I was back in the lobby of Taeseong Group headquarters.
I had taken care of the petty errands Manager Oh had thrown at me, and even secured the foreign currency passbook for the hundred million won that would serve as my seed money. It had been a perfect outing.
I adjusted my employee ID and was about to head toward the elevator hall when I heard a voice.
"Make sure there are no problems arranging funds for this semiconductor production line expansion."
The voice was familiar, and arrogant.
Then I spotted two men at the center of a procession, dozens of pairs of dress shoes echoing across the marble floor.
Choi Kang-min, the second son of Taeseong Group's controlling family.
He was young, not yet bearing the title of vice president.
Behind him followed his enforcer like a vicious guard dog: Kwon Young-cheol, his face still youthful.
"……!"
My breath caught.
The horrific sensation of the leather strap tightening brutally around my neck.
The pain and the sound of my windpipe being crushed seemed to coil around my neck like phantoms.
My body reacted first.
A chill raced down my spine, and my fingertips trembled faintly.
The murderers who had snapped my neck and slaughtered me were walking toward the elevator in immaculate suits.
I had returned to the past, but to me, it had happened only a few hours ago.
My vision turned red, and boiling murderous intent threatened to paralyze my reason.
But I clenched my teeth and forced my emotions down.
Reckless anger would only ruin my second life.
Right now, I was merely an inexperienced new employee in my early twenties, incapable of sinking my teeth into them.
I quickly lowered my head and pressed myself against the wall.
As the VIP elevator opened, their footsteps approached me.
The scent of expensive cigars and a heavy, woody cologne emanating from Choi Kang-min stung my nose.
It was the same revolting smell I had breathed in at the penthouse only hours earlier, as my life was being choked out of me.
That was when it happened.
"Hey, you! Are you going to move or not?"
Kwon Young-cheol snapped at me.
He was an unfeeling killer who could murder someone without so much as blinking.
But right now, he was merely playing the loyal guard dog, clearing a path for his master.
I immediately bent into a ninety-degree bow, assuming the perfectly obedient posture of a new employee.
"I-I apologize! I am Baek Do-jin, a new employee in the Strategic Planning Office!"
My voice rang out with rigid discipline, utterly at odds with the murderous intent inside me.
The toes of Choi Kang-min's shoes stopped at the bottom of my vision.
He glanced sideways at the blue Strategic Planning Office ID hanging from my neck, then looked away with the same indifference he would have shown a stone by the roadside.
"The youngest in Strategic Planning? He must be one of the boys slaving away under Manager Oh."
"Yes. I will contact Manager Oh immediately and warn him to keep his new employees in line."
At Kwon Young-cheol's ingratiating reply, Choi Kang-min clicked his tongue.
"Forget it. Instead of wasting time disciplining disposable tools like that, take care of what I just told you to do. Stop wasting time on things that don't matter."
The two men stepped arrogantly into the VIP elevator.
Disposable tools.
At that word, my heart sank into an icy stillness.
Yes. To you, people were merely parts, disposable tools you could use and throw away whenever you pleased.
I had been one of those precious tools too, cleaning up your filth until I was discarded in the most wretched way imaginable.
SWISH-.
The elevator doors closed.
Only after they had completely disappeared from view did I slowly straighten.
My nails had dug into my clenched palms, drawing beads of blood.
Yet a smile so cold it was almost grotesque was spreading across my lips.
Choi Kang-min. Kwon Young-cheol.
For now, you can strut across these marble floors, trampling over everyone as though there is no one above you.
Simply killing you will not be enough.
I will strip away all your power, all your money, even that pathetic pride you take in being an heir.
The vow to drag him from the greatest heights into the most miserable hell etched itself deep into my bones.
I stared coldly at the elevator's red floor indicator as the numbers climbed rapidly.
Then I turned away without hesitation and headed to the office.
The moment I opened the office door, acrid cigarette smoke and the irritable clatter of keyboards washed over me.
The office in 1997 was more than merely bustling; it throbbed with a sadistic tension.
Shouts erupted everywhere. Someone pleaded into a telephone while someone else slammed an approval folder against a desk.
"Hey! Baek Do-jin! Have you lost your mind? I sent you to the bank on an errand. Did you decide to move in there?"
Before I could even sit down, Manager Oh's furious shouting reverberated through the office, the veins standing out on his neck.
An ashtray heaped with cigarette butts sat on his desk, and his face was so red it looked ready to burst.
Beside him, my mentor, Assistant Manager Lee, stood trembling like a leaf with his head bowed low.
Clearly, he had just endured a thorough dressing-down.
"I apologize. The transactions took longer than expected."
I answered flatly and held out the bundle of corporate documents I had been told to process.
Manager Oh snatched them from me.
"Transactions? Hey, you little shit. You call what you just did work? You were running an errand for a corner shop!"
He pointed at the 'Financial Status of Affiliates' report on my monitor and continued shouting.
"I hear you graduated at the top of your class at Hanguk University and went straight into the Strategic Planning Office! Then why does your report look like this, huh?!"
His resentment of my academic credentials and direct entry into the Strategic Planning Office was blatant.
Manager Oh had worked his way up from the bottom elsewhere, enduring all manner of hardship before getting in. I was the easiest target for his frustrations.
BANG! BANG!
He pounded his fist against my CRT monitor. The bulky screen shook as though screaming.
