CHAPTER 46: ACQUISITION PRICE: 1.5 MILLION. (1/2)

Applicant: Wu Yu.

Position: Sales trainee.

Experience: None. Fresh graduate.

Self-description: Hard-working, optimistic, not afraid of difficulties...

Suho’s eyes lit up. "Yes. Perfect. A rookie with zero ability. The exact kind of talent I need."

He skimmed the rest, keeping only the weakest candidates, then forwarded the list back.

"Notify these ones," he told Cho Rin.

She peeked at the names, puzzled. "But... you didn’t keep the experienced ones. These are mostly graduates with no background."

Suho leaned back, sipping his coffee with an evil chuckle. "Exactly."

Cho Rin sat at her desk, sorting resumes, her brows knitting tighter the more she read. Every file Suho had sent her back looked the same—young, fresh graduates with zero work experience, the kind of people who probably still called their moms to ask how to do laundry. Finally, she couldn’t hold it in. She marched into his office.

"Boss, did you send the wrong resumes? These are all rookies. No experience. Not even a summer internship."

Suho leaned back in his chair, spinning lazily, grinning like he was auditioning to be the next Bond villain. "No mistake. New company, new blood. We don’t want old dogs with bad habits. We want clueless puppies. Puppies can be trained to love the hand that feeds them."

Cho Rin tilted her head. "So... you want to train them from scratch?"

"Exactly. Fresh meat. Blank slates. They’ll be loyal because they won’t know any better." He said it with the seriousness of a philosopher, though his eyes sparkled with mischief.

She pursed her lips. It sounded ridiculous, but the more she thought about it, the more it almost made sense. "...Alright then." She went back to her desk and sent polite emails to each wide-eyed graduate, inviting them to tomorrow’s interviews.

Two days later, the office buzzed like a fresh hive. New faces, shy greetings, the smell of cheap cologne, and nerves in the air. Suho sat with his arms folded, surveying the recruits like a king inspecting his knights. The company was now seventy percent staffed, and for the first time in weeks, he felt he’d pulled one over on the system.

[System Notification: Company staffing complete. Unlocking side quest.]

[Side Quest: Own another company (must be in a different field).]

[Reward: Random intellectual property from a parallel world.]

Suho’s eyes went wide. "Wait. I can... own another company?"

He almost laughed out loud. He’d tried that trick before—scheming ways to torch system funds by registering random businesses—but the system had always blocked him, flashing warnings about violations. But now? Now it was a quest. An official side mission.

"Finally, a system that gets me." He slapped his desk. "This is it. My destiny: empire-building through bankruptcy."

Of course, starting from scratch would take too long. A month just to register a new company? By then, the settlement would be over. He needed something fast. Something messy. Something already halfway in the grave. So he pulled up the company trading platform.

It was a digital flea market of dying businesses. Cafés with cockroach infestations. Tech startups with apps nobody downloaded. A pet hotel that lost someone’s golden retriever. All screaming, "Please buy me before I collapse."

Then he saw it.

Horny Princess Interactive.

Suho’s hand froze on the mouse. The name hit him like a lightning bolt. This was the very game company that made Horny Princess Online, the notorious MMO where he had once been annihilated by rich players hurling real-world money like fireworks. He still remembered the sting of their taunts: "Pay to win, baby! Go cry to the free players!"

His eye twitched. "Oh... this is fate. Sweet, ridiculous fate."

Acquisition price: 1.5 million.

He grinned like a madman. "Perfect. I buy this wreck, get admin privileges, and rain digital hellfire on every whale that ever mocked me. You think your credit card makes you powerful? Not when I own the damn princess."

He pictured it: logging in, spawning legendary gear, rewriting the drop tables, and deleting whale accounts with a snap of his fingers. Local tyrants begging for mercy. Him, laughing like a Saturday morning cartoon villain while standing on a throne of broken servers.

Suho slammed the desk. "Done. This is the one."

But even he wasn’t reckless enough to wire that much money without a lawyer. Only one came to mind: Choi Yeji, the principled attorney who helped him with the factory purchase. Sharp eyes, sharper tongue, but reliable.

He dialed her number. "Lawyer Choi, I need your help again. I’m acquiring a company."

On the other end, Choi Yeji nearly spilled her tea. Already? It hasn’t even been a month. What is this man doing, collecting companies like rare action figures?

At that moment, she was at Tiandi Law Firm, locked in a tense standoff with her superior. He had just shoved a case file at her—an ugly one, defending a corrupt developer. She’d refused, saying she became a lawyer to fight for justice, not to sell her soul to the highest bidder. The argument was still ringing in her ears when Suho’s call came through, like fate handing her an escape.

"Mr. Kim," she said carefully, "what company are you buying this time?"

Suho forwarded the file. She opened it, scanning line after line—and froze.

A gaming company. Deep in debt. Player base fleeing. Lawsuits are piling up. The acquisition price was low, but the risk was catastrophic.

Then her eyes landed on the product name: Horny Princess Online.

She stared at the ceiling. "...You’ve got to be kidding me."

Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, Suho leaned back, sipping his coffee with a wicked grin. "So, Lawyer Choi. Are you ready to help me spend one and a half million on revenge?"

Her sigh carried the weight of ten years of courtroom battles. "Mr. Kim... sometimes I think you’re my biggest client and my biggest headache rolled into one."

Another loss-making company, another insane acquisition. This time the balance sheet looked like it had been set on fire. If nobody bought it soon, bankruptcy would swallow the place whole.