The heavy click of Department Head Park's dress shoes faded away down the corridor.
A deathly silence settled over the Strategic Planning Office, which had resembled a battlefield only moments earlier.
I returned to my desk and prepared to work.
But the quiet did not last.
Manager Oh's harsh breathing tore through the heavy atmosphere.
"Ha. Unbelievable. I don't know what to say."
He loosened his tie roughly and approached my desk.
His eyes were full of venom.
He looked ready to grab me by the collar at any moment.
I looked away from my monitor and stood up.
"Manager Oh. As the department head instructed, please approve my access to the necessary data immediately."
"Have you really lost your fucking mind? You're throwing your weight around because of one word from the department head. Do you think things are that simple in the Strategic Planning Office?!"
I bowed slightly.
It was the impeccably deferential manner expected of a new university graduate entering a company in 1997.
Yet there was not the slightest tremor in my voice.
"Simple, sir? How could I possibly disregard the data you have spent so many nights working to compile?"
"However, the department head's instructions were quite firm, and I have very little time if I am to submit the report before the end of the workday."
My words were polite, but their emphasis fell unmistakably on 'the department head's instructions.'
Major corporations in 1997 were rigidly hierarchical societies.
A mere manager had no grounds to defy an order from the exalted head of the Strategic Planning Office.
It was an era when you did as you were told, however much it made your blood boil.
"You think you're so clever, don't you? Fine. Do whatever you want."
"But the moment even one figure is wrong and you upset the department head, losing your job will be the least of your worries. I'll fucking kill you myself!"
Manager Oh returned to his desk, fuming.
Then the sound of him angrily hammering the Enter key rang through the office.
BEEP-BEEP-.
A moment later, crude green text appeared on the blue screen of the internal computer network terminal.
[Access Approved: Full Access to Taeseong Construction's Third-Quarter Financial Statements and Subcontractor Transaction Ledgers]
I stared at the screen and suppressed a derisive laugh.
In my previous life, when I had handled the group's dirty work, before I became a successful team leader, back when I was still struggling at the bottom, I could never have dreamed of access to this much data.
Back then, I had been a raw recruit too busy watching everyone else's reactions.
But things were different now.
I had diverted the current, gaining the means to expose one of this vast empire's dirty secrets in a single stroke.
I sank deep into the old, creaking office chair.
On the outside, I was a clueless new employee in his twenties, stiff with nerves as he examined the documents.
But the old hound inside me had already caught the scent of blood and bared its sharp teeth.
I rolled the mouse wheel and began scanning the vast quantities of data.
Now, shall I choose the perfect sacrifice to multiply my money?
The radiation pouring from the bulky CRT monitor left my eyes dry and gritty.
Yet my gaze flashed like that of a predator stalking its prey as I scanned the screen.
[Taeseong Construction: Subcontractor Receivables and Promissory Note Maturity Status]
A list of hundreds of partner companies filled the screen.
One month from now, when the exchange rate broke through 2,000 won,
Taeseong Construction, crushed beneath its short-term foreign currency debt, would freeze every payment owed to its subcontractors in order to survive.
Promissory notes issued by a major corporation would become worthless scraps of paper, and the subcontracting network, its cash flow cut off, would topple like dominoes.
I scrolled rapidly, narrowing down my first hit list.
There were three conditions.
First, at least 80% of the company's revenue had to depend on Taeseong Construction.
Second, it had to be a sound company with valuable construction licenses and equipment.
Third, its own cash reserves had to be exhausted.
I stopped scrolling.
The name of a company tucked away in one corner of the screen caught my eye.
[Jinsan Construction]
It was a midsize construction company that handled Taeseong Construction's key civil engineering subcontracting work.
A closer look at its financial statements showed that it had borrowed to the limit from merchant banks, using six-month promissory notes issued by Taeseong Construction as collateral.
If Taeseong delayed payment on those notes a month later, it would have no cash to draw on and would immediately default despite being profitable.
'It looks perfectly healthy now, but in a month it will be thrown onto the market for next to nothing. The perfect prey.'
I opened several Excel windows and extracted the figures without hesitation.
I deleted every scrap of the superficial report formatting Manager Oh had defended as though his life depended on it.
In its place, I set out short-term borrowing maturities and the rate at which debt would increase as exchange rates shifted, then added simulations of cascading subcontractor defaults to form the report's backbone.
"……."
Then I sensed an unwelcome presence behind me.
I did not need to turn around to know who it was.
Manager Oh was determined to find some fault with me and humiliate me in front of the department head.
I could hear his shallow breathing just above my head as he stopped behind me.
I deliberately increased my typing speed.
'Go on, then. Find something to criticize if you can.'
The crude 1997 version of Excel could not keep up with my fingers.
An hourglass icon blinked in the center of the screen, and the Pentium computer tower roared and stuttered.
On the screen, the dirty secrets Taeseong Construction wanted hidden were being stripped bare, laid out alongside logical formulas.
"Y-you… Where did you get all these figures…?"
Manager Oh's trembling voice came from behind me.
He was utterly overwhelmed by the 'Default Forecast Simulation Accounting for Exchange Rate Risk' worksheet I was building.
It contained flawless insight informed by thirty years of macroeconomic data, far beyond anything a mere manager in the Strategic Planning Office could challenge.
Without pausing my typing or looking away from the screen, I answered flatly.
"It is all basic data scattered across the intranet."
"I am sure you were aware of it too, sir. You have simply been too busy to find the time to connect the pieces."
"……!"
Manager Oh's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's at my mocking flattery.
