I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 10

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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010-Management Corporation
10. Management Corporation
“Section Chief, did you see this?”
“See what?”
Park Sung-geun and Jung Ye-ji, employees of the Bukhansan National Park Management Corporation.
Jung Ye-ji, who had been eating lunch while scrolling through her phone, suddenly showed him her screen.
On Bukhansan Peak, a man stood holding a bowl of cold noodles in a disposable plastic cup.
The sweat drenching his face and soaked clothing spoke volumes about how grueling his climb up the mountain had been.
The cold noodles in his hand, topped with ice shards floating on the surface, looked like they would instantly sweep away his exhaustion.
The panoramic view of Seoul spreading out behind the man was breathtaking.
Without hesitation, the man stirred the noodles vigorously and slurped them down,
then gulped down the cold broth in satisfied swallows.
Even Park Sung-geun, watching from below, found himself swallowing hard at how deliciously the man was eating.
Never mind that Park Sung-geun was in the middle of his own lunch.
Bukhansan Peak, the man’s sweat, and the ice-laden cold noodles formed a perfect picture together.
“He’s really enjoying those noodles, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“But it looks like he’s selling them at the peak.”
“What?”
“Look at the hashtags.”
#BukhansanPeak #BukhansanVibes #BukhansanColdNoodles #NoodleRestaurant #ColdNoodlesAfterSweating #ArriveLateAndYouMissOut #WaterNoodlesOrSpicyNoodles
Huh?
This wasn’t right.
My sense of duty as a Bukhansan Management Corporation employee kicked in.
If hikers brought cold noodles themselves and ate them at the peak, there would be no problem.
As long as they weren’t cooking on the mountain, eating food they’d brought was perfectly fine.
That’s why many people brought vegetables or packed lunches.
But selling food on the mountain,
inside a national park,
without permission?
That was an entirely different matter.
If caught selling food without a license,
it violated both the Natural Parks Act and the Food Sanitation Act.
This was something that needed to be enforced.
“Let’s head up after lunch. Romance and illegality are two different things.”
*******
Park Sung-geun climbed to the summit.
Being a corporation employee didn’t make it any easier.
Climbing the mountain was just as grueling as for anyone else, and just as breathtaking.
Huff, huff, huff, huff.
Should I have just pretended not to notice?
No, it’s better to address this once and for all.
When I reached the Mountain Peak, many people were standing in line.
It was a sight rarely seen at the summit on a normal day.
Usually, when people reach the peak, they rest and admire the scenery.
It’s uncommon to see people standing in line.
But here, a long queue stretched out.
And at the end of that line, a young man sat at a table selling items.
Park Sung-geun approached the man selling items.
“I’m from the park management office.”
“Yes, hello.”
The man selling items greeted him warmly.
What’s this?
This fresh reaction?
It was a response I’d never seen from people selling items before.
Those people would scramble to pack up their goods and flee the moment park management appeared.
And after enforcement actions repeated a couple of times, they wouldn’t show up again.
So the park management staff didn’t take it too seriously either.
Sometimes people would act crazy and claim they’d done nothing wrong, but once they got hit with a fine, that talk would disappear.
Selling items, food, picking wild vegetables, breaking branches, or making fires in national parks could mostly be punished under relevant laws.
On top of that,
selling food adds a violation of food hygiene laws.
Selling items can result in additional punishment under local ordinances regarding street vending.
So the moment Park Sung-geun said he was from the park management office, this young man should have gotten scared and run away.
Yet he greeted me warmly instead.
Is he insane?
“Under the Natural Parks Law, conducting commercial activities in national parks without designated locations or permits incurs fines.”
“Excuse me? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that selling items here can result in fines.”
“But what exactly do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“I’m telling you that you can’t sell items here.”
“But I haven’t sold anything here?”
“What? You haven’t sold anything? I just witnessed you selling items right now.”
“I wasn’t selling—I was making a delivery.”
“Huh???”
“Isn’t delivery allowed in national parks? These people pre-ordered, so I came here with their food and delivered what they ordered. Is that a crime?”
“That… that is…”
When Park Sung-geun was at a loss for words, Jung Ye-ji, standing beside him, chimed in.
“You received payment. We recorded all the payments we received.”
“In-person settlement when we meet? Since mountains are always subject to change, we switched to in-person settlement when we meet. What if it had rained today? I couldn’t have come, and these customers couldn’t have either, so only the customers who paid in advance would suffer losses. We did in-person settlement to prevent that, and that’s also a crime?”
It’s not a crime.
What crime is there in delivering food from a mountain?
The problem is that it doesn’t look that way.
“Then show me the delivery requests from your customers. If you do, I’ll just let it slide.”
“Bring a warrant. That would violate the Personal Information Protection Act.”
“Pardon?”
“It would violate the Personal Information Protection Act. You’re asking to confirm which customers ordered what, how many servings of which dishes they ordered, what their phone numbers are, and where they live. To check that, you need to bring a warrant.”
The two officials from the management office were left speechless.
Gong In-bae naturally turned to the man who had been listening to the entire conversation.
“You came to pick up your order, didn’t you?”
At Gong In-bae’s words, the man who had been waiting to buy noodles nodded vigorously.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I ordered it on Instagram yesterday.”
Gong In-bae smoothly handed the wrapped package to the man and spoke.
“Here’s your cold noodles as requested. That’s 10,000 won including delivery.”
