“This is the current status of the mid-grade healing potions listed at the South Korean OnTower Auction House.”
“There are absurdly many of them…”
“They are still being listed even now, and the seller of the highest-grade potions from before is the same individual.”
“So who is the registrant?”
In the dark room, Suho’s face appeared above the table.
An image rose as a 3D hologram, slowly spinning in place.
“This is the individual. Jeong Suho, male, twenty-nine years old. It has not been long since he awakened as an Admiti, and according to his registered information, he is S-rank.”
“Oh? If he is S-rank, what number would that make him in South Korea?”
“He is believed to be the tenth.”
“Hmm. And yet we knew nothing of him until now.”
“Officially, the fact has not been reported. Not a single line has appeared in the news. It appears the government is deliberately covering it up.”
“So this fellow can produce Tower items?”
“According to what the Foreign Intelligence Bureau has learned so far, this man is said to have obtained a class called ‘Item Collector.’ With that ability, he can collect Tower items in the vicinity of the Tower.”
“What a ridiculous ability… And the truth of that claim?”
“We cannot verify whether it is true or false, but it is certain that the Korean government understands it that way as well.”
“A collecting ability… Is the fellow perhaps strong in terms of force? Combat ability, and the like…”
“They say that in terms of physical force, he is no different from an ordinary person.”
“Ha ha… Why, a goose that lays golden eggs has suddenly appeared right in front of us. If we can’t take this, we might as well die.”
Russian President Dmitry Petrov folded his arms and sank back into his chair.
Prime Minister Mikhail Smirnov and Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Kuznetsov also nodded at his words.
“Surely they wouldn’t have left such a resource alone. What level of security does he have?”
“That is the concerning part. First, he has bodyguards from the South Korean Tower Management Agency, and second, we have confirmed private security androids. And in Jeong Suho’s case, he has additional companions as well… They appear to be high-rank Admiti. Their exact identities are unknown, but one is said to be a stealth-type ability user.”
“Hmm… If we fail for no reason, the problem will grow bigger. Then change course and bring in his family first. Even if we capture him, family will be effective in making him work obediently.”
“Understood.”
“Bring them in first. Let’s try using him as our mining rig.”
* * *
Wealth is deceptive.
It veils everything beneath bubbles of splendor, preventing one from seeing the essence.
And so, contrary to how it appears on the surface, even though wealth does not necessarily guarantee true happiness or quality of life, people still cling to it.
Suho himself had come into such an enormous fortune that he now carried worries in all sorts of directions, but in general, that was how it was.
In that sense, his friend Seongsik seemed impressive all over again.
Thinking of Seongsik, who had flatly refused the bankbook containing ten billion won at the barbecue restaurant last time, Suho muttered.
“It really is strange. How did that guy even think to turn down ten billion won…?”
As far as Suho knew, even if Seongsik’s father received his pension regularly, that was money belonging to Seongsik’s parents, not money Seongsik—who had already become independent and was living on his own—could use.
Nor was he from a rich family with a great inheritance waiting for him.
Perhaps that day, after going home, he had kicked off his blanket, bitten his pillow, and cried…
Maybe it was because he had such a fine father.
Seongsik suddenly seemed remarkable to him.
Since he had been cut off from the agency anyway, the first person Suho sought out was Seongsik.
They sat in the regular pork belly restaurant they often went to and grilled meat in the middle of the day, but Seongsik kept glancing at Minsu and Minji.
“Are those two who came with you not eating?”
“Ah, I didn’t explain. They’re not people. They charged plenty before coming, so they’re fine.”
“Whoa… Androids are common these days, but this is the first time I’ve seen ones that look exactly like people… They must be expensive.”
“They are. They’re realistic. Since they’re always by my side, I often forget they’re there. Anyway, how’s your work going? Going well?”
“Well…”
Seongsik, who had accepted the glass Suho offered him, hesitated for a moment, then trailed off.
They had spent so many years together that Suho sensed a problem in that brief instant.
