Gangnam Cafe.

Beautiful women in fancy clothes chatted as they ordered coffee.

They were Baek Ah-jin and her friends.

Friends she had known since high school.

Sigh.

Baek Ah-jin sighed inwardly.

'I have to collect runes.

The reason why she, who was fully invested in growing and selling runes, came to this meeting was simple.

They were her only friends.

Not even to a meeting that only happened once every six months?

She thought the friendship would end there.

For her, still in her early twenties, it was a very important thing.

Noise, noise.

The excited stories of her friends didn't quite reach her ears.

In her head there was only Baek Jin-woo.

Do her friends know?

That her brother, who is in hospital, is the hottest player these days.

And that he started a company with the famous Yoo Ji-ah to sell information.

"Hey, didn't you say your new boyfriend is a player? Have you seen his summons? How many C-ranks does he have? He doesn't have any B-ranks, does he?"

"Wow. If your boyfriend is a player, does he get you summons? Or some good runes?"

"Really... I'm jealous."

Such topics used to be so interesting, but now they don't evoke any special feelings.

As she nodded with a blank expression, her phone rang.

Ding!

It was a message.

Brother?

It was even a message from Baek Jin-woo.

[Baek Jin-woo: Let's meet for a moment. Can you come to the open area? Can you come now?]

At that moment.

Baek Ah-jin's face lit up brighter than ever.

"Guys."

She stood up abruptly and spoke.

"Sorry, but I have to go first."

"Huh?"

"All of a sudden?"

"We were supposed to have dinner tonight."

Her friends looked disappointed.

Baek Ah-jin was quite popular even in this group.

Because she's an active player with a C-rank summon.

"Really, I'm sorry."

Baek Ah-jin clasped her hands together and bowed slightly.

"My brother called me."

"Brother?"

"The brother who had the accident earlier? Ah, he regained consciousness recently, right?"

"Is he okay now?"

Baek Ah-jin's mouth itched.

Yes!

My brother is that hot Baek Jin-woo who broke all the dungeon records in Korea!

She wanted to say it so much, but she held back as usual.

Because she had to keep her promise.

"Hehe, I'll tell you the details next time. Next time, I'll treat you all big. Sorry again!"

After apologising to her friends, Baek Ah-jin quickly gathered her clothes and bag and left the café.

***

Somewhere in Seoul.

Yoo Baek's tiny office.

"C-CEO."

Secretary Kim Byung-jin's voice trembled.

"We've really made it big, haven't we? I'm not dreaming, am I?"

Kim Byung-jin and Hwang Tae-seop.

They both looked at the final sales figures in disbelief.

After YooBaek posted the information about the sale, it practically soared into the sky.

"Oh, we haven't even started yet, what are you all talking about?"

Even Yoo Ji-ah, who spoke nonchalantly, had trembling eyebrows.

Jackpot!

The information was selling faster than expected.

In just one week, a whopping 100 players had bought it.

Because of the confidentiality clause, even a large guild bought ten copies of the videos.

Five videos and two pieces of text information.

Each video costs 100 million won, and each piece of text information costs 10 million won...

One hundred people bought 5.2 billion won worth.

Do you know how much the sales alone were?

520 billion won.

It's unbelievable.

By giving Baek Jin-woo about 1.3 billion won worth of gifts, one week's sales reached 520 billion won?

And since the costs are almost non-existent, the sales are practically the company's pure profit.

Incredible....... Even Grandpa would be speechless.

Founder of Daeseong Corporation.

If Yoo Byung-cheon were to hear this, he would clap his hands in appreciation.

The problem is that this is just the beginning.

For a start.

Thanks to the confidentiality clause, there will be countless players who will buy the information.

Even with low-grade information, the future value looks promising.

And when medium, high and top level information is released?

That will bring in even more money.

Second.

Actually, this is the real profit.

The summons that were stockpiled in advance suddenly started selling like hotcakes.

C-rank for 2 billion, B-rank for 10 billion.

If you were to give away the exact same set that was given to Baek Jin-woo, do you know how much that would be?

