Chapter 22
Translator: Dreamscribe
‘Hello! I’m Jung Jin-ho, a man who loves tanks. Please take good care of me!’
He still vividly remembered the moment when Jin-ho first joined the guild.
How thrilled the guild members were, saying that young blood had entered a place full of only middle-aged men.
On top of that, he always had a polite attitude and a knack for brightening the mood, and his gaming skills were excellent too.
So, Hwang Dae-woon just handed over the role of raid leader to Jin-ho.
Usually, in raids, the most important thing is not the clear time.
It’s human relationships.
One raid team could have dozens of members.
The raid leader had to balance the team considering their skills and classes, assign positions, and lead the group.
That’s not all.
They also had to check on suggestions, complaints, and various issues from the raid members and coordinate accordingly. It was an extremely heavy responsibility.
And that’s where Jin-ho shined.
He did not prioritize clear speed, but instead focused on maintaining a bright atmosphere in the raid team.
Instead of having the mood go cold because someone made a mistake, it was about creating an environment where people could laugh and chat all day.
From that point, the guild changed drastically.
In the past, during raids, guild members would often get into fights due to emotional clashes, and the guild had even collapsed a few times, but after Jin-ho joined, such things never happened again.
Hwang Dae-woon, who had been thinking about quitting the game because he hated getting stressed out by people even in games after dealing with it at work, began to love the game again thanks to Jin-ho.
Well, to be precise, he probably just enjoyed being active in a guild where Jin-ho was.
That’s why he cherished Jin-ho so much.
When he said he would quit the game to prepare for employment, it startled him so much that he placed him in the company right away, regardless of what others might say.
Even if he lacked qualifications.
Even if he had no skills.
He was just going to keep him around no matter what.
That was the plan.......
That was really the plan.......
“Do these numbers even make sense?”
Hwang Dae-woon clicked his tongue as he looked at the metrics from Prop Trade Department Team 7, which was currently the only department in all of Kwangwoon Securities showing unrealistically high returns.
“It doesn’t make sense at all. Who could possibly multiply 50 billion won several times over in just a few days? We should be grateful no one reported us to the labor office.”
Even doubling 50 billion won in a short period is extremely difficult.
But multiplying that fivefold in a week? That was an unprecedented event in the history of Kwangwoon Securities.
“CEO-nim. I’m really curious, where exactly did you find this guy? Looking at his background, he’s never even worked at a securities firm. He was literally unemployed, wasn’t he? So how did you even recognize such a talented person......”
“That’s-.”
CEO Hwang Dae-woon cleared his throat.
He couldn’t possibly say that he met him through gaming, felt sorry for him, and impulsively parachuted him into the company.
“Some things just come down to fate. Don’t try to dig too deep.”
“......Is it really to that extent?”
“Yes.”
At that answer, Vice President Kang Ji-hwan nodded.
If the CEO responded like that, it meant that he had clearly brought in that rookie from somewhere serious.
“But shouldn’t we at least learn his investment techniques?”
“You think he’d teach you just because you ask? And even if he kindly did, it’s not something we could even comprehend.”
CEO Hwang had once checked Jin-ho’s trading data, wondering just what kind of algorithm he was using to keep buying and selling like that.
“But I just couldn’t figure it out. I had no idea what his basis was for buying, or what principle he had for selling. If anyone else had seen it, they would have thought a total newbie was just trading on random gut feelings.”
"But all of that generated profits, right?”
“Yes. All of it. At this level, even knowing the theory wouldn’t mean we could replicate it.”
A one-of-a-kind investment technique.
An investment method that only one person in the world could understand-.
Kang Ji-hwan slightly loosened his tie.
“A lot seems to have happened at the company while I was overseas.”
“So, did you manage to get anything out of it? What’s the overall situation?”
“Right now, everyone’s nerves are focused on Europe. Greece’s repayment deadline is coming up, but there’s still no sign that they’re going to pay.”
“They wouldn’t actually default, would they?”
“That would be disastrous. I don’t think they’ll go that far. They’re not Russia or anything. From what I’ve found out, it’s definitely risky, but they’re going to find a way to resolve it somehow.”
If that was the case, then that was a relief.
The global markets were already in chaos due to the China shock. If a Greece default were added on top of that, it would be a complete disaster show.
