CH 380

Ga-Yeong handed a document over that contained information about one of the most important assets of the company.

「Classification: Pangyo Grande City, Office Building

Real Estate Location: 1032 Baekhyun-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Pangyo

Total Size of the Area: 7,447m²/110,596m²

Size of the Building: Underground 7th floor ― Ground 16th floor

Completion Date: December 2017」

「Appraisal Amount: KRW 549,410,000,000

Annual Rent: KRW 24,491,293,000 」

“What about this? What did you do?”

Her father pretended not to know why his daughter was clinging to him.

She whined, "Dad, just trust your daughter this time. I'm gonna start with the capital, and even though I can't promise huge profits, I'll make sure we don't lose any money. You know I always keep my promises, right?"

He shook his head. “You know nothing about this world.”

However, Ga-Yeong had no intention of giving up today. Last week she met with the strongest person among the team leaders of the association’s Korean branch. Not only was she able to obtain lots of information from the industry, but she was also able to meet Mr. Cho, the manager of Daehyun CA.

As a result of meeting a few more people and collecting data, Ga-Yeong concluded that it was worth betting on the business of entering outer space.

She was relentless in her persuasion. It wasn’t until she brought up the profit that Daehyun CA had been keeping as a secret fund that her father began to waver in his resistance.

“Are you sure this won’t cause any trouble?” he asked hesitantly.

“It’s hard to find a partner because everyone is leaning towards llsung. Even the Great Jeonil is behind them, so Daehyun said if we join, they will support us. Think about it. They wouldn’t have suggested this only to us, but to others. They will find someone else if we respond late.”

“Ga-Yeong.”

“Is it because of the largest shareholder? What is your honest opinion?” she asked.

He sighed. “It’s going to be a big problem if things go wrong.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, just tell me what you think.”

“I’m saying that my personal opinion doesn’t matter. Put yourself into my shoes. I let you do whatever you wanted since you were running your business pretty well, but now you are jumping into an agency? Did you think I would say yes right away?”

“I really want to see their faces for once.”

“So you are doing this just to see their faces?” he asked.

She smiled weakly., “Well, kind of.”

“Why?”

“I should clean my business up one day.”

Her father lectured, “We should be the most thankful for people who are in outer space. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to raise you like this. Also, you know whom to repay the favor to, right? If you have any energy to do this absurd thing, then focus on finding him.”

“I am…but he is like a ghost. No one knows anything about him.”

“Anyway, you should do your best whatever you do. Don’t let others talk shit about you. You should prove your capability to them.”

“So you mean…yes?”

That conversation occurred one month ago.

***

Iljoo Construction was one of the top twenty construction corporations in Korea. Ga-Yeong believed that the company’s growth was solely attributed to her father’s efforts, but upon reflection, it was no different from other conglomerates.

The company wasn’t named after Jeonil Group, Jonathan, and Gillian Finance Investment Group, but foreign capital had also had a part in Iljoo Construction.

However, the difference between them and other companies with foreign capital was that the major shareholder never showed his face to them. Since he had delegated a 1.1 percent stake that granted them voting rights, he remained absent from the company’s operations, except when he conducted audits through foreign tax firms once in a while.

Things had been the same for twenty years, and Ga-Yeong had never heard of such an investment capital other than them. She checked her father’s mailbox and scratched her forehead. The emails were only about the national land restoration project, but the response she had been waiting for hadn’t arrived yet.

At that time, she received a call.

The voice of the employee in the lobby was trembling in excitement.

Ga-Yeong burst into a scream without realizing it.

She had sent messages to all the Awakened throughout Asia, but Caliber?!

Ga-Yeong couldn’t hear the staff over the phone as her mind went blank.

She waited for the elevator for a few seconds, but ended up running down the emergency stairs.

The middle-aged man standing in the lobby was indeed Caliber. He was like the unidentified foreign major shareholder as it was undeniable that he existed, but it somehow felt like he was an imaginary being.

In fact, that was how the world worked these days. Alien monsters had appeared on the Day of Advent and were exterminated.

The fact that they had broken through the cosmic phenomenon called ‘gate’ and destroyed Gunpo, Anyang, and Gwacheon was real. In fact, it happened only three months ago, but the cities that were demolished then were not very far from Seoul. Ga-Yeong had actually escaped to the air defense shelter with her parents at that time.

However, that was it. Alien monsters were still considered elusive entities, only accessible through social media, and were considered to be far from the realm of reality. Also, the two hundred Korean Awakened who had shot them down and the World Awakened Association Headquarters in this country were out of touch with reality.

The only aspect that made her feel connected to reality was her involvement in the national land restoration project. However, the actual work was managed by a separate department.

Ga-Yeong was overcome with emotion as a person who established the agency because Caliber, who was previously a fictional character to her, had appeared before her. The pictures of individuals working at the gold mine that the Daehyun Group had secretly shown her flooded her mind.

However, there were also photos of a brutal battlefield. The Awakened were standing on corpses and soaked in blood. Even the ordinary Awakened were terrifying, but Caliber was the most powerful and scariest among them.

Caliber Kwon Seong-Il…

Ga-Yeong decided to pull herself together right before she stood in front of him.

“I came here to see Mr. Choi. Who are you?” he asked.

She responded quickly. “I’m his daughter.”

Seong-Il raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Choi’s daughter?”

She nodded rapidly. “Yes.”

He grinned. “Haha. You didn’t need to come down. I’m not that special. Let’s go up.”

Ga-Yeong blinked her eyes quickly as she didn’t expect this.

My dad knows him? Then he would have let me know beforehand.

“He is not here now. May I ask what brought you here?” she asked politely.

He gestured. “I just came to visit as I heard he established an agency.”

