WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
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◈ The Economics of an Alchemist ◈
Chapter 26
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Jaeha was inwardly impressed by his younger sister's sharp questioning.
Only he managed Valence's books. He had never shown them even to Seo-yun, an accountant.
“Two hundred million won? What two hundred million?”
Not understanding the situation, Jaeseong looked back and forth between them in confusion.
Jaeha spoke calmly.
“How did you figure it out?”
Seo-yun crossed her arms.
“I worked backward from Valence's expenses. Even adding up all the money you've saved and the money I invested after breaking my savings account, we're still short about two hundred million won. Oppa, where did you get that money?”
Without looking at a single document, she had traced the company's funding scale from just a few scattered details. As expected of a working accountant with unparalleled skill at handling numbers.
Sensing the serious mood, the youngest, Jaeseong, shifted his eyes around uneasily.
“As expected, you didn't become an accountant for nothing.”
“Don't change the subject! Where did that money come from? Did you take out a mortgage on the apartment? Don't tell me you borrowed from loan sharks?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Then where did that huge amount of money come from? It didn't just fall out of the sky.”
With a relaxed expression, Jaeha walked to the refrigerator and took out a can of cola.
“Loan sharks? It was stocks.”
“...Stocks?”
Seo-yun and Jaeseong questioned him at the same time.
“The smartphone era began with the A-phone. I was convinced smartphones would change the world. If smartphones sold well, hardware component stocks would rise. And since the specs were so different from existing phones, I figured mobile games would become a hit too.”
“So?”
“I spread some of my savings across related stocks around April last year.”
“April?”
Seo-yun's eyes widened when she heard when Jaeha had invested. That was when smartphone-related stocks had begun shooting up explosively.
“A few months later, they had doubled and tripled. I was lucky enough to take profits on about half near the peak. I pulled out the rest recently because expanding the facilities looked like it would tie up our cash flow.”
“...You really grew it through stocks?”
“Yeah.”
Jaeha's confident manner took some of the edge out of Seo-yun's anger.
“Haah... I thought...”
Seo-yun finally let out a long sigh of relief, her stiff shoulders dropping.
She knew it too.
Even in the eyes of a working accountant, Valence was a goose that could only lay golden eggs.
That was precisely why she had been more worried.
She had been afraid that, driven by impatience to strike while the iron was hot, her brother might have borrowed from predatory lenders or used high-interest short-term funds.
Working at an accounting firm, she had heard countless stories of successful companies using such funding, only to have their cash flow become tangled and go bankrupt despite turning a profit. She had even witnessed it once.
“I was worried for a long time that you'd pushed yourself too hard borrowing money.”
Seo-yun's voice had become much more relaxed. But she soon added the strict advice expected of a working accountant.
“I hope you avoid raising funds this way when you run the company in the future.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s really dangerous to mix highly volatile money into corporate finances. I invested my savings too, and it's too nerve-racking to watch for unexpected variables.”
Seo-yun's firm voice clearly reflected her tendency to prioritize stability over profit.
“Making money is important for a company, but not losing money is important too. Cash flow has to stay within a reasonably predictable range somehow.”
She was not even officially an employee yet, yet she was giving Valence advice on fund management. Far from taking offense, Jaeha gave a faint smile.
Seo-yun was not wrong.
Behind someone aggressively expanding while taking risks, there also had to be someone who locked the granary tight and prepared for the worst.
“Everything's settled now, right? Hyung, I'm going to wash up first!”
Jaeseong hurried off to the bathroom.
Pop! Hissss.
Jaeha opened his can of cola and drank deeply.
“Oppa, I think you drink cola way too often. You never even touched it before. Cut back. It's not like it's good for your health.”
Seo-yun scolded him. Jaeha merely grinned and sat down across from her.
“You must have been worrying alone until I got here, so I'll tell you some good news instead.”
“Good news?”
Seo-yun's eyes sparkled.
Smiling, Jaeha told her that he had hired Jang Myeonghwan today and that Valence would be signing an exclusive contract with G-Mall.
