thenovelthief Chapter 143
Chapter 143
Translator: Dreamscribe“Chancellor, we’ve received new negotiation terms from Kwangwoon.”
German Chancellor Olaf let out a deep sigh.
He had already mentally prepared himself.
Unless Kwangwoon was completely foolish, they wouldn’t maintain the price at three times like before.
They would definitely demand even more money.
Looking at the currently soaring market prices, hadn’t they already gone up to nearly seven times?
It was clear Kwangwoon would want a price in that range.
“How much is it?”
“77 dollars per mmbtu.”
“......?”
Chancellor Olaf blinked.
“Did I mishear that? 77 dollars? That’s 11 times higher than the original price!”
The chief secretary delivering the report tightly shut his eyes.
“Yes. It’s 11 times higher than the pre-Russian war price.”
It was so absurd that he couldn’t even get angry.
“Is that a price that makes any sense? Asking for 11 times more now? They’re really out of their minds.”
“The other party is Kwangwoon. They always act irrationally.”
“Absolutely not! Even robbers don’t charge 11 times! Just look into other markets instead.”
“But the prices in other markets have also risen to nearly 7 times.”
“Still better than 11 times!”
“The problem is that even if we buy at 7 times the price, it still won’t be enough to meet the demand for all of Eastern Europe.”
Chancellor Olaf furrowed his brow.
The price was one thing, but the real issue was the supply.
Right now, the entity holding the most natural gas was Kwangwoon.
Other sources were also producing natural gas as much as they could, but they couldn’t fill the sudden gap immediately.
“What about sending ships to Russia to bring it in?”
“That’s a major problem too. We’ve never brought in natural gas by ship before, so if we try to do that now, we’ll need special ships for transporting natural gas. The issue is, to handle that transport, we’d have to use Kwangwoon Shipping.”
"What? We have to rely on Kwangwoon even for that?"
“Yes. Kwangwoon practically dominates the shipping industry. Even if we make a request, they wouldn’t accept it. They’ll want to sell their own natural gas.”
In the end, it meant that there was no way to obtain natural gas without going through Kwangwoon.
"But still, 11 times! They want us to pay 77 dollars and buy that? I absolutely cannot accept this."
However, the price had long since crossed the line.
“Still, there’s no other way.......”
“Find another solution, no matter what it takes. Honestly, even paying 7 times makes my blood boil, and now they want 11 times? So just look into other markets!”
Eleven times was an amount he absolutely could not agree to.
Of course, Kwangwoon was holding all the natural gas now, but isn’t there a saying?
We always find a way.
***
"So you couldn't find any way at all and ended up sending an SOS to the EU?"
“.......”
Germany, which had seemed to be moving actively to resolve the natural gas issue.
The Chancellor had confidently declared he would find a solution, but the wall of reality was cold.
“You do realize, thanks to all the fuss you made, natural gas prices have gone up even more, right?”
“W-why is that my fault?”
“Because of all the noise you made, the news that Kwangwoon proposed 11 times the price spread, and everyone started raising their prices.”
Chancellor Olaf had no words in response to EU President Charol’s remarks.
To prepare against Kwangwoon’s absurd pricing, Germany had scrapped the negotiations and looked into other markets.
The problem was that once the rumor of Kwangwoon’s 11-times price spread, every other supplier holding natural gas drastically raised their prices too.
“Right now, the lowest price available is over 70 dollars. The problem is, there’s so little supply on the market that everyone is scrambling to buy it all.”
“Shouldn’t we take some kind of action?”
“What action? The EU can’t just arbitrarily decide natural gas prices, can it? If you had just signed the contract with Kwangwoon when they offered three times the price, none of this would’ve happened. Why on earth did you go and join hands with Russia back then.......”
"Are you saying this is our fault? If we had paid 3 times the price, how much damage would we have suffered!"
“And now what’s the result? You’re having to pay 11 times the price.”
“What Charol says is true. The EU was working hard to coordinate negotiations with Kwangwoon, but Germany stabbed us in the back like that, how could you expect Kwangwoon to cooperate now?”
Chancellor Olaf ground his teeth.
He had thought the EU was on the same side.
But it was just a union in name only.
They were all just acting for their own interests.
Still, it wasn’t wrong.
If they had signed the contract with Kwangwoon back then, none of this would have happened.
No, all of this had happened because Nord Stream was blown up.
