“Tasty?”
“Yeah, this is really good. I think Korean food suits my palate.”
“Me too, Dad! Try this, this one.”
Having dinner at the buffet on the VIP floor of the Goguryeo Hotel in Seoul, which Suho and Danbi had recommended, Joshua Evans felt as if all of this were a dream.
Connie, whom he had never expected to be able to speak with again, had gotten up healthy and was spending such a wonderful time with them.
Their living conditions lacked for nothing, either.
The penthouse Suho had prepared for them, a considerable salary.
Not only that, whenever he had the chance, he would push this and that on them, calling them bonuses, leaving Joshua busy refusing out of sheer burden.
When they had lived in America, the basic cost of living had been high, so their living expenses had been considerable,
and even apart from that, every cent he earned had gone into treating Connie’s illness, so they had always been financially strained.
A sick family member, inadequate finances, the danger and stress he had always had to endure climbing the high Tower to obtain medicine—
Joshua and his wife Jennifer had lost their smiles for a long time throughout their life in America, yet, ironically, after leaving their homeland and coming to Korea, they had found them again.
Jennifer had adjusted well to the research institute, and Connie was doing well at the international school.
When Connie, who had been unable to even walk properly since childhood because of her illness, said she was joining the girls’ volleyball team at the international school, he had even shed tears in a rather pathetic display of sentiment.
All of this had been arranged by one man, Jeong Suho.
A person he was grateful to... For Suho’s sake, Evans was prepared to spare no effort at any time, but in reality, there was almost nothing for him to do, leaving him restless.
There had been only one incident that could be called a threat, and even then, he had played no role and had only received help from the Sanarae Clan.
And once Clan Leader Lee Danbi joined the security detail, the security work was greatly reduced, leaving him with even more free time.
“Phew...”
“What is it, honey? Are you worried about something?”
Jennifer asked Joshua, who had sighed.
“No, what would I have to worry about? It’s just... I wonder if it’s okay for us to enjoy all this for free.”
At those words, Jennifer Evans’s eyes widened slightly, but as if she agreed with him quite a bit, she gave a bitter smile.
“You’re right... We need to repay him somehow.”
“We have nothing to give him. Haha.”
At that moment, Connie, who had been eating a prepared butter-grilled lobster while admiring the night view of the Han River below the glass wall, clapped her hands as if she had remembered something.
“Oh, right, right!”
“Hm?”
The Evans couple looked at their daughter at the same time.
Connie rummaged through the backpack she had set to one side and took out three small glass bottles.
Inside the transparent glass bottles, rainbow-colored liquid sloshed gently, giving off a faint glow.
At a glance, it was no ordinary drink.
“Dad, Mom, when I said the three of us were going out to eat, Uncle Suho gave me these and told me we absolutely had to drink them together.”
“Hm...? Mr. Suho did? What is that?”
Jennifer Evans received one of the bottles from Connie and, adjusting her glasses, examined it closely.
“A potion... perhaps?”
Joshua also murmured as he looked at the bottle.
If Suho had gone so far as to tell them they absolutely had to drink it, there was no way it was an ordinary beverage. It had to be at least a high-grade potion or higher.
But as far as Joshua knew, there were no potions of this color.
There was no label on the bottle, nor was there any writing on it, making the liquid’s identity even more impossible to determine.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Um... He said it was a medicine that would fill your whole body with so much vitality it would increase your lifespan?”
“Then is it a potion of regeneration...?”
Joshua narrowed his eyes and stared intently at the glass bottle, but looking more closely did not reveal anything more.
“Honey, it seems to be some kind of special potion. I’m going to work tomorrow, so how about we analyze it at the research institute first and then drink it?”
At her mother’s words, Connie jumped in alarm.
“No! Mom, Uncle Suho said we must never show it to anyone else and that only our family should drink it. He said it was incredibly precious. He also said it was insanely expensive.”
“Expensive? How expensive?”
“What did he say again... Thirty quadrillion won, I think?”
Pffft—
Joshua sprayed out the wine he had been drinking.
“Oh my, what do we do! Honey, wipe it with this.”
“Ah, thank you... Good grief.”
“Hmph, it’s true. Uncle said the cost was thirty quadrillion won.”
“Of course, Connie. It’s not that I don’t believe you. I was just surprised. If Uncle Suho said so, then it must be true.”
Seeing that her grinning father clearly did not believe her at all, Connie pouted.