"The font sizes are all over the place, and what the hell is wrong with these graphs? The department head took one look and gave me shit about how appalling the standard was!"
FLUTTER—.
He flung the printed copies of my report into the air.
White sheets scattered across the office floor.
Assistant Manager Lee hastily dropped to his knees and began scrambling to gather them.
Manager Oh hurled abuse at his bowed back.
"Assistant Manager Lee, you're no better! You're supposed to be training this stupid bastard, and you can't even teach him properly? Neither of you is going home unless this is corrected perfectly by today's deadline!"
The colleagues around us, including Jeong Min-jae from my intake, kept their heads down and typed, warily watching the situation.
It was typical of the violence built into Taeseong Group's rigid hierarchy in 1997.
In that primitive era, connections mattered more than competence, and a superior venting his anger passed for a work assignment.
I slowly picked up a page of the report from the floor.
The title at the top read:
[Financial Soundness Analysis of Taeseong Construction and the Heavy Industry Affiliates]
Manager Oh was criticizing superficial details like fonts and graphs, but the department head's real reason for being angry was probably something else.
The figures in the report overlapped with the future data in my mind.
Beneath those numbers on the books, which Manager Oh blindly trusted as 'normal,'
lay an enormous hole that would lead Taeseong to ruin a month later.
"Manager Oh."
At my call, he turned toward me with his eyes wide.
"What? Have you got something to say? Feeling wronged?"
I casually gathered the scattered papers and set them on the desk, a faint smile on my lips.
"I will fix the formatting shortly. But, sir."
"……?"
"Do you really think the department head was angry over something as trivial as the formatting?"
Manager Oh's face twisted in an instant.
"What? You insolent little shit! Are you saying you understand the context of this report better than I do?"
He let out an incredulous laugh and stepped right up to me.
A sickening stench of strong cigarette smoke mixed with instant coffee rolled out of his mouth.
At the same time, every gaze around us turned in our direction.
A raw recruit who had been here barely a month was daring to challenge a manager with ten years at the company.
"The 180% debt-to-equity ratio for Taeseong Construction in this report is nothing more than a superficial figure on the books."
I tapped the financial statement summary and continued flatly.
"Short-term borrowing makes up over 70% of total debt. More than half of that is foreign currency debt. It may look manageable at the current exchange rate of 914 won, but if the exchange rate shifts even slightly, that graph will take an immediate nosedive."
"The exchange rate? You little shit! The government says every day that there's nothing wrong with our economic fundamentals, so what do you……!"
"Look at the market, not government announcements. Merchant banks have already started withdrawing their foreign currency funds."
I cut him off coldly and looked straight into his eyes.
The workings of capital, engraved deep in my bones during my previous life as Taeseong Group's hound.
And the data on the hell of 'national default (IMF)' that would engulf this country in exactly one month.
I alone held all those cards.
"The loans financing Taeseong Construction's ongoing new town development projects are risky assets that could go straight into default if the property sales rate falls below 40%. Yet this report classifies them as 'sound assets.'"
I drove the point home.
"The department head was angry because this foolishly optimistic forecast has no connection to reality."
A heavy silence settled over the office.
Manager Oh's face slowly turned from red to ashen.
I had pinpointed a fatal risk that no new employee should have known about— no, one that only a handful of the Strategic Planning Office's working staff would even recognize.
"Y-you, what are you…… We just used the data Construction sent over……."
"If all we do is parrot whatever they send us, why do we need a Strategic Planning Office? They might as well hire a new typist."
At my arrogant rebuke, Manager Oh's fists trembled.
"You son of a bitch……!"
Unable to contain himself, he swore and was about to swing a folder at me when a voice interrupted.
"Baek is right."
The voice was deep and resonant, yet cold.
Department Head Park, who oversaw the entire Strategic Planning Office, stood watching us with his arms crossed.
He must have come out of his office because of the continued shouting and overheard my briefing.
He approached, his heavy dress shoes striking the floor with measured steps.
"You. What did you say your name was?"
"Baek Do-jin, sir. I am a new employee."
"Where did you get the figures you just mentioned? This is not information a mere new employee should know."
"I learned it while speaking to a lending officer at Taeseong Bank, where I went on an errand for Manager Oh. I also learned that the loans are recorded on the books as 'facility financing,' when in fact they are 'working capital financing' that the borrowers are desperate to roll over."
I had never actually had any such conversation, but I answered without batting an eye.
At my reply, Department Head Park's eyes narrowed sharply.
He, too, must have sensed something troubling in the market's recent movements.
He had probably been struggling with a lack of 'hard evidence' to support that conviction.
"Manager Oh."
"Yes, sir!"
"Have Baek Do-jin rewrite this report himself and bring it to my office today. You are to assist him and make sure he can access whatever materials he needs."
Manager Oh's face turned deathly pale in an instant.
The Strategic Planning Office's supposedly impregnable authority and hierarchy had been thoroughly trampled by a single inexperienced new employee.
Shocked gazes converged on me from every corner of the office, but I merely bowed my head calmly.
"Understood, sir."
Looking satisfied, Department Head Park gave my shoulder a single pat and returned to his office.
Manager Oh glared at me, trembling, but he could no longer say a word.
I do not have to attack Taeseong Group from outside to bring it down.
I can start from its deepest interior.
I will devour this vast empire completely, one piece of its very framework at a time.