“Have the ones who blew up Nord Stream been caught?”
“Several experts from different countries have looked into it, but frankly, it seems impossible to catch them.”
“Anyone can see it was those Ukrainian bastards, right? And it’s clear Kwangwoon is behind Ukraine too. And yet you’re saying you can’t catch them?”
“There’s no evidence. We have our suspicions, but how can we accuse someone based on suspicion alone? More importantly, the United States is currently claiming that it was Russia who caused all of this.”
At this point, Olaf began to get angry.
“This is clearly a conspiracy by Kwangwoon! We should be thinking about punishing those bastards immediately, how can you justify wasting time like this?”
“I told you, there’s no evidence. And if we really do go ahead and punish Kwangwoon, what are you going to do about the natural gas? If Kwangwoon stops releasing their supply, that 11-times price could go up to 20 times. Can you handle that?”
“That’s.......”
Natural gas at 20 times the price.
It wasn’t just an exaggeration.
If they ended up going head-to-head with Kwangwoon like this, it really could happen.
“Besides, Kwangwoon has an extremely good public image abroad. Those cunning bastards make large donations every time they pull something off.”
Kwangwoon was actively distributing donations through its foundation.
They also heavily exaggerated these activities on social media, so their external image was very positive.
“This time too, Kwangwoon sent as much as 100 million dollars in environmental donations to the Baltic Sea. They even made a video about it and spread it all over SNS. Have you seen the video? It was made so touching and emotional. Just look at the comments. It’s ridiculous. Everyone’s full of praise, saying only Kwangwoon cares about the destroyed environment.”
Kwangwoon sends donations either before or after they cause an incident.
It was like some kind of ritual.
Before causing an incident, it’s like a warning letter.
After the incident, it’s like planting a flag.
It may seem brazen, but to those on the receiving end, it’s a terrifying kind of donation.
But there’s no way to sanction it.
If they say they’re donating for a good cause, how could anyone refuse it by claiming bad intentions?
“So, what’s the conclusion? Are you telling us to buy natural gas at a price 11 times higher?”
“There’s no other way. Since Germany keeps maintaining a negative stance, the contract negotiations aren’t making any progress.”
At President Perron’s words, Chancellor Olaf frowned.
“You hated Kwangwoon so much, and now that your reelection date is coming up, you’re just flipping your stance like that?”
“I admit I did some showboating for the sake of reelection. But the situation is different now. I’m really worried. If this goes on and natural gas prices shoot up to the moon, how are you going to handle all the complaints and backlash?”
Perron had pushed forward the EU negotiations using his reelection as an excuse, but now he no longer had the luxury.
If natural gas prices went any higher, it would spiral into an uncontrollable disaster.
“.......”
Olaf realized that now was not the time to be stubborn anymore.
Right now, his feelings were something like...
It felt as if he had become a defeated man signing a declaration of surrender.
***
I normally don’t use SNS much.
In the past, the only communities I browsed were gaming communities.
But these days, I try to keep a close eye on SNS and online communities.
Surprisingly, the trends that come out of there reflect the current situation well, and sometimes they even evolve into investment ideas.
“But... this video, was it made by us?”
“Huh? Ah, this one.”
Then, I happened to see a video circulating on SNS.
It was about none other than the donation being carried out by our Kwangwoon Foundation.
“There’s a separate video about the Baltic Sea donation this time too.”
“Yes. From what I know, the Chairman said that since the Kwangwoon Foundation is doing good work, people should be aware of it, so he had the marketing team produce the video. If you do good things, you deserve to be praised.”
The saying "Let not your right hand know what your left hand is doing" is, in truth, an outdated one.
Nowadays, the right hand should widely and extravagantly publicize what the left hand has done.
Because that becomes a factor in boosting a company’s brand image.
“Judging by the video quality, it must’ve cost quite a bit.”
“Yes. I heard the Chairman instructed not to spare any expense for the video production. And honestly, it really is well made. It’s a short video, but it’s moving and hits the key points clearly. Above all, the public response has been very positive.”
Even I thought the video quality was excellent.
But since I’m the one operating the foundation and didn’t do it to show off, maybe that’s why it felt a bit cringey, in a way.
“But in the long term, I think it’s a good thing. From my perspective, we should create more of these marketing videos and distribute them. Our foundation employees are going into some really rough areas and working hard, it can’t just go unnoticed.”
