I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 187

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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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187 – Seiwakai
187.
The video uploaded by YouTuber Park Jun-ho created far greater ripples than anyone had anticipated.
He wasn’t a million-subscriber YouTuber for nothing.
His baseline view count alone reached hundreds of thousands.
And the algorithm had chosen to promote it.
Countless people watched Park Jun-ho’s video and replicated it.
But the true reason lay elsewhere.
The recipe was simply too good.
It wasn’t difficult.
No special equipment was required.
It didn’t demand excessive time,
nor did it require an astronomical array of ingredients.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Yakgwa—a confection no Korean could possibly overlook.
And sugar. More sugar.
The Mart, the internet.
Ingredients available anywhere with effortless convenience.
While watching the preparation video, one felt as though their arteries were clogging, yet
when witnessing that laughter bursting forth unbidden during the tasting, curiosity became irresistible.
‘What on earth is that?’
‘Is it really that delicious?’
‘Is there some hidden secret technique?’
And so the desire to replicate it intensified.
The content was flawless.
Within days, YouTubers began following suit one after another.
[I tried making the trendy burnt yakgwa jelly.]
[Made yakgwa dessert prepared to get hit by Mom.]
[I melted yakgwa and burned it.]
[You’ll curse watching this. But when I tried it? Absolutely delicious?]
[Can you eat yakgwa like this? Why is this so tasty?]
[Yakgwa + sugar + torch = ? Do you approve of this combination?]
The video titles were all remarkably similar.
The thumbnails too—sugar, yakgwa, torch, flames, and grimacing faces.
Yet the reactions remained eternally consistent.
Crunch.
Hehehehe.
Hehehehehehe.
Scenes of laughter barely suppressed, then failing.
These moments accumulated in endless repetition.
People’s curiosity grew exponentially.
‘What is that thing?’
‘This is making me curious.’
‘Maybe I should try making it myself.’
‘Is there anywhere that sells it?’
If they had simply eaten it without witnessing the preparation process,
it might have ended as just another unique and delicious dessert.
But once they learned about crushing the yakgwa, pouring sugar, adding gelatin, and caramelizing brown sugar, their instincts made their brains recoil in rejection.
This shouldn’t be eaten.
Eating it would be catastrophic.
Yet their mouths responded differently.
‘It’s delicious.’
A rift formed between human cognition and sensation.
That fissure erupted into laughter.
Eventually, it became a full-fledged challenge.
It wasn’t just a game for YouTubers anymore.
Ordinary people jumped in as well.
Whenever two or more people gathered, they made this.
And they filmed the reactions and uploaded them.
They made it at home,
at school,
and at work.
It had become a social phenomenon.
The response came immediately.
The first place to react was the neighborhood Mart.
[Yakgwa out of stock]
[Yakgwa unavailable]
[Yakgwa out. No plans to restock. Won’t answer if you ask.]
Yakgwa disappeared from the Mart.
Yakgwa wasn’t a fast-moving item.
Yet the yakgwa section stood completely bare.
Nothing remained.
People turned their attention online.
But that too sold out.
The lights never went off at the yakgwa factory.
A man in his sixties who had spent his entire life making yakgwa felt bewildered.
“What? Why is this happening? Why are the orders so massive?”
“Something’s trending on the internet, they say?”
“But is it okay to produce this much? I’m worried.”
“I don’t know either. They tell me to make it, so I make it.”
“Working overtime does come with hazard pay, which is nice, but I’m worried we might end up with excess inventory.”
“The Young Boss will handle that.”
“I’m not sure. Pour more syrup over there.”
“Yes, sir.”
The machinery ran without pause.
Products flew off the line the moment they were packaged.
The scent of sugar saturated the entire Factory.
********
K-ORIGIN SCHOOL / FOOD LAB class time.
“Alicha. Did you see this?”
A classmate thrust their phone toward me.
The screen displayed a video of the Burnt Yakgwa Jelly Challenge playing.
In truth, Alicha and his classmates were the ones most shocked by the Burnt Yakgwa Jelly Challenge.
The [K-ORIGIN SCHOOL / FOOD LAB Dessert Practicum] video that Alicha had uploaded was experiencing an explosive surge in views and comments.
“What? The view count already surpassed a million?”
“The subscriber count hit a hundred thousand already. Alicha’s already achieved Silver status.”
“Look at the comments. How many are there? I’m so jealous.”
I hadn’t anticipated this level of response at all.
I never thought anyone would watch my YouTube channel.
I was bewildered.
The overt jealousy and envy from those around me felt somewhat uncomfortable, yet not entirely unpleasant.
Just days ago, I had been envying the other students.
The situation had reversed in an instant.
Yet there was nothing I could do about it now.
It felt like I should do something,
but in reality, there was nothing I could do.
I simply felt a bit pleased.
.
.
.
However, Jang Do-hyun’s thoughts were entirely different as he observed the scene.
‘This has serious commercial potential.’
‘The recipe is sufficiently automatable.’
‘It could become a K-ORIGIN achievement.’
