Exactly one month to the day since he had received the Wopora mission.
The word hell was not enough.
Purgatory, they say, is the process by which a sinful soul is purified by fire.
The time Coach Kang Pilgeun had presented him with over that stretch was closer to ‘purgatory’.
All of it thanks to high-intensity interval training (HIIT) that felt like it would burst his heart.
“Sir! Last set! Five burpees! You don’t go home until you do them!”
“Guaaargh!”
Finishing the last burpees, Taeseong sprawled out on the gym floor.
The fluorescent lights on the ceiling spun in circles.
Sweat pooled and ran down the line of his back.
His heart hammered as if it would smash through his ribs and burst out.
But it was not an unpleasant pain.
Every blood vessel in his body had dilated and the blood was surging — a pulse that confirmed he was alive.
“On your feet. Time to check the result.”
Coach Kang Pilgeun tossed him a towel and grinned.
Taeseong grabbed his shaking legs and rose like a zombie.
In front of the scale.
The thrill of breaking the set point last time was still vivid.
But this target was higher.
No — it had to be lower.
The condition for Wopora’s S-grade information reward. Ten kilograms lost.
‘Please.’
Taeseong squeezed his eyes shut and stepped onto the scale.
The cold touch against the soles of his feet.
Beep.
With the electronic tone, the number stopped.
Taeseong cracked his eyes open and looked down past his feet.
[134 kg]
“......Haah. I did it!”
A wheezing sound escaped Taeseong.
134kg.
A full 10kg down from his starting point of 144kg, and compared to his 160kg days a month ago, more than 25kg gone.
He was still firmly in morbidly obese territory, of course, but what mattered was that the leading digit had started changing at speed.
Plateau? Homeostasis?
Before the blood, sweat, and tears Taeseong had shed, every biological defense mechanism went down on its knees.
“Congratulations, sir. At last I can see about 1% of a human shape.”
Even at Coach Kang Pilgeun’s mischievous praise, Taeseong could smile.
He showered and stood in front of the locker-room mirror.
He pulled on the 4XL shirt he wore out of habit.
But.
“Huh?”
As he did up the buttons, that feeling of being pulled taut was gone.
The shirt front, always precariously close to bursting, hung fairly loose.
He put on his trousers and fastened his belt.
Put through the hole he always used, the trousers hung loose enough to slide down.
With trembling hands, Taeseong tightened the belt one notch further.
It slid right in.
‘You can absolutely tell I’ve lost it!’
He rubbed a hand along his jaw.
Under the thick layer of fat he could feel, very faintly, the hard touch of bone.
It was still too embarrassing to call a jawline, but at least a border between his neck and his face was starting to exist.
Ding!
Just then the phone in his pocket rang brightly.
The alert he had been waiting for.
[Mission complete!]
[The promised reward will be paid out.]
[Information reward: S-grade future stock information — viewing access created.]
S-grade information.
If the last information had been at the level of naming a sector (shipping), what would this be?
Taeseong swallowed dryly and pressed the [View] button.
The screen changed, and red text rose up.
[2023. 11. 17. (Fri)]
[Name: EcoFree Materials (new listing)]
“EcoFree...... Materials?”
Taeseong’s brow furrowed.
As a market man there was no way he did not know the name.
A subsidiary of the EcoFree Group, the lead act of the secondary-battery frenzy that had run hot through the first half of 2023.
But the market’s current assessment was brutal.
With high rates persisting, EV demand had slowed, and the entire secondary-battery sector was in correction.
The information continued.
[Information: Institutional demand forecasting was a rout (17:1 subscription). Offering price fixed at the bottom of the indicative band (36,200 won). The market has turned its back entirely.]
That was accurate.
Taeseong had seen it in the news too.
The institutional demand-forecast ratio was a mere 17 to 1.
Compared with recent IPOs that recorded hundreds and thousands to one, it was a dismal report card.
The market had already turned away, saying ‘secondary batteries are finished’, ‘the bubble is deflating’.
So why had Wopora singled out this failed IPO?
He scrolled down, and the last sentence dilated Taeseong’s pupils.
[However, on listing day, ‘madness’ rules.]
[Reason makes cowards; madness makes rich men.]
[Buy at the opening price and hold.]
“Madness......”
Taeseong rolled the word around in his mouth.
Not rational data or earnings.
Supply and demand. And psychology.
The most primal force that moves a stock market.
When everyone said “no”, Wopora was shouting “yes”.
A book of prophecy that had never once been wrong was now ordering a bet that ran head-on into market common sense.
‘Interesting.’
A wry smile spread across Taeseong’s lips.
Deep in his chest, the wild streak of a trader stirred.
Finding a diamond in the trash can everyone else has thrown out.
Because there is no contest more electrifying than that.
***
The next day, the Woojin Securities trading room.
The office air was dry and busy as ever.
But a curious tension hung around Taeseong’s desk.
Articles about EcoFree Materials were open on his monitor.
[EcoFree Materials creaking even before listing...... a repeat of the ‘Fadu’ affair?]
[Overvaluation controversy persists, fears spread of trading below the offering price.]
