CH102

Kobe, Japan – January 17, 1995

Tsuji had worked late into the night and only managed to fall asleep past midnight. But something felt off, waking him from his slumber.

"What...?"

Still lying in bed, he turned his head, but his small eight-tatami-mat apartment, shrouded in darkness, was eerily silent.

Reaching out, he grabbed his wristwatch from the nightstand and checked the time—5:40 AM.

In just a short while, he would have to wake up and get ready for work. But his body, weighed down by exhaustion, felt impossibly heavy. Deciding to steal another hour of sleep, he placed the watch back and closed his eyes.

And at that moment, a nightmarish ordeal unlike anything he had ever experienced began.

"Huh?"

He felt the bed tremble.

Living in Japan, earthquakes were a part of daily life. Most tremors were minor nuisances—something to brush off with a sigh and a shrug.

But this time, something felt different.

An ominous sense of danger gripped him.

Just as his instincts screamed at him to move, an unprecedentedly violent tremor ripped through the building, shaking his tiny apartment with terrifying force.

RUMBLE... BOOM!

"W-what the—?!"

CRASH! CLANG!

The building swayed wildly, like a small sailboat caught in a raging storm.

Objects tumbled off the shelves, crashing onto the floor and shattering into pieces.

"Damn it!"

Cursing under his breath, Tsuji leapt out of bed, still in his pyjamas. Following the earthquake drills he had learned since childhood, he quickly pulled his bedsheet over his head.

Ideally, he should have hidden under a sturdy table for better protection, but his cramped apartment had nothing more than a low kotatsu table—not nearly enough to shield him.

The room was already in chaos, littered with fallen debris. The earthquake intensified, shaking the ground with apocalyptic force.

"Aaahhh!"

Curled up on the floor, gripping the sheet tightly over his head, Tsuji screamed in terror.

If he didn't scream, he feared he might lose his mind.

Dust rained down from the ceiling, fine white cement powder coating his hair.

He lifted his head, and in the darkness, he saw it—the concrete ceiling and walls of his apartment cracking, splitting apart with deep, jagged fissures.

"Oh, shit!"

Panicking, he scrambled backwards, only to hit the wall behind him.

The ageing 30-year-old apartment building couldn't withstand the quake's ferocity—it was collapsing.

He suddenly remembered the real estate agent's reassurances when he had first rented the place.

"It may be old, but it was built solidly! Even in a major earthquake, it won't budge!"

Tears welled in his eyes as he screamed.

"Like hell it is!"

As the terrifying realization of impending death washed over him, his life flashed before his eyes.

His hometown. His parents. His friends...

Tears streaming down his face...

At that moment, as if by some miracle, the earthquake suddenly stopped.

Still curled up under the bedsheet, trembling uncontrollably, Tsuji slowly lifted his head and looked around with a dazed expression.

"I-It's over...?"

The bookshelf had toppled over, and every item in his room lay shattered and strewn across the floor, but none of that mattered.

"I... I'm alive... Sniff, sniff."

He sniffled, his face a mess of tears and snot, overcome with relief.

Just moments ago, he had been certain he would die. The realization that he had somehow survived made him exhale a shaky breath of relief.

But his relief was short-lived.

Tsuji knew that earthquakes rarely ended with a single tremor—aftershocks could follow at any moment.

Throwing off the bedsheet, he quickly got to his feet.

"No time for this."

He grabbed his wallet and his bank passbook from the back of a drawer, then hastily stuffed a few pieces of clothing into his backpack.

There was no time to change out of his pyjamas. Slipping on his sneakers, he bolted out of his apartment.

The hallway was already crowded with neighbours, all scrambling to evacuate.

"Hurry! Get outside!"

"My God, what just happened?"

"Watch your step! Stay together as you go down!"

"Kids, hold on tight!"

"Mommy! Waaaah!"

Voices shouted from all directions, blending into the wails of frightened children and the desperate cries of people searching for loved ones.

In the distance, sirens wailed.

Clutching the straps of his backpack tightly, Tsuji fell in line with the others heading down the emergency stairs.

Finally stepping outside the apartment building, he felt a slight sense of relief—only for it to be crushed by the devastation before him.

Fires raged in the distance, painting the night sky an eerie red. Several buildings had collapsed, some leaning over like fallen toy blocks.

The asphalt roads were cracked and torn apart like ripped paper, with jagged fissures and upheaved sections. Rubble and debris were strewn everywhere.

In the span of just five minutes—perhaps even less—the peaceful cityscape had transformed into a nightmarish war zone.

Then, Tsuji turned to look at his apartment building.

The entire structure was riddled with deep cracks, the walls fractured like a spiderweb of destruction. Worse yet, the whole building was tilting slightly to the left.

A chill ran down his spine.

Had the shaking lasted even one more minute—no, just a few more seconds—he might not have made it out alive.

***

Riiing! Riiing!

The piercing sound of the ringing phone shattered the stillness of the early morning.

Seok-won opened his eyes.

Still lying in bed, he reached out blindly toward the nightstand, fumbling until he found his phone. Bringing it to his ear, he answered in a groggy voice.

"Hello."

The moment he spoke, an urgent voice exploded from the other end.

