Chapter 175: LUNA-EVX
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-
The sound of gunfire echoed in succession.
Bullets fired from the muzzle pierced the targets in the wide testing ground with precision.
After a while, the man lowered his gun and exclaimed loudly,
“Holy shit!”
Then he turned his head and locked eyes with me.
“You’ve really created something unbelievable.”
I responded with a bright smile.
“If you want it, you better prepare a hefty stack of bullets.”
“You’ve got every right to be confident.”
He had dealt with countless weapons and negotiated with all sorts of people.
But this time, he couldn’t argue.
The weapon he just tested was that shocking.
It’s not a movie, yet they’ve actually created a weapon like this.
After silently checking his target once more, he seemed to make up his mind and said to me,
“Let’s move to a more formal setting to discuss the deal.”
…
…
…
We left the underground testing facility and moved to the private conference room on the top floor.
The cityscape visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows was already shrouded in darkness, but no one seemed to mind.
“I’d like to hear the selling price first.”
“$120,000.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, my answer made Ben Ari raise an eyebrow.
“… Wasn’t the official price $80,000?”
“Well, it was at first, but more people were interested than I thought.”
High demand naturally drives up the price.
I deliberately showed him the proposals from 21 countries.
“It’s definitely something the crazies would drool over.”
Ben Ari nodded in agreement.
“But I don’t think you leaked the info about AGE just to sell it at a high price, right?”
As a top-tier arms dealer, he’d already figured out that I’d intentionally leaked the information.
Of course, I never thought I could hide it.
“If you’ve figured out that I leaked the info, you must also know why I met with you first.”
“One of the few channels that can move the U.S. Department of Defense. That’s you… you must have known.”
Ben Ari took a sip of water and looked at me casually.
“With the official channels already in motion, you were the fastest way into Washington.”
Of course, I could have moved on my own.
But it would have taken a lot longer to prepare.
And I would have had to give up a lot more.
Ben Ari’s eyes sharpened as he looked at me.
“So… what’s in it for me if I make the move?”
I slid the data sheet across the table.
“I’ll give you the sales rights to AGE.”
His eyes narrowed.
“At what price?”
“Initial price, $120,000 per unit. But if you can convince the U.S. to ease concerns about AGE’s strategic value and secure a formal contract…”
I paused and held up one finger.
“I’ll let it go for $100,000.”
Ben Ari’s expression twisted oddly.
It was a mix of interest and caution.
“You said the available quantity is 600 units per month?”
“Right. As you can see from the performance, the computation module is incredibly difficult to produce.”
Even with a fully equipped infrastructure, producing these modules was challenging. Without proper facilities, increasing production was harder than expected.
Leaning forward, Ben Ari looked at me and said,
“Even for me, moving Washington will mean giving up half of the quantity you provided.”
I nodded.
“Moving the Department of Defense isn’t easy.”
“So, except for the half going to the U.S., I want full discretion to sell the rest wherever I choose. That’s my condition.”
“You’re saying you’ll sell AGE anywhere—Middle East, South America, African rebels—no questions asked.”
Ben Ari shrugged.
“Think what you like.”
“Hmm…”
I tapped the table with my fingers.
I pretended to hesitate, but it wasn’t really a concern.
No matter where AGE was sold, it wouldn’t put me—or rather, us—at risk.
Especially not after Luna is operational.
“Fine, but make sure nothing comes back to bite me.”
“Don’t worry. The half going to Washington includes shares for both political and Department of Defense stakeholders.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked at him.
“Specifically?”
“Those people need massive funds to keep their positions.”
Ben Ari played with the water bottle on the table as he continued.
“DSCA will get justification for budget allocation, and DTRA will receive a portion as technical evaluation samples. For the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, label it as ‘pre-access to national defense projects.’ They need ‘authority,’ not the actual weapons.”
With those arrangements, there shouldn’t be any major issues later.
The restrictions on risk classification—specifically, the ‘Strategic Unbalance Risk’—that Ben Ari had placed during negotiations with the U.S. Department of Defense would also be lifted.
