On the day they began taking reservations, Lee Danbi fidgeted awkwardly in front of Suho and Narae.
“Um, excuse me, I actually haven’t yet... registered on the TDM site. But... our Sanarae Clan would like to apply too. For a reservation. Could you put us down for a reservation, even if it’s just verbally for now?”
Narae looked at Suho, who held all decision-making authority,
and as Danbi watched Suho staring straight at her, her voice grew smaller and smaller.
“Could you, um, maybe give us a little priority? Sanarae is...”
“Pardon...?”
In the end, Suho’s mouth fell open with a dumbfounded expression.
Ah, as expected, this was out of line. No matter what, business was business and private matters were private.
Danbi grew cautious, wondering if she had made a mistake.
Sanarae was not some poor lower-ranked clan, and they were fully prepared to pay the proper price for the goods.
Above all, she did not want to ruin the good relationship she had painstakingly built with Suho. Thinking she might have gotten needlessly greedy, Danbi bit her lower lip.
But Suho’s answer was the complete opposite.
“No, Ms. Lee Danbi! Wow... the Sanarae Clan is always protecting me and my family without taking a single coin in compensation... What reservation? Reservation, my foot.”
“Pardon...?”
“You don’t need to come all the way to TDM, and you don’t need to register on the site either. If there are materials you need, just tell me comfortably. Ah, I forget things easily, so you can text me too. Then I’ll get them ready for you.”
“Whoa...”
Lee Danbi once again became convinced that she had really gotten in the right line.
Because, at the very least, Suho clearly understood the concept of “backing his own people.”
* * *
On the day the first reservation customers were confirmed and purchases took place, security at the TDM building surpassed imagination.
Out of the 800 androids Suho had ultimately received, he assigned a staggering 400 to the security team,
and the Sanarae Clan also mobilized every member to prepare for any possible unpleasant incidents.
On that day alone, Joshua also took charge of daytime security and hid himself somewhere in the building.
Since all of the buyers were Admittees, the Management Agency’s bodyguards could actually be put in danger, so Suho refused the protection personnel the Security Agency offered to dispatch and sent them all back.
Reporters, of course, as well as people from specialized media outlets were not granted permission to attend whatsoever. It was a gathering solely for TDM employees and prospective buyers.
Three hundred Admittees with purchase certificates entered the hall under the androids’ guidance.
In order to fill the orders received during the reservation period, Suho had taken in eight additional items.
- Sirensilver, a metal that reacts to sound and stores sound waves.
- Elastrin Silk, a cloth with outstanding elasticity, fit, breathability, and physical resistance.
- Leblinium, a metal with self-recovery abilities.
- Nectanium, a metal with properties that interact with plants.
- Endurant, a metal exceptional at absorbing and dispersing impact.
- Silverstem, an herb essential for making potions that calm the nerves.
- Starcluster Leaves, an herb essential for making potions that enhance night vision.
- Flower Shade, an herb essential for making potions that relieve stress and tension.
Those were the kinds of goods he had additionally received, one yangwon’s worth each.
Besides these, there had been many reservation requests from buyers wanting to purchase bizarre items no one had ever heard of or seen before, but he could not prepare all of them.
Because for Suho to receive goods at all, he had to place bulk orders first.
And not in units of thousands or tens of thousands. He had to receive a whole one yangwon’s worth.
The buyers had been selected according to priority standards: Admittees who urgently and desperately needed items for conquering the Tower,
Admittees who needed essential goods but did not have much money,
and Admittees who belonged to otherwise sound clans and had clearly solid records. Holding their purchase certificates, they began their transactions under the staff’s guidance.
Those in urgent need rejoiced because they obtained materials quickly,
and those strained by their budgets went back deeply satisfied because they had obtained essential items at reasonable prices without being charged needlessly high sums.
Among the buyers were combat Admittees, but there were also many artisan Admittees in crafting and support fields, and not a single one of them left empty-handed.
Since every single customer had a reservation, the sales proceeded like clockwork. The item transactions ended in merely one or two hours.
It was a short time, but every TDM employee who had remained tense and focused was utterly exhausted.
“Whew... this is ridiculously intense. How often are we going to hold sales like this, Suho?”
Seongsik asked as he perched on a chair in the messy hall.
