When he opened his eyes again, Suho was at the playground where he had passed out after facing a shooting star.
He was sprawled out ingloriously, face-first in the dirt.
"Hah... I... didn't even drink... I must really be crazy. Falling asleep outside all of a sudden... Was the mental shock too much...?"
He dusted off his bottom, got up, and sat astride the swing again.
It had been a strange dream, but far too vivid.
Even the words the warehouse keeper had mumbled at the end still lingered in his ears, every word ringing clearly.
"Whenever you choose something... what did he say, subspace?"
Then suddenly, an augmented reality screen resembling a search window popped up before his eyes.
"Crazy... it wasn't... a dream...?"
Suho stared blankly at the window that had appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Items in possession.
- Pure gold worth 1 yang : Currently equivalent to 10 gyeong tons of pure gold.
Would you like to withdraw and materialize?
Please select the amount, form, and location for materialization.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The contents were absurd.
"Gyeong? What's gyeong again..." He muttered the numbers.
'One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand... eok, jo, gyeong, hae... Aha, so this is that gyeong.'
Suho turned on the AI search engine that came pre-installed on every smartphone nowadays.
"Just how much is 10 gyeong tons...? Give me a rough comparison."
According to the AI's explanation, the total weight of everything humanity had ever made on Earth throughout its long history was said to be approximately 1.154 trillion tons.
So 10 gyeong tons was, uh... quite a lot...
"What is this now."
An additional explanation followed: Earth's weight was 5.9 ja kg, which converted to tons was 59 hae tons.
"Aha, so 10 gyeong tons is 1/59,000th of Earth's weight? Hahat! Looking at it this way, it's nothing much. Ahahaha..."
He shook his head violently.
He really must have lost his mind.
He must have fallen asleep again. This was a dream. The sequel to that crazy dream from before.
"Alright then, I'll withdraw just 1 kg of gold. Materialize it here in my palm. In... gold bar form."
Sure enough, a gold bar appeared instantly on his palm.
"Ahahaha...!! This is insane! I... must have finally gone mad... Kuhahaha.... Ahahahahahaha!! That's right! I've gone mad! I'm crazy! Hahaha... *hic*... *heu-heuk*... Yangwon... losing you... I think I've gone crazy... What am I going to do... *heuk*... Yangwooon... Ahahahaha..."
As he sobbed, laughing and crying, he saw the occasional person who came to the playground turn around with extreme caution.
"Hey! You there!"
"Hahaha...... *hic*."
Crying and laughing like a lunatic, he really felt like he was losing his mind, but fortunately, someone from the outside interrupted him.
"Hey. Mister. What do you think you're doing? Huh?"
It was the apartment security guard.
"*hic*... *heum*! *ahem!* Ah... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've just been through some rough times..."
"Even so, this is too much. A young man like you, seriously. Do you know what time it is? We keep getting complaints. Get out before I call the police. Hurry!"
He was practically chased out of the playground.
He trudged along, then asked aloud at a sudden thought.
"Hey, subspace warehouse. Can I go inside too?"
Then a sentence rose clearly before his eyes.
The moment he made up his mind to enter, his field of vision changed instantly.
The alley beside the playground vanished without a trace, and the scenery spread out around him was a vast space where nothing was visible beyond the horizon.
A place covered in ivory-colored stones like desert sand.
The ground was perfectly flat and level without a single uneven spot, stretching out endlessly.
No matter where he looked, there was only horizon.
"What the... is this... am I lost...?"
Something popped up before him as he stood there blankly.
Something very small, about the size of a puppy, was floating in the sky.
But its shape and form were somehow familiar.
"D... dragon?"
"Hello. Welcome to Jeong Suho-nim's subspace warehouse. I am Lavi, appointed as the warehouse keeper."
Had it not been for the petite wings fluttering behind its back and its cute tail, he never would have thought it was a dragon.
While it had the form of a dragon, with its large eyes and sparkling pupils, even its face was small and round like a baby turtle—it was somehow an adorable creature.
"Uh... hel... hello? Dragons can talk... too."