“I think convincing the Korean government will be harder than the U.S.?”
Ben Ari looked at me with concern.
“Are you talking about overseas sales approval?”
“Something like AGE could easily be classified as a tactical weapon.”
He was saying that approval from the Ministry of Defense was needed for overseas sales.
“Don’t worry about that. It’s already taken care of.”
Ben Ari looked slightly surprised.
“You’re more resourceful than I thought. Or is it that the military here, like everywhere else, can be handled with money?”
Ben Ari smirked, thinking I’d used money to resolve the overseas sales issue, but I didn’t explain further.
Explaining would mean revealing the identification algorithm in the computation module.
But the fewer people who knew about that, the better.
“Then let’s draft the contract based on what we’ve discussed.”
With the contract ready for signing,
I asked one more question.
“By the way, if our production increases, will you buy all of it?”
“Of course. No matter the quantity, I’ll buy it all, so just focus on producing.”
Ben Ari laughed loudly, and I smirked along with him.
It was a win-win for both of us.
At least for now…
＊＊＊
Whoa!
“Selling AGE for $100,000 per unit… This is huge!”
“Honestly, I thought even the initial $80,000 was a stretch.”
Park Cheol-jin and Director Cha Dong-hyuk looked extremely excited.
“The promotional video really helped.”
If we’d only negotiated with the U.S. Department of Defense or Israel’s Ben Ari, we likely wouldn’t have gotten even $80,000, as Director Cha Dong-hyuk said.
But releasing the video and receiving offers from numerous countries allowed us to secure a much higher price.
“With the Ministry of Defense approving overseas sales, we should be able to start regular shipments next month.”
I patted Park Cheol-jin on the shoulder.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate with construction, and now defense too. Thanks for handling it.”
Originally, Park Cheol-jin was brought in to grow the construction side.
But during the merger with Hwareung Industries, he ended up managing defense projects as well.
“The defense side is actually pretty interesting. And with Director Cha Dong-hyuk’s help, it’s not too difficult.”
“Anyway, this AGE sale is Dojin Frontier’s first weapon sale since entering the defense industry, so make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“Yes.”
Park Cheol-jin bowed to me.
“Uh… President.”
Director Cha Dong-hyuk called me with a concerned expression.
“Yes?”
“The equipment being developed for computation module production…”
“Which equipment?”
With so many developments underway, it was hard to know which one he meant.
“The high-speed TSV aligner and optical computation module assembler.”
“That’s currently being developed by Team Leader Park Sang-bae.”
“I know that. I was wondering when it might be completed.”
As a key piece of equipment for increasing computation module production, he seemed curious about its development status.
But…
“It won’t be as fast as you’d like, Director Cha.”
Team Leader Park Sang-bae wasn’t just working on the high-speed TSV aligner and optical computation module assembler.
A separate TF team was also developing memristor-based arrays, ReRAM cell stacking equipment,
And even the LUNA-EVX, an ultra-fine circuit printing system, several steps beyond the EUV lithography equipment that other companies hadn’t even completed yet.
With so many pieces of equipment being developed simultaneously, it was physically impossible to finish in a day or two.
“So for now, we’ll have to keep using the makeshift equipment for production.”
“It’s not really makeshift. It’s modified from existing commercial equipment, so the performance shouldn’t be bad.”
Of course, for more precise and faster production, the equipment Park Sang-bae was developing would be essential…
“For now, we’ll focus more on meeting the agreed quantities rather than increasing production.”
It was an unavoidable situation.
Honestly, I was a bit disappointed too.
It was a product that could yield nearly ten times the profit margin, but we couldn’t increase quantities due to lack of equipment.
Nagging won’t speed things up. Can’t be helped.
I was already providing as much assistance as possible.
So all I could do was wait…
No, wait.
On second thought, preparing the environment to start production immediately once the equipment was ready was also crucial.
I immediately called in Executive Director Oh Seong-hak and Senior Executive Director Hong Chung-ki to check the progress.