Saturday morning sunlight forced its way through the gap in the curtains and stabbed at Kim Taeseong’s eyelids.
Taeseong frowned and tried to open his eyes, then let out a groan and buried his face back in the pillow.
“Ughhh......”
He reached out to push the blanket off and stopped. His fingertips were trembling.
Muscle cramps. Groaning, he barely managed to roll onto his side.
The mattress screamed and caved beneath his considerable weight.
“This is unbelievable, really......”
The memory of last night flashed past like a life passing before his eyes.
Covering 3km in under 15 minutes with a 144kg body was, by any reasonable standard, an impossible mission.
But he had done it.
The moment he turned on his screen, dozens of news alerts came pouring down like a waterfall.
On a normal weekend morning it would have been entertainment gossip and weather forecasts.
But today was different. Every outlet, as if by agreement, carried a red ‘Breaking’ banner.
[Breaking] Hamas launches surprise attack on Israel with thousands of rockets. ‘Sabbath of blood’
[Urgent] Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declares, “We are at war!”
[International] Armed militants infiltrate near the Gaza Strip. Civilian casualties mounting.
[Economy] Fears of spreading Middle East risk. Signs of a spike in international oil prices!
Taeseong’s pupils shook as if an earthquake had struck them.
With a trembling finger he clicked one of the articles.
The footage on the screen was appalling.
Buildings collapsed with a roar, and black smoke blanketed the sky.
Gunfire rang through the streets, and people fled in terror.
This was not a scene from a film. It was vivid reality unfolding on the other side of the planet right now.
But the point at which Taeseong felt fear was not only the brutality of the news.
One sentence was branded vividly into his mind.
‘10/7 (Sat) Hamas’s surprise attack.’
The first line of the future information Wopora had shown him. Taeseong swallowed. His dry throat stung.
“A war really broke out......”
He muttered it with a dazed expression.
The information Wopora had shown him until now had mostly been economic indicators.
American CPI (consumer price index) prints, earnings surprises at particular companies, things of that sort.
Even that alone was close to miraculous, but those were, at the end of the day, numbers within the range of human activity.
You could dismiss them as the domain of statistics and probability, things a truly excellent analyst might get right.
But a war was different.
It was an unstoppable event produced by countless variables, human madness, and coincidence piling on top of each other.
And it had been a ‘surprise’ attack. Something not even Mossad, which boasts the finest intelligence in the world, had foreseen — and this unidentified system had pinned it down to the day.
Taeseong felt a chill run up his spine. Wopora, which he had thought of as a simple tool for making money, suddenly felt like an enormous monster.
The sound of his pounding heart rang in his ears.
He set the phone down for a moment, stared at the ceiling, and calmly ran a simulation in his head based on what Wopora had told him.
The whole world would be in shock all weekend.
America would dispatch a carrier group, the Middle East would sink into zero visibility, and.
People would die, lose their families, and see the ground of their lives destroyed.
Just then, Taeseong’s gaze landed on his own face reflected in the dark monitor.
“Plotting how to make money while people die in a war......”
Taeseong let out a self-mocking laugh.
But.
Hamas would not stop firing rockets because he wept and prayed in the corner of his room.
Stocks bound to crash would not rebound because he mourned.
A trader must castrate his emotions. When everyone else is gripped by fear and panic selling, you have to gather up the jewels thrown away at bargain prices at the bottom of that fear.
Or else buy the fear itself.
“You have to seize an opportunity.”
Taeseong forced his heavy body upright. His muscles screamed, but he ignored them. What mattered now was not pain but his strategy before Monday’s open.
Groaning, he sat down at his desk. The chair creaked. He powered on the computer, and the dual monitors lit up to show the HTS (home trading system) screen.
“All right, let’s see......”
Taeseong’s eyes had changed. The fear and shock of a moment ago were gone, and only the eyes of a predator sizing up its prey remained.
“It said refining and defense stocks would surge.”
The first thing he pulled up was the international oil price chart.
A Middle East war meant instability in oil supply. Even if it fell short of the old oil shocks, the psychological unease would lift prices immediately.
“Brent, WTI (West Texas Intermediate)...... after-hours is already reacting.”
The tail end of the chart was rearing steeply upward. When the Korean market opened Monday, oil-related names would obviously start with a gap up.
Taeseong opened a memo pad and listed out the names.
[Oil/energy-related stocks]
Heungbu Petroleum
Korea Petroleum
Jungang Enervis
“Heungbu Petroleum...... that one’s got a flair for it.”
He zoomed in on Heungbu Petroleum’s daily chart.
The price had been sluggish lately. It was crawling along the floor with no volume.
The very picture of a neglected stock. But once a colossal momentum like a war broke out, this floor would stop being a floor.
If someone had been quietly accumulating shares here, Monday would be a festival for them.
But oil was not the only thing Taeseong had his eye on.
Korea is a country under armistice. The world’s only divided nation.
Even a war in a distant land — the very keyword ‘war’ forms a unique theme in the Korean market.
