Once again, time passes in waiting.
I was twenty-three when I first heard about Project C.E. from the doctor.
Before I knew it, I was twenty-eight. In other words, five years had passed.
I’m not impatient. If a plant is going to grow, that much time has to pass.
In any case, the world is most certainly breaking down.
IBRA, which is carrying out Project C.E., has been diligently posting nothing but promotional social media updates about how everything is going well, but the reality is not like that.
Why else would they have disabled the comments?
They must have realized something was wrong themselves. They probably know it can’t be undone anymore, too.
What I’ve been most concerned about lately is buying a firearm.
The problem is that buying a firearm isn’t all that easy. I can get something like a hunting shotgun, but… even if I get it, it’s not really mine.
It has to be stored at the police station at all times, so how is that my gun? No.
On top of that, to buy a shotgun, I need a hunting license.
If I have to get a license, I’ll get one. It’s not like I can’t manage that.
But going that far just to get a mere shotgun doesn’t really appeal to me.
Still, it would be nice to have a firearm.
What if society falls apart? There would be no weapon as reliable as a gun.
The fact that bullets are finite is a problem, but simply possessing a firearm has a deterrent effect.
So it feels like too much of a waste to give up on it. It does, but…
Around the time I was thinking that, there was something unusual among the messages I received from the doctor.
It said that, if the current situation continued, a day might come when all metal products could no longer be used.
Since it was fairly important, I read that part carefully.
And I realized this could become a very serious problem.
Apparently, some plants had already begun to mutate.
And they were said to possess an acidity of around pH 3 to 4.
Viscous acidic spores.
Considering that pH 7 is neutral, an acidity of around 3 to 4 is extremely strong.
Since pH is a logarithmic scale, dropping from 7 to 6 means the acidity is ten times stronger.
So pH 4 is 1,000 times more acidic than neutral. If it’s 3, then it’s 10,000 times more acidic.
For now, it was still in the initial stage, so it wasn’t that severe, but they said it showed signs of spreading widely.
If that happened, carbon steel would be the first to take the hit.
And if suitable moisture was added on top of that, it meant all exposed steel would corrode.
There’s more than enough moisture. The plants are already busy producing water vapor as it is.
In other words, if things go on like this, this civilization itself will all turn into garbage.
It will probably all collapse. You can assume there’s nowhere in this world that doesn’t contain steel.
And not just steel. Galvanized zinc, copper, aluminum—everything will become a problem.
The only thing that might remain relatively intact would be stainless steel?
On top of that, this is a problem for people, too.
I still don’t know for sure what will happen, but if the spores have that level of acidity, they’ll easily wreck a person’s bronchial tubes.
The one fortunate thing is that people probably won’t die from it immediately.
Instead, they’ll live with inflammation. Fortunately, the skin and such should still suffer relatively little damage.
If that happens, antihistamines will become even more necessary.
And if I have to go outside, I’ll always need to wear equipment to protect my respiratory system.
A mask probably won’t be enough. Though if I’m in a hurry, I’ll have to use even that.
Thanks to that, I gave up on the idea of firearms.
Even if I go to the trouble of getting one, it’s meaningless if I can’t use it.
Of course, not every firearm will break down. Some might be fine.
But with just one malfunction, a gun becomes unusable.
And what if it explodes in my hand like that?
Ugh. No. I can’t use something that unreliable.
So for now, I’m giving up on trying to obtain a firearm.
I’d rather make a homemade gun with a 3D printer.
Anyway, I suddenly had a lot more to do.
Because I had to work on the hydroelectric generator, wind turbine, and solar panels I’d installed in the mountains.
If things continued like this, they would break down before long without being used much at all.
Fortunately, most of them were stainless steel, but not all. There were parts that needed to be sealed, and others that would need coating.
So I contacted each company and checked for alternatives.
Naturally, the companies said it would be difficult. They probably don’t like doing anything beyond their original scope of work. I understand.
It’s not as if there would be anyone else like me, worrying that acidic mucous spores were going to be scattered across the world.
But money solves everything.
I paid the companies a hefty sum and had some parts replaced with stainless steel or had additional cases made that could be completely sealed.
On top of that, I epoxy-coated everything else as much as possible. In any case, as long as it doesn’t corrode, that’s enough.
With that, I resolved the power issue for the time being. Well, problems will obviously arise again.
And now it was about time to start stockpiling antihistamines.
Respiratory illnesses were already becoming more common, so it was an item in fairly high demand.
That meant there wouldn’t be much of a problem if I bought them in somewhat large quantities now. So many people were buying them, after all.
In the past, people might have looked a little suspiciously at someone buying them in bulk.
But not anymore. It had become an environment where buying in bulk was acceptable.
On top of that, thankfully, a lot of warehouse-style pharmacies had been popping up lately.
What a relief. It saves me the trouble.