[Experts: “Refrain from reckless chasing...... secondary-battery momentum weakening”]
The news was pessimism from end to end.
Even the report that came up from the in-house research center offered the view that ‘a conservative approach is required’.
But Taeseong grew more certain instead.
The moment the crowd trembles in fear is the opportunity.
When every piece of bad news has been exposed, when there is no bad news left to come, a stock price bounces most lightly of all.
‘Managed funds: 2.5 billion won.’
The enormous sum swollen by taking profits on the shipping names.
How was he going to run this money?
This time there was no need even for leverage.
The 2.5 billion in cash was itself already a powerful weapon.
And if he poured that money in at the opening price?
It was enough volume that Taeseong could lift most order books single-handedly.
Taeseong laid out his plan.
And suddenly, someone’s face came to mind.
Kang Hyeona.
The person who had brought him honey when he nearly collapsed from low blood sugar, and cheered him on from the next desk when the plateau was grinding him down.
And this November, she had finally shed the intern label and been assigned as a full ‘junior trader’.
Woojin Securities’ class society was thorough.
The eighth-floor trading department was like the frontline infantry of a battlefield.
From associate to assistant manager level, the ‘junior traders’.
At manager and deputy general manager level, the ‘senior dealers’ who lead the actual work.
And then the department-head-level managers.
Survive here and post a legendary return, or have your genius-level quant ability recognized, and you go up to the twelfth floor.
That place, home to the ‘head traders’ and the ‘quant team’, was nothing short of a divine realm to the people on the eighth.
Taeseong’s goal was clear.
Make this EcoFree Materials play work and secure treatment as a definite ‘senior dealer’.
Overturn his current pitiful 7% incentive rate and prove his value.
And in the process.
‘I should look after Hyeona too.’
He was a man who always repaid a kindness.
He was also a man who thoroughly ignored an enemy, mind you.
There would not be a drop in it for Department Head Park or Manager Jeong, but Kang Hyeona was different.
At this moment, as she took her first step as a junior trader, he wanted to give her the gift of a certain success.
[Hyeona, could you come to the kitchenette for a moment?]
Taeseong sent the message.
A little later the kitchenette door opened and Kang Hyeona came in.
Her expression was bright, a full-employee badge hanging around her neck.
“You called for me, Assistant Manager? Oh?”
Kang Hyeona’s eyes went wide and she gave Taeseong’s shoulder a light smack.
“Assistant Manager! When did you lose all this weight? Amazing!”
“Ah, haha. I did the high-intensity interval work you recommended and it seems to have had a big effect.”
“Your clothes look far too big on you now. They used to fit you tightly. You really are different day by day, Assistant Manager!”
Taeseong rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked away, embarrassed.
Wopora’s rewards were sweet, but simply having someone like Associate Kang next to him reacting to his weight loss like this felt good on its own.
“So, what did you call me for?”
“Ah, right, it’s nothing much. I don’t think I ever properly congratulated you on your official assignment.”
Taeseong pulled a hot citron tea from the vending machine and handed it to her.
“Thank you! I got through the internship thanks to you, Assistant Manager. You gave me so many investment tips too.”
“I received more. The salad, for one.”
Taeseong glanced around for a moment.
Outside the kitchenette he could see the back of Manager Jeong’s head as he stared blankly at a chart.
Having confirmed nobody was listening, Taeseong lowered his voice.
“Hyeona. You’ve heard of ‘EcoFree Materials’, listing tomorrow?”
“Ah, yes! There’s been a lot of news about it. But the subscription ratio was so low that people are saying it’s going to flop...... what do you think, Assistant Manager?”
Hyeona’s eyes went round.
She was aware of the market mood too.
The name everyone was avoiding.
“I...... have a good feeling about it, somehow.”
Taeseong smiled.
He wrapped Wopora’s information in the word ‘feeling’.
“I’m thinking of picking some up at the opening price on listing day.”
“Really? Everyone says it’s dangerous......”
“Opportunity comes after crisis, doesn’t it. Everyone curses secondary batteries as finished, but I don’t see it that way. A flame burns most brilliantly right before it goes out.”
Unshakable conviction sat in Taeseong’s eyes.
They were the eyes of the ace who had produced miraculous returns from defense and shipping over the past month.
Seeing that look, Hyeona’s heart moved.
More than logic or news, the instincts of the man in front of her, Kim Taeseong, felt trustworthy.
“Shall I trust your instincts, Assistant Manager?”
“Yes. Trust me and follow me on this one, and you’ll certainly see a decent performance bonus on top of the year-end incentive.”
Taeseong added playfully.
“I’ll make sure you can pull at least one designer bag out of it.”
“Oh! A designer bag? I’m genuinely counting on it, you know?”
Hyeona’s face colored slightly.
It was not simply about the money.
It was because she was grateful for the care Taeseong was showing her.
“Then I’m going in trusting you, Assistant Manager! You’re Woojin Securities’ ace.”
She made a fist and struck a fighting pose.
Taeseong nodded.
One more reason he had to make this succeed.