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"Congratulations, Jessica! That is magnificent news," Marvin said, injecting his voice with genuine warmth and pride. He knew how hard she had been grinding in the audition circuits. "What is the name of the movie? Who is the studio?"
"It's an independent project, but it has great funding!" Jessica gushed proudly. "It's a gritty, romantic drama. It's called *The Night in the Southern Part of the Lower District*."
Marvin paused, his silver fork hovering halfway to his mouth.
'Ugh, what an absolutely terrible, pretentious name,' Marvin muttered a critical complaint to himself within the confines of his own mind.
The transmigrator's brain instantly activated, rapidly searching the massive, encyclopedic database of Entertainment history he possessed from his previous life. He cross-referenced the late 1990s, indie films, and Jessica Alba's early filmography.
Nothing. He had zero recollection of a movie with such an absurd, bloated title.
The conclusion was instantaneous and brutal. If a film starring a young, breathtakingly beautiful Jessica Alba didn't even register as a footnote in his future memories, it meant only one thing: 'This movie is going to be a catastrophic flop.' It would likely go straight to video, or die a quiet, miserable death in a handful of obscure art-house theaters.
For a second, Marvin debated his options.
He could easily persuade Jessica to turn down the role. He could use his building up industry leverage to secure her a better part in a guaranteed blockbuster. Hell, he could simply compel the indie director to rewrite the script entirely using a fraction of his Incubus magic.
But as quickly as the thought arose, Marvin dismissed it.
'Use magic? Don't be utterly absurd,' Marvin thought coldly, chewing his chicken.
Marvin would never waste his precious mana on something as trivial as an independent film's box office returns. But more importantly, he would not use it to artificially inflate the careers of his women before they had learned the necessary lessons of the industry.
He was building an empire, not a nursery. If he simply handed Jessica every single victory on a silver platter, she would become weak, entitled, and arrogant. She needed to experience the reality of a Hollywood failure. She needed to endure a reality check. She needed to pour her heart and soul into a terrible movie, watch it bomb, and realize exactly how cold and unforgiving the world truly was without him.
Because when she inevitably fell, Marvin would be standing right there to catch her. And when he finally lifted her up and placed her in a masterpiece that made her a global superstar, her gratitude and love to him would be absolute, unbreakable, and eternal.
Failure breeds dependence. And the Incubus thrived entirely on the beautiful dependence of souls.
So, he maintained his mask.
"Hey! Congratulations, girl, that is a big step," Marvin cheered enthusiastically into the phone, perfectly mimicking the supportive, proud tone of a genuine Hollywood friend. "A lead role! You are officially on your way to becoming an undeniable star."
"Hehe, thank you for your blessing, Hollywood," Jessica laughed happily on the other end, completely oblivious to the chess game occurring in the boy's mind. "I am going to work incredibly hard. I will try my best to catch up with you and your Platinum records!"
"I have no doubt that you will, Jessica," Marvin replied smoothly. "You possess the talent and the fire to conquer this town."
"I have to go read the script again, but I'll call you later!" Jessica promised, her voice light and entirely free of her earlier jealousy. "And Marvin? Thank you. You always know exactly what to say."
"Always, my lady. Have a wonderful afternoon."
Marvin pressed the red button, ending the call, and placed the brick phone back onto the table.
He picked up his fork and knife, cutting another piece of the roasted chicken. He chewed slowly, looking out the large dining room windows at the sprawling gardens of the estate. A slow beautiful smile spread across his face.
'See?' the demon thought to himself, thoroughly amused by his own performance. 'That is true, unparalleled emotional intelligence.'
He didn't need to constantly rely on supernatural spells to control his world. His understanding of human psychology, fragile human egos, and the mechanics of ambition was vastly more potent than any magic.
Honestly, Marvin mused as he took a sip of his iced water, he didn't need to worry about the heavens or the universe testing his integration into this reality.
He finished his lunch in the quiet, sunlit dining room, his mind already shifting away from teenage jealousy and indie film flops, pivoting back to the massive, multi-million-dollar global chess pieces waiting for him on the board.