“Anyway, if Mr. Suho went that far, then we should drink it among ourselves. Honey, is that okay?”
“Sure. Well. Let’s drink it. Why not.”
“Shall we make a toast?”
Only then did Connie’s mood improve a little, and she raised the bottle containing the [Elixir of Anti-Aging].
“I will! I’m going to make the toast!”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Mm, may our family always be healthy like we are now, and may our days be full of laughter! Cheers!”
At Connie’s toast, the Evans couple barely suppressed the surge of emotion in their hearts and drank the elixir.
And then they felt the immense change rushing over them.
“Th-this is...”
“...Good heavens...”
Unlike the couple, whose eyes went wide at the vitality filling their bodies and the lightness of their condition, Connie merely blinked.
“Uh... Uncle said it was something really energizing and good... He said it was expensive... But it’s just plain water...”
Connie, who was in the midst of her teenage years, was currently in her prime.
* * *
Inside a building Suho had bought in its entirety, interior restructuring and remodeling work was actively underway.
At first, he had vaguely imagined an ordinary shop, but after visiting the high-grade item shop Arcane Arsenal, he had completely changed the overall structure.
There were no distinctive signs or markings on the outside of the building, but at the entrance where vehicles entered the garage and people proceeded to the elevator, a splendid sign had been hung.
Looking at the sign reading Transcendental Dimensional Materials—TDM for short—Suho smiled in satisfaction.
“Good. It looks cool.”
“Here is the inventory management form, sir, and this is the sales team’s marketing proposal. And this is the accounting system guide prepared by the finance team.”
“Ah, thank you, General Manager.”
Receiving the tablet Narae held out, Suho gave her a thumbs-up.
Gratefully, after long deliberation, Jang Narae had made her decision and come to Suho.
From what he heard, Towerpia had been thrown into an uproar.
From Towerpia’s CEO to its executives, they had tried desperately to hold on to Narae, but they could not change her mind once she had already made her decision.
And when they learned that the place Narae was going was the new shop Suho was creating, they all lowered their tails.
To them, an S-rank Admitee was no different from an absolute customer.
Together with Seongsik and Jiho, Suho entrusted Narae with full authority over the shop’s operations,
and the capable Narae brought in excellent personnel she had worked with or dealt with here and there. Finance managers, HR managers, inventory and supply managers, sales and marketing staff, customer service managers, sales team leaders, warehouse operators, and so on—she brought in the people needed for practical operations, placed them in the right positions, and assigned them their roles.
It was no exaggeration to say that only after Narae arrived did Suho’s plan truly begin to operate in a practical sense.
Suho delegated all the work needed to ensure the shop functioned properly to his colleagues, and took charge of only the two most important things.
‘Funding and supplying the materials to be sold.’
In truth, those were the alpha and omega of this business.
After watching the progress of the construction, at Narae’s request, the main members gathered in one place.
The location was an officetel near the site.
It was an officetel Suho had purchased so that the core members could frequently inspect the interior construction site of TDM up close and coordinate matters large and small.
His reasoning was that one got tired before even starting if the commute was long. It was a fairly spacious place, so the price had been considerable, but Suho had purchased the officetel without hesitation and filled it generously with furniture and appliances, enough that anyone could live there long-term.
In the spacious living room of the officetel, a long table had been placed for meetings, and everyone sat there.
With Suho, Seongsik, Jiho, and Danbi, who had accompanied him as security, the four of them before her, Narae presented her opinion.
“In any case, the demand will be enormous. Many of the materials Mr. Suho brings in aren’t easy to obtain even in the Tower. Combat-type Admitees will, of course, seek them out, but I expect production and support Admitees in particular to come in very large numbers.”
“The demand will probably be steady.”
“But I don’t think operating it in the style of Arcane Arsenal or other ordinary luxury stores would be very efficient.”
At Narae’s point, Suho tilted his head.
“Why not?”
“Mm... The reason you insisted on a brick-and-mortar shop rather than the OnTower Auction House was to prevent prices from rising pointlessly high, and to prevent wealthy clans and individuals from monopolizing the goods, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right. And to simplify the unnecessarily complicated purchasing process.”
“Yes. In that case, it would be fair to see this as you opening the shop to any Admitee, rather than granting purchasing rights only to certain high-ranking Admitees, correct?”
“Of course.”
