WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Economics of an Alchemist ◈
Chapter 13
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The next morning.
Jaeha slowly opened his eyes and quenched his thirst with the glucose drink beside his bed. Thousands of cheering voices still rang in his ears.
He had dreamed of Edwin last night.
The armor plating of a new tank had withstood dozens of shells. With the medal bestowed by the king pinned to his chest, Edwin had received the awestruck gazes of his fellow alchemists.
It was glory reserved for someone who shattered conventional wisdom.
‘So it worked after all.’
Jaeha got out of bed.
Edwin had created a shield for his nation. Now it was Jaeha’s turn to bring a shield into the world, one that would protect him and his family in the jungle of capitalism.
When he entered the living room, he found a sheet of A4 paper on the dining table. Seo-yun, who had left for work at dawn, had left it behind.
[Daily Quest for My Beloved Oppa]
1. Tax Office: Get a business registration certificate. Be sure to select general taxation!
2. Bank: Open a business account and sign up for escrow service.
3. District Office: Apply for a mail-order business registration.
4. Courier Agency: Discuss a shipping-rate contract.
⋮
It was a suffocating route and checklist.
Jaeha scratched his head, washed up quickly, and went to wake Jaeseong.
“Hehehe... Hyung, noona. We’re going to be rich now.”
He seemed to be having a pleasant dream.
“Kim Jae-seong, get up.”
Jaeha whipped away the fleece blanket covering Jaeseong.
“We’re going to be rich...”
When Jaeseong showed no sign of waking despite curling into a ball, Jaeha took drastic measures. He threw open the window, then went out to the living room.
As he clicked on the gas stove to fry eggs, Jaeseong came out wearing a padded jacket and shivering.
“Hyung, isn’t that too much? What if I catch a cold... Huh? What’s this? A daily quest?”
“It’s what you and I are doing today.”
“Noona clearly wrote, ‘for my beloved oppa,’ here.”
As Jaeha poured cooking oil into the frying pan, he replied indifferently.
“You said you wanted a position. Don’t come if you don’t want to.”
“Vice President Kim Jae-seong will get ready at once.”
“Vice president? Dream big, why don’t you. You’re starting as an intern.”
“...Intern Kim Jae-seong will wash up so he can serve the president...”
Watching Jaeseong pout and trudge toward the bathroom, Jaeha quietly snickered.
There was a clear reason he had deliberately brought his youngest brother along. Jaeseong probably thought founding Valence was just some fun event.
But a real business was an endless stretch of brutal reality.
You had to deal with soulless civil servants, obtain endless documents, and wage exhausting battles of nerve over ten-won differences in shipping rates and bank fees.
Jaeseong needed to experience that muddy reality firsthand. As both his older brother and company president, it was the surest early education Jaeha could give him.
After filling themselves up with fried-egg toast and milk, the two brothers began Seo-yun’s quest in earnest.
At the local tax office.
While waiting after taking a number, Jaeha’s smartphone vibrated in his pocket.
[Kim Seo-yun] Oppa, did you submit the tax office form? You wrote manufacturing for the business type and smartphone accessories for the product category, right?
[Kim Seo-yun] You didn’t select simplified taxation to save on taxes, did you? Manufacturing businesses can’t use it anyway, and if we want to issue plenty of tax invoices to business clients later, we need to register under general taxation from the beginning!
It was clearly a message Seo-yun had sent from the bathroom while at work.
From the bank and district office to the local courier branch, their final quest location, Seo-yun’s messages made their smartphones buzz whenever they were about to forget about her.
[Kim Seo-yun] Hey, Kim Jae-seong. When you negotiate the courier contract, you need to push it below 2,000 won per package. Got it?
[Kim Jae-seong] Noona, we just registered a business and have zero packages to ship. Why would they agree to that?
[Kim Seo-yun] Idiot. The base shipping fee customers pay is 2,500 won! If we contract at 2,500 won, do the cost of boxes and bubble wrap come out of the ground? We have to get it close to 2,000 won and use the difference to cover packaging costs!
[Kim Jae-seong] Even so, how am I supposed to ask for a discount when we have zero volume? It’s embarrassing!