“But you know, CEO-nim, this guy Jung Jin-ho. His performance bonus this month is going to be insane, isn’t it? It’s got to be at least several billion won.”
Since they gave exactly 30% of the profits regardless of taxes, it was an amount ordinary office workers could never even touch in their lifetime.
Our Jin-ho, he's going to have a headache calculating taxes in May.
“Ji-hwan. In your opinion, Jin-ho isn’t someone who should stay at the Team Leader level, right?”
“Of course not. He’s not someone for just the elite tier. There’s already talk because of his super-rapid promotion. But with returns like this, it would be even more ridiculous for him to stay at the Team Leader level.”
So that’s how it is.......
The problem was, the next level up was Department Head, and there were currently no vacant Department Head positions.
Should he just go ahead and create a new one?
***
"China really is China."
“Seriously. Only China could pull off something like this, right?”
China had begun stabilizing its market with an extreme regulation, suspending all sell orders.
Something unimaginable in any other country.
Using a circuit breaker to halt trading temporarily was one thing, but suspending sell orders for six whole months?
On top of that, they even mobilized their sovereign wealth fund and injected capital in a desperate attempt to stabilize the market.
“If they were going to do this, they shouldn’t have regulated margin trading in the first place.”
“Still, it was something they had to do before it got worse. But the problem was they didn’t drain the water gradually and instead exploded everything all at once.”
Smiles bloomed across the team members’ faces.
“Whew. If Team Leader hadn’t told us to quickly dump off all our positions back then, we would’ve suffered huge losses.”
"But it's still 10 times the price......."
"When we sold, it was 20 times!"
To outsiders, it might look like we were having another diligent team meeting today, but in reality, it was just casual small talk.
Because right now, we've completely withdrawn from the market and are just holding funds.
“As I’ve said before, if anyone wants, you’re free to re-enter the market even now.”
“I’ve decided to just stay put.”
“Same here. This is a huge sum you worked hard to earn for us, Team Leader. Who am I to touch it...! If I tried, I’d probably lose all of it.”
“When we hit our monthly performance target, we usually pull our funds out and do nothing after that.”
If a team had already met its performance target for the month, they might just come to work and casually monitor the market, or they might not even come in at all and stay home to relax.
A kind of reward for reaching performance targets in advance.
Of course, if they wanted to aim for even greater returns, they could always re-enter the market, but usually that led to losses, so it was better to refrain.
‘I haven’t done anything either because I haven’t felt the signal.’
Why hadn’t the signal come?
I thought it might be because of the amount.
Right now, the amount of capital I could manage was 250 billion won.
When it was 5 billion, buying and selling didn't have much impact unless it was a small company. But if I try to do short-term trading with a whopping 250 billion, from that point I become one of the major players and greatly influence stock prices.
Think about it.
A fund of 250 billion won placing buy and sell orders in seconds.
There was no way to buy or sell such a massive volume all at once, so the prices would end up a complete mess.
“Then shall we take a break too?”
“Ah. Really?”
“Yes. I know you’ve all been on edge because of me. Go and rest for your peace of mind.”
“Wow~!”
The team members suddenly burst into applause.
Looks like they’d been quite bored just sitting around here.
Even so, jumping into the market with the money earned didn’t seem right either. The current market was so volatile that getting in at the wrong time could mean losing everything, so it seemed better to wait and observe.
‘Maybe I should take this chance to rest and play some games.’
Weekdays, weekends.
Until the China shock hit, he had worked nonstop monitoring the market without a break.
Because of the pressure, he hadn’t even been able to enjoy his beloved games properly.
Might as well rest and catch up on some of the game tasks that had piled up.
“Um... but, actually.”
At that moment, Deputy Manager Lee Hye-rin carefully spoke up.
“We still haven’t had a team dinner yet.”
“Oh. Now that you mention it...”
“From the day Team Leader joined us, it’s just been a string of spectacular situations, so we couldn’t even think about a dinner.”
The team members began exchanging glances.
Soon, those eyes turned to me.
I suddenly remembered something, and I reached into my wallet.
“Ah, here it is.”
“What is it?”
I smiled and waved the card in front of the team members.
"Company card."
***
People say omakase is the peak of company dinners, but for me, beef is the best.
And it has to be Korean beef!
Just like our Guild Master said, omakase would just serve raw fish I don’t even enjoy, so it would probably be a painful experience.