“Wow! Really? That Jang Myeonghwan sounds incredible. I guess you have good luck with people, Oppa.”
Seo-yun clapped excitedly, then suddenly froze.
“...But the contracted quantity is fifty thousand?”
“Yeah.”
“And it includes an advance-purchase condition?”
“That’s right.”
Smack!
Seo-yun suddenly brought both palms down on the table. Even Jaeha, who was not easily surprised, flinched.
“We need to prepare for incorporation immediately! Fifty thousand units means nearly one billion won in sales from a single contract! And if G-Mall promotes us, it'll rise even more sharply!”
Seo-yun rattled the words off like a machine gun.
“At that rate, our revenue will surpass three billion won before long! You know that if you remain a sole proprietor, the more you earn, the bigger the tax bomb gets too, right? If we incorporate, we can save hundreds of millions of won.”
Watching the excited Seo-yun, Jaeha calmly finished the cola in his hand.
“I know. There's a big difference between corporate tax and income tax rates.”
“...You do?”
“Yeah. That's why I was already planning to incorporate.”
Seo-yun clicked her tongue again at her brother's thoroughness.
“Then have you already looked into judicial scriveners and tax accountants?”
“Not yet. I haven't had the time. But do we really need to pay fees and leave it to someone else?”
Jaeha grinned and looked Seo-yun directly in the eye.
“When there's an accountant right in front of me.”
“That's normally work for judicial scriveners and tax accountants... and I'm incredibly busy with audit season too...”
Though she said that, Seo-yun's mind was already racing as she planned Valence's share structure.
“If you handle it, then when you join Valence as CFO later, won't it sound impressive to say, ‘I personally set up Valence's incorporation’?”
“I'm really incredibly busy...”
At the mention of CFO, the corners of Seo-yun's lips rose without her realizing it. In the end, she surrendered.
“Fine. I'll squeeze out some time and set up the incorporation, but you have to remember one thing.”
“What?”
“Never even think of splitting the shares. Keep your ownership at one hundred percent, no matter what. You can compensate me for my investment later with stock options or a revenue share.”
Jaeha readily nodded.
“You still need to file things with the judicial scrivener yourself. Got it?”
“Of course. If CFO is doing the planning, running errands is nothing.”
“Hmph. You always know what to say...”
* * *
Valence's clock began spinning at a mad pace.
First, the exclusive supply contract for fifty thousand units with G-Mall was signed. As soon as the contract payment came through, Jaeha wired an advance payment to Yeongshin Polymer, the manufacturer of the cases' raw materials.
“Ah! CEO Lee Jaeha! Thank you so much for trusting Yeongshin Polymer with this! From now on, we'll churn out Valence's orders as our top priority!”
Jaeha let the representative's words pass by. It was an empty promise that could change at any time once money was involved. Money was more trustworthy than trust.
He immediately moved on to the next step.
Before the additional production equipment arrived, they had to complete the blueprint for mass production.
“Hey! Careful! Careful!”
“Yeah, right there. There!”
Thud! Bang!
Four more containers were brought onto the site.
Staffing was handled just as quickly. To prepare for the increased production volume, they hired two floor workers and one office worker.
They were all just starting their careers.
Though they had only joined a few days earlier, Lee Minho and Park Mijeong had already become their mentors. The company was still so small that there was no such thing as a formal training system. Whoever had learned the job first was the senior.
They also finished hiring and training the day and night shift part-timers who would work once full operations began.
Jang Myeonghwan's connections proved their worth.
After he contacted a local staffing agency and firmly promised generous daily wages, experienced workers who could start immediately were recruited in no time.
They also leased a twelve-seat van for the commuter shuttle. Lee Minho took the keys.
Jang Myeonghwan's contributions did not stop at staffing. Because of him, they were able to establish a perfect logistics process before the additional machines began operating.
The physical obstacle of the warehouse access road being unpaved was not a problem either.
Jang Myeonghwan recruited a local freight company and arranged relay deliveries with several agile one-ton trucks. They completed a system that loaded the Aegis Cases onto the trucks and delivered them directly to G-Mall's logistics center.
