While Nick Leeson was cheerfully hovering on the edge of financial hell—
Surprisingly... I didn’t really do anything.
No, to be precise, I did plenty—but none of it was directed at Leeson. Everything had unfolded almost identically to how it had in the original tiline.
What was this? Auto-play mode?
All I did was give him a tiny nudge, and he took care of the rest—banging the drum, blowing the horn, gathering money on his own, and blowing himself up all by himself. What a good boy.
“He’s not gonna survive this, that man. Tsk tsk. Should’ve lived a cleaner life...”
Now promoted to my respectable chief of staff, Lee Si-hyun remarked with a strangely satisfied expression when we t again after a while.
“What, you’ve been brooding over him or sothing? Like, ‘Nick Leeson reached that kind of position at a younger age than , what the hell am I doing with my life?’”
Even in real history, Leeson managed to destroy Barings Bank with $1.4 billion in debt—at the age of 28. Which ant, more impressively, he was capable of accumulating that much debt. And now? Even worse.
Si-hyun must’ve felt a fresh wave of inferiority watching soone from a similarly low starting point beco a world-shaking figure before her eyes.
“Yeah, right? After everything the young lady made do like this and like that... I’m never going to forget it until the day I die.”
Si-hyun shook her head and rubbed her arms. Her eyes were full of weary sentintality.
I scoffed and yanked her by the collar, dragging her down onto the floor.
“What are you even saying, you old hag.”
Flailing on the floor, she snapped back at indignantly.
“...That! Exactly that! Co on, I’m one of the youngest-looking thirty-sothings around these days! Young lady, don’t you think that’s a bit harsh? Look, my skin’s still firm and—”
“That’s because you’re old.”
“Gck.”
Well, to be fair, she did look suspiciously youthful. But teasing her was just too fun.
lting into a puddle of mock defeat, Si-hyun grumbled as she dug through her bag and tossed so docunts.
“Here. Collected the money.”
It was proof that the funds from the CDS contract with Leeson had been safely transferred to the bank. Seeing the confirmation that cash had flowed in, I smiled in relief.
What is a “default” anyway? It’s just failing to repay debt.
And since I already knew Leeson wouldn’t be able to repay, I had to extract {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} my cash while he still had any funds left.
“Mm, good. As expected of soone who used to swing a bat in back alleys—you’ve got the instincts of a true debt collector.”
“....”
“What, you gonna glare at like that, traitor?”
Yesterday, she’d reset her “Days Without Betraying ” counter to 1 after telling my nanny I sleep naked. Si-hyun sighed.
“...How long are you going to milk that one?”
“Until I die is a bit much... so, let’s say until you turn forty?”
“Sigh... Being a double agent is hard enough. If you keep this up... I might just... develop so bad intentions, you know?”
“Ahaha, don’t worry. Our basent’s pretty spacious.”
“Ugh.”
After a bit of harmless teasing, I rolled around on the bed in just my underwear, focused entirely on my ga.
Co next year, I’d barely have any free ti. Thankfully, Civilization was the kind of ga I could play solo whenever I had a mont.
Si-hyun stared at playing, then finally spoke up.
“...But you haven’t been going to school lately. Is that really okay? You only show up during exams these days. Shouldn’t you be studying...?”
“It’s fine. Grandpa gave permission. Honestly, I was bored out of my mind at school anyway, so this works out.”
Grinning, I stretched my arms. Grandpa no longer nagged about school or told to “be a good girl and study hard.”
It wasn’t because of so “won don’t need college” ntality or anything like that. It was because he finally realized I was the single greatest genius in both classical and modern finance.
As a result, I had plenty of free ti these days. I could even sleep in as much as I wanted—waking up in the morning was a delight.
I did feel a little bad for Myrian, who now had to go to school alone...
But hey, shouldn’t she be grateful a pretty girl like even hung out with her in the first place?
‘Ugh, aren’t I just amazing?’
—Ughhh... It’s an honor to live in Yoo Ha-yeon’s era...
I thought of that with the purple-haired ani girl making that exact face, then looked into the mirror.
An absurdly beautiful young woman, glowing in her pri, was smiling like an idiot back at .