But he could not find a single fault to pick at.
The moment this report reached the department head's office, it would conclusively prove the incompetence of a man who had complacently clung to his position while insisting there was 'nothing wrong.'
"Then I will continue working, sir."
At those words, Manager Oh flinched and stepped backward.
The department's entrenched pecking order of seniority was being helplessly trampled under overwhelming competence and facts.
Before I knew it, lights were beginning to glow in the forest of buildings outside the windows of Yeouido.
It was a sign that the end of the workday was approaching.
At the same time, the printer fell silent after spitting out the last page.
"The report is finished."
I rose with the folder, its pages still warm.
Manager Oh, who had been anxiously chewing his nails the whole time, hurried after me.
He intended to get into the department head's office with me somehow and take a share of the credit, as though he had directed the work.
KNOCK, KNOCK.
When I opened the door and entered, Department Head Park, seated at the head of the room, pushed up his glasses.
"Have you brought it?"
"Yes, sir. As instructed, I rewrote it with a focus on the foreign currency debt risks beneath the financial figures."
"Hmm. That was quick. Let me see it."
The weighty silence of the office was filled only by the sound of Department Head Park turning the pages.
With each page, his gaze grew colder and sharper.
It was a natural response. The report laid out a perfectly structured crisis scenario and proved the possibility of cascading subcontractor defaults in stark figures.
"…Sir. A new employee wrote this, so some of the figures are rather extreme."
"He followed the general framework I have always taught him, but his lack of practical experience does show…."
Unable to endure the suffocating silence, Manager Oh began to stammer.
It was a pathetic excuse meant to cover his own incompetence at any cost.
I glanced at him coldly and cut through even that feeble excuse in a single stroke.
"I apologize for having to say this, but these are the results of including the 1.5 billion dollars in Taeseong Construction's short-term external debt that you omitted from last quarter's report as 'standard practice.'"
"W-what? You little bastard! Omitted? Those loans were certain to be rolled over…!"
"That blind faith in their being 'certain' is the detonator that could put the entire group on a leash when the exchange rate shifts."
BANG-!
Department Head Park slammed a heavy crystal ashtray against the desk.
"You crazy bastard. Standard practice? The group's about to be cut in half, and you're prattling on about standard practice?!"
His vicious curse and icy stare struck Manager Oh.
Manager Oh hunched his shoulders, trembling like a leaf.
"Manager Oh."
"Y-yes, sir!"
"Stay out of the approval process for the time being. Effective immediately, Baek will bring all data concerning Taeseong Construction's risks directly to me."
"……Yes, sir!"
Manager Oh's face crumpled, turning ashen.
The department's hierarchy, and the scope of my freedom within the Strategic Planning Office, had been completely reshaped.
Before long, the workday was over.
When I returned to my desk after my complete victory in the department head's office, Jeong Min-jae, who was packing his things, approached cautiously.
"Hey, Baek Do-jin. You were completely insane today. Manager Oh looked like his soul had left his body. How about we go out for some grilled pork belly and soju…?"
"I'll head out first today. I have some personal business to take care of."
"That's a shame. I was going to treat you properly today."
Jeong Min-jae smacked his lips regretfully, glanced around, and whispered in my ear.
"I'm only telling you this, but I cashed out my installment savings account today and put every last won into stocks. Can you believe it? I saw some good news about the new town development. You know 'Jinsan Construction,' one of our subcontractors, right?"
"……What? Didn't you say you were going to wait for your year-end bonus and buy at the bottom?"
"Ah, I couldn't stand waiting that long. Once I get the year-end bonus, I'll borrow more on top of it and average down. I only need to leave it there for a month, and by early next year I'll be driving a Grandeur. Hahaha! When that happens, I'll treat you at the most expensive hostess bar in Yeouido!"
Jeong Min-jae laughed brightly and patted my shoulder.
His eyes shone with blind faith in South Korea's rosy future of endless growth.
'……In exactly one month, those shares will be worthless scraps of paper, and you will be opening a bottle of soju on Mapo Bridge.'
We had not been particularly close in my previous life, so I had never known about this. What a pitiful fool.
Should I grab this stupid, naive bastard by the collar and tell him to sell right now?
No. He would only think I was mad if I told him.
I swallowed the incredulous laugh rising in my throat and patted his shoulder in return.
"All right. I'll take you up on that when the time comes."
Leaving Jeong Min-jae behind, I walked out of Taeseong Group's headquarters without hesitation.
Night had fallen over the streets of Yeouido in 1997.
Dazzling neon signs blazed.
Lively dance music poured from a roadside record shop, and drunken office workers in ties staggered along, laughing and talking loudly.
They were moths drawn to a flame, oblivious to the ruin ahead, blindly trusting in tonight's pleasures and tomorrow's ever-rising prosperity.
I turned my back on them and stood in the middle of the street as the chilly autumn wind blew.
Then I slipped a hand into my inner pocket and ran my fingers over the stiff cover of the foreign currency passbook, its entire balance already converted to dollars.
A mere hundred million won.
It was a pitifully small sum for hunting a giant corporation.
But in one month, when national default was declared and the exchange rate soared out of control,
I would use these dollars to prime the pump and bet on the market's decline at tenfold leverage.
With that explosively multiplied, blood-red capital,
I would swallow Jinsan Construction whole: a fundamentally sound subcontractor facing default despite its profitability, thrown onto the market at a rock-bottom price.
Just one month.
All I had to do was wait for the immense gates of hell to open upon this foolish, peaceful world.