“And that is defense stocks.”
The names that reap a reflected benefit whenever North Korea fires a missile or international military tension rises.
“Victek, Speco......”
Taeseong typed the familiar names into the search bar.
Victek. A company producing defense equipment and electronic warfare systems such as direction finders. In the stock market it passes for the flagship of the war theme.
Looking at the chart, Victek too had been unable to escape a downtrend these past several months.
“So it’s in oversold territory.”
The RSI (relative strength index) indicator had fallen below 30, signaling a depressed phase.
“Perfect.”
Taeseong’s lips curled upward.
“It’s already oversold and crawling along the bottom. Every piece of bad news is priced in. And now a war breaks out? This has no choice but to explode.”
He moved the mouse quickly to check supply and demand. Foreign and institutional trading over the past several days showed nothing notable.
Which meant this event was a ‘black swan’ nobody had predicted. Monday morning, institutions, foreigners, individuals — every won would rush this way.
“When Monday’s market opens, all the liquidity gets sucked into defense and oil. Every other sector will be a mess, but those two will throw up pillars of fire.”
Taeseong was certain. This was not gambling. It was the surest investment there was — turning market psychology against itself on the basis of the future Wopora had shown him.
But there was a problem.
“Aigo, my back......”
The moment his concentration broke, the pain in his body came rolling back. Taeseong leaned into the chair and groaned. It felt as if 144kg of flesh were sagging downward in obedience to the law of gravity.
His stomach growled. Even in a war, you get hungry. The mysteries of the human body were truly merciless.
“I should eat something first......”
Gripping the corner of the desk, he barely got to his feet. The few steps to the kitchen felt like a thousand-li journey.
He opened the refrigerator to find leftover pizza and cola.
On any other day he would have grabbed them without hesitating, but after living through that death race yesterday, his hand would not go for them.
‘I have to lose weight. That’s how I survive.’
And only by losing weight could he obtain information.
Instead of the pizza, Taeseong took out a bottle of water. Cold water going down his throat seemed to clear his head a little.
“Bathroom first.”
He waddled off toward the bathroom. Even sitting down on the toilet was an ordeal. The instant he bent his knees, his thigh muscles screamed as if they were tearing.
“Ugh...... damn this fat.”
Once he was done, Taeseong rummaged through the first-aid box for pain patches. Fortunately, a few leftover patches were still there.
He sat down on the floor and plastered them all over his swollen calves.
The sharp smell of the patches stung his nose.
“What a sight I am.”
But Taeseong’s eyes were pointed back at the monitor. He crawled his way back to the chair.
“Better check Speco too.”
Speco is the number two defense stock that moves alongside Victek.
Usually, when the flagship Victek hits the daily limit, Speco tends to follow along by about 15 to 20%.
If he could not get Victek, he would have to take Speco at least.
He spent the entire weekend analyzing historical data on defense and oil-related names.
Chart behavior when the Russia–Ukraine war broke out, the swing ranges during Middle East instability, and the market’s current liquidity conditions.
Time flowed quickly, and before he knew it, it was Sunday night.
Outside the window was dark, but Taeseong’s room was bright as noon with monitor light. His eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles hung to his jaw, but his mind was clearer than ever.
He went over the strategy one last time.
[Monday trading scenario]
Pre-open (08:30–09:00): Check expected execution prices.
Victek and Heungbu Petroleum expected to open with a gap up of 10% or more.
Right after the 09:00 open: Respond according to the opening price.
If it opens too high (20% or more), refrain from chasing.
Wait for a pullback (a temporary dip).
And if it starts in the 10–15% range?
Enter aggressively with a market-price buy.
Target return: the daily limit (30%) that same day. Or hold overnight (into the next day) and sell at Tuesday’s open.
“Monday morning, retail investors will panic-sell out of fear, for sure. The KOSPI and KOSDAQ will open lower.”
The further the indices fall, the harder defense and oil names climb.
Because the market’s money looks for a refuge and pours only in that direction.
They call this a ‘hedge theme’.
Taeseong scrubbed his face with dry hands.
“This trade matters.”
This was not simply a question of making money.
Building a track record using the company account.
His body might be in this sorry state, but he had to show that his skill, at least, was the real thing.
And more than anything, he needed certainty about Wopora.
If the future this system showed him was ‘absolute fact’, then he had to use that power to get back on his feet.
“Hoo......”
Taeseong let out a deep sigh and sank into his chair.
“October 7, Hamas’s attack...... it landed.”
He repeated the sentence once more.
All that was left now was tomorrow morning, the moment the market opened.
Taeseong looked at the clock in the corner of his monitor.
11:30 p.m.
In a few hours, a Monday like a war would begin.
He knew he ought to try to sleep, but his brain was in a state of arousal and it did not seem it would come easily.
He closed his eyes and imagined it. The numbers in the order book dancing, red candles surging into the sky.
“Show me. Just how certain this future of yours is.”
In the darkness, Taeseong’s eyes glinted.