary of. I’m thinking of controlling it well to just not cross that line.”

“Alright. I’ll leave that to President Kim. Tell me anytime if you need additional spending.”

“Yes, Chairman.”

After handling that agenda item, Chairman Hwang’s gaze flowed to Vice President Kang Ji-hwan sitting over there.

Though Jeong Jin-ho is president of the securities company, usually Vice President Kang Ji-hwan attends executive meetings.

Because Jeong Jin-ho focuses only on investment and leaves trivial matters to Vice President Kang.

“Vice President Kang. I deliberately didn’t ask President Jeong, but I’m still a bit curious. You suddenly opened an account at Gwangwoon Securities and took our group’s money, right?”

“Ah, yes.”

“But there’s no legal problem with this, right?”

“Yes. We specially paid attention to that point and handled it without problems.”

“Right. Of course you all handled it well. But.. Where did President Jeong Jin-ho invest? Though I decided not to interfere wherever President Jeong invests, I’m just asking out of concern.”

Perhaps all executives attending today’s meeting would be curious about this.

Didn’t Jeong Jin-ho heartlessly reject the portfolio executives painstakingly made the other day?

According to Chairman Hwang then, how terrible the portfolio must have been for President Jeong to just throw it away.

That Jeong Jin-ho suddenly opened an account and withdrew 1 trillion won of group funds.

The stocks they recommended were the easiest ones to make money with in the current stock market.

But after rejecting those, in the current US market with such low VIX index, what stocks would he make money with?

With no word for over a week, executives were also curious.

“Did he buy stocks?”

“He established positions right after opening the account. Putting in all available funds too. As far as I know, with over $1.8 billion he shorted various derivatives and blue chips.”

“Wait. Shorts? Is the US market going to crash?”

“Yes. Plus he already gave me a hint before. He said when the full decline starts, he plans to strike and exit quickly through short-term trading.”

“E-even short-term trading?”

“Wait. So President Jeong is doing short-term trading with 2 trillion won? In the US market!?”

“No. Is that even possible?”

Even Kang Ji-hwan doesn’t know.

Because there’s no one in this world who does short-term trading with 2 trillion won.

Executives also had that level of common sense.

That’s why everyone was shocked.

“If he makes even the slightest mistake, hundreds or thousands of billions will fly away.”

“Even though President Jeong is an investment genius, isn’t 2 trillion won short-term trading going too far?”

While executives voiced concerns.

Chairman Hwang wasn’t thinking about profits or losses.

“Vice President. If it’s the Jin-ho I know, he’ll definitely make money again this time.”

“Yes.”

“Then what will the US SEC think of this?”

“..They probably won’t just let it pass. Even if we didn’t do insider trading, the moment foreigners wield 2 trillion won in short-term trading, the SEC will try to make an issue of it somehow.”

“So those guys might send us an investigation notice?”

“Yes. They’ll most likely direct an investigation cooperating with Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service.”

Chairman Hwang leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes briefly.

At the ominous atmosphere, the noisily chattering executives also shut their mouths.

Soon Chairman Hwang opened his closed eyes.

“When I was invited to sit in this ill-fitting chairman position, and when I personally hired each executive here one by one, I had exactly one purpose.”

“..?”

“Work hard to grow the group? That’s not it. Exactly when things like now happen, we use all our strength to prevent harm from reaching President Jeong. I established the current group for exactly that one purpose.”

With that, Chairman Hwang swept his gaze across the executives gathered in the meeting room.

“Last time an executive said something. That they feel like they’re not doing enough work. Because President Jeong is doing all business planning and execution. But now you have work to do?”

“!?”

“Our goal is one. From this matter, President Jeong must suffer no harm whatsoever. Harm reaching President Jeong means nothing less than our group collapsing. Everyone understands what I mean, right?”

At President Hwang’s resolute expression, the executives’ faces also changed.

“Now everyone go earn your keep.”

***

“…”

About an hour still remained until the market closed, but I stopped there.

Not only was intuition no longer striking, but having done short-term trading for the first time in a while without rest, my temples felt like they were burning up.

A smell like a burnt engine pierced my nose, and I clutched my dizzy head.

Two days.

For exactly two days, I maximized my intuition and proceeded with short-term trading without rest during market hours.

This time I handled more stocks than ever, so I really couldn’t lose concentration even for a second.

So the shock seems to hit far harder than before.

After calming down somewhat, I went outside.

“Ah…”

“Ugh…”

Everyone was buried in their chairs, knocked down.

I approached the exhausted people and patted their shoulders.

“Everyone worked hard.”

“N-no. More than us, you President…”

“Then could you all gather the withdrawn amounts and tell me the total profit?”

“Ah, yes.”

Shortly after, Manager Seo publicly announced the profit we earned over two days in front of everyone.

“The initial investment amount was $1.8 billion. And after excluding all fees from profits gained through trading over two days, the amount is approximately…”

The manager swallowed dry saliva then continued.

“$3.7 billion.”

“!?”

“3-$3.7 billion?!”

We made over 4 trillion won with 2 trillion won.

“In just two days!”

“It-it doesn’t make sense.”

“We were so frantically buying and selling that I never checked how much we earned even once.”

Yesterday was the same.

Didn’t most people yesterday become so exhausted after the market closed that they could barely leave work?

But that labor wasn’t in vain.

“$3.7 billion with 2 trillion won in two days. Who would believe this?”

“Even though it was a crash for two days and the VIX index shot up to 50, how is this even…”

We made money because America experienced a crash, but actually it wasn’t a financial crisis level crash.

However, the problem would definitely be the VIX side.

Until now, people expected the VIX index would fall further than now and were throwing all their money into XIV.