The management office had nothing to say.
Everything was indeed packaged individually.
Nothing was done on-site.
All that happened was handing over the wrapped packages.
‘It seems right to call it delivery rather than sales.’
Still, we couldn’t let it go like this.
“Even if you make people dispose of trash illegally, that’s a violation of the Waste Management Act.”
When Park Sung-geun spoke, Gong In-bae pointed at something with his finger.
There, in large garbage bags, general waste and recyclables were organized very neatly.
“We have to protect the environment. I’m someone who loves nature, after all.”
In the end, the two of them had no choice but to leave the mountain.
*********
So it was all just quick thinking?
Unlike the first person, Park Sung-geun, who came later, the people who came after him treated me with a much more aggressive and coercive attitude.
I tried various excuses, but none of them worked.
In fact, before that, I had asked the customers who came to buy food
to create an Instagram account and place their orders there.
That I needed orders to sell items.
There’s an Instagram account, and there are orders.
So look at this. I came to deliver because of this.
I tried to argue it that way.
Or rather, I did argue it that way.
The problem was that it didn’t work.
The management office people didn’t listen to a word I said and simply left the mountain without taking any action.
And the next day, they came back with documents full of loopholes in my argument.
The Legal Team had prepared them, they said.
It was just a warning citation.
If I stopped here, it would end with a warning, but there was also a threat that criminal measures would be taken if I continued operating.
Having lived as a street vendor for so long, I felt I couldn’t hold out any longer, so I immediately nodded and shut down the business.
Originally, I should have paid a fine, but instead of that, I had to write a sworn statement that I would never conduct any commercial activities or deliveries on the mountain before I could come down.
It was exactly one week.
From start to finish of the business.
I had many regrets, but I had no choice but to close it down.
It was a goldmine earning between one and two million won per day,
but those men were guarding the Bukhansan Peak.
I had written the sworn statement too.
On the Instagram where I took orders,
people said they came for noodles but couldn’t see me,
and there were countless comments looking for me.
I left a post saying I could no longer operate due to various circumstances.
I told the kimbap shop owner and the Noodle Shop Owner that there would be no more orders,
and they were very disappointed.
I also visited the Wholesale Owner and explained the situation to him.
He was very regretful.
“Oh my, you worked hard. How can it end like this.”
“No, sir. I learned a lot thanks to you.”
“Those guys, just to sell a few ice creams, they treat you like this. Tsk tsk.”
It wasn’t just a few ice creams.
I was selling a thousand a day.
“I’m sorry for only causing inconvenience to you, grandfather.”
“How could I be inconvenienced? You’re a customer who sold our products,”
“Thank you for treating me so well all this time. I’ll visit again.”
“Yes, yes. Stop by for ice cream whenever you pass by. I’ll treat you to ice cream at least.”
“Yes, I understand.”
I said goodbye to the ice cream shop owner and headed home.
Now it was time to settle accounts.
There were no outstanding debts.
Because I paid immediately whenever I received goods.
All the money in my pocket was pure profit.
I pulled out all the money from my pockets and inventory.
Bundles of thousand-won bills, ten-thousand-won bills, and fifty-thousand-won bills started coming out.
I sorted the money by denomination and counted it.
The ten-thousand-won bills were the most, followed by the fifty-thousand-won bills.
One hundred nineteen fifty-thousand-won bills.
Five hundred seventeen ten-thousand-won bills.
Three hundred eighty-two thousand-won bills.
A total of 11,502,000 won.
Gasp.
In just one week, I’d earned over ten million won.
It was astounding.
I’d never seen or held such a large sum of money in my entire life, so I had no idea what to do with it.
Should I go to the bank?
I had no clue.
For now, I decided to keep it in my inventory.
At least I wouldn’t lose it if it stayed there.
*****
I spent several days loafing around at home.
When I was selling ice cream on the mountain, the moment my eyes opened in the morning, I’d be consumed with thoughts of selling ice cream—no room for anything else—and I’d dash up into the mountain.
Now that I couldn’t do that, everything felt vague and uncertain.
I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I’d just sit on the porch and stare blankly outside,
or study English,
or watch YouTube.
If I hadn’t been selling on the mountain, this situation would have felt perfectly normal,
but now it was unbearably tedious.
I missed life on the mountain.
The lines of customers, the thumbs-up they’d give me,
telling me it was delicious, that it was refreshing.
I missed those moments when I was maintaining my health and earning money at the same time.
Most of all, it had been fun.
I couldn’t go to the mountain, and it was suffocating.
How was I supposed to spend this break?
Just over a week had passed since the break started.
What could I do during this break?
As I was browsing through various things, I came across a travel advertisement.
Travel?
The thought crossed my mind—what if I went on a trip?
I’d never been on a trip in my entire life.
I’d never even seen the ocean.
There was no one to take me on a trip,
no one to show me the sea.
Even during the school trip, I couldn’t participate because I had no money.
That’s why I never went.
But now I could go.
I had the money and the time.
And I had the desire.
So I decided to go.
I didn’t set a fixed itinerary.
Jeju Island would be my starting point.
My plan was to fly to Jeju Island, then take a boat back while sightseeing along the way and gradually making my way up.
Once I made up my mind, everything fell into place smoothly.
Besides, there wasn’t much to prepare anyway.
No schedule to worry about, and I could either buy what I needed or I already had almost everything in my inventory.
Let’s head to Jeju Island.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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