Chapter 22: The Ambitious One (3)

The Life Creation Team received an award at the seminar that finished off the year and drank into the night.

On Saturday morning, Young-Joon began his calculations. The amount of his bonus hadn’t been decided yet, and even if it had, he would get it next month on his payday. However, his cash prize for the awards was given to him on the day of the seminar itself.

He had received one hundred million won from the Revolutionary Scientist Award and the Award for Exceptional Performance combined; it was 2.5 times more than his salary. He didn’t get a lot of money from the Award for Exceptional Performance because he was only a Scientist, but he was given a lot for the Revolutionary Scientist Award as it was usually given to lead scientists and above.

‘I should send some to my family first.’

Young-Joon wouldn’t be able to fix his family’s debt with this, but this would give them some room.

Ring!

Young-Joon got a call as he was about to send money to his mother after sending some to Ryu Ji-Won, his younger sister.

[Ryu Ji-Won]

—What is this? Where did you get this money?

Ryu Ji-Won asked with a high-pitched voice as soon as Young-Joon picked up the phone.

“I sent you some allowance, that’s all.”

—I think you put too many zeros on it. Do I just send it back?

“No, I sent you a million won. That’s correct.”

—I got ten million won.

“Oh, I sent you the wrong amount. Sorry. I’ll read you my bank account number right now.”

—Right? You would’ve starved tomorrow.

Young-Joon could hear Ryu Ji-Won snicker over the phone.

—I’ll just send all of it back. I don’t really need money right now. What would a student need money for anyway? Just give it to Mom for our debt.

“I was going to give you one million won and give the rest to Mom. Ah, you just keep one million won and transfer the rest to her.”

—Are you serious?

“Of course. It doesn’t matter whether I send it or you send it.

—No, I mean, are you okay with sending this much money?

“Yeah, I’m fine. I got a bonus from work.

—Holy...

“So have all of it. You can use all of it.”

—Really? You’re serious, right? It was really inconvenient not having a laptop. Can I buy one? No take-backs.

“Yes, you can.”

—Thank you so much. You’re the best. I love you.

Young-Joon hung up the phone and looked at the remaining amount.

‘Ninety million won.’

Young-Joon called Park Joo-Hyuk.

—Yeah. What’s up?

Park Joo-Hyuk picked up with an indifferent voice.

“What are you doing?

—I’m gamin... Ah! You frustrating assholes, how could you not get that! These damn Ryu Young-Joons... Agh!

“...”

—Hey, hang up if it’s nothing urgent. I have to go clean up their shit. I have to go do the teamfight of the century right...

“Can you come out for a bit?”

—What? Why?

“To pay you back.”

* * *

Park Joo-Hyuk came out wearing sweats and slippers. His hair was a mess, and he had gunk in his eye. Who could possibly think he was a lawyer?

“What do you mean you’re paying me back already? You borrowed it a week ago.” Park Joo-Hyuk yawned and sat down at the coffee shop table.

“I got an award from A-Gen.”

“With the drug you made before?”

“No, A-Gen doesn’t know about that. And that has nothing to do with them, so they won’t give me an award for that.”

“Then with what?”

“It’s called induced pluripotent stem cells. You insert a few genes into a human-derived kidney cell and revert the differentiation stage to the beginning. You can make it into a similar state to embryos and use it to make...

“Okay! That’s enough. Alright, I get it. So you got a prize? How much did you get?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“One hundred million won.”

Park Joo-Hyuk’s jaw dropped to the floor.

“Seriously?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“Well, I have a lot of debt to pay back, whether it’s mine or my family’s, but I can’t pay back all of it with this anyway. I thought I should pay you back in advance because I owe you a lot, and I’ll owe you a lot in the future as well. I said that I’ll pay you back five times more, right? I’ll send it to you right now.”

“...”

Park Joo-Hyuk stared at Young-Joon blankly and then said, “No. Five times more in a week is way over the legal rate of interest.”

“Are you from the Financial Supervisory Service? I want to give it to you, so what’s the problem?”