---
The full team call on December 3rd lasted three hours and forty minutes. It was the most analytically dense session the program had conducted — more complex than the crisis entry planning, because selling short into a collapsing market is, in its essential logic, a simpler operation than buying deeply distressed assets in an environment of maximum fear with the discipline required to hold through the years of recovery. The entry calculus for the long positions required not just conviction about the individual companies but a framework for thinking about the recovery timeline, the repatriation of foreign institutional capital, the impact of the IMF structural adjustment programs on corporate earnings power, and the dynamics of each company's competitive position in the post-crisis environment.
Grant opened the meeting by presenting the capital position. Total available capital:$233.2 million in realised gains and original capital. The January KOSPI put book would close in the first week of January with an expected additional gain of approximately fifteen to nineteen, bringing the total to approximately $253 to $254 million. He then presented the proposed allocation framework for the equity redeployment, which he and Marvin had developed over three weeks of evening calls:
**Samsung Electronics Corporation (Korea Stock Exchange: 005930)**
Proposed allocation: $200 million
Rationale: Samsung Electronics is the world's largest DRAM producer and a leading manufacturer of dynamic random-access memory chips, display panels, and consumer electronics. The company's semiconductor division generates revenues almost entirely in US dollars, while its cost base is primarily in Korean won. The won depreciation of approximately forty percent from pre-crisis levels has dramatically reduced Samsung's manufacturing cost structure relative to its revenues, creating a structural competitive advantage that will persist regardless of the won's subsequent recovery trajectory. The company is current on all its foreign currency obligations and has a net cash position in its electronics division. The current share price of approximately 28,000 won reflects a panic-level discount that is inconsistent with the fundamental business quality.
**Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSEC: 2330)**
Proposed allocation: $150 million
Rationale: TSMC is the world's first and leading dedicated semiconductor foundry — a manufacturer that produces chips designed by other companies. The foundry model is structurally resilient in ways that the integrated device manufacturer model is not, because TSMC's revenue diversification across dozens of customers reduces its exposure to the performance of any single end-market. Taiwan's financial system is not in crisis — the New Taiwan dollar has depreciated but not collapsed, and Taiwan's banking system does not carry the chaebol-equivalent debt loads that have destabilised Korea's. The TSMC share price has fallen approximately forty percent from its pre-crisis high despite the company's fundamentals being largely unaffected by the regional currency crisis, representing an opportunity that is a function of regional contagion sentiment rather than fundamental deterioration.
**LG Electronics (Korea Stock Exchange: 066570)**
Proposed allocation: $80 million
Rationale: LG Electronics is the second-largest Korean consumer electronics manufacturer, with a global brand and diversified export revenues in consumer electronics, home appliances, and display technology. Like Samsung, LG's won-denominated cost base has declined substantially in dollar terms as a result of the devaluation, improving its competitive position against Japanese and European competitors in global markets. The equity price reflects the Korean market discount broadly rather than any specific deterioration in LG Electronics' fundamental business.
**Hyundai Motor Company (Korea Stock Exchange: 005380)**
Proposed allocation: $70 million
Rationale: Hyundai Motor is Korea's largest automobile manufacturer, with export revenues that benefit from the same depreciation dynamics as Samsung and LG. The company's debt position is more complex than the electronics companies — it carries significant won-denominated debt that became more burdensome in the immediate crisis period — but the fundamental quality of its manufacturing operations and the value of its global distribution network are not impaired by the currency crisis. At current prices, the company is trading at approximately three times trough earnings.
**POSCO (Korea Stock Exchange: 005490)**
Proposed allocation: $60 million
Rationale: POSCO — Pohang Iron and Steel Company — is the world's third-largest steel producer by volume. Its operations are export-oriented, its cost structure benefits from the depreciation, and its domestic pricing power in the Korean market is, if anything, enhanced by the competitive challenges the crisis creates for imported steel. The company is current on all foreign currency obligations and has not been drawn into the chaebol debt restructuring process. It is trading at approximately two-thirds of replacement cost.
**Sony Corporation (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6758)**
Proposed allocation: $100 million
Rationale: Sony's decline has been driven by two factors: the yen's appreciation relative to Asian currencies (making Sony's exports more expensive than Korean competitors in many markets) and the contagion-driven global risk-off sentiment that has been compressing Japanese equity valuations broadly. Sony's consumer electronics, entertainment, and gaming divisions are globally competitive businesses trading at a discount that reflects Japan's domestic economic problems rather than Sony's own fundamental quality. The PlayStation franchise, launched in 1994, is in the middle of its first commercial cycle with a trajectory that the current share price does not capture.
