Chapter 96

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“What’s all this talk suddenly? Why are they pecking at us out of the blue from France?”

After France’s policy announcement, fires dropped on all major corporations’ feet.

Essentially it was no different from President Péron declaring war against major foreign corporations.

Among them, Gwangwoon was set to receive the biggest blow.

“President Péron and his party people actually raised fuel taxes once at the beginning of this year.”

“So?”

“They’re trying to raise them again, so they’re afraid of people’s backlash. So they’re putting on a show and also trying to grab money, suddenly starting to beat up foreign companies including us.”

France’s policy announcement this time had many things clearly favoring domestic rich people.

Plus using eco-friendliness as an excuse, they’re trying to raise fuel taxes to fill state coffers.

If they proceed like this, citizens’ major backlash is expected, so they’re attacking foreign companies while creating ominous public opinion that they’re exploiting France.

“Originally any country brings external factors to create issues for approval ratings. We should see this as that.”

“They’re like thugs.”

“Isn’t France originally famous for that? Europe’s gangsters.”

“What kind of Europe has so many gangsters? Britain too, France too.”

“But the problem is this policy is uniquely targeting our Gwangwoon.”

France was blatantly concentrating attacks on Gwangwoon.

Should I say each of their policies clearly shows the purpose of inflicting damage on Gwangwoon?

“Why exactly us?”

“From the French government’s standpoint, our Gwangwoon is sufficiently threatening. Didn’t Denmark’s largest shipping company Rusk collapse? And we’re absorbing that entirely. Besides that, SNS and virtual asset markets, automobiles, semiconductors, etc. Since we’re penetrating various fields, they want to discipline us this time.”

If it becomes like this, there’s one method.

Meeting people from France’s currently ruling party and making them Gwangwoon’s side.

Put nicely, lobbying.

Put badly, it was bribery.

“They say other companies spread quite a lot of money.”

“Yes. The reason foreign major corporations have endured in Europe until now is exactly that. Because they spend tremendous money on lobbying. But that works out much cheaper.”

“Then we should do that too? No. We’d need to have done such things to know in the first place.”

Hwang Dae-un throughout his life operating companies had never done lobbying.

Even domestically it’s like that, should he go all the way to France to do that?

“As the company explosively grew in a short period, it seems to have become an essential course now.”

The bigger companies get, naturally they can’t help but receive checks.

Especially if governments want to check them, they can harass to really suffocating degrees.

But what’s fortunate is those government people always have open pockets.

If you fill those places well, even checks become just pretenses they quietly withdraw.

Then when pockets get light again, they harass companies, then fill them full again like that.

All government systems were rotating in that way.

The problem is how to do lobbying to French politicians when they didn’t even do it to domestic politicians. Lines weren’t even open from the start making contacting difficult.

“What is President Jeong doing?”

“Well.. President Jeong Jin-ho is currently retrieving all the money that was spread out.”

“Retrieving?”

“Currently President Jeong Jin-ho had 10 trillion won he could move in Prime department. But since he couldn’t just let it sit, he was putting it here and there in safe assets..”

“So?”

“He told them to withdraw all of it.”

There Hwang Dae-un slightly felt a dizzying thought pass through.

“..Why?”

“Still not sure yet. Since he’s retrieving for now. But they say he’s opening accounts in French securities.”

“W-wait. Surely he’s not planning to pour all 10 trillion won into French securities?”

At those words, executives started murmuring.

No matter how much larger France’s securities are than Korea’s by more than double, injecting 10 trillion won at once was a violent thing.

“Isn’t President Jeong someone who surpassed investment genius reaching god’s realm? Even he wouldn’t make such an extreme choice.”

“When even injecting 1 trillion won at once brings sanctions, let alone 10 trillion, would he do that?”

Thinking rationally, this is right.

What crazy bastard brings 10 trillion won and scatters it wildly in securities, would that side’s financial supervisory service stay still?

“…”

But Hwang Dae-un realized executives were overlooking one thing now.

That France touched the whiskers of a sleeping lion.

***

[Brexit negotiations, US-China trade war, Japan YCC collapse, etc., currently all global securities markets are frozen.]