“Something… isn’t going well, is it?”
Seongsik, who had always been rather brilliant, worked at a company in the field of AI machine learning.
As a humanities major, Suho was a complete outsider to that side of things and did not know the details, but it seemed like a field that should have a smooth road ahead, given the times…
So why did the guy’s face look so dark?
“There was… a personnel restructuring. You know we were originally working on strengthening artificial intelligence for military and security androids. But this time, they’re making a sharp turn toward the medical side. And while doing that, they announced that the existing personnel in our division should move over to the technical support service center… Well, in the end, it’s just a roundabout way of telling us to leave.”
“What the hell…?”
Suho had thought Seongsik’s company was an iron rice bowl that only geniuses could get into, and yet he was being cut from there?
For a moment, unable to find anything to say, Suho only emptied his glass again and again.
“Ah… This pisses me off. Should I put that company in its place?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why are you suddenly flying off the handle? The company has its own circumstances too. They say an insane number of mid-grade healing potions are being released through that OnTower Auction House these days, don’t they? Since something that used to be incredibly expensive is being released relatively cheaply, every medical and pharmaceutical research institute is hanging on to analyzing them. They say it could lead to an innovative leap in medicine or whatever… How would I know?”
Good grief, so that was how it turned out…
The part he had worked so hard on to create a safer Tower-conquering environment for low- and mid-rank Admiti had not come back as good news for Seongsik.
In the end, if he thought about it in a roundabout way, Suho had a share in Seongsik losing his job.
Fortunately, Seongsik did not look utterly despairing.
“I can just find another job. It’s not like I’ll starve to death. How are things going for you as an Admiti? You even started an agency, right? You’re something else. Working two jobs?”
“Uh… Being an Admiti isn’t really work, actually. It’s just a hobby, a hobby. The real work-like work is warehouse SimCity—no, the agency…”
Suho looked straight at Seongsik and said,
“I got cut from that too.”
“Cut? Pfft… Puhahaha…”
“Hey, man. What’s so funny?”
“No, honestly, when you became an Admiti and said you were doing agency work to support Admiti, I wondered what the hell you were doing, but in the end, you got cut?”
“Well, strictly speaking, I wasn’t cut… but anyway, that’s how it turned out.”
“Ah, this is weirdly funny. Haha. Honestly, I felt like you were putting on some strange play.”
“Is that so… Well, I guess it was something like that.”
Feeling awkward, Suho rubbed beneath his nose.
“It’s a relief that the strange play is over. So, Suho, what are you going to do now?”
“I’m thinking about it. Now that you mention it, two guys who accidentally became unemployed suddenly met up, huh?”
“Keke, with nothing but time to spare!”
“No. I have more than just time to spare. I also have money.”
“Ha, yeah, good for you.”
“Oh, while we’re on the subject, this is the thing you didn’t accept last time. Take it now. Use it for living expenses for a while.”
Suho held out the bankbook containing ten billion won, the one Seongsik had refused last time.
“Hey, hey, I told you it’s fine. I have plenty saved up, and I’ll get unemployment benefits too. I could laze around for years and still be fine. And you, you bastard. What the hell kind of life do you have to live for ten billion won to be living expenses? Is ten billion the minimum unit or something? Why the hell do you keep shoving ten billion at me every chance you get?”
“Yeah, ten billion is the minimum unit. Come on, isn’t this what friends are for? Take some. I’m telling you to accept it.”
“Hey, I have ears too. I’ve heard enough to know how much Admiti earn, and I also know they spend a lot, so don’t overdo it.”
“Wow, you stubborn bastard… I’m telling you, it’s not overdoing it. I have more than nine quadrillion won!”
“Heh heh… Bullshit, bullshit. Did you get drunk already after barely drinking that much?”
Suho felt anxious.
Even if the unemployed Seongsik was pretending to be calm, Suho knew perfectly well how much effort and hardship he had gone through to get into that company. There was no way he could be fine.
He wanted to do something for him, but Seongsik would not accept anything, and it was frustrating.