Thanks to that, they no longer had to agonize over splitting the immense order of fifty thousand units between several courier companies.
Preparations to shed their sole proprietor status also proceeded steadily, with Seo-yun handling incorporation paperwork after work whenever she found time.
Then, at last, the custom-ordered machines began arriving at the Valence factory one after another.
After installing cartridges containing the secret of alchemy into all five of the newly arrived machines, Jaeha gathered the employees.
“The setup is complete.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Wow! Finally!”
“Congratulations, CEO!”
“Now we begin!”
“Valence, let's go!”
The employees clapped and cheered.
Then Jaeha felt their gazes gather on his lips. He gave a brief, decisive order.
“Let's begin operations.”
The instant he spoke, the booming voice of Jang Myeonghwan, who was overseeing operations, rang through the container.
“All lines, begin operation!”
Whirrrr. Hissss. Flash!
All six production machines began operating at once.
“Packaging team! Don't zone out. Move, move! Stack them neatly on the pallets by the box!”
Under Jang Myeonghwan's command, the Valence factory operated perfectly like a single organism.
Of the Aegis Cases produced, exactly one thousand would be released to the existing sales page, just enough stock to barely keep the market supplied. The rest were all headed to G-Mall's massive logistics center.
Meanwhile.
Consumers hoping to purchase the Aegis Case were burning with the fires of hell.
Secondhand World, the country's largest secondhand trading community.
[Buying] Looking for an unopened Aegis Case.
[Buying] Seeking an Aegis Case. No scams.
[Selling] Aegis Case, Grade A. Used for three days. Letting it go for 40,000 won. In-person deal only.
⋮
College student Park Seongho gripped their monitor and fumed.
“Is this insane? The list price is 19,900 won. How can they sell it secondhand for twice that?”
Park Seongho angrily scrolled the mouse wheel, but found nothing. Then they saw that the 40,000-won listing they had looked at earlier was now marked [Sold].
Should I have bought that one? The thought briefly crossed their mind.
In the A-simpers community, a group for users who loved A-phones, the Aegis Case was treated as a legendary item.
As verification posts from actual buyers poured in, claiming that the case had remained intact after being accidentally dropped from the height of a second floor, A-phone users had practically split into two classes: Aegis owners and non-owners.
‘Who the hell is the owner, releasing stock in tiny dribbles like this? Does it make any sense that they only release a thousand a day?’
Park Seongho even signed up for SMS restock alerts to catch the units arriving at G-Mall.
But every time, Park Seongho was met with [Out of Stock] at the payment page and thrown out. They had no way of beating the resellers' macros.
“Why the hell don't they do something about those resellers?”
Park Seongho had just logged into G-Mall with a gloomy expression.
[G-Mall Exclusive Super Deal Opens at Midnight!]
The very item they had been desperately searching for was prominently displayed in G-Mall's most noticeable main banner slot.
[The legendary shield that sold out in one second every day!]
[G-Mall has exclusively secured 50,000 units!]
[For ten days, every midnight! First emergency release of 5,000 units, first come first served!]
“...What?”
Park Seongho's eyes widened.
Fifty thousand? Fifty thousand units?! And five thousand are being released today?
Click!
When Park Seongho clicked the banner, the Aegis Case event page opened. When they selected an option, the [In Stock] label that had been so hard to see shone brilliantly.
Their hands moved like mad.
Buy!
Select payment method!
Enter card number!
Enter!
[Payment complete.]
The instant Park Seongho saw the message on the screen, they kicked back their chair and stood.
“I got one! I'm an Aegis owner now too!”
Park Seongho's cheer shattered the silence of midnight.
Park Seongho was not the only one cheering. A-phone 4 users who had seen G-Mall's advertisement were rushing toward the purchase button like a swarm of bees.
Meanwhile.
As G-Mall began pouring out massive quantities of Aegis Cases, a man in a laboratory frowned deeply.
Several Aegis Cases delivered for testing lay on his desk.
The client was Taejin Tech.
It was a mid-sized company that produced smartphone accessories and peripherals, whose chief executive came from a collateral branch of the LC Group family.
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