12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

I read the mail again with my eyes twitching.

[D. 12 Days After]

[Politics – Is it because of the National Assembly’s collapse the Blue House or the opposition party?

Economy – This year’s real growth is zero percent, excluding semiconductors

Society – Earthquake safety insensitivity needs to improve

Life/Culture – The sales volume of the cartoon ‘To Get Away From The Earthquake’ has surged.

World – Just before the extinction of African rhinos

IT/Science – How do animals know about earthquakes in advance?

Entertainment – China’s unauthorized plagiarism is all right?

Sports – Shim Kwon-sung won the third round of the regular tour]

Three of the seven news stories included the word “earthquake,” in Society, Life/Culture, and IT/Science. I twirled my mouse.

‘… a coincidence? No, I don’t think so.’

But no matter how much I thought about it, it didn’t look like that. The sudden rise of these unusual headlines meant that there had been an issue once in recent years.

‘Earthquakes… earthquakes.’

‘Natural disasters such as earthquakes are a big deal for the nation and for the parties directly affected, but they serve as opportunities in the stock market. If it is the earthquake theme, the stocks of earthquake-free buildings, civil engineering companies needed for reconstruction, and companies that make structural materials for earthquake-resistant designs will benefit from the upper limit price.’

‘If there’s a real earthquake, it’s a big problem.’

I decided to find out how big the earthquake is.

‘Life/Culture – The sales volume of the cartoon ‘To Get Away From The Earthquake’ has surged.’ It’s likely that some publisher would make a fortune.

‘IT/Science – How do animals know about earthquakes in advance?’ This news would likely be really interesting science news.

I clicked on the fourth, ‘Society – Earthquake safety insensitivity needs to improve.’ And as always, I quickly scanned the article.

[The damage from the earthquake could be serious… The expansion of civil awareness… We should be alert by taking an example from Japan.]

But, there was no key factor saying when the earthquake happened. From the beginning to the end of the article, it was full of lessons on what to do when an earthquake would happen. With this article, I didn’t know whether the earthquake really happened and when it happened.

‘Shall I wait a few more days? The news may be in 12 Hours After and 12 Days After, not in 12 Weeks After and 12 Months After. But that’s the only possibility. What I’m looking at is a news story in 12 Days After. As the news in 12 Hours After covers the news from now to 12 hours later, the news in 12 Days After covers the news in 12 days from today. Therefore, the news of the earthquake could hit today.’

‘What shall I do?’ I was thinking for a moment, and I could see the skill windows at the bottom: People Search and Ranking News. Come to think of it, both had ways to screen earthquake news. First of all, the Ranking News was intuitive. If there was an earthquake that could blow through the whole country, earthquake news should be the No. 1 news within twelve days. However, the Ranking News was only available once a month.

Now I was able to use the Ranking News in 12 Weeks After and 12 Months After, so it would be more efficient to watch it.

‘Let’s search for the name first.’

People Search was a little bit of a detour, searching for the names of people associated with the earthquake. I turned on the portal site and went over to the Internet to search for ‘Ministry of Public Safety and Security,’ an institution established after the sinking of MV Sewol, but it disappeared in only two and a half years.

[… the Ministry of Public Safety and Security was abolished after being absorbed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security…]

I did a search again with ‘the Ministry of Public Administration and Security’. The minister of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security was Hwang Chang-gyu.

‘Well… It’s a pretty rare name. However, he is a minister and his name will be on the top of People Search.’

With that thought, I went straight to the People Search.

[Minister Hwang Chang-gyu visits to console the earthquake victims personally.]

Yes, I got it! I clicked on it.

[The Minister of Public Administration and Security, Hwang Chang-gyu… Last Tuesday, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.2 occurred in Wonju around 10 a.m… We’ll set up a task force to check the situation of the earthquake… I promise to support the earthquake victims…]

‘An earthquake of 5.2 magnitude in Wonju. 5.2 is a very large scale. It is rare to find such an earthquake in our country. Huh… This has made the news an issue…’

I looked at a calendar. Today was Wednesday. In twelve days, it would be Tuesday. But the article mentioned ‘last Tuesday,’ and given the expression, I could infer that this was not Tuesday after twelve days, but Tuesday after five days.

’10:00 a.m. next Tuesday.’

As soon as I set the time, I went to the portal site and tried to search for ‘ earthquake theme stock.’ Nevertheless, I had an idea before that. ‘Wait… is there anything I can do for them?’

Knowing that there would be an earthquake, if I just made money from it, I would feel guilty.

‘But how?

‘An earthquake is simply a natural disaster. We can’t stop it from happening without God. However, there may be a way to reduce the damage by giving a report to the police.’

I came back to 12 Days After and read the article. I was wondering if there was the detailed information of the damage.

[The walls of the old house are cracked, the columns of the studio are damaged, and fortunately, there were no casualties…]

I breathed a sigh of relief in that ‘there were no casualties.’ No casualties were reported.

‘Well, that’s good. So… I got to think of a report.