“Just pay me back five million won so I can pay back that hyung.”[1]

“You lent me some money too, right?” Young-Joon asked.

“Let’s call it an investment. And I don’t have a lot to spend on right now anyway. I want to see how the cold medicine you made turns out.”

“It’s not cold medicine. It’s a treatment for the flu.”

“Whatever that is.”

“Well, alright. It’s good for me since I have a lot to spend on. Then I’ll pay you back next time. Hey, Joo-Hyuk, can you help me out?”

“Help you out with what?!”

“I’m thinking of writing a contract related to the stem cell patent I developed at the company. Can you take a look at it?’

Young-Joon pulled out his laptop.

“What is this?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“I wrote something like this for splitting the royalties for the patent, right?”

“Hm.”

Park Joo-Hyuk read every line in the document in detail.

“So? How is it?”

“Shut up. Let me focus.”

Young-Joon remembered Park Joo-Hyuk doing nothing every time he saw him, but it seemed like he was still a lawyer. It was quite nice to see Park Joo-Hyuk focus hard on something that was similar to his job.

“And you made this stem cell technology by yourself?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“Yeah. I used some of the facilities in Lab Six.”

“Was there any information you got from A-Gen when you were developing this? Any papers published from other departments of A-Gen?”

“No. And this technology can’t have anything to reference off of. This advancement is on another level.”

“And you did that?”

“In two weeks.”

“I think you’re getting weirder and weirder, but alright. Okay, list me everyone who participated in developing this technology, even if it’s a little bit.”

“It’s the people listed here: Koh Soon-Yeol, Park Dong-Hyun, and Jung Hae-Rim. That’s all of them.”

“You don’t want to give the executives or the shareholders any share of the royalties, right?”

As Park Joo-Hyuk was Young-Joon’s old friend, he instantly read his mind.

“Yeah. What do you think of the contract?”

“It’s full of shit. All else aside, what is this thing about eighty percent of the royalties being used as funding for your department and you having the final approval of it? Did you write this thinking that your company’s executives would sign off on this?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think that signature is your cause of death?[2] You told me your executives are hot-tempered. They might bash your head in when they see you.”

“Don’t worry about that part. I have a way to get past that. See if there’s any risk of it becoming false later on.”

“I think it will be fine if you can get over that part.”

“Really?”

“You developed anticancer drugs before, and these are stem cells, so they’re different, right?”

“They are.”

“Then even if you used A-Gen facilities, it’s a small percentage. So you could take this to court by claiming you have the full rights over this as an off-duty employee invention. It’s not ridiculous for you to claim ten percent.”

“Alright, good.”

“And you gave eighty percent of the patent to the company, right? The problem is that you’re trying to get the final approval, but... I don’t think your company will agree to this, but if you get them to agree somehow, it will be fine.”

“Right?”

“But they can sue you if those guys change their minds. Then it gets exhausting. It’s really difficult for an individual to fight against a company.”

𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

“That’s enough for me. I don’t want it to go to a legal dispute. And the contract just has to be legitimate.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll make a deal with the superiors if they call me, whether it be the lab directors or management. Can you help me if I have to change the contract?”

“I have a pretty steep rate as an appointed attorney.”

“You didn’t even get appointed...”

* * *

Young-Joon was able to save a lot of money since Park Joo-Hyuk didn’t take the money. He was going to get a huge bonus in a month, and he would be able to escape poverty when he sold the flu treatment to an alright pharmaceutical company.

Right now, Young-Joon wasn’t pressed for money. However, he decided to invest the extra money on a new drug rather than spending it all. Aside from A-Gen, he was thinking of owning a large number of patents for new drugs, similar to the treatment for the flu. This was going to be his ammunition for when he was going to become the center of A-Gen’s executives. He was going to grow his reputation with stem cells and follow-up research, and then show his hidden card. Until then, he had to have as many powerful patents up his sleeve.

There weren’t any companies that could do a project as big as stem cells except for A-Gen, but other diseases could be done with Reaction Chemistry and Cell Bio.