Antihistamines are usually taken once a day. So 365 pills means I can last a year.
But I’m not going to be the only one using them. After the world collapses, this will become a major asset.
So I stockpile them. Their expiration date is three years at best, but it doesn’t matter anyway.
By then, even expired medicine will be something people can’t take because there won’t be any.
Besides, it’s not as if the efficacy drops to zero the very day the expiration date passes.
I’m busy.
Having a lot to do is good. It lets me pass the tedious time quickly.
The omen of ruin hangs over everything like a shadow.
The world is heading more and more toward catastrophe. For now, people simply don’t want to believe it.
While preparing one thing at a time like that, I also kept an eye on the stock price.
And one month and half a month after I bought the put options, an incident finally occurred.
It wasn’t the plane of the airline I had bought options on that had an accident.
The accident happened to a different company in the United States. But it was a fairly big accident. It had made an emergency landing.
There were quite a few fatalities. So airline stocks all wavered together.
Minus five percent. The stock price, which had been $29.33, fell to $27.86.
But that was all. Within just a few days, the stock price slowly recovered again. As if nothing had happened.
It was as expected. When an accident happens, the stock dips once and then returns to its original state.
But I wait patiently. What I’m hoping for isn’t something this small.
And coincidentally, a few days later, this time an accident occurred at an airline in the United Kingdom.
It was also a fatal accident.
The reality is that fatal accidents involving jets worldwide happen maybe once a year, if that, so for accidents to happen like this within a few days was extremely rare.
However, this time, there was no effect on U.S. airline stocks. Probably because it was a British airline.
But to me, this looked like the beginning.
The things that had been held back until now had finally exceeded their critical point.
It was probably the beginning of the catastrophe. So to me, it was an opportunity.
Two weeks later, the initial estimated results came out.
Well, they were full of boilerplate phrases.
Operational impact due to worsening weather, technical issues, decreased engine performance, electrical system malfunction… and so on.
Still, there was no mention of pilot error. Does that mean the pilot did everything he could?
In any case, this too was as expected.
They weren’t going to say in the initial estimated results, “It was due to metal corrosion caused by an unknown substance.”
Anyway, what mattered to me was that an accident had happened. So I wait a little longer.
Those accidents were probably the first raindrops to fall.
So now, more rain will fall. Fiercely, too, like the subtropical squalls that have been so common lately.
And another month later.
This time, an aircraft accident happened in the United States again. Far more seriously.
Of all things, the aircraft crashed when it was almost at the airport, and it plunged helplessly into the middle of the city.
It was a major accident, one difficult to even talk about.
It wasn’t the kind of minor accident that gets forgotten after a few days. It was a massive accident with hundreds of fatalities.
Because of that, the stock price plummeted. The entire airline sector shook, and the stock price fell to $22.
I fell into quite a serious dilemma.
If I exercised my options right now, I could make 1.5 billion won.
If I invested 500 million and made 1.5 billion, that would be a deal that left me with a whopping 1 billion won in profit. So it would be more than enough to pull out here.
Of course, the taxes would be enormous… but I could pay them.
They’d probably take 22 percent, so I’d pay around 220 million.
But I hold on. Because I expect it to fall further.
So even though my hands itched, I endured.
And as if mocking my decision, the stock price slowly recovered again.
That’s what stock prices are like. No matter how you look at it, the current situation is not the timing for the stock price to rise, yet it rises anyway.
Then people come up with all kinds of reasons.
Something like the resolution of negative factors?
In any case, there was still plenty of time until expiration.
So while watching the stock price rise, I only feel bitter for a moment.
I have to trust my decision. Who else could I blame? I’m the one who decided.
And only ten days later, it was proven that my decision had been right.
On top of that, this time it was a plane from the airline I had bought options on that caused an accident. A very serious one.
It was another fatal accident. And this time, the shockwave was tremendous.
The first time is a mistake. The second time is coincidence.
But the third time? From then on, it’s fear. People panic-sold outright, and the stock price fell like crazy.
$16.89. The stock price shown on the app.
In truth, it had fallen as low as $16.55 earlier. But then it rebounded slightly and became that price.
Good. For now, I’ll exercise this contract here.
Stocks and options are not my money until I realize the gains.
I’m a beginner, but I understand exactly what that means. So I have to follow it. Because I’m a beginner who doesn’t know jack shit.
I exercised all 3,800 contracts I held.
Then I ended up with a little over 3.2 billion won.
In other words, I made over 3.2 billion with 500 million. Of course, that was what I earned even after paying about 770 million in taxes.
Looking at that account, I laughed.
Fuck. Making money is this easy.
For a very brief moment, I thought it would be nice if the world didn’t end. Maybe that would be better, wouldn’t it?
But it can no longer be undone. The world is still collapsing even now.
So I steady myself again.
And I review once more what I’m going to do with this.