**Toyota Motor Corporation (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 7203)**
Proposed allocation: $100 million
Rationale: Toyota is the most operationally disciplined automobile manufacturer in the world at this point in time. Its quality systems, its manufacturing philosophy, and its product development pipeline are not impaired by the Asian crisis, which affects Toyota primarily through the yen's movement and through the volume decline in the affected Asian markets. Toyota's exposure to the crisis economies is real but bounded — approximately fifteen percent of global revenues — and the share price decline significantly overestimates the long-term earnings impact.
Total proposed equity redeployment: $740 million.
And that's just the bare minimum investment he plans to make, as he is set to pour approximately three hundred million plus was merely the opening salvo. Marvin was preparing to unleash a torrent of capital into a warzone of bleeding giants: Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Bandai, Toshiba, Nissan, Square, Lenovo, Sinopec, and Huawei.
The reality of the 1997 crash was that the share prices of these brands hadn't just plummeted—they were in freefall.
Projections indicated their valuations were destined to crater by a catastrophic 60% to 90% in the coming time. Hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap were incinerated or about to, fundamentally mutating the global corporate landscape. By deploying his capital into this financial bloodbath, Marvin was positioning himself to buy empires for pennies on the dollar.
His strategy was precise, targeting titans that possessed unparalleled, though currently paralyzed, growth potential. Heavyweights like Lenovo, Nissan, and Huawei were prime targets. Even though Huawei remained a fiercely guarded private entity, Marvin knew that the suffocating economic terror of the current market made securing closed-door, private equity investments entirely possible. Desperation always breeds compromise.
Naturally, these proud conglomerates weren't about to hand over controlling stakes for what they considered modest liquidity injections. Acquiring 0.4% to 1% of a behemoth like Nintendo, or slipping into a 5% to 7% position in Capcom, might seem like an insignificant slice of the pie to a layman. But Marvin didn't need a hostile takeover; he just needed a seat at the table. He was buying a crowbar to pry open the door.
Because what Marvin was truly hunting transcended stock percentages. He was after the crown jewels: the cultural monoliths and future entertainment lifelines these companies controlled. He was looking straight at intellectual properties like *Resident Evil* and *Final Fantasy*. Having seen the garbage treatment such masterpieces typically suffered at the hands of tone-deaf Hollywood adaptations, Marvin knew their cinematic and animated potential was essentially an untapped goldmine.
By anchoring himself as a legitimate shareholder—no matter how minor the stake—he was buying the skeleton keys to these franchises. It wasn't just about his impending Hollywood track record; it was about infiltrating the elite, closed-door ecosystem of global wealth. The ultra-rich operated like an insular, paranoid family. Once you were inside the fortress, they instinctively kept the most lucrative deals, like live-action and anime adaptation rights, circulating within their own trusted network. Marvin was simply paying the entry fee to the VIP room.
Yet, this corporate raid was just the foundational small work. Marvin wasn't going to execute these trades with this team. That was the job of his proxy network. His operatives had already laid the traps, establishing a multi-headed corporate hydra: Scarlet Capital Japan, Scarlet Capital Taiwan, Scarlet Capital China, and Scarlet Capital Korea. Once Marvin authorized the wire transfers, this network of regional branches would quietly absorb the shares across the Asian markets. It was a masterclass in obfuscation; by heavily diversifying his portfolio through a maze of foreign entities, he masked his foresight. To the financial world, he wouldn't look like an omniscient prophet predicting the future—he would just look like a very lucky diversified institutional investor.
---
Rachel Torres looked at the allocation sheet for a moment.
"We have approximately two hundred and thirty two million in capital," she said, carefully. "You're proposing allocating seven hundred and forty million."
"Leverage," Marvin said.
"What leverage multiple?"
"Average four to five times across the book. The Korean positions can support five times leverage through the local margin facilities that Jin-ho has established. The TSMC and Japanese positions can support four times through the Hong Kong entity and the Tokyo entity respectively."
*****
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