The guy boasted confidently enough, but the truth was that in this day and age, finding a new job was not easy.
Jobs had truly decreased far too much throughout the world.
As average life expectancy had grown tremendously longer, many workplaces now preferred people in their forties and fifties, called veteran rookies, even over those in their twenties.
It was time to end his 고민.
Suho steeled his resolve.
For that bastard’s sake, if nothing else, he would create jobs.
“Then, Seongsik.”
“Why are you calling me so gently? I just got goosebumps, you bastard.”
“Since we’ve both become unemployed anyway, don’t you want to work together?”
“Work? You and me? We’d have to have some field in common to work together.”
“Hmm… There’s one more unemployed bastard lazing around at my house because he has nothing to do.”
“Jiho?”
“Yeah. Let’s start a small business, the three of us, including Jiho. What do you think?”
Seongsik’s expression became complicated.
* * *
Suho sat in a rocking chair he had brought in from outside, on the shore of the elixir lake within the subspace warehouse, admiring the sparkle of the mountains piled high with gold, platinum, diamonds, and Etherium.
Thinking about it, it was rather regrettable that there was no change between night and day, nor any change in the weather, inside the subspace warehouse.
If that mountain and lake reflected the glow of the sunset, it would look truly magnificent.
“Rabi, how much gold did you say was here?”
“One hundred quadrillion tons.”
Suho, still leaning back in the rocking chair, tapped on the AI calculator on his smartphone.
“Wow, Rabi! Do you know how much one hundred quadrillion tons of gold is? They say that to spread gold ten meters thick and wrap it around the entire Earth, you’d need a total of ninety-eight point five seven quadrillion tons of gold. Haha! I have even more than that.”
“That is an amount this small planet cannot digest.”
“What about in terms of the whole universe?”
“It is no different from a speck of dust. In truth, gold is almost useless and is treated like dust anyway.”
“Haha…”
Suho rose from the chair and walked along the lakeshore, filled with elixirs and potions.
In truth, although it had been made after Chungju Lake, the scale of this artificial mountain and lake could not be compared to Chungju Lake at all. Even if one walked for days, it would be impossible to circle it completely.
As he walked along that vast lakeshore, Suho fell into thought.
People easily let the words eternity and infinity pass their lips.
But when one thought about it carefully, it was an extremely funny thing.
For a finite being that could live only a little over a hundred years to speak of eternity and infinity.
There was such a story.
Once every thousand years, a bird visits Earth, flies in, takes a single grain of millet in its beak, and disappears to the far side of the universe. And even if there were a jar the size of Earth filled to the brim with millet, and enough time passed for that bird to come and go until the jar was emptied,
“Even then, it would still not be eternity.”
People say the whole world is vast, vast indeed, but the entire area of Earth is truly only a tiny portion within the solar system,
and that solar system is nothing more than an extremely small part of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
If the diameter of the Milky Way were reduced to about one hundred meters, the diameter of the solar system would be only about 1.8 millimeters. That said it all.
But even that Milky Way is no more than an exceedingly small dot within the entire size of the “observable universe.”
Even that vastness is still not infinity.
Suho had yet to find an answer as to how it would be wisest to use this wealth, which, from a human perspective, felt nearly infinite.
Not using it felt empty,
using it recklessly was dangerous,
and using it well was extremely difficult.
The world was like a tensegrity structure, built through a delicate balance, a fragile thing connected in complex and organic ways.
It was designed with great beauty and precision, but if force leaned to one side or damage occurred, there was always the danger that the effect would be transferred to other members and cause the whole thing to collapse.
This world was exactly like that.
Suho’s wealth was so overwhelmingly vast that it would be almost violent to throw it into this intricately balanced world, and he could not predict what kind of effect it would have when force was applied in any given direction.
And so… it was even more difficult.
With this immense wealth,
it would be good if he could punish all evil,
and give salvation to all who needed help,
but where the line lay for evil that needed to be eliminated,
and who counted as the weak in need of salvation,
even defining those things and setting standards for them was not easy.