Now that I hear it, that makes sense.
In the video, the employees sincerely helping people and making an effort were clearly shown.
For their sake, too, it seemed right to keep producing these videos.
“Tell them to continue making them actively from now on. So the staff can be well represented.”
“Yes, CEO-nim. Ah, and the EU is about to give their final sign-off.”
“So... they’re going to buy the natural gas?”
“Yes. At first, when we proposed 11 times the price, I never thought they’d accept it. But it seems like others got wind of our 11-times offer too, and they all started raising their prices like crazy. The EU probably thinks we’ve been price-fixing.”
Even to me, 11 times was an extremely unreasonable price.
I didn’t think the EU would ever accept it unless they were out of their minds, but the market operates on a different logic.
Because of the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, natural gas prices had been steadily rising, and when we proposed 11 times, that became the final blow.
Now, the analysis was that if the EU didn’t accept our offer, the price of natural gas could spike up to nearly 20 times.
“As expected, you had it all figured out, CEO-nim. You attacked the weak spot in the market pricing perfectly. Even the 11-times pricing was incredibly well-calculated. I’ve been working under you for a long time, but I still feel there’s so much more to learn.”
To be honest, I didn’t expect things to go this far either.
But whatever the case.
If it worked out, then that’s what matters, isn’t it?
“Then take care of the EU deal accordingly. As soon as the agreement is signed, have the ships ready to immediately begin supplying the natural gas.”
“Yes. I’ll see to it that we can move out the entire volume. And from wheat to nickel, it looks like shipping is going to be extremely busy from now on.”
It felt like I was finally unloading a burden that had piled up.
Hadn’t we been incurring significant storage costs all this time while holding such large quantities since last year?
“CEO-nim, this came from KW Exchange.”
But as soon as one issue wrapped up, the next task came in right away.
I unfolded the document that Hye-rin handed me.
“This... isn’t this the same one we reviewed before?”
The list of candidate coins for listing on KW Exchange.
Since the COVID era, coin listings had surged dramatically.
And as the CEO of KW Exchange, I decide which of those coins make it into our market.
Primarily, the employees would first screen the coins to determine whether they were legitimate or scams, narrowing down the candidates, and then pass them on to me for review.
Then, based on my instincts, I would select the appropriate coins and list them on our market.
“Thanks to the COVID boom, the coin market saw explosive growth. That led to a surge in competing coin exchanges popping up everywhere. One of them is this place called FTX, and its scale has been growing at an alarming rate.”
Our KW Exchange is the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world.
However, with the recent bankruptcy of Losthood, we expanded our market to allow trading of foreign stocks, further increasing our influence.
But perhaps because we’d been a bit neglectful on the Bitcoin side, several competing coin exchanges had been aggressively catching up.
Among them, the most threatening was this one called FTX.
“FTX is gaining attention because it has more listed coins than our exchange. It’s also listing a lot of things like meme coins. Of course, that means there are a lot of scam coins as well. Still, the number of members chasing that one big jackpot is increasing, so its popularity is soaring.”
There are many different types of coins.
With the rise of so-called meme coins, too many operators were getting in for a quick hit and pulling out right away.
That’s why our exchange reviewed coins more rigorously than others.
“FTX is recklessly listing coins just to increase their membership. So there are many problematic ones. But that’s also exactly why users are flocking to them. That’s why our exchange employees picked out some of those coins, including ones listed only on other exchanges, and sent them to you as candidates, CEO-nim.”
It seemed that if we stayed on this path, we would continue to lose members to FTX, so our exchange was trying to increase the number of listed coins as well.
It was a valid point, so I began reviewing the list of candidates.
“.......”
However, maybe the employees had relaxed the screening criteria too much, because nothing really stood out to me. The list was filled with coins that reeked of fraud.
As I continued scanning the list while checking off the few that seemed passable.
“......?”
One thing caught my eye.
But it wasn’t because the coin looked promising.
Among this list was a coin, or rather, coins, drenched in the darkest darkness and a chaotic swirl of red.
“Luna, Terra?”
*****
For 30 or more extra chapters, you can check out my Patreon here --> patreon.com/dreamscribe
If you enjoy this novel, please review and rate it at Novelupdates. Thanks! ????
To receive the latest update notifications or report mistakes, join our Discord server linked below.