[Kim Seo-yun] Does pride put food on the table when every penny counts? Talk big and tell them we’ll be a VIP client shipping hundreds of packages a day! Confidence! If they won’t cut the price, at least bluff that we’ll look into another courier company!
Jaeha silently watched their exchange.
His plan to teach his youngest brother the harsh reality of working life was proceeding smoothly.
After their grueling day, the two returned home exhausted and sprawled across the sofa.
“Hyung.”
“What?”
“I’m hungry...”
“Seo-yun said she’d buy chicken. Wait.”
“It’s already eight. You don’t even feed me. Aren’t you working your intern too hard?”
After some time had passed, the sound of someone entering the door code rang out. Jaeseong sprang to his feet and raced to the front door.
“Ooh! All hail the chicken!”
“You only see the chicken, not your sister?”
“Delicious chicken has come~ Really delicious chicken has come.”
Ignoring Seo-yun’s scolding, Jaeseong carried the bag holding the chicken boxes to the dining table. Seo-yun let out a deep sigh, then looked at Jaeha.
“Oppa, sorry I’m late. You were hungry, right?”
“No. You worked hard.”
Soon, the three siblings sat around a table set with two whole chickens. The first company dinner and executive meeting of Valence’s leadership, dreaming of becoming a future big-tech company, began.
Jaeseong picked up a drumstick and shouted excitedly.
“Hyung, noona. Let’s make an advertising slogan too. ‘Drop the fear.’ Shake off your fear! What do you think?”
“It sounds way too much like you copied Likey.”
“Tch. Then you try, noona.”
“Hmm... Absolute Shield Aegis! Saving your smartphone?”
“It doesn’t roll off the tongue. Turns out you non-STEM types aren’t all wordsmiths.”
“What did you say? You little!”
“Ah! That’s gross! Who hits people with chicken bones?”
“Be grateful it wasn’t a club. Oppa, can’t you think of anything?”
Jaeha paused while drinking cola. He set down his cup and carefully opened his mouth.
“...It doesn’t break?”
“Come on, what’s that supposed to be?”
Jaeseong looked deflated. Seo-yun, on the other hand, stared into space and considered it for a moment before offering a completely different opinion.
“I think it’s good. Drop it on the street and it doesn’t break? Roll it down the stairs and it doesn’t break? Finally, even if a car drives over it, it doesn’t break? Isn’t that good? I think it’ll stick in people’s minds.”
“Is that so? Hearing you say it, maybe it is. Guess you non-STEM types do have a way with words.”
“The problem is the advertising budget...”
“Noona, didn’t you say you’d break your savings account to invest?”
Seo-yun shook her head.
“Don’t say things that show you don’t know how the world works. Do you know how expensive banner ads and keyword ads on a portal site’s main page are? Hundreds or thousands of won vanish every time someone clicks. The roughly thirty million won I’m investing by breaking my savings account would disappear without a trace in a month or two.”
Even after her detailed explanation, Jaeseong tilted his head.
“Noona, do we really need to invest that much in obvious paid advertising? Isn’t the Aegis Case a cheat item where all we have to do is show people what it can do?”
“Show people?”
“If we make a good video showing off the case’s insane performance and post it online, people will spread it everywhere. There’ll even be people who promote it for us because they want to test it themselves.”
The idea had come from a college student at the forefront of trends. Jaeha and Seo-yun both turned their eyes to Jaeseong.
“Tell us more.”
“Intern Kim Jae-seong will now begin his presentation for the president and Director Kim Seo-yun!”
At Jaeha’s request, Jaeseong puffed up with pride and eagerly began talking.
“First, we target social media like Facewall and big communities like Pompu, Klear, and DCOn. But nobody will look if we openly say, ‘Please buy our product.’ If it obviously looks like an ad, you get blocked and kicked out right away.”
“Then how do we post it?”
Seo-yun spoke as though asking Jaeha’s question for him.
“We bait them. We disguise ourselves completely as ordinary people.”
“As ordinary people?”
“Yeah. Um... ‘Found a crazy phone case.’ ‘A car drove over it, but it’s still fine.’ Something like that. People will definitely mock us and tell us to stop talking nonsense.”
“And then?”