‘Kinda unhinged. I should tone it down a bit...’
Clearing my throat, I turned my ear toward Si-hyun’s running monologue.
“So then I’m fighting in Osaka’s nightlife district, outnumbered 17 to 1—”
“Mhm.”
“And while I’m trying to open a Swiss bank account by luring in so European guy, the police start investigating again—”
“Oh wow, really?”
“So I used the German bank account I set up earlier with Seon-jun oppa’s help... Um, young lady, you’re not listening, are you?”
Having just finished recounting her heroic tale of how she hid and moved my slush funds (which I hadn’t been listening to), Si-hyun pouted.
“What? I already got the report.”
“Well... but still, the story’s fun.”
I tilted my head and asked,
“By the way, why do you call Yoo Seon-jun oppa? You’re older than him.”
“...Huh?”
“Is it because he’s good-looking? Is that why? Damn, we’re dood.”
Knew it. Sothing felt suspicious about the way she’d been talking.
“I an, that’s not exactly wrong, but I’m not saying I feel that way. And besides, you call him that too, young lady.”
Hm.
Did I?
...Oh. I did.
Perfect mory doesn’t lie. Feeling vaguely annoyed, I randomly pulled Si-hyun into a hug and buried my face in her soft, pillowy chest.
“Tch...”
Family, huh?
Maybe Chairman Yoo Seong-pil had already half-accomplished his goal.
***
“Four people walk into a room to play poker. Suddenly, a bomb explodes and all four are blown to pieces. The audience is shocked.
Now let’s try it differently: Before they sit down to play, you show a man sneak under the table and plant a bomb.
Then they play, unaware. Right as the ga ends and they start to rise, one of them says, ‘Let’s have so tea.’
That—is suspense.”
That’s a famous quote from Alfred Hitchcock. And by his logic, this current situation should be oozing with suspense.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and nobody knows. And that debt is growing by the second.
But to , it felt slightly different.
[Following the year-end audit of Barings Bank, Nick Leeson successfully avoided detection of the 88888 account.
It seems the auditors failed to identify any discrepancies in the falsified records you ntioned, young lady.
According to an on-site employee, the audit team refrained from raising concerns out of fear they’d reveal their ignorance of derivatives.]
Rustle.
Shockingly, Nick Leeson had survived.
Sure, he had a mountain of debt and a trail long enough to lasso the moon, but sohow he hadn’t tripped on it yet.
And even more shockingly, Leeson would barely be punished for this. Aside from a short prison stint, he’d co out of this relatively unscathed. I an, the man was still alive even before I died.
Hell, even in my past life as a shut-in loser, he had more money than I did.
Barings Bank would suffer less damage than in the original history—after all, I owned it now, and I wasn’t going to let it get nuked—so the outco wouldn’t be much different.
...Hm.
This wasn’t really suspense. It was too ridiculous. More like a slapstick cody.
“Aha, I’ve read about that too. Bergson’s theory of laughter, right? It’s only funny when the audience is emotionally detached and the situation is unrealistic...”
“Yeah, that’s right. How do you know that?”
“I’ve worked for you for years, haven’t I? I try to keep up with your hobbies.”
“Then how co you still suck at video gas, huh? Is it ‘cause you’re old?”
“....”
Heh.
I laughed and brushed off Si-hyun’s grumbling. Then I gave her a new directive.
“Alright, Si-hyun. Ti to begin the operation.”
Her vaguely playful expression turned serious. She exhaled softly and nodded.
“...Understood.”
We’d had a few relaxed months. But now, the busy season was upon us.
If we wanted to strip the flesh from the corpse of a giant, we had to be ready.
“How much capital can we mobilize right this second?”
“Two billion dollars. It’s been placed in the U.S. for easy access.”
A lot, and yet still not enough. My Alpha Fund had hit $2 billion in capital during Japan’s bubble era—and most of that was now needed for Eastern Europe, Russian bonds, and other critical investnts. Even with the massive profits from the CDS contracts, I still didn’t have enough liquid cash.
“Call Ha Yeong-il and max out the leverage. And... schedule a eting with Quantum Fund.”
It was ti for the shorting of the pound.
The British pound was vastly overvalued.
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