‘There was no loss of life. Then the rest of the problem is usually a money problem at that time, which I can solve. But, just in case, if I report them, and if it causes confusion, the butterfly effect may kill someone. I don’t want to receive the email of ‘Correction News – Death occurred due to the subscriber’s intervention.

‘Okay. Let’s make money now, and later…’

While I thought about it, I searched ‘earthquake theme stock’ on a portal site. As expected, there were a series of these stocks.

So, first, you make money, and then…

The theme stocks were also on the rise.

[Seyun Geological – Earthquake improvement specialist construction company

Junyoung Tech – Bridge support, steel casting material manufacturer

Ace Construction – Construction of special self-governing system for civil engineering

Five Metal – Seismic design nuclear valve manufacturer

Nine Reno – Public wireless network operation for firefighters, police, emergency medical institution

Jangyeon Construction – Special technology for earthquake-resistant design

Daejun Gas – National gas digestion facility manufacturing, disaster safety related stock]

‘The theme stock of the earthquake is like a theme stock, and once an earthquake has occurred, there is no way to improve its performance or to do anything. The stocks involved are already jumping. What’s more relevant is Seyun Geological, Junyoung Tech, and Ace Construction. The companies behind have no reason to jump, even if the earthquake occurs. However, those are the theme stocks, and if they push them to the upper limit price, they will go up without any reason. So, we can’t ignore them.’

I decided to buy the three stocks and the other four stocks in small quantities.

‘If I do not do split them up, the stock prices may rise due to my buying $40,000,000.’

‘Let’s slowly divide it until Monday.

‘No matter how advanced the technology is, there is no technology to predict an earthquake that will happen tomorrow. Even if I slowly buy them in lots so that the stock price does not rise, there won’t be a difficult situation because the stock price has gone up in advance.’

I thought so and started to buy the earthquake theme stocks in the watchlist.

————————–

Five days later, Fate Day. Tuesday. I got up as usual and watched the news.

‘Okay, yeah.’ I saw the news and took my coffee to the next seat, where the computer for the game was. My money had already been put in the stock market, so I did not need to turn on the HTS separately. As I was wearing a headset on my head and untying my hands, Secretary Seo called.

“Yeah, what?”

“Vice President Jang has a new company on the list. Can I send you a report by email?”

“Oh yeah? Um…email.”

When I was worried for a while, Secretary Seo added a word, “You’ll have to come to work, and see the new recruits, too.”

I looked at the calendar. I had not gone to work for a week because of the earthquake-related stocks.

“Shall I?”

“If the new employees don’t know who owns this company, wouldn’t it be a little bit strange?”

“Okay, I’ll be at work, then.”

“Shall I come and get you?”

“No, I’ll go. You don’t need to come and go back.”

“Yes, boss.”

I decided to go to work. I went to the dressing room, put on a suit and took a Porsche key.

———————

“Hello, this is Kim Ju-han, a new employee.”

“Yes, I’m glad to see you.”

“Hello, a new recruit, Jung Ju-mi.”

“Nice to see you.”

I was greeted by new employees. Invictus Investment was adding more and more people. In addition to OH Entertainment management, which we had acquired, it also invested in stocks, in bonds, and directly in companies that were not listed. These were all left to Vice President Jang, because I was not in charge of the work.

Of course, it was smaller than my personal investment of $40,000,000 to buy OH Entertainment, rolling the remaining $15,000,000, but I needed more people to do this. As I received greetings from other employees, Vice President Jang also came out and greeted me.

“Are you here?”

“So you found a company we could take over?”

At my words, Jang said with a smile, “Please look at this, boss.”

Jang handed me the report he was holding, and I took it.

‘What on Earth did he find?’

In fact, the company I wanted from him was a bit tricky, because I wanted a company that had to be small and could generate synergy with entertainment. I took the report and tried to get into the office. But then, with some rumbling sound, I felt the whole building shake.

“What is it?” Vice President Jang as well as Secretary Seo was surprised. To be frank, I was surprised, too.

‘Even Seoul is pretty shaken, right?’

The 5.2 earthquake was greater than I thought. All the employees were confused.

“What is this?”

“Should we go outside?”

At that moment, everyone’s cell phone rang at once. Wi-ying! Everyone listened to their cell phones.

-Watch out for safety after an earthquake occurrence. An aftershock of 5.2 magnitude hit 6km west of Wonju, Gangwon-do, Korea Meteorological Administration.-

Now everyone knew that there was an earthquake in the Republic of Korea. Some of my stocks might be at the upper limit price.

“An earthquake?”

“5.2 magnitude?”

Secretary Seo said to me, his eyes widening slightly. “What do you want us to do, get out of here?”

I reassured them. There were no casualties from what I saw in the article. The damage to property was only on the outskirts of Wonju, that was all. I said in a loud voice so that all the employees could hear me, “It’ll be all right. Don’t be so surprised, let’s get back to work slowly.”

To be honest, it normally would have been hard to be so calm. However, I knew it was safe here.