A whopping 5.4 billion.

After all the fees, that leaves about 4 billion won in profit per person.

Swallow.

Yoo Ji-ah swallowed her saliva as she looked at the sales sheet again.

Although it was written in a complicated way, the final summary was as follows.

[Sales Sheet]

Information Sales revenue - 520 billion won.

Sales revenue - 3.25 trillion won.

Total 3.77 trillion won.

Of course, they still have to deduct taxes and pay back the borrowed money...

But it was still a jackpot.

Even as third-generation chaebol, the amount took their breath away.

And this time, it was all due to her own efforts, not Daeseong's power.

"Hoo, hoo."

Yoo Ji-ah took a deep breath to calm her excitement.

Then she addressed her employees.

"With the business potential confirmed, it's time to make serious investments."

"What do you mean by serious investment?"

Kim Byung-jin tilted his head.

"Here."

Yoo Ji-ah pointed to the office.

"Don't you think it's a bit cramped?"

"It is, compared to the headquarters."

"If we want to take care of Baek Jin-woo properly, we'll have to expand. We'll need a lot of office space if we hire a legal team and an accounting team.

YooBaek is no longer just a small company.

It's a giant management company that takes care of hitmaker Baek Jin-woo.

"First, let's buy some land and buildings. I've already found a few places.

YooBaek has many ways to make money in the future.

Selling information, private requests, tutoring, and so on.

Yoo Ji-ah asked Baek Jin-woo's opinion about this, and luckily Baek Jin-woo was open to all possibilities.

And.

Yoo Ji-ah didn't forget what Baek Jin-woo had asked for.

'Personal training grounds and family protection.

All earnings from this time would be reinvested for that.

***

Every day Baek Jin-woo is in one of two places.

A regular dungeon or an open field.

After completing his rounds in the weekly dungeons, he would always go to one of these two places to train or hunt.

Baek Ah-jin, who had climbed the path to reach the open field, was immediately wide-eyed.

What is all this?

Summons that looked dazzling at first glance were training in formation, and they were all familiar to her.

'Battle Marshals and Priests of Radiance?

And that wasn't all.

'Spotted Komodo, Gale Falcon, Titan Golem, Horned Fairy, Frost Panther, Sky Dolphin, even Celestial Wyvern...'

And then.

Thud, thud, thud!

Three Lava Drakes patrolled menacingly.

And the armoured man who seemed to be leading them.

The one who suppressed my Shadow Elf last time!

A glance.

Hun Gyo turned his head to look at Baek Ah-jin.

Flinch!

Baek Ah-jin shivered, but soon resumed his command as if he didn't care.

"Oh, you're here."

Thud!

Baek Jin-woo, who was doing a handstand in the corner, held his pose and wiped his sweat.

"What the hell...?

Baek Ah-jin was startled once again.

It was her brother's physique.

Was his body always this good?

No.

It couldn't be.

In the hospital, he had lived on drips, practically a skeleton...

When had he become like this?

His bare torso was covered in lean muscle.

Enough abs to do the laundry.

Swoosh.

There was something strange about Baek Jin-woo as he wiped off his sweat with a towel.

She didn't know it, but Baek Jin-woo had gone through an immense amount of training.

Although players could technically relax, Baek Jin-woo did not like it.

Letting the summons do all the work while the player relaxed went against his values.

"Brother, what's all this?"

Baek Ah-jin asked, trying to calm his surprised heart.

"Huh? What?"

"These summons!"

Baek Ah-jin silently looked at the summons that were focused on training.

By the way, a player can only have up to fifteen summons at the same time.

This is because they can only operate three teams.

"These are the popular summons! Their prices are rising, and experienced traders are always looking for them! How much is all this..."

Recently, certain summons have skyrocketed in price.

Exactly those summons.

Even though all the listings had been cleared, famous players were still scrambling to get their hands on them.

Naturally, rumours spread.

There were even rumours that YooBaek was buying these summons because of the information they'd sold.

No way.

Baek Ah-jin's mouth opened slightly.

Yes, it's true!

It all fits perfectly!