Ga-Yeong replied immediately, “If that’s the reason, then you can talk to me about it. Then, I will tell my dad that you are here. Thanks for coming, Mr. Caliber. This way, please.”

She guided him to the office. Right after that, Ga-Yeong used the excuse of needing to use the washroom as a means of calling her dad.

In her school years, she didn’t know what the IMF was, so she had no idea what kind of difficulties her father had experienced back then.

On the other hand, Mr. Choi could never forget those days. ‘Thrift and saving’ was his company’s motto, and if he saw workers who reminded him of the old days, he always supported them even by making his company’s legal team help them.

There were multiple construction companies that were born like that, and Ki-Cheol Construction was one of them.

Ga-Yeong quickly fixed her makeup and returned to the office, and the sight of Seong-Il looking at the sunset came into her view. His back was as big as the sunset.

He remarked, “I don’t think there is a need for Mr. Choi to come. I just wanted to thank him in person, but I should have called first.”

Her eyes widened. “Umm…”

He continued, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you know, the Awakened possess heightened auditory perception. I’m just telling you not to make any mistakes since you are running an agency. I don’t really care, but some Awakened people are sensitive.”

Ga-Yeong was already aware of it, therefore she had installed a soundproofing system and whispered on the phone. She looked at Seong-Il with a flushed face. Seong-Il acted as if he would leave immediately, but instead, he sat on a couch.

“I don’t smell any Awakened here. Is your agency not doing well?” he asked.

She nodded. “Ah, yes. As you can tell.”

“Tae-Han has nothing to do with Ilsung now, but they know nothing. Don’t be sad. They will recognize your sincerity one day.”

Ga-Yeong smiled to express her appreciation for his words.

She hesitated and then asked, “But what brought you here again? With all due respect… I wonder if there is anything we can do for you, Mr. Caliber.”

“There ought to be a balance of give and take. Mr. Choi has bestowed countless gifts to people, some of which he may have forgotten, but those who have been recipients of his kindness will remember him forever.”

Ga-Yeong thought and realized that her father had also received kindness from two people in the past. One was the foreign capital, who remained the major shareholder of Iljoo Construction, and the other was a young man who had connected him with the capital and helped him win many projects. Iljoo Construction had survived and grown to this extent thanks to the two.

“However, we are too small to help someone like you, Mr. Caliber…” she said wryly.

“Listen until I get to the end.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not telling you I will join your agency and take the land now. I just want to leave some stuff here.”

She asked, “Are you talking about item trading?”

“If your trading system is decent, then I can go into outer space and occupy some lands. Well, as long as Iljoo Construction is prepared to the level that I want you to be. Let’s talk about that later after I see the results. Is this too much?”

She responded honestly, “Which company in the world would not be bewildered by Mr. Caliber’s offer? That’s a lie if they tell you such a thing. Honestly, it’s such a burden for companies with low brand value like us.”

Ga-Yeong rolled up her sleeves to show her goosebumps.

He chuckled “It’s written all over your face that you are exaggerating. Why don’t you give it a try? Don’t be intimidated by my name and fame, Miss.”

“...”

“Okay? Also, I’m only telling you this, but I like Iljoo Construction. I don’t understand those who haven’t learned Korean yet, and I don’t want to work with them. So the choices I have left are: Jeonil, Ilsung, Daehyun, and their small companies. They are all the same to me, so I’m trying to pay off my debt to Mr. Choi. So don’t feel pressured.”

“What stuff are you talking about?” she asked.

He explained, “They are artifacts, so they are not authentic items that Awakened carries around. Have you heard about it?”

“Yes.”

“Although they are not named after gods, I can guarantee their power. There won’t be any issue with the value. I have so many of them. If you treat them well, then I will let you take care of more stuff. Do you want to try?”

Her eyes lit up. “...Yes. Thank you for giving me this chance, Mr. Caliber.”

He smiled. “Good choice. I made the agencies sign the contract, so the agency that I’m currently working for will send you the document. Check it out and send it to me after editing.”

“Okay.”

“If you do well, then your agency will grow with me and expand more. I mean it.”

Ga-Yeong checked the reality only after Seong-Il left.

Oh my gosh, this is crazy. It was really Caliber…

It wasn’t her time to do this. She needed to contact the numbers on her phone first.

People who used to work as auction brokers at Sotheby’s[1] and those from the hedge funds on Wall Street had founded companies, waiting for this day to come. Ga-Yeong’s job was to choose the most reliable company among them.

***

“Did you really leave your artifacts there? Really?”

Seong-Il shrugged. “I just wanted to check if her agency was competent or not. We will find that out soon.”

“Gosh… That’s your choice, but keep one thing in mind: we should earn lots of money. It’s not just about the item.”

Seong-Il nodded. “I know.”

“We can earn much more from the battlefield. You know that, right?”

“Let’s say that we join all the wars and scrape every single penny we can. Do you want us to beg for mercy from that guy?”

“Begging is an inappropriate term to use here. That simply means we are worshiping that motherfucker. Let’s call it ‘trade’ between us. It’s not wrong to say that.”

“I would have torn the others apart if Odin wasn’t there. Aren’t we supposed to deal with all these only with our, the priests’, money? We should collect money from everyone, not just the priests…”

“We should wait and see about that. It’s not that Odin is inflexible.”

“Nah, Odin doesn’t really change his mind. Anyway, if we save money, then what should we earn with that?”

“We should wait and see about that, too. We should think about what will help Odin the most. Let’s fill our pockets first and wait.”

“Hmm… Okay. By the way, why would it name the ritual ‘Mammonism?’ This bastard knows us too well, and it’s embarrassing.”

“Yeah, I don’t like that either.”

“Yes, Noona. Doom Kaos is just a fucking asshole.”

1. A multinational auction house and broker of fine and decorative art, jewelry, and collectibles. ☜

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