“Not sure... For now, let’s try once a week. Once it gradually stabilizes, we’ll increase it to twice, then three times a week.”
“Hyung, at this rate, won’t the Ontower Auction House go under?”
“No way. In the end, we’re only dealing with a portion of Admittees, so that won’t happen. But at the very least...”
“At the very least?”
“The market price of the items and materials that show up at the auction house will drop. By a lot.”
Occasionally, some of those who bought goods from TDM tried to resell them at higher prices at the Ontower Auction House. A separate team monitoring such cases caught all of them, and those Admittees had their purchasing qualifications at TDM permanently revoked, exactly as they had been warned beforehand.
There was no need for Suho or TDM to announce the results after the sale.
Countless Admittees verified their purchases on social media and spread the word themselves.
There was also a considerable amount of news coverage through reporters who clung to Admittees who had obtained purchase qualifications and successfully entered, requesting interviews and digging for stories.
In many ways, it was a successful launch.
And then,
while Suho was becoming famous at a dizzying pace due to the S-grade announcement and TDM’s launch,
the date of Cheon Yangwon’s wedding drew right up before him.
* * *
“Are you really going?”
Seongsik asked again with a worried face.
“I have to. I should go and congratulate her. Do you know how many years I spent chasing after Yangwon?”
Suho spoke firmly as he checked the location of the wedding hall for Yangwon’s wedding through the mobile invitation.
“Hey. Don’t worry. I’m not being swayed because I can’t forget her.”
When Suho gave Seongsik’s shoulder a light tap with a relaxed expression, only then did Seongsik’s face ease.
“Yeah. I’m sure you’ll take care of it.”
Suho put on every kind of protective gear: rings, defensive clothing, a belt, boots, and more. Over it all, he wore a custom-made suit from Stuart Hughes.
He also wore custom-made shoes from Tom Ford, put on a top-tier Patek Philippe watch, and even had his hair styled at a first-class salon. Having dressed up as much as he possibly could, Suho also decked out Minsu, Minji, and several additionally selected androids who would accompany him in flashy luxury goods of at least upper-class quality.
“Let’s go.”
When Suho, Seongsik, and around ten androids left the penthouse together, five bulletproof limousines waiting in advance in front of the luxury villa came into view.
Seeing that, Suho raised one eyebrow.
“Why did you prepare so many cars?”
“Because we’re going with you too.”
At the voice from behind, he turned his head and saw Lee Danbi.
Lee Danbi looked as if she were an actress attending a film festival awards ceremony.
She had always been exceptionally beautiful, but once she had properly dressed up, she radiated a beauty that did not lose even to high-end androids designed to embody the utmost beauty.
At this rate, it was hard to tell who the main character of the wedding was supposed to be.
“Uh... Ms. Danbi, you’re going too?”
“Of course. I’m your bodyguard, so naturally I have to go.”
“That... I think it’ll be too much of a nuisance at a wedding.”
At Suho’s concern, Danbi smiled bewitchingly and got into the car.
Behind her stood Narae, dressed neatly and elegantly. Suho had failed to notice her because she had been hidden behind the tall Danbi.
The petite and cute Narae had apparently put a lot of care into dressing up as well, to the point that he nearly failed to recognize her.
“Ms. Narae, you’re going too?”
“Of course.”
Without saying much more, she got into the car.
And that was not the end.
“Then I’ll be getting in as well.”
Even Joshua.
Wearing a splendid suit as if he himself were the groom, Joshua had a presence that could rival the male lead of a 007 movie.
“N-no, Mr. Joshua, why are you... Aren’t you doing evening security?”
“It’s an open and public location, so there is no telling what might happen. I’ve arranged to switch with Ms. Danbi for tonight’s shift.”
“Ha... Isn’t this too many people going.... Huh??”
Before Suho could finish speaking, black vans appeared one after another behind them. At least ten vans pulled up beside the limousines.
A window opened, revealing the face of Admittee Lee Seojun.
“Clan Leader, five vehicles will depart first and lead the way. The rest will follow from behind.”
“Do that.”
They were members of the Sanarae Clan, dressed in sharp black suits.
After reporting to Danbi, the vans moved into position in front of and behind the limousines.
