Past Life Returner 13
The power of money! In my past life, Jonathan and I had agreed that the power of finance was an SSS class skill, since financiers like Jonathan and me were the love childs of 21st century capitalism. However, the beneficiaries of the New World, the Awakened, were at the position of criticizing that notion, but had not.
Money… While I had never participated in elementary school class, (in either of my lives) I could not concentrate on the male teacher’s words at the lecture desk, even more so today. I felt that the sound of the clock ticking was deafening, and as the minute hand and the hour hand overlap, it was noon in Korea, which meant that it was ten o’clock in the morning in Thailand. The Thailand Central Bank is planning to announce that it will carry out the floating exchange rate system in thirty minutes. That’s when things will begin.
According to the previous history, the Singapore foreign exchange market, where the baht is transacted the most, is shocked and the widespread terror is like it had received a nuclear attack. It was the day the guilds, I mean groups, who had bet that Thailand would surrender, will see heaven. The groups that bet on Thailand surrendering in mid-July and those that had bet on Thailand winning would fall into hell. However, due to my aggressive intervention, those who had bet on the baht falling TODAY were just us and a small number of investors whose position we had been unable to take away. All others were tied to the baht rising, so we were waiting for the bomb to fall.
It was twelve-thirty, and the fourth period had ended. The Thailand Central Bank president came out for a press conference at lunchtime, that time of the day most loved by elementary students. I stood up to go to the teacher’s room. As always, when I moved, the students’ eyes focused on me and looked away.
I could not remember the young woman who was my homeroom teacher even after returning, and I should have if she looked as cute as she did. She gave the impression of being a cute puppy, and her head just reached my shoulder. She looked up from where she was sitting.
“Sunhoo, you seem to get taller each time I see you. How tall are you now?”
I was over six feet and simply nodded instead of speaking.
“I need to leave school early because I feel unwell.”
The woman blinked.
“You probably feel better than me.”
However, she was not hostile, as I was a student who did not cause problems in spite of my physique and got good grades. She seemed to remember that it was the first time she had heard my voice in a full sentence. She thought things over for a moment and waved her hand.
“Go.”
“Thank you.”
“But Sunhoo.”
“Yes.”
“I know that it won’t happen, but no one is bothering you, right? The reason I’m saying this is that you seem to be alone all the time.”
“…My personality is like this, and I’m more comfortable alone. Thank you for caring, teacher.”
“You even speak like an adult. Go to a hospital and see you tomorrow.”
The young teacher’s gaze was fixed on me even as I went out of the teacher’s room. She seemed to be deeply interested, and I didn’t understand why…
***
The sound of the PC accessing the internet through a modem sounded loud since my house was empty. While the phone bill for last month was over one hundred and fifty thousand won (EN: Over a hundred dollars), my parents had not said anything. After I skipped the tutorial and came to this period, I was already a son like that. For example, I was always smiling in the picture albums, but my parents knew that I was smiling for the sake of them. I was always expressionless whenever someone took a picture without me noticing them, and the background was almost always a field filled with exercise equipment, including pull-up bars.
The pictures that were taken without me noticing were usually when I was exercising. Of course, my parents had taken them, and I could feel why they had taken those pictures. I was a lot bigger than those my age, and my mental growth was the same. I was quiet and serious on all accounts. As my homeroom teacher had let me go with only a few words, my parents did not scold me with a communication expense of over one hundred and fifty thousand won, even if that was quite an amount for our family during this time. Anyway, the internet via PC communication was always slow. The speed with which I could access the Singapore foreign exchange site and the lag on the GOL messenger I used to communicate with Jonathan was excruciating. The Singapore foreign exchange site, which should be the fastest, was even slower than the messenger serviced from America. Too much traffic so I received the message first.
-J: Sun!
-N: It’s me. (EN: Sunhoo is his family name, N = Na his given name.)
-J: Tell me your full name.
-N: I like you being careful. It’s me, Sunhoo Na. Has the announcement been made?
-J: It has.
-N: How is our position ratio?
-J: 70% on 34 baht, 15% on 32, and 15% on 30.
-N: The average is 33 baht.
-J: Right.
-J: The foreign exchange information site has shut down, so I can’t check the market price. Have we come to our price range by now?
Jonathan suddenly became quiet, and I had tried to keep calm. I had consoled myself that anyone could earn the money when knowing past trends. However, I was at my limit. I tapped each letter with shaking fingers, and the silent Jonathan made my heart beat faster.
-N: Jonathan?
Jonathan must be losing his mind. He tapped a few illegible words, and finally, a coherent sentence.
-J: It’s 30 baht now. Our earning rate before liquidation is at 300, which is 60 billion dollars.
Jonathan changed his attitude like an analyst who was reporting to his superior. It seemed this was his method to TRY to calm down his emotions. While there have been times people got this earning rate with small funds, we had bet about ten billion using fiftyfold leverage from two hundred million dollars. As Jonathan had said, it was crazy and something that could not be done unless one knew the future.
-N: We’ll be doing this until the market closes.
-J: The resistance from the opposition positions, whom we had raided from, is fierce. I advise ending things now to confirm profit.
-N: As agreed in advance, I will decide the timing. You do not have to worry about the resistance from the opposite side. The situation has become one-sided from today’s announcement.
The decline would not stop until the market ended, and those resisting were not acknowledging their defeat and loss. If this were about whose passion was bigger, they would have some hope. However, as Thailand had announced their surrender, there was no chance of emotion being a factor.
History was moving on. The difference was that I should be in school, listening to a class lecture instead of trying to calm a fast-beating heart.
***
It would be some trillions of won. I realized that I would have an astronomical amount of money now, and the numbers rang in my head. While I had never touched this much money, I felt realization creeping up just by imagining the figure. While I washed my face with cold water multiple times, I still felt the heat on my face. Jonathan sent me a message every time the baht fell by 0.1. The messenger was quiet, but the numbers rang louder than anything else.
-J: 29 baht.
-J: 28.9 baht.
-J: 28.8 baht.
It was fortunate that we were separated since I knew the answers, unlike when I had opened boxes. If I had been with Jonathan, our excitement would have gone past the limit, and I might have spoken of future plans like a drug addict. Even as I wanted to believe that I would not do anything that stupid, no one knew what would happen in front of such crazy excitement. I had seen things like that happen many times, and I also had experienced such emotions. That was why I kept repressing myself and tried not to think about the amount.
Damn. My life was not on the line, and I only had to receive the results. Why do my hands shake this bad? I clenched my fists as hard as I could and opened it. It worked a little.
-N: Start to close.
Edited by Userunfriendly