Chapter 7

The dark world became bright and the faint sounds became louder all at once. As soon as my vision cleared, I knew I was in a classroom. A young man was teaching English in front of young students. I held a mechanical pencil in my hand and found an incomplete scribble in my notebook.

I checked the cover of the book, and it was an English textbook for the first grade of middle school. I was sitting alone near the window at the back of the classroom. I always sat in the middle when I was a student, but things were different since the past had been slightly changed.

“Status window.” I was so glad to hear my clear pronunciation after living a toothless life for almost half a year.

[Name: Na Seon-Hu

Health: F(2), Strength: F(20), Agility: F(13), Sense: F(20)

Total points: 87

Trait(1)]

My average class was F. Even though people at the F class were considered ordinary people from the Day of Advent, it was not bad at all by current standards.

My body had grown into an average adult male, and my Strength and Sense had increased enough to exceed some athletes’ abilities. The stats I increased during the tutorial must have affected the time I skipped.

As expected, the past had changed. My arms were long and full of hard muscles that couldn’t be regarded as a middle school student’s body, and I could feel the power in my biceps and forearms.

I was clenching my fist, and a scribble on my notebook grabbed my attention. When I first saw it, it seemed like the result of me, an ordinary middle school student, killing time. However, the drawing was of an F-class monster. It was a beast-type monster that walked on two legs. The identification number was KF-07, and it was clearly written in the upper part of the notebook in messy handwriting that looked like mine. K meant for Korea, F meant the monster’s level, and 07 was an arbitrarily given numeric identifier. In fact, it was called ‘Guard Dog’ among the Korean Awakened instead of its identification number.

I thought of something, and unsurprisingly, there was an address of a mountain in the Gyeonggi Province and its price on the previous page of the notebook.

***

It seemed that I had maintained life as a returner during the skipped time, and that was why I trained and prepared to attack the F-class dungeon. The first thing to do before unsealing the dungeon was purchasing the lands where it was laid.

I ran home right after class. That was the moment I realized that my family had moved to Miari. The house was the same as I remembered, and the key was in the milk basket. As I unlocked the door, I remembered that my mother had been working at the local curtain shop around this period.

I was too excited to find out how much I had been preparing during the skipped time to be indulging in reminiscence.

A picture that seemed to be taken at my elementary graduation ceremony last year was framed in the living room. I was already completely grown by that time; people would probably think that it was taken in high school graduation. I was somehow relieved to see smiles on my parents’ faces in the picture.

I went to my room, but it definitely didn’t seem like one for an adolescent. I didn’t remember much about my room in middle school, but it was pretty obvious that the room was different from my past life. The blankets had been folded with military precision by me, and not even a single speck of dust was found on the desk.

I searched my room thoroughly, looking at places where I thought I would hide my zip drives or floppy disks which could contain the memories during the time that I had skipped. However, it appeared to me that my physical growth and friendships were the only things that changed from the past. I seemed to have just begun thinking about attacking the dungeon about now during the skipped time. Oh well, yeah…I should have been by my parents' side until elementary school.

Starting now, I was back in control.

***

Although I didn’t buy a sealed dungeon area, it was a great decision to choose the mountain in Hwansung, Gyeonggi Province as my first conquest. I could figure out how I had searched the market price, but since I would have destroyed traces such as bus receipts, I stopped paying attention to those.

The first target was a large mountain worth about 1.3 billion won, and an F class sealed dungeon was there, waiting for the Day of Advent. There were so many things to prepare like buying the mountain and installing security systems. They all cost money. Since I knew the past, earning money wouldn’t be too difficult. It wouldn’t be just earning money, but more.

The five hundred thousand won I saved during my skipped time might be adequate capital. However, a minor could only establish a minor's stock account, and it fundamentally forbade speculative transactions such as future option transactions. Even if I created a corporation, it would be difficult to make the investments I was aiming for. In other words, I desperately needed an attorney. I thought of several names, Jonathan, Jillian, Kim Cheong-soo, Jessica, and others.

There was only one I could trust the most among them, and that was Jonathan.

***

He was a twenty-five-year-old man on Wall Street. When he recalled that period, he often titled himself and his colleagues as ‘Wolves at Wall Street’ because the financial company he worked for had the word ‘Wolf’ in it. 1997 was a year when the internet had been distributed all over the world, and it was the first time that websites were being created.

I searched for a financial company on Wall Street that included the word ‘Wolf’ on its title, and I found a link on the North American search engine APE. The internet loaded at a crawling speed, and the pictures of the company employees appeared extremely slowly. Since Jonathan was in a low position, his picture came last. I saw a smiling young Jonathan as pictures showed up one by one. He looked like he was in the middle of talking about how he was part of the elite in Wall Street. The picture was missing the resentment and despair of a man who lost everything. I sent an email.

- Seon-Hu: Hello, Jonathan. I am sending you this email to ask your opinion on whether the Thailand baht is being exchanged for an overvalued price these days.

***

Jonathan used to boast a lot about his role in the 1997 Asian financial crisis that brought the IMF to Korea. 1997 was apparently the best time of his life. Even if he had earned the title, A-class hunter, that everyone looked up to, I could see that he missed his past so much when he talked about the time.

I was certain that Jonathan would take the bait because I knew he was worried and convinced that the global hedge funds would attack the Thailand baht first. If he had trusted himself more and made bold investments from the start, his heydays would have been bigger than ever.

However, he was unable to do so because he was a loser before 1997.

- Jonathan: The Thailand baht is not overvalued.

I saw his reply in my mailbox before I went to bed.

- Seon-Hu: I apologize. I meant that if the Thailand baht was overvalued, would it be feasible?

The next reply came back immediately as if he had been waiting for my answer.

- Jonathan: Please tell me who you are and where you belong to.

As I expected, he took the bait.

- Seon-Hu: There are more conditions that can be considered feasible. The Asian foreign exchange reserves and the continued strength of the dollar would ease the problems that the hedge funds consortium faces. I expect that they will begin attacking the Thailand baht this month. However, their ultimate goal won’t be Thailand. If they do attack, Thailand would be just the beginning.

***

Jonathan was shocked. His morning had begun with an email from nowhere.

“Thailand would just be the beginning…”

The sender was confident that hedge funds would attack the Thailand baht. He even directly mentioned the name of the most likely ones. Jonathan looked over the partition and buried his head in his arms. All of his colleagues were busy, and on second thought, the situation did not warrant someone else’s advice. It was his chance.

It was no longer a secret that a large number of investment funds had poured into the hedge funds as mentioned in the message. Those who worked on Wall Street predicted that the situation would change depending on where those funds would go next. Therefore, the air was heavy on Wall Street, and this email had come during this time.

Above all, Jonathan focused on the fact that the sender used the word ‘feasible’ because only people working in this field could use the word in this context. He was more curious about where this email came from than who the sender was. Maybe, this was a test. Jonathan took a deep breath and put his hands over the keyboard.

- Jonathan: My office is open now. I’ll be waiting for you. If you cannot visit me, you can reach me at …

Jonathan’s hands trembled as if he had seen a ghost.