Their expectation was actually reasonable.

The problem is they couldn’t imagine this much money would flock there.

The more money flocks, position liquidations start bursting here and there from slight fluctuations.

And what lit that fuse was amusingly the US government.

Suddenly announcing employment indicators and wage increases prompted interest rate hikes, and that anxiety instantly covered financial markets, causing VIX index rise.

XIV products set for automatic rebalancing started position liquidation, evaporating money worth trillions of won in an instant.

“That played a domino role making stock markets also decline together. They say 1,000 trillion won disappeared in just two days.”

But the crash actually isn’t over yet.

Continuing short-term trading here could have made more money than now.

However, my intuition suddenly stopped.

Whether the engine burst from running it too hard, or it’s warning not to enter anymore.

I can’t know the cause, but rather it turned out well.

Because my head also hurts now so I didn’t think I could continue.

“But.. We made a lot of money which is really good.. But won’t the US SEC be watching all this?”

“Probably so..?”

“We didn’t do anything illegal though.”

“Even so, making 2 trillion into 4 trillion in two days doesn’t make sense. They’ll definitely try to take some measures.”

Shadows fell on employees’ faces who just moments ago were jumping for joy at earning 4 trillion won. I broke the suddenly heavy atmosphere with clapping and said.

“Think about that later. Everyone go in and rest. Rest well today and let’s meet tomorrow.”

“Ah, yes!”

Employees were quickly preparing to leave work.

I pretended nothing was wrong while sending employees off, but inside I was starting to get scared.

I also didn’t expect to inflate 2 trillion won to 4 trillion won, and moreover, pickled in dopamine, I just bought and sold stocks as intuition struck without thinking about the aftermath.

“They’re not really going to storm in, are they?”

They say when issues like this get serious, the FBI steps in.

Suddenly scenes from movies of them bursting in shouting “FBI!” started coming to mind.

***

“Am-am I seeing this correctly right now?”

“Yes. This is data we obtained without missing even a single second over two days.”

“So in just two days they made $1.8 billion into $3.7 billion?”

“Yes.”

“Through only short-term trading?”

“…Yes, Director.”

Volmageddon.

People call this situation that.

A portmanteau of VIX and Armageddon, as money flocked in XIV crashed below 90%, essentially all money in there became zero.

Tens of trillions of won piled up inside all disappeared like smoke.

But someone losing means someone else made that much money.

And there was a force that made loads of money in this chaos.

“Can we consider this insider trading at this level?”

“Taking positions a week in advance and gaining big profits once is somewhat suspicious. But the problem is what comes next. Actually most profits this force earned all came from short-term trading.”

That was the maddening part.

Taking positions in advance looked highly likely to be insider trading to anyone.

But after that, they proceeded with short-term trading by the second and made tremendous money from that.

“That’s why I’m saying. No way a person did this directly. At this level, isn’t this AI high-frequency trading?”

“Calling it AI is a bit of a stretch.. Usually AI trading has patterns and executes hundreds of trades per second.”

“Then all this was done by a person?”

“Yes. Probably done by one person at that.”

“Goodness…”

That means someone directed in team units while doing this insane short-term trading.

Honestly, there’s only circumstantial evidence of insider trading without proof, so we can’t just haul them in.

But investigating and shaking them down, wouldn’t some dust come out?

On other days we would’ve immediately requested cooperation from Korea and stormed into those guys’ company to flip it over, but there was one big barrier.

“Besides these guys, the ones who profited most this time are also Gold Reagan, right?”

“Yes. Gold Reagan had been taking positions since at least 2 months ago.”

Gold Reagan.

A financial company joining hands with President Trent.

Aren’t Gold Reagan’s closest associates already en masse in Trent’s government?

“Those guys taking positions from 2 months ago means…”

“We should see they designed it to eat clean.”

Money started flocking to XIV from a few months ago. But coincidentally, that frequency intensified from two months ago.

“No matter how you look at it, they ate this among themselves.”

There’s a saying.

Whenever regimes change or reelection succeeds, financial issues necessarily burst.

Dotcom bubble, terror, real estate bubble, subprime, astronomical bailouts, and up to this incident. Too tiring to mention other trivial things.

Especially this round was very meticulously planned.

The government deliberately announced employment indicators and wage growth to intentionally show a strong signal that interest rates would soon rise.

As a result, the fear-stricken market created this chaos.

Someone would think this is ridiculous conspiracy theory, but there aren’t many in this field who dismiss that as conspiracy theory.

Because whether America or other countries.

What everyone does right after seizing power is filling their own pockets first.

It’s unfortunate, but there’s no way to stop this.

Moreover, the opponent is the US President.

There’s no investigative agency anywhere that can investigate the nation’s head.

Someone will raise strong suspicions about this matter, but that’s it.

It’ll just be dismissed as conspiracy theory and buried.

As always.

“Then leaving Gold Reagan alone and just shaking down this Korean force?”

“Did you properly look at the data?”

“What?”

“The time Gold Reagan forces cleanly exit and the time this Korean force exits are exactly the same. What does this mean?”

“Ah…”

It was a silent warning.

Deliberately showing that Gold Reagan and the Korean force using them as prime broker are also the same team.

If we try to shake down this force, the White House name will necessarily pop up behind them.

Why would this force have Gold Reagan as prime broker?

From the start, they openly showed the two are connected as one.

Telling us not to touch them.

“Just do it for show only.”

“If someone makes an issue of this?”

“Then it’ll pass over as usual.”

Soon all media will plaster similar articles.

[This Volmageddon was an incident caused by investors’ stupid judgment for not predicting market risk!]

Like that.