“Hahahaha.....”
Suho could only let out an empty laugh, but in a way, this had become the very picture he had most anticipated. Even though he had not particularly intended it.
“Mr. Suho, we’ll be late. Let’s depart quickly.”
A grand procession began, as though a president were on the move.
* * *
“Cheon Yangwon, the bride’s side is here, right?”
“Yes.... Pardon? Yes, yes. This is the bride’s side.”
“Here is the congratulatory money. It didn’t fit in an envelope, so I brought it in a special box. Please deliver it as is.”
“Yes...? Ah, yes, yes.”
A man who seemed to be one of Yangwon’s relatives, who had been accepting congratulatory money from guests at the bride’s reception desk, stared blankly at Suho as he received the box Suho handed over.
It was a luxurious box made of some kind of wood he could not identify.
He opened it absentmindedly to record the contribution in the guest ledger, then nearly screamed.
“Huuuh!”
Inside the box were two bundles of cash Suho had prepared as his contribution, totaling one hundred million won in fifty-thousand-won bills.
The unused new bills lay neatly inside the box, even cleanly wrapped in plastic.
At the unimaginable amount, the man hurriedly closed the lid of the box and looked around.
“That... that person...”
“Isn’t he the newly awakened tenth S-grade Admittee?”
“That’s right, Jeong Suho, it’s Jeong Suho!”
People who belatedly recognized Suho began to murmur.
Not only that, the guests who recognized the extraordinary faces moving around Suho could not close their mouths.
In terms of sheer numbers alone, the people who had come with Suho were almost greater than the number of wedding guests.
Exclamations broke out here and there.
“Th-that, that person is Lee Danbi! Isn’t that Lee Danbi?!”
“Oh! You’re right! Is Admittee Lee Danbi getting married today?”
“Wow... She’s beautiful. Seriously... She gives androids a run for their money.”
“Gasp, that’s Joshua Evans! Joshua Evans, the one who naturalized in Korea! Holy crap!”
“That’s A-grade Lee Seojun, A-grade Park Dohyeon!”
“No... it looks like... the entire Sanarae Clan came here...?”
Everyone gathered in the wedding hall murmured and snapped photos of Suho’s group.
Announcements repeatedly played inside the wedding hall saying that the ceremony would begin soon, but the wedding had already fallen out of people’s interest.
Even when the bride stood at the end of the aisle to make her entrance, people’s gazes remained fixed on Suho’s group and showed no sign of leaving.
Some took photos and uploaded them to social media, and the reporters who saw them began racing madly toward the wedding hall.
“Ah, right. I should write in the guestbook.”
After handing over the congratulatory money, Suho moved to the guestbook area, and the dazzling figures surrounding him also moved with him like a storm centered around Suho.
Holding a pen, Suho wrote a message in the guestbook in lavish, sweeping strokes.
“Shall we go now?”
The wedding had begun, but Suho did not enter the wedding hall.
“Huh, you’re not watching the ceremony?”
Danbi tilted her head.
“What is there to a wedding? They’re all the same. You can go watch if you’d like. I’m leaving.”
He had attended, delivered his contribution and message, so everything he had to do was done.
Without stopping by the bride’s waiting room, and without greeting either the groom or the bride, Suho turned away without hesitation.
Naturally, no one stayed behind separately. Danbi and Joshua, Jang Narae and Seongsik, the Sanarae Clan members, and the androids followed Suho and flowed out of the wedding hall like an ebbing tide.
When they got back into the car, Seongsik asked,
“Well... I thought there’d be quite a bit of love and hate involved.”
“I guess it’s similar.”
“For something like that, you congratulated her pretty grandly, didn’t you? You gave a lot of money too.”
Suho shrugged.
“Who knows... It depends on how you think about it. To me, it’s money like dust.”
A meaningful smile settled on his lips.
“But Yangwon is a greedy girl, so this is probably the biggest punishment for her.”
“Aha......”
Seongsik, who knew both Suho and Yangwon well, widened his eyes.
“You’re a cruel bastard, aren’t you?”
The two smiled at each other.
Because for anyone, realizing that the minnow once in their fishery had actually been a whale would not be a very pleasant thing.
It was truly a perfect day for a wedding.
The weather was incredible.