‘It would be wasteful to let it rot.’
Jang Do-hyun already owned several franchise operations.
His business instincts were second to none.
He read the newspapers daily and checked YouTube religiously.
He kept meticulous tabs on internet communities and industry responses alike.
Synthesizing everything he had gathered,
This wasn’t merely a passing issue.
It wasn’t a fleeting trend that would sparkle briefly before vanishing,
but rather something that seemed destined to spread gradually into a massive movement.
It felt like a wildfire burning fiercely across the landscape.
Yet if I did nothing and left things as they were, this spark would surely die out.
Or worse, some unrelated person would create a product and profit from it.
In the food service industry, you witnessed this scene countless times.
Someone else making money off another’s item or recipe.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
Jang Do-hyun asked Alicha a question.
“Alicha, what do you think about turning your recipe into an actual product?”
Alicha was momentarily at a loss for words.
It was something she’d never considered.
She’d learned that her recipe had become an issue from the YouTube responses,
but she’d never imagined it could become a commercial product.
She’d simply thought of it as a passing incident.
“A product? The bundt cake and jelly I made?”
“Yes.”
“Can that really be turned into a product?”
“Absolutely.”
Alicha asked for confirmation multiple times.
But each time she asked, Jang Do-hyun gave her a definitive answer.
That it was possible.
He said he’d first discuss it with K-ORIGIN SCHOOL,
and if that didn’t work out, he’d invest his own money to commercialize it.
“… If it’s possible, I really want to do it.”
Alicha said.
Though it had happened suddenly, she didn’t want to miss this opportunity.
A product made from her own recipe.
Alicha wasn’t foolish enough to pass up such a chance.
.
.
.
Jang Do-hyun gathered several documents and went to see Kwon Sang-yeol.
With Alicha.
“Teacher Jang Do-hyun. Welcome.”
“Thank you.”
“And you must be student Alicha?”
“Yes.”
“Pleased to meet you. Shall we sit down and talk?”
The three of them sat around a small table.
Jang Do-hyun was the first to speak.
“There’s something I wanted to discuss. We developed this item called Burnt Yakgwa Jelly during our classes. The recipe for it—”
The moment Kwon Sang-yeol heard this, he immediately cut in.
“Oh! Perfect timing. That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about.”
“Really?”
Kwon Sang-yeol retrieved documents from the desk.
They contained YouTube reactions related to the Burnt Yakgwa Jelly, the recipe, market analysis, and more.
“The YouTube response has been incredible. The item is excellent, the recipe is excellent. We can’t just let something like this slip away. Let’s commercialize it.”
Jang Do-hyun felt slightly deflated.
He had prepared materials to make his case.
If K-ORIGIN rejected it,
he had planned to commercialize it separately with Alicha.
But K-ORIGIN already had commercialization plans in place.
They had even completed preliminary research.
So commercialization was a go.
The issue was the conditions.
Kwon Sang-yeol spoke first.
“The conditions are the issue. First, we’ll cover all costs involved in commercialization. I’d like Alicha and Teacher to focus solely on the development process and product quality. I appreciate your understanding.”
“That’s something Alicha and I should handle.”
It was only natural.
With the recipe creator present, having someone else manufacture the product made no sense.
Alicha would produce the highest quality result.
Jang Do-hyun also intended to assist with the development process rather than the recipe itself.
He could simplify the recipe,
or provide guidance during automation.
He wanted to share the experience he’d gained from running a business.
“We’ll provide 20 million won each as compensation for participating in the commercialization project.”
“And for Alicha, we’ll provide 100 million won as a scholarship for recipe development.”
“Of course, once the product sells, royalties are separate. We’re thinking around 3% of net profit, but we can finalize that as we proceed with commercialization.”
20 million won as compensation for project participation.
This means Alicha and Jang Do-hyun each receive 20 million won.
Alicha receives an additional 100 million won as a scholarship.
It’s an incentive concept.
The most important part is the royalty payment.
And it’s 3% at that.
I don’t know how much the Burnt Yakgwa Jelly will sell.
So I’m uncertain what 3% will amount to,
but offering royalties
meant acknowledging Alicha as the recipe provider.
It was an extraordinarily generous offer that I hadn’t anticipated.
I worried whether he might be making contracts bordering on slavery with naive students.
That’s why I had taken the lead on this matter.
But I was wrong.
It was the opposite.
The terms were so lavish that one might wonder if he could afford to be so generous.
Looking to the side, Alicha seemed to have forgotten to breathe from sheer astonishment.
She said nothing, merely staring at Kwon Sang-yeol.
Then she finally spoke.
“It seems like too much. I’m already so grateful just for you commercializing it.”
Kwon Sang-yeol answered with a smile.
“It’s not too much at all. This case will serve as a precedent for other students. If I come up with an idea and create it, the school handles the rest. We provide scholarships and lifetime royalties. Don’t you think that would be tremendous motivation? We’re establishing a precedent right now. The stronger the precedent, the better.”
I nodded in agreement.
He was right.
The school had only recently been established.