"Brother, did you break the record with those summons?"

"Yes."

"Where did you get all this?"

"Do you remember Yoo Ji-ah from last time? She gave them to me."

"Gave?"

All those expensive things?

"Not to the company, but to you personally?"

"Yes, she said it was a gift."

"Swallow."

She had nothing more to say.

She had already used up her surprises for the day.

"Anyway, Ah-jin. Thank you for coming as soon as I called."

"Oh, right. Why did you call?"

"Are you still selling runes well?"

"Yes, I sold some yesterday."

"Then come here for a moment."

Baek Jin-woo led them to a corner of the open field.

And there.

Whirring!

He started to take out numerous runes and materials he'd collected during his weekly dungeon runs.

Even though they were of low quality, it was an impressive amount.

"What... is all this?"

"This is what I collected while hunting. Want to check them out?"

Baek Ah-jin picked up each item on the ground and checked the information.

For the record, once things are laid out like that, someone can just pick them up without a transaction.

So you can't lay things out unless you really trust the person.

"This is a Swift rune? But the option isn't that great. Oh? Wow, amazing! A Severing Rune with a critical strike chance? That could sell for a good price!"

Baek Ah-jin started to comment as she examined each rune one by one.

"Sharper than I thought.

Baek Jin-woo, who watched with crossed arms, noticed that about his sister.

The severing rune has an effect that increases the critical hit chance.

If the option of the rune increases the critical hit chance even more?

It becomes quite valuable.

Maybe it's because she sells runes all the time... She has a keen sense of the value of runes.

Not only did she know the effects of the common runes with high drop rates, but she also knew the effects of the rarer runes.

And it wasn't just runes.

It was impressive how she could judge the value of skill books and materials just by looking at them.

Of course.

Baek Ah-jin practically lived in the "marketplace".

She was sensitive to real-time information, knew the current prices and was even into arbitrage trading.

That's why she recognised all of Baek Jin-woo's calls as soon as she saw them.

After watching for a moment, Baek Jin-woo nodded.

"Ah-jin."

"Yes?"

She, who was sorting runes and materials as if possessed, looked up.

"Would you like to try to sell these?"

"These... me?"

Baek Ah-jin's eyes widened.

She was confident.

Even professional rune sellers often marvelled at her selling skills when they saw her.

Ever since she was young, she had always been more interested in trading than hunting, no matter what the game.

The thrill of selling cheap items at a high price was more enjoyable than leveling up her character.

If I did all the selling...

There would be no time to farm runes.

But?

Of course, she was more interested in selling runes than farming them.

No.

Her heart pounded with excitement that went beyond mere interest.

"How much commission will you give me?"

Baek Ah-jin asked carefully.

She could do it for free once for her brother, but she also had to prepare for her future.

She couldn't always work for free.

"Commission? How much do you want?"

"Usually, when players place items with big wholesalers, they take about 8-10% of the profit."

"Oh, really?"

There were companies that sold items for you?

That must be convenient.

"Yes, but you're family and you're a great player. So... I'll just take 5%. That seems fair."

After some thought, Baek Ah-jin nodded.

It was a fair offer.

For a player like my brother, companies would be eager to take him on.

They'd probably be willing to take a financial hit to recruit him.

And now she was getting that chance herself.

All because they were family!

Heh.

Baek Jin-woo chuckled as he looked at his sister.

Cute.

He'd only asked her to sell the items, but she set the commission and was even fair about it.

'But...'

Baek Jin-woo hadn't intended to use his sister.

It was all for her sake.

"Forget the 5%. No need to be stingy."

"Huh?"

"I'll give you a generous 20%. So do your best. There will be even rarer and better runes later, so be prepared to work hard."

"What?"

Baek Ah-jin's mouth fell open.

R-really?

All that, for 20%?

Is that even possible?

"Ahhhh."

Baek Ah-jin was on the verge of happiness overload.

She made up her mind right then and there.

Starting today, she'd give up rune farming and become a dedicated marketplace expert.

A professional marketplace seller, just for Baek Jin-woo.