“A day or two later, we upload a video saying, ‘I tested it myself!’ The key is making it feel real, like an ordinary person filmed it directly with a smartphone camera. People will go nuts and call it joojak.”
“Joojak?”
Seo-yun tilted her head at the unfamiliar internet slang.
“Noona, you don’t know joojak? It’s online slang for faking something. Anyway, everyone who sees the video will absolutely lose their minds. They’ll tear it apart, saying, ‘That’s CGI,’ and ‘What kind of phone case can withstand two tons?’”
“They’ll be calling the product fake. How does that promote it?”
Seo-yun furrowed her brow, seemingly unable to understand, but Jaeseong grinned.
“Of course it does! On the internet, being ignored is the scariest thing. If controversy breaks out, views explode, and it gets spread like crazy to other communities. Then, when the controversy reaches its peak!”
Jaeseong slapped the table and pointed at Jaeha.
“That’s when our president steps in. ‘I’m the creator of the phone case that’s recently become a hot topic. If you don’t believe it, I’ll show you myself.’ Like that. Hyung throws it from a rooftop, throws it down the stairs, runs it over with a car, then uploads a video using the line you just came up with. ‘...It doesn’t break?’”
“Oh...”
“If people who see it start a frenzy of buying it to break it themselves and posting proof, it’s game over. Marketing costs? All you need are fingers. What do you think, President? Doesn’t Intern Kim Jae-seong’s idea deserve a full-time position?”
When Jaeseong’s viral-marketing presentation ended, silence hung over the table for a moment.
Seo-yun’s mind raced.
“It doesn’t cost a single won, but if it succeeds, its impact will be bigger than a banner ad worth tens of millions of won... And there’s almost no risk.”
“Right?”
“Good. As CFO, I’ll recommend Intern Kim Jae-seong’s conversion to full-time employee status to the president.”
“Huh? Since when were you the CFO?”
“Since yesterday.”
Jaeha snickered as he listened to them.
He suddenly recalled how people promoted products in Edwin’s world. To make a new alchemical item known, one had to visit aristocratic salons, scatter expensive gold coins, and force word of mouth to spread.
Modern Earth was different. Through the “internet,” a rumor could spread across an ocean to another continent without spending a single coin.
“Good. Then tomorrow, we’ll release the video first and see the reaction.”
“Yes, President! But my promotion...”
Jaeha grinned and spoke.
“Approved!”
“Yes! To celebrate my promotion, I’ll have one more drumstick!”
Seo-yun slapped Jaeseong’s hand as it reached for a drumstick.
“Where do you think you’re going? You already had one.”
“But there are four, so one is left!”
“Of course the head of our household, oppa, should get two.”
“It’s fine. Let Jaeseong have it.”
“Yes!”
Jaeseong swiftly grabbed the last drumstick. Seo-yun shook her head, then suddenly looked at Jaeha as if she had remembered something.
“Oh, right. Oppa, there’s something I’m really curious about. Can I ask?”
“What is it?”
“Um... Had you been preparing this business ever since you suddenly said you were going on a trip?”
“More or less. Why?”
Seo-yun let out a long sigh.
“I thought you were dating someone. You started staying out overnight more often, and your behavior changed a lot from before. I shouldn’t have believed Jaeseong.”
“Noona, I wasn’t wrong. It just wasn’t a woman. Hyung was dating the case.”
Seo-yun burst out laughing at Jaeseong’s joke, and Jaeha’s lips also curled up slightly. Cold winter rain fell outside, but warmth filled the space around the three siblings.
With only bones remaining in the chicken boxes, Valence’s leadership concluded its first company dinner on a warm note. Returning to his room, Jaeseong turned on his laptop and cracked his fingers.
“Where would be best?”
Pompu, Klear, DCOn...
Of the massive online community sites, he chose the DCOn Smartphone Gallery. It was the most vicious place in South Korea, and the fastest to catch fire.
“If I post it here, the reaction will come right away.”
The place was full of people who were billionaires in one thing: free time. They were all itching to ruin someone online. They would take care of the fact-checking and testing themselves.
With a grin, Jaeseong tapped at the keyboard.
A short while later, a new post appeared in the DCOn Smartphone Gallery. Its title was [Found a Crazy Phone Case Today, Holy Shit].
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