There were no standards yet.
Kwon Sang-yeol was trying to create those standards.
A recipe that became a massive hit during class.
But the school does nothing?
No compensation, no business plan?
Then that’s where the relationship with the school ends.
Learn from the school, then start a business elsewhere.
But instead, the school takes responsibility for everything.
Compensation is guaranteed.
He’s dangling the carrot of being able to conduct business and have your rights protected?
Why would anyone need to look elsewhere?
They’d sign with the school immediately.
The moment students think “the school is trustworthy,” K-ORIGIN’s items and content multiply infinitely.
Whenever a new item or decent idea emerges, they’ll rush straight to the school.
They’ll link their business with the school.
I thought Kwon Sang-yeol had used his head brilliantly.
This wasn’t the mindset of a teacher—it was the mindset of a businessman.
The method of buying in at the ground floor.
The method of offering reasonable compensation to countless seedlings and securing them in advance.
But I found that method quite appealing.
I was satisfied.
His words about making K-ORIGIN into a platform now made sense.
Suddenly, K-ORIGIN became even more interesting to me.
I smiled faintly.
********
A detached house in the Tokyo Outskirts.
An Elderly Man stands beside a pond.
The moment he appears, ornamental carp swarm toward him.
The Elderly Man feeds them as though training the fish.
One by one by one.
The carp open their mouths and rush forward, competing for the food.
The Elderly Man watches the scene with evident fascination.
He was not merely raising fish—
it was as though he were taming them.
At that moment, a man in his fifties enters through the door.
The Elderly Man turns his head to regard him.
The moment their eyes meet, the man in his fifties bows with utmost respect.
“I am Kuroda. It is an honor to see you, Director.”
“You are late.”
The Elderly Man speaks slowly.
“My apologies. I was abroad handling customs matters.”
“Let us speak inside.”
The Elderly Man shows no interest in the man’s excuses and heads into the house first.
The man in his fifties carefully follows the Elderly Man inside.
.
.
.
The Elderly Man’s name is Minase Haruo.
He was the Director of the Seiwakai.
In Japanese, Seiwakai.
Translated into Korean, it becomes the Cheongwha Society.
In other words, he was the root and original form of South Korea’s Cheongwha Society.
South Korea’s Cheongwha Society was merely an organization created in imitation of the Seiwakai.
The Cheongwha Society called the Seiwakai their parent organization.
However, there was a decisive difference.
If South Korea’s Cheongwha Society was a collection of operatives who moved for Japan’s benefit,
executing orders handed down from Japan and acting autonomously for Japan’s interests,
then the Seiwakai was an assembly of those who think and make decisions.
Literally, the leadership itself.
Though few in number, each member was a formidable individual.
Capable of moving Japan itself.
Such people gathered to make decisions.
Once they decided and issued orders, the rest simply executed them accordingly.
South Korea’s Cheongwha Society was merely one of the organizations that carried out commands issued from the Seiwakai.
.
.
.
The two of us sat facing each other across a table with tea cups before us.
Yet our postures were entirely different.
While Minase Haruo sat at ease, Kuroda knelt formally on his knees.
Though his position appeared somewhat uncomfortable, he seemed entirely unbothered by it.
“A troublesome matter has arisen.”
Minase Haruo spoke first.
His tone was flat, devoid of emotion.
“I heard from Akiyama. She told me that the Cheongwha Society in South Korea has collapsed, and that Seo Gwang-ho has disappeared as well.”
Akiyama was Minase Haruo’s secretary.
She was the woman in her forties whom Minase had asked to summon Kuroda a few days prior.
She not only carried out his directives but also handled his personal errands.
“So then, shouldn’t we send South Korea some sort of gift?”
Minase Haruo spoke quietly.
Yet the meaning beneath his words was sinister.
He was telling Kuroda to attack South Korea.
Kuroda immediately grasped Minase Haruo’s intent.
“What sort of gift should I prepare?”
Though I understood his meaning,
I still needed to confirm once more.
What gift should be sent.
I needed to ask the director’s intentions.
I needed to know the scale, the timeframe, the sector.
“Since South Korea brought down the Cheongwha Society, we must bring something down as well. That way the scales balance.”
“I will bring down a South Korean company operating in Japan.”
Kuroda spoke lightly, as if selecting merchandise from a shop.
Since the Cheongwha Society in South Korea no longer existed, Kuroda believed it appropriate to bring down a South Korean company in Japan.
“No, you must damage South Korea itself. Make things difficult. Suffocating. Prevent them from doing anything.”
“Understood.”
Kuroda bowed his head, indicating he grasped the meaning.
Kuroda left the Seiwakai and summoned his people.
A plan to attack South Korea was being formulated.
He had become a magnate of the black market through his inventory.
187 – Seiwakai
E-book Publication
/ February 2, 2026
Author
/ Black Card
Publisher
/ Son Je-ho
Publisher
/ Munpia
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/ Doosan Landmark Tower 12F, 308 Gangnam-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Price
/ 100 Won
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© Black Card, 2026
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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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