The problem was his fitness. Rosaline was still at level two, and his maximum fitness was 1.8.

‘But maybe?’

Young-Joon turned on Synchronization Mode and searched for the cure for liver cancer.

[You do not have enough fitness.]

[Liver cancer is too complicated to analyze at once.]

And on an early Sunday morning...

Ring!

Young-Joon woke up to the sound of an alarm.

[Currently, you are not getting enough physical activity. Rosaline requires the following in order to recover this: three hours of jogging. Reward: 0.5 Fitness.]

Young-Joon was now wide awake. Before, Rosaline leveled up when he granted her request when his fitness was full.

Young-Joon quickly put on his jacket and ran outside. There was a pretty big park about ten minutes down the road.

“Hup!”

Young-Joon took a deep breath and started running.

Pitter patter!

An appropriate amount of stimulation was going to be effective for Rosaline’s development and fitness maintenance.

As Young-Joon was running and getting out of breath a few minutes later, he saw a message pop up in front of him.

[Activating Rosaline, who has been metastasized to the lung.]

[Rosaline starts optimizing breathing.]

He had seen these messages before when he was running to the seminar hall. He wasn’t feeling out of breath anymore.

The amount of air an adult breathed in in one breath was about five hundred milliliters. Since twenty percent of that was oxygen, one hundred milliliters of oxygen was basically being breathed in. But was all of that absorbed? No. Fifteen percent of the breath breathed out was oxygen. The lungs weren’t all that efficient since they only absorbed twenty-five milliliters of oxygen even if they breathed in five hundred milliliters.

As Young-Joon was running with energy...

“Oh!”

Young-Joon almost ran into someone when they came out of nowhere.

“What are you doing!” Young-Joon shouted as he barely dodged them. He saw that it was Song Ji-Hyun. She was also surprised to see him.

“Oh, the probiotics!”

“...My name is Ryu Young-Joon.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but please help me!”

* * *

Song Ji-Hyun had a golden retriever. It was a big dog, which could be difficult for a woman to take care of on her own, but she had taken good care of it until now. It was because she was very attentive to her dog and because Brownie, her golden retriever, was very gentle. Her dog was very calm at home if it got enough exercise and walks.

Song Ji-Hyun took her five-year-old Brownie on a walk every morning. She thought it was weird that Brownie, who usually ran in front of her, panting in happiness, was slow and weak today. Then, Brownie stopped in the middle of the walk.

“Kack!”

Then, Brownie vomited and collapsed. Surprised, Song Ji-Hyun tried to pick Brownie up and go to the nearby animal hospital, but it wasn’t easy. Controlling a big dog by its leash and picking up an unconscious big dog was a totally different thing.

So, Song Ji-Hyun decided to ask for help. Not a lot of people were at the park this early in the morning, but there was one man wearing a hat who was jogging with incredible stamina. She had stopped him since he happened to be right in front of her. That was Young-Joon.

“Where is the dog sick?” Young-Joon asked after hearing the situation.

“I don’t know. Brownie just suddenly collapsed... The vet is just across the street. Can you help me?”

Young-Joon took out his phone and looked at the clock.

“It’s eight in the morning right now. Do you think they’re open?”

“Oh.”

Song Ji-Hyun went pale.

“W-What should we do?”

She looked like she was going to cry at any moment. Young-Joon glanced at the dog.

[Synchronization Mode: Would you like to gain insight into parvovirus? Fitness consumption rate: 0.04/second.]

‘Parvovirus?’

Young-Joon remembered hearing about it during his virology lecture when he was an undergraduate student. It was a virus that infected animals, especially canines.

‘I’m not a vet, but maybe I’ll take a look.’

[Activating Synchronization Mode!]

1. Hyung is an informal way for a man to call a man older than him. ?

2. This is a Korean wordplay with Hanja, Chinese characters used in Korea. Sa-in, or sign, is the Hanja for cause of death and the short-form of signature. Park Joo-Hyuk is joking that this contract will be Young-Joon’s cause of death because it is so ridiculous. ?