"Suho-nim is the master of this warehouse. Please speak comfortably! I am in charge of tasks such as creating, storing, maintaining, searching, withdrawing, and materializing the 1,000 yang worth of wealth that Jeong Suho-nim contracted to receive from the Administrator of the Universe."
"Aha... so this entire vast place is my warehouse...?"
"That's correct!"
Suho walked blankly.
Walking through the endlessly stretching, flat desert-like space, he couldn't even tell where he had started walking. It was so vast, and there were no identifiable structures.
The so-called guide also followed behind Suho.
"Please ask if there is anything you are curious about."
"Uh... you, you... are you a dragon?"
"No. I am of the Cheongnyong race."
"Isn't that the same thing... Anyway, I guess you're a baby. Seeing how small you are..."
"Yes, I am not very old. I have only been alive for 1,050 years. I must wait about another 9,000 years to become an adult. It's fine. Time passes quickly. And though I am young, I am fully versed in my duties, so please do not worry."
"Ah... hahaha. I see..."
Suho let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity.
A baby dragon over a thousand years old!
And I'm a full-grown twenty-nine-year-old.
"Then, this place. How big is it? Is it an infinite space?"
"It is not infinite. The width of this place is approximately 6.83×10^19 square kilometers. The area is fixed."
"Uh... really? How big is that...?"
"Um... if we must compare using Earthling measurements, it is slightly larger than the area of the entire solar system calculated two-dimensionally based on Neptune's orbital path."
"Ah! I see... a moderate size. Hahahaha!"
The constant stream of astronomical numbers made him feel like his mind was going to flee again.
"Width is relative. The width of the solar system is merely an extremely small area, difficult to mark even as a dot when limited to the galaxy this planet belongs to. Needless to say when compared to the entire universe."
"Haha... ah, that's true too. Hah..."
The one called Lavi flitted about nearby, seeming to enjoy Suho asking questions.
"Y-yeah... right, so somewhere in this vast warehouse, there's a place with my gold, that enormous amount of gold?"
"Yes, it was paid out because you chose gold as your first wealth. Precisely 1 yang worth at current international market prices, approximately 10 gyeong tons, is in storage. Shall we move to the stored location?"
"Uh... s-sure."
The little dragon called Lavi took Suho to somewhere along the vast horizon.
Whether by teleportation or not, his vision changed in an instant, and before he knew it, he was standing atop a world endlessly spread out in gold.
Front and back, left and right, not to mention the floor—everywhere was glittering gold.
It was as if an entire planet was made of gold.
"Uh... so you'll... cut this to whatever size I want...?"
"That's correct. I am in charge of that!"
"Then, can you make it really big? Give me 100 tons of gold! Even like this?"
"Of course. I can pay out 1 jo tons immediately."
"Ahahaha...... This is fun, so fun. I want to get out now. Let me out."
"Understood. Shall we return to the entrance through which you entered? Or would you like to designate this place as a new entrance?"
"Uh... if I designate this as a new entrance, I can't get out to where I came in?"
"That's correct. Entrances can be opened anywhere, but to exit to the place you entered from, you must use the same entrance."
"Aha. So if I exit through where I entered, I end up in the same spot..."
Suho requested of Lavi and exited the warehouse through where he had entered.
When he came out, he was in an alley not far from that playground.
He could still see the gold bar clutched tightly in his hand.
"Let's check if this is real gold... and put an end to this crazy dream."
Suho immediately opened his phone.
"Let's see, to sell gold..."
Just ten years ago, that is, even in the late 2020s, gold was harder to liquidate than one might think.
Gold bars without issuers or serial numbers were subject to legal regulations such as anti-money laundering and illegal trade prevention, making them easy targets for government surveillance, and they were also tracked by government agencies like the National Tax Service. Their authenticity was difficult to verify, and insurance was hard to obtain, so their credibility was low, or so it was said.
Well, or so the story went. It was all hearsay to Suho.
You'd only know if you had gold. Damn.
Anyway, that was an old story, and now it was a thing of the past.
In the 2030s, as the world went to ruin, international affairs became extremely unstable, and the global financial crisis caused the dollar's credibility to decline—since then, gold trading had truly become active.