I was crunching bread while checking materials sent from the research department.

Though it was lunchtime, I had no time to go leisurely to the cafeteria to eat.

Because quick responses were needed due to the France situation.

‘Certainly all markets are unstable now.’

This year is particularly severe compared to last year.

Especially repercussions from the chaos caused by Japan’s YCC situation spread worldwide.

“President. We just retrieved all investment funds.”

“Why didn’t everyone go to eat?”

“When President is like this, how could we dare.. Ah. After retrieving all investment funds and calculating, about 2% profit came out.”

2%.

2% of 10 trillion won is about 200 billion.

“Modest.”

“Yes. 200 billion is quite big money, but this is strange. Being with President makes 200 billion look too small. Haha.”

Well, because it wasn’t spread out thinking to make money.

But earning 2% during not-so-long period was meaningful.

“How’s French public opinion now?”

“Still fifty-fifty. Some say it’s good, some oppose. Since the policy hasn’t been implemented yet, many don’t know well.”

“The analysis team says probably there’ll be opposition, but the government will likely ignore it and implement. Above all, since domestic rich have no reason to oppose, power will lean even more toward the government side.”

In other words, if powerful ones agree, powerless ones must just take it.

“But this policy. Not only hitting foreign companies, but it’s very bad for French citizens, why is everyone staying still?”

“Manager Lee. That’s not as easy as you think. As said before, powerful people are agreeing with the government now. If someone tries to oppose, they’ll try to crush them forcibly. Plus it’s not easy for people to unite and gather.”

So this policy was proceeding smoothly.

Everyone has opposing hearts, but it’s difficult to rashly step forward.

“President. But how much funds do you plan to inject after opening French accounts?”

Funds we’re holding currently are 10 trillion.

A tremendous amount.

But I didn’t withdraw all this to put into French securities.

If the illusion my intuition showed is correct, a big incident will soon occur in France.

That means as French securities shake, all European markets shake together, and that tsunami spreads everywhere, so then wherever you put money you can only lose, that’s why I withdrew.

‘First 1 trillion.’

I wrote the amount in my notebook.

But there was no particular feeling.

Right. Won’t be satisfied with just 1 trillion.

‘2 trillion?’

No reaction to this either.

Since I played big once with 2 trillion before, is this also bland?

‘Then 3 trillion?’..The problem was no reaction to this either.

4 trillion, 5 trillion, 6 trillion, 7 trillion.

As amounts rose, my hands trembled without knowing.

‘Am I crazy?’

How far up does it go?

And I finally reached that amount.

’10 trillion.’

As soon as I wrote that amount, strong tremors struck my body.

“…”

I couldn’t believe it so I brought my hand to that amount once more.

“!?”

Then like being hit by a taser, strong current shook my body.

If I did it once more here, it seemed like it’d really knock me unconscious.

“..Let’s go with 10 trillion won.”

“What?!”

“A-all 10 trillion won?!”

But our team members seemed about to faint first.

***

Marcus, Faceweb’s founder and CEO, hasn’t been in good mood lately.

Faceweb-exclusive coins prepared ambitiously hit fierce opposition from numerous governments, and as partnered companies all withdrew, the coin project naturally got withdrawn too.

Due to that, people are saying this about Marcus.

‘Guy who caved to Gwangwoon.’

People say Marcus deliberately did such things to revive collapsing Bitcoin prices.

This was most unfair.

It absolutely wasn’t such intention.

Why would he personally step forward to do good things for Gwangwoon that even chewing wouldn’t satisfy?

Just because it was coin craze and he wanted to utilize this opportunity to increase Faceweb’s versatility. So it was a project carefully prepared for quite long, but result-wise it became just doing good things for Gwangwoon.

“But now France is doing this shit too?”

He was already upset about that, when French President Péron suddenly playing justice crusader was beating down foreign companies.

“Pay 5 times more taxes than currently paying if using tax havens?”

“Yes. Not just us, but they’re trying to excessively impose taxes on all foreign companies now.”

“What about funds we spread to their politicians?”

“Well.. This regime’s power is strong anyway, and President Péron’s power is at its peak. So it looks difficult to deflect.”