“If you do that and operate it like an ordinary store, first of all, the store will become far too crowded. Hundreds, even thousands of customers will rush in. On top of that, if you sell freely, it will ultimately amount to selling on a first-come, first-served basis, so there’s a high chance that the people who rush in first and claim the goods will be the ones to buy them. If that happens, your intention of making sure the materials reach the people who truly need them could fall apart.”
“Mm... You’re right. So what do you suggest, Ms. Narae?”
“I think it would be best to accept customers by reservation. First, we receive online requests listing the items they wish to purchase, then we select which groups or individuals we will trade with from among them and send replies. Then the people who receive a reply can come with that transaction eligibility pass, enter, and purchase the goods.”
“Ah! That way, we select the items that are essential and urgent for Tower raids, the materials that should be prioritized?”
“Exactly. We would be the ones making those judgments, giving us the control to coordinate things.”
It was not a bad idea.
In truth, Suho had no way of knowing every material the Admitees needed. So he had merely been planning to make guesses and put various things up for sale, but if they followed Narae’s suggestion, they could accurately identify the necessary goods, obtain them, and sell them.
They could also prevent goods from falling into the hands of villains,
distinguish to some extent between those who truly needed them and those who did not,
prevent customers from dropping by only to waste a trip, and so on in various ways.
Danbi also added a word.
“I think it’s a good idea. And in the case of groups, for example clans, I think it would be worth considering giving priority to sound, well-run clans. We could reflect things like diligence in Tower raids, transparency in clan operations, and fairness.”
“Oh, that’s right. We’ll need to establish a clan credit rating system to assess those aspects. I think we can get help from the Administration for that.”
“The advantages seem clear. In fact, the biggest problem with the OnTower Auction House was that even unqualified people, even villains, could obtain transcendent items of all kinds as long as they had money... This would help filter out that problem too.”
At Danbi’s point, everyone nodded.
Just then, Jiho asked,
“Um... Hyung, are you thinking of selling those materials overseas too? Or only domestically?”
“Mm... We should sell to overseas Admitees too. However, Korea gets priority, then allied nations. Of course, there will be countries we absolutely won’t sell to.”
“Oho... The whole world’s going to go crazy, isn’t it?”
Seongsik clapped his hands once and summarized.
“That’s right. Whether we differentiate by country, by clan, identify those in urgent need, judge villains, or whatever else, operating by reservation will be essential. Suho, we’ll need to create a separate department for this.”
“Yeah. Wow, this is getting bigger and bigger.”
After that, the heated discussion continued for quite some time. Many things Suho would never have been able to handle smoothly on his own were resolved, prepared, and properly addressed once they put their heads together.
Before he knew it, Suho had become deeply absorbed in the joy of building something together with others.
When they had reached conclusions to some extent and were about to wrap up,
Suho looked around at everyone seated there and began taking something out.
Seeing the rainbow-colored liquid in the transparent glass bottles, Narae asked,
“Sir, what is that?”
“Uh... Since it seems like we’re going to get pretty busy now, stamina is essential, isn’t it? It’s a potion that enhances stamina. My gift to all of you.”
“Huh? There’s something like that too? Is it a potion of regeneration?”
Danbi tilted her head.
“Uh... Hyung, that’s...”
Only Jiho recognized the [Elixir of Anti-Aging], but Suho gave him a look, signaling him to pretend not to know.
“It’s on a completely different level from a potion of regeneration. Let’s just call it a super-rare mega-special ultra-legendary Bacchus. Now, take one bottle each. Bottoms up! To TDM’s new beginning and success!”
With dazed expressions, those who received the unidentified bottles from Suho followed him and drank down the [Elixir of Anti-Aging].
It was Suho’s third bottle all of a sudden and Jiho’s second, but it was not a drink that caused any harm from consuming more.
“Haa...”
Those who drank the elixir lost their words as they felt the changes in their bodies.
Looking at Danbi, Narae, and Seongsik, who were silently gazing down at their hands and blinking, Suho smiled.
“It’s no joke, right?”
“Yes... This is... What on earth...”
“...It’s definitely not something like a regeneration potion.”
“I told you, it’s not a potion. I’ll gradually tell you what this is next time.”
“Whoa, I could get addicted to this.”
Suho decided to generously distribute the [Elixir of Anti-Aging] to the people he would trust and run alongside for a long time.
After all, he had as much of these elixirs as a lake. What was the point of just piling them up?
He resolved that once a little more trust had been built, he would also generously distribute them to the clan members of the Sanarae Clan and the employees of TDM.