Gold refineries and goldsmithing companies that melted gold to stamp out new products were already willing to accept large quantities of gold without certificates of authenticity or serial numbers,
and now within the city, specialized exchanges that bought and disposed of diamonds, platinum, and scrap gold without appraisals or certificates were everywhere.
On the other hand, 'Etherium'—also called demon stones or mana stones—had emerged as a new safe asset, which was also a major reason gold had been pushed out from its position as the standard measure of monetary value.
After a quick search, Suho found several wholesale companies popping up that paid 100% cash for gold bars regardless of assay fees or product type.
"Let's see... the closest one is... ah, I can't walk there."
He immediately called a taxi.
While moving in a self-driving unmanned taxi, Suho opened his subspace and took out five more gold bars, putting them in his bag.
The procedure at the gold wholesale exchange he arrived at was truly simple.
They conducted a purity test with a free appraisal, and each gold bar was evaluated at 165.4 million won.
For all six, that was 992.4 million won.
Without certificates or appraisals, a staff member who finished the calculations neatly handed over the money in cash.
Nearly twenty bundles of 50,000-won bills. The bag he brought was filled to bursting.
As he left the store, his mind was slightly dazed.
Surprisingly, he wasn't trembling despite the huge sum of money.
If it was a dream, there was no reason to tremble because it was a dream;
and even if this was reality, he knew all too well that that gold was merely an extremely tiny part, a dust-like part, of Suho's subspace.
Suho had never even had a single million won in his wallet, yet suddenly nearly 1 billion won had appeared.
Suho took another unmanned taxi home and thought deeply.
'...It's not a dream... none of this is a dream. I'm not crazy either. I'm saner now than I've ever been.'
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Everything was real. The gold, Lavi, the subspace.
And the cash in his bag too.
Then what that administrator fellow had said must also be true.
Suho's exceedingly dull mind finally realized that the conversation he had with the Administrator of the Universe had been seriously misunderstood.
What the administrator had been talking about was not Cheonyangwon, whom Suho had a crush on.
It was wealth. And not cash, but physical wealth in whatever form he desired.
And he was giving him as much as 1,000 yang worth.
He couldn't get a feel for this number called 'yang'.
Suho rummaged through his phone again and finally began to understand how large the number 'yang' was.
One. Ten. Hundred. Thousand. Ten thousand... starting from there, the units of numbers continuing to eok, jo, gyeong, hae, ja, yang, gu, gan, jeong, jae, geuk.
Yang came after jo, gyeong, hae, and ja.
An astronomical number with 28 zeros after the 1.
1 hae was 100 million times 1 jo,
and 1 yang was another 100 million times 1 hae.
And it wasn't even 1 yang, but 1,000 yang... ahaha...
This is crazy. This is completely insane.
He had heard that when you won the lottery, you trembled so much until you received the prize, your heart pounded, you were too anxious to sleep, you couldn't focus on work, and all sorts of thoughts ran through your mind...
But strangely, he felt none of that.
Honestly, the unit was so large he felt nothing. He was just blank.
That was when he learned.
That the prize money had to be moderate for you to tremble; if the scale was too large, there was no excitement.
'Congratulations on winning the lottery jackpot! Please claim your 3 billion won prize!'
Something like that would make you tremble, excited and anxious.
'Congratulations on winning the solar system. The entire solar system is now yours!' What was this supposed to be?
It just felt like a lame joke.
He had heard that the total assets of some major conglomerate family exceeded 1,000 trillion won. But 1,000 trillion won was not even worth a fingernail's dirt compared to 1,000 yang won.
A fingernail's dirt? It would be smaller than a virus between fingernails.
"...Hahaha......"
He just laughed stupidly again.
He glanced at his bag again; bundles of 992.4 million won filled it tightly.
Yes, this felt real. He had no sense of yang or whatever, and didn't know what was what.
But 900 million won, this felt somewhat real.
Come to think of it,
one way or another, he had received Cheonyangwon.
He had been rejected by Cheonyangwon (person),
but gained Cheonyangwon (wealth)...
Perhaps a thousand yang in gold was better than the woman Cheonyangwon.