Already taking the double hit of security leaks and coin situation, Faceweb members were gradually flocking to PicPic, and France was poking nerves.

“What’s the response? Should we just take taxes like this? At this level, shouldn’t our government step forward too?”

“Well.. The US government is busy fighting with China now, and already hit Europe with tariff bombs, so this is also one of France’s retaliations.”

Anyway, this government is no help.

What can be done?

It was originally like that.

Then there’s no method but directly breaking through this situation.

“So should we obediently pay taxes?”

“If we push forward like this, we’ll have no choice. But.. There are some posts and videos coming up on SNS recently.”

“What kind?”

“Posts and videos containing citizen voices opposing this policy. Especially videos strongly criticizing Péron as president of the rich keep coming up lately.”

Hearing that, Marcus’s eyes twitched.

“They’re coming up on PicPic too?”

“Yes. Short videos about uniting together keep coming up. They actually make it to popular videos too.”

“In France?”

“Yes.”

“Is there possibility PicPic is intentionally frequently exposing those videos?”

“..Can’t say it’s completely nonexistent.”

There Marcus also got an idea.

“Similar videos and posts are coming up for us too, right?”

“Yes. People uploading to PicPic seem to upload to Faceweb and NewTube too.”

Then suddenly this thought came.

Is Gwangwoon also thinking what I’m thinking now?

Could this be exactly the signal?

What’s scary about SNS?

It’s that it has power to make separated people empathize and unite as one.

Though it can be used simply as a tool to burst dopamine, if giant SNS companies unite for one purpose in situations like now?

“From now on, expose all posts opposing this policy.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. So not just France but people worldwide can see. And if no one uploads, our company can directly make videos or posts, right? Make it as provocatively as possible about why this policy is for the rich, and spread it.”

Don’t know if PicPic is really intentionally exposing only such videos, but if it’s that meticulous Gwangwoon, they’re definitely maximally utilizing their power.

‘Just this once, Gwangwoon.’

Never thought the day would come to join hands with those guys like this.

But somehow thinking we’re one team with Gwangwoon, there was nothing more reliable than this.

***

President Péron thought everything was flowing well.

Shouting centrist politics while receiving overwhelming citizen support, he carried out his term well for 1 year. Plus approval ratings were high.

So he thought people would receive his policy well.

But was such thinking arrogance?

Or.. Is it someone’s interference?

“3-300,000 people?!”

“Yes. Called Yellow Vest protest movement, people opposing fuel tax increases and rich tax cuts are gathering in streets holding massive protests.”

If any policy comes out, naturally there can’t help but be opposing voices.

Especially this policy included rich tax cuts and fuel tax increases making it a sensitive issue. So they placed attention elsewhere as much as possible so people wouldn’t grasp well.

Exactly foreign companies.

After framing that they’re exploiting our France, the method was proceeding with policies while they curse and hate them.

It was a method that always worked well, but not this time.

“How can that many people gather at once?”

“Because of SNS.”

“SNS?”

“Yes. As if promised, if you go into PicPic, Faceweb, or NewTube now, there are only posts and videos about Yellow Vest movement.”

What would it mean for such videos to come up simultaneously from three major SNS company places?

Voice of the people?

No.

Those guys incited people so this would feel like really the voice of the people.

“Th-these bastards..!”

Péron’s face that looked gentle narrowed severely.

Clearly these giant companies that were busy competing with each other joined hands.

“Arrogant bastards. This is a challenge to our regime!”

“Now isn’t the time to care about them. You know well what happens when protests start in our country.”

France has a stereotype of a country that holds protests at every little thing.

And that’s correct.

Once protests start, isn’t setting fires somewhere first this country’s tradition?

The problem is even 300 people at protests causes confusion, but it was a whopping 300,000.

“Already countless stores are being robbed, buildings catching fire, etc., damage is growing uncontrollably.”

Just seeing what came through news screens, he could realize the situation’s seriousness.

Rioters wearing yellow vests were turning streets upside down.

But he couldn’t curse them as uncivilized either.

Because this country is a nation built by such angry crowds’ fire and violence.