[Boss! It's Landon. A massive earthquake just hit Japan!]

The word "earthquake" jolted Seok-won fully awake. He shot up in bed.

He had known that a devastating earthquake would strike Japan around this time, but he couldn't recall the exact date.

The instant he heard Landon's report, he realized—it was today.

"Did you say an earthquake?"

[Yes. A magnitude 7+ earthquake just struck Kobe.]

"Magnitude 7? Even for Japan, with all its earthquake preparedness, that's going to be catastrophic."

[Exactly. The epicentre is Kobe—a major city with a population of 1.5 million and Japan's largest port. The shockwaves are so strong that even Osaka and Tokyo are feeling the impact. The damage is expected to be immense.]

Even if the earthquake had struck a remote, sparsely populated area, the devastation would still have been significant. But hitting the economic heart of Japan—he couldn't even begin to estimate the scale of destruction.

[As soon as the news broke, the yen, which had been on an upward trend in the foreign exchange market, plummeted instantly. Once the stock market opens, the Nikkei is bound to crash as well.]

A disaster of this magnitude would undoubtedly send the markets into panic mode.

"Where is the yen trading right now?"

[It's dropped to 99.55 per dollar.]

The Eldorado Fund's average selling price was 100 yen per dollar—meaning they had finally broken even.

[When the yen surged to 95, I thought we were taking a huge loss. I was so stressed I nearly developed an ulcer... but I never imagined things would turn around this dramatically in an instant.]

Until last year, the exchange rate had hovered in the low 100-yen range. But as Mexico's foreign exchange crisis worsened, the yen surged into the 90s.

As a result, Eldorado Fund, which was operating on 10x leverage, had to deposit nearly $100 million in additional margin to avoid a margin call.

'If I hadn't known that the yen would crash due to the earthquake, I would have taken the loss and liquidated my position there.'

In fact, as there were no signs of the yen weakening again, both Landon and Andrew had subtly suggested closing out their positions.

'Come to think of it, the Investment Team 1 said the same thing.'

Seok-won recalled when the team leader and Song Jong-geun had come to him, urging him to cover their shorts before the losses deepened any further.

"If we keep holding on, the losses will only grow."

"We need to cover the shorts now. At least we can recover some of our investment…"

Thinking back to the two men practically begging him, anxiously shifting from foot to foot, Seok-won let out a chuckle.

'They're going to be shocked when they wake up this morning and see what happened in Japan.'

Snapping out of his thoughts, Seok-won adjusted his grip on the phone and spoke.

"We've only just broken even. It's too early to celebrate. The real game starts now. Call me when the yen passes 100."

[Understood.]

Ending the call, Seok-won glanced at the bedside clock. It had just passed 6 AM.

Since it was winter, the sun had yet to rise, and the world outside the window remained shrouded in darkness.

Flipping on the light switch, he picked up the remote and turned on the television.

The morning news had just begun, and the male anchor, his face grim, was delivering breaking news about the earthquake in Kobe.

[At 5:46 AM on the 17th, a powerful earthquake exceeding magnitude 7 struck western Japan, including Kobe and Osaka.

This is the strongest earthquake since the Nankai earthquake of 1946, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale.

Thousands of buildings have collapsed, and heavy casualties are expected.

Particularly concerning is that the epicentre was close to Kobe, a densely populated metropolitan area, which means the scale of the disaster could be even greater

Meanwhile, the Japanese government…]

Since the earthquake had just occurred, there was no accompanying footage—just the anchor hurriedly reading from a hastily prepared script.

Seok-won pressed a button on the remote, switching to NHK, which he had connected via a satellite antenna.

As expected, their broadcast was also focused on the disaster. The urgent voice of the anchor filled the screen as helicopter footage of the devastated area unfolded.

Seok-won's expression hardened. Without realizing it, he let out a low murmur.

"…Hmm."

There was no other way to describe it—it was pure devastation.

Fires raged throughout the city, scarlet flames flickering violently as if the entire metropolis was engulfed in an inferno.

Roads and buildings had crumbled or split apart, and over by the docks, a massive explosion—likely from a gas leak—had sent a towering pillar of fire into the sky, belching thick black smoke as it burned uncontrollably.

But the most shocking sight was the collapsed elevated highway that had fallen sideways like a toppled toy.

That alone was enough to reveal the sheer scale and severity of the destruction.

A true catastrophe.

Against the overwhelming force of nature, humanity's concrete and steel proved utterly powerless.

Even the news anchor's voice, reporting on the damage, trembled with fear and shock.

As he took in the horrifying scene, Seok-won murmured to himself, already contemplating how the market would react.

"Another kind of hell is about to unfold."

Those who had bet long on the yen and the Japanese stock market were about to be completely wiped out by this unexpected disaster.

"In every game, for someone to win, someone else has to lose."

But this time, the scale of the disaster was unprecedented and unpredictable, meaning its impact would be even more devastating.

Watching the live footage with a cold, calculating gaze, Seok-won spoke again.

"When everyone else is in panic, that's when the biggest fortunes are made."

Then, with arms calmly crossed, he continued watching the breaking news, his expression unreadable.

TL/n -

Great Hanshin earthquake - Wikipedia