The TV was showing an interesting movie. The plot was about a modern trend where an F-class porter awakens to become an S-class hunter and saves the world. Plus, seeing the female colleagues who coldly dismissed him when he was F-class now regretfully and actively seeking his forgiveness made me feel like I had become the protagonist of the movie—thrilling!
But then a thought struck me. Why don’t the people in the movie try to resolve things through conversation? Some misunderstandings could be easily cleared up with just a minute of talking, but instead, they avoid communication like they’re eating sweet potatoes. It was frustrating to watch.
Still, from the protagonist’s perspective, it was satisfying. When he was a porter, he was always bowing and scraping, but after awakening, he became someone everyone looked up to in an instant. I thought to myself, “I wish I could be like that.”
I turned my head and glanced at Kim Bora. She was frantically typing something on her laptop. I sneakily inched closer while keeping an eye on her. Being stuck in this small room all day was suffocating, so I needed to go out for some fresh air once in a while.
Last time, I got caught running around the hallway by Kim Bora and got scolded badly, but I wasn’t the type to back down from that. After all, pioneers must take risks.
Creeping quietly…
But my escape plan was foiled by Kim Bora right at the entrance. Before I knew it, she was behind me, hugging me and dragging me back to my original spot. I was left dangling in her arms, my feet not touching the ground.
“Sigh… I can’t take my eyes off Hana for a second.”
Even though nothing dangerous would happen if I went out, Bora looked at me with an expression of distrust. My pride was hurt. I mean, I know a thing or two too!
After finishing the movie and feeling bored, I started drawing something fun with the crayons and drawing paper Lee Haru gave me. I picked up a crayon and drew a landscape full of dense trees. Kim Bora watched my drawing, resting her chin on her hand as if imagining something.
“Is this Hana’s hometown?”
Today, I had to spend the whole day with Kim Bora. I stopped basking in the sunlight and started sticking the glow-in-the-dark dinosaur she bought onto the wall. Just thinking about the dinosaur glowing brightly at night made me excited.
Tonight, I’ll probably sleep comfortably with the glowing dinosaur by my side.
—
The Starlight Research Institute’s share in the Starlight Guild, which has total sales exceeding 200 trillion, wasn’t very high. The research budget provided by the headquarters was less than 30 billion a year. In comparison, well-known corporate R&D labs receive over 200 billion annually.
Well, behind the scenes, the Starlight Research Institute only deals with the relatively docile life forms that can be brought back from raids. That’s why the risk is low, and the headquarters provides less support. It’s because there wasn’t much profit to be made.
Of course, the Starlight Guild has a proper research institute set up separately.
The budget allocated there exceeds hundreds of billions. It’s a proper tech research institution, figuring out how to apply raid byproducts to real life and how to sell them.
So, the full name, Starlight Lifeform Research Institute, isn’t given much attention by the Starlight Guild headquarters. The scale of the budget is just different. Naturally, the guild is more interested in the money-making side.
That’s one of the reasons why Director Kim Jaeman was so thrilled when he discovered Hana’s abilities. According to the report he received last time, Hana’s existence could bring in hundreds of billions a year, so he’s been nurturing her carefully.
The research institute’s annual budget is less than 30 billion, but Hana’s ability alone brings in hundreds of billions. And her full potential hasn’t even been uncovered yet.
Except for Hana, the life forms from the gates were like money-eating hippos—none of them brought any real profit. All the life forms the institute has dealt with so far had one thing in common.
They were all developed in a way to kill people. Probably because, in the gates, monsters had to fight enemies to survive, so their byproducts evolved in an aggressive direction. It’s somewhat understandable.
It could be considered a light fact.
Although they needed to use Hana, the Starlight Research Institute didn’t have many departments. Also, for a large corporation, the division of tasks between departments was quite chaotic and not well-organized. The amount of support received from the headquarters was too small to hire more people. It was a typical black company, squeezing the existing workforce instead of hiring replacements.
This was why Director Kim Jaeman had to roll up his sleeves and personally run around the field for promotion. Originally, this should have been handled by the PR team of the Starlight Guild headquarters, but there were no resources to spare for this remote research institute.
The Starlight Research Institute was like a money-sucking parasite, constantly in the red. There was zero output, and if it weren’t for the guild’s duty to protect citizens from the threat of Gates, this research institute would have been shut down long ago if it were just a regular company.
—
Kim Sangtae from the Starlight Guild’s food development department was experimenting with a strand of Hana’s hair. He was researching a method to cut the 30cm-long hair into pieces and put them into tea bags instead of stuffing the whole strand in.
The first attempt was pouring green tea into a large container and adding a single strand of hair. However, the amount of water was too much, and the flavor of the green tea didn’t come out well with just one strand. The color was also dull. It was a failure.
After testing various amounts of hair, it was determined that a quarter of a strand of hair per tea bag was the ideal amount. This was a groundbreaking discovery because it allowed them to produce four times more green tea than before.
If they could receive over 100,000 strands of hair daily, they could produce 400,000 tea bags instead of the original 100,000.
“Come to think of it, can’t we just remove some of the green tea ingredients from the tea bags?”
“Last time, we removed half of the green tea powder from the tea bags, and the flavor didn’t change much. It seems like the hair is the source of the flavor, so the surrounding ingredients don’t matter much.”
“Although the clinical trials at the Starlight Research Institute are only complete for green tea, and other products are premature, I’m confident that adding this substance to coffee or other carbonated drinks will cause a huge stir in the market. The compatibility is so good that the possibilities are endless.”
A single strand of hair miraculously reduced the cost of raw materials for green tea bags.
Thus, the cost of producing one tea bag was close to zero, but they could sell it at a price gouged by the company. They were convinced that once people tasted the addictive quality of this green tea, they wouldn’t be able to escape it.
The core executives of Starlight Food only had one thing to worry about.
“What’s the current market price of green tea?”
“On average, one tea bag sells for 40 won.”
“Let’s sell our Starlight Green Tea for 100 won. First, dominate the market with a low price, then raise the price later.”
“Won’t consumers feel resistant if we suddenly raise the price?”
“Last time, we distributed green tea to companies, and the response was explosive. Later, a survey showed that consumers would be willing to pay up to 300 won, the price of vending machine coffee.”
“Still…”
“If it doesn’t sell, I’ll take responsibility. Honestly, this is a no-brainer. The Starlight Research Institute has provided us with an ingredient that’s too good to fail in the market. We can’t mess this up.”
On the spot, the price of Starlight Green Tea was set at 10,000 won for 100 tea bags. The plan was to flood the market with a low price first, then sell at a higher price later.
And green tea was just the beginning. They could develop various products using hair in the future.
—
