Once back in his room, Logan sat down in front of his desk.
"There’s still two hours left until I can use the system again," Logan mumbled, turning on his hologram projector.
’I’m burning through my funds way too fast,’ he thought, searching up news outlets. ’What kind of business could I invest in or start myself?’
The reason why Logan searched up the news was very simple.
’The news shows people’s problems and needs pretty clearly,’ he thought, scrolling. ’Even news that might seem irrelevant on the surface, like crime rates, is incredibly useful.’
Scrolling through news articles, he found an example of what he was searching for.
"Immense price hikes for emergency flares and deployable rafts after water creature invasion on Alaska’s shores," he read.
"If I had looked at the news around the time of the attack, I could’ve made real profit from this."
Even if it felt too late, Logan still made a mental note of the situation.
’There’s been a lot of news covering water creatures lately,’ Logan thought, shaking his head. ’Since last year, they seem to have become far more aggressive and invade land far more often.’
Before he could continue scrolling, he heard a soft beep.
"Oh, that should be dinner," Logan said, stepping away from his desk.
He opened the door, took the food tray from the floating robot, and brought it back to his desk.
Sitting back down, he took off the lid while simultaneously scrolling down to the next article.
’This smells good,’ Logan thought, smelling the spicy aroma.
Glancing down, his mouth started watering at the large crab leg on his plate. A small card beside the tray told him it was the leg of a C-ranked Thunder Crab.
"Delicious," Logan mumbled, digging a piece of meat from the carcass and popping it into his mouth.
He continued scrolling down the news articles while devouring his plate.
"Debates on low-ranking hunter discrimination, new S-rank hunters appearing," Logan read.
"Can’t really earn money off those," he shook his head. "New medicine isn’t really what I’m searching for either since it would take too long."
He had scrolled through so many news sites, he didn’t even notice how quickly he’d finished the entire crab leg.
He licked the remnants of spicy crab from his fingers, still staring at the empty shell.
"That was good—no, better than good."
He glanced at the info card again.
Thunder Crab – C-Rank. Sourced from Eastern Coastal Rift Dungeon. Prepared by Academy Chef Unit #7.
He leaned back, his eyes narrowing.
’Sea creatures are becoming more common,’ he thought, glancing at the crab leg. ’C-ranks like this crab are showing up in masses to siege shorelines.’
’Not to mention F and E ranks.’
He quickly switched tabs on his hologram and pulled up a search engine.
"Like I thought," Logan muttered.
Dozens of articles and forum threads popped up on his display.
Hunters discussing their raids, complaints about transportation issues, food bloggers speculating on the taste of dungeon creatures.
He clicked one.
An article showed a group of hunters standing over a massive crab-like corpse. The core had been extracted and its claws were chopped off.
The rest? Left to rot on the shoreline or burned up.
’It makes sense,’ Logan thought. ’Hunters weren’t butchers or cooks. They only wanted the valuable parts such as cores, shells, and organs. To them, the meat was just excess weight.’
’Transporting the meat likely costs more than it’s worth on the open market—so they just leave it behind.’
He leaned forward, his thoughts racing.
’There has to be tons of usable meat just lying around after every raid. Tens of thousands of kilos just discarded.’
’And no one’s collecting it.’
He opened a new tab and searched for buyers of sea creature meat.
Most of the results were either niche restaurants, luxury suppliers, or black market threads.
No industrial-scale suppliers, no fast food chains, nothing.
He sat back in his chair, his mind putting the pieces together.
’The demand is there. Sea creature attacks are increasing. Mana-rich food was a necessity for physical growth—yet no one wanted to deal with the growing surplus of sea creature meat.’
"What if I did?"
He glanced again at the empty Thunder Crab shell on his tray.
’Hunters toss out edible meat every day, while families struggled to put mana-rich food on the table.’
’But what if dungeon seafood became cheap and accessible? Something a factory worker or a student could buy without thinking twice?’
Not everyone could fight in dungeons. Not everyone could afford resources for their children’s future.
But everyone needs to eat. That’s a fact.
"That’s what I’ll do," Logan said, with a spark of excitement.
He knew he needed to do a whole lot more research in order to make it feasible, but he had a plan now.
His system interface started glowing a golden color, gaining Logan’s attention before a message popped up.
[Cooldown Complete. Awaiting Input.]
"Almost forgot about that," Logan smiled.
Pulling up his private bank account, he glanced at the remaining 100 million inside it and started doubting himself.
"Should I redeem a large amount today?" Logan hesitated.
Accessing the company’s liquid funds, he found a staggering amount of 25 billion dollars.
After the board members stopped sabotaging each other, production resumed as it had done before the main family’s disappearance.
Not only did the company’s worth grow from 278 billion to 312 billion, it also had an increase of 7 billion dollars in liquid holdings.
’The main businesses are steadily growing back to the top,’ Logan thought, staring at the numbers. ’I need to calculate how much I think I need for the fast food chain before redeeming irresponsibly.’
Leaning back, Logan got lost in thought.
’To pull off this idea, I’d need a few billion if I want to dominate the market before anyone else catches on,’ he thought. ’But there’s still tons of research I need to do before that.’
Logan estimated that researching would take two to three months if he hired people to do the work.
’By that time, the company will have earned, what, another 2 billion?’ he thought.
Logan remained silent for a moment.
If he took too much money, the company might not have enough left to pay workers or keep things running.
’I should be able to withdraw 1 billion for the system right now,’ he thought.
He nodded slowly, finalizing his decision.
’It’s worth it,’ Logan thought, transferring a billion to his personal account. ’While the seafood is important, keeping up my personal strength is also much needed to protect myself.’
"System," he said. "Redeem 1 billion dollars."