Not that I’ve ever been to one...
“Alright. Cheers~!”
“Ah, we can’t just say cheers. May I be so bold as to offer a toast, Team Leader?”
“Yes, Manager. Please go ahead.”
Manager Seo cleared his throat and raised his glass.
“Our Team Leader. One of the best decisions I ever made in life was joining this team. You know the saying, people of a different caliber act differently in everything they do. I think that phrase describes our Team Leader perfectly. So with that in mind, Team Leader, we ask that you continue to care for us, support us, encourage us, back us up, push us forward, worry about us, look after us...”
“M-Manager, Th-that’s enough...”
“Ahem. Anyway, I pledge my eternal loyalty from here on out! To our Team Leader, Jung Jin-ho!”
“To Team Leader!”
Drinking soju with well-grilled beef ribs, it couldn't be more delicious.
Who knew beef could be this tender?
Korean beef really is on another level.
And maybe because the restaurant was in Yeouido, everything about it felt upscale and luxurious.
It almost made me feel guilty, like I was the only one enjoying this while my parents were left out.
Next time, I’ll have to bring my sister and my parents too.
“Oh right. I overheard earlier that the other teams are all watching Greece closely. How do you think that’ll turn out?”
“Hey now, are we really talking work at this sacred team dinner?”
“But aside from stocks, what else do we even talk about? It’s the most fun, too.”
“True. Nothing’s more fun than talking about money.”
I could talk about games, though...
But the problem was, no matter how I looked at them, none of them seemed like gamers.
“Well, they probably won’t default.”
“Yeah, most likely not, right?”
“Didn’t Russia cause a huge mess before by suddenly declaring a default while everyone was letting their guard down?”
“Wasn’t that when the LTCM fund lost something like 4 billion dollars? But that was Russia. That kind of thing is only possible in places like China now, where they just dropped trading regulations.”
Greece... Greece...
I had seen it in research reports.
They owed about 1.6 billion euros to the IMF, and although the deadline was approaching, there was still no sign of resolution.
On top of that, Greece had already received two rounds of bailout funds.
Yet their economic recovery was still sluggish, and the debt problem remained serious.
“What if they actually go into default?”
“That’d be a complete disaster. The moment they default, it also means they’re leaving the eurozone. If that happens, internal conflict in Europe would intensify, raising both military tensions and national security risks.”
As I listened to the team’s conversation, I searched for related articles on my phone.
There were already concerns that if Greece, which had ongoing military tensions with Turkey over territorial issues, declared default, it would weaken its national defense. Some scenarios even suggested that internal European conflict could escalate to the point of war.
But those were all just extreme scenarios. The majority still expected that Greece would receive another bailout and not declare a default this time either.
“Ugh. Talking about work even here just ruins the taste of alcohol. Let’s switch topics. Everyone’s getting a big performance bonus this time, right? All thanks to our Team Leader. What are you going to do with it?”
“Ahh, don’t even get me started. That thrill from closing out all our positions still hasn’t worn off!”
“But the bonus hasn’t come out yet… and there’s still quite a bit of time left.”
“Didn’t Team Leader say he’s holding the funds and not using them anyway? Then the bonus will come out just as it is.”
“We should worry about the taxes in May first. They’ll take away nearly half. We can’t go spending it all recklessly.”
“Ugh. Still, half? That’s just evil…!”
While enjoying short ribs and drinks to their hearts’ content, the team members indulged in happy daydreams about how they would spend their performance bonuses.
But I couldn’t easily join the conversation.
“Team Leader, what have you been looking at this whole time? Did something happen at home...?”
It wasn’t anything to do with family matters or home.
From the moment I started reading articles about Greece, a chill ran down my spine so intensely it almost stung.
After some hesitation, I cautiously spoke.
“...Shall we try entering the market tomorrow?”
“What?!”
“W-Wait, didn’t you say we were going to hold the funds for a while?”
“Yes, I did, but...”
If we want to play it safe, this is the point where we stop and take a break.
Then, like Manager Seo said, the performance bonus would come out.
But just like in games, where I always wandered around looking for probability-based items, maybe I really am a guy addicted to dopamine.
“Let’s try some short-term trading again. It’s been a while.”
At those words, the team members’ eyes began to tremble intensely.
“With... 250 billion won...?”
*****
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