‘Whew… Grand things really are difficult… For now, let’s start with what’s close. With the people close to me, and the things close at hand.’
Suho scratched hard at his head, which refused to work, and shook off his complicated thoughts.
* * *
The house blueprints were ready, and the family gathered in one place.
TwelveOne Cheongdam, where they currently lived, was a penthouse-style apartment worth around thirty billion won—a super-luxury apartment in its own right—but it was still a place they were renting.
The reason they had chosen to rent was so they could build and move into a home far better than this.
The new house they had decided to build for 1.5 trillion won was less a wide, sprawling residence than a building.
A building named .
As they watched the video prepared by the architect and listened to the explanation, everyone in the family looked satisfied.
It seemed the things they had requested had been reflected in meticulous detail.
Looking at the layout of each floor,
Floors 1 through 4 were parking levels, with space for 110 vehicles, as well as vehicle maintenance facilities and drivers’ waiting rooms.
They consisted of two floors for guest vehicles and two garage floors for their own cars.
The 4th floor was the welcome lobby, with a reception and information desk, a luxurious lounge for guests, a security room, and a CCTV monitoring center.
The perimeter security androids that, in the past, had patrolled around the villa would now mainly be stationed here.
The 5th floor was the leisure and sports floor, housing an indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi, gym, Pilates room, spa, and sauna.
The 6th floor was the entertainment floor. Packed with a large theater, VR game room, karaoke room, billiards room, pinball machines, darts area, bowling alley, indoor video arcade, racing simulators, and more, it was practically an amusement park.
The 7th floor had a bar, lounge, and café,
The 8th floor was the main kitchen, with a high-end dining room for banquets and a casual dining space where they could have simple meals.
The 9th floor was a space for guests, with a guest lounge, guest bedrooms, and the like.
From the 10th through the 15th floors were the private living spaces for Suho’s family. Along with the main living room, family bedrooms, and family lounge, there were large bedrooms, luxurious bathrooms, spacious and elaborately designed closets, private balconies, and more.
A family gathering room was placed at the center so that each family member could have their own private space while still being able to gather as a family with only a short walk.
The 16th floor was the “safety floor,” with a “safe space” where they could evacuate in the event of natural disasters, fires, or other emergencies,
The 17th floor was the office space and library,
And the 18th floor had a rooftop garden, barbecue and party area, and indoor garden.
Finally, on the highest levels, floors 19 through 22, they planned to install a helipad where helicopters could take off and land, as well as a sky lounge, observation deck, and the like.
Each floor was about five meters high, so while it was a 22-story building, it was nearly equivalent in height to a 50-story building.
But it was not an unsafe building just because it was tall.
It had a wind- and earthquake-resistant structural design capable of withstanding a magnitude 9 earthquake and typhoons with winds of 90 meters per second,
And it was a building sturdily constructed using the diagrid method.
On top of that, the finest security systems would be installed on every floor, with access strictly controlled, making it truly a fortress-like building.
That was the building that would become Suho’s family home.
After giving the final okay to the architect, who had provided the detailed explanation, the construction schedule was officially set.
“Phew... 1.5 trillion won... I guess I’ll get to live in a house like this too...”
When his mother spoke while stroking her chest, Suji responded.
“Mom, if the house is 1.5 trillion won, that’s cheap. Cheap. Don’t you remember how we drank a trillion won’s worth of potions in one sitting not long ago?”
“You... Is that the same as this?”
“My stomach still hurts whenever I think about that day. We really should’ve sold those...”
Suji grumbled, but his father’s impression was completely different.
“Well, if I were a truly rich man with a lot of money, I’d want to drink it again even if I had to pay several trillion.”
“Come on, Dad, that’s going a little overboard!”
Suji’s expression turned serious, and when their mother also took their father’s side, the tide shifted.
There wasn’t much time left in this small and modest home? where Suho’s family lived, bickering and giggling together.