The air in the large conference room on the fourteenth floor of Taeseong Group headquarters was so heavy it seemed almost viscous.
Only moments earlier, the three siblings had been shouting and raging as though they might smash the conference table.
Now their eyes were fixed firmly on the report I had presented.
More precisely, on the sweet illusion of 'survival' it offered.
"……Absorb the subcontractors' assets through a shell company, then use them as collateral to circulate funds again?"
Director Choi Kang-min murmured, narrowing his serpentine eyes.
His finger slowly traced a particular figure in the report.
As expected of the sharpest of the three.
He had instinctively recognized that this plan would produce 'blood-red funds' by burying dozens of subcontractors alive.
Of course, recognizing that hardly made him the sort of man who would refuse it.
"Yes. With this method, we should have no immediate trouble paying for the semiconductor production line expansion."
A faint smile spread across Choi Kang-min's lips.
As if that smile were a signal, the savage expression on Managing Director Choi Tae-young's face began to ease too.
"See? What did I tell you? Strategic Planning always has a way! It was worth coming down here. Those idiots in Construction just kept running around in circles."
The imposing bluster with which he had bullied Department Head Park only moments earlier, as though about to grab him by the collar, had vanished.
Choi Tae-young even let out a hearty laugh.
It was quite a sight, watching him shrug as though he had devised the idea himself.
"Managing Director, Directors. As I explained, this is a 'temporary' measure to minimize risk across the entire group."
I bowed even more respectfully.
"However, the procedures for mutual payment guarantees between affiliates will be intricately connected. For swift implementation, you will need to delegate full authority to the working staff of the headquarters Strategic Planning Office, rather than the individual affiliates' legal teams."
"Fine. Approved. Why not? This is an emergency, after all, isn't it?"
Director Choi Seo-yun joined in, irritably sweeping back her hair.
She was probably already picturing the luxury brand lines in her department stores remaining intact.
And so the three siblings glanced at one another and willingly swallowed the poisoned dumpling called the 'Selective Survival Plan.'
They looked relieved as they calculated who had eaten the larger piece and who had secured loans more safely.
They never dreamed of the future in which that dumpling would burst inside their bellies and make them grind one another's entrails to pulp.
'Enjoy your meal, all of you, until the indigestion makes you vomit blood.'
I slowly straightened from my bow and looked at them.
After the meeting, I returned to my desk in the Strategic Planning Office and opened a folder immediately.
On top lay a proposal to defer progress payments and freeze promissory note settlements for first-tier subcontractors, including Jinsan Construction.
Without a moment's hesitation, I slammed my approval seal onto the bottom of the document.
That single mark of red seal paste would sever thousands of livelihoods and dismantle dozens of companies.
Yet not a trace of guilt clung to my fingertips.
In the capitalist ecosystem, the flesh and blood of the weak were merely excellent nourishment for the strong.
Around the same time, at Jinsan Construction's headquarters in Gangnam,
President Choi clutched the receiver, trembling like a leaf.
"B-branch Manager! Please give me one more day. No, just half a day! A few days ago, I went all the way to Taeseong headquarters, barged into the lobby, and begged on my knees! If those bastards release our frozen progress payments, there is nothing wrong with our company!"
[President Choi, our merchant bank is on its last legs too. We cannot wait for you any longer.
Taeseong has absolutely no intention of lifting the freeze on promissory note payments.
The three o'clock deadline has passed. In accordance with procedure, we will issue the final declaration of default for Jinsan Construction.]
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-.
The call ended with an indifferent electronic tone.
"Ah, aah……."
President Choi sank heavily to the floor, his mind blank.
Even the last shred of hope that had driven him to roll on Taeseong Group's lobby floor and scream as though coughing up blood a few days earlier was gone.
Default despite profitability.
It was the cruelest death sentence: a company sound on paper had its air cut off overnight because it could no longer obtain short-term cash.
The valuable business he had devoted his entire life to building was being crumpled into a scrap of wastepaper at a court auction.
As his anguished sobs filled the Gangnam office building,
I sat expressionlessly at my computer in the Strategic Planning Office, drafting the incorporation documents for the shell company that would swallow that valuable business whole.
[Approval Request for Establishing a Special-Purpose Company (SPC) in a Tax Haven]
On the surface, the document catered to Department Head Park and the three siblings.
It proposed a phantom company under the group that would absorb Taeseong Construction's subcontractors' assets at a pittance.
But this corporation was nothing more than bait.
It would sow the 'seeds of civil war' by binding the three siblings together through grotesque mutual payment guarantees, eventually making them tear away at one another's assets.
Throughout the document, I meticulously embedded fatal legal loopholes and blind spots in ownership that only I would recognize.
With that, the hunting ground that would entangle the siblings was ready.
Now it was time to fashion 'a bowl of my own' behind this screen, one into which I would scoop the real meat.
After work, I headed once again to W Securities in central Yeouido.
The trading hall was in pandemonium, filled with retail investors who had lost their entire fortunes after failing to meet margin calls.
But the atmosphere awaiting me in the VIP dealing room was entirely different.
"W-welcome! Mr. Baek Do-jin!"
The elite branch manager of the foreign brokerage rushed to the doorway to take my coat.
A middle-aged man in a premium suit was behaving before me like a dog wagging its tail.
"The 500% I told you about this morning was only the beginning! The market finally closed at its lower limit, and your return finished at 700%! If this continues until expiry, we're talking tens of billions. Tens of billions of won!"
His eyes had already lost all reason and shone with greed.
He was utterly overwhelmed by a new employee barely into his twenties, ready to surrender even his soul.
I settled into the sofa at an angle and spoke flatly.
"Those tens of billions coming at expiry. I want them moved to a tax haven."
"……Pardon? A-a tax haven?"
The branch manager, who had been spraying spit in his excitement, gaped.
"The Cayman Islands or the Virgin Islands should do. Launder it thoroughly and set up a foreign private equity fund whose true identity cannot be traced."
It was a blatant order to create a typical 'black-haired foreigner,' a Korean investor posing as foreign capital.
The order was a clear violation of the Foreign Exchange Control Act and crossed into financial crime.
"S-sir! Even so, an illegal route like that…… If I get caught, it will be my head!"
The branch manager trembled like a leaf and waved his hands in protest.
I tapped the crystal ashtray on the table with my finger, once, then again.
"The management fees on the tens of billions coming at expiry. And the fees on the trillions I will manage in the future. Shall I give all of them to another brokerage?"
"……!"
"Before your head rolls, I am offering to put you on a mountain of money you could never otherwise hope to touch."
The branch manager's breathing suddenly grew harsh.
I could almost hear the frenzied collision of legality and illegality, paltry morality and immense greed, inside his head.
But the outcome was obvious.
For a dog of capitalism, morality was a luxury to be sought only on a full stomach.
"……When do you need it ready?"
The branch manager swallowed hard and bowed deeply.
The perfect figurehead CEO, entirely mine to control, and an excellent loyal hound had just been born.
"The second week of December. Have the company fully set up before the put options expire."
He stopped writing the date in his notebook and looked up with a start.
"Around expiry…… Why that particular time?"
"Because around then, a valuable subcontractor that has defaulted despite being profitable will turn up at auction for less than wastepaper."
I lifted the crystal glass from the sofa table and continued flatly.
"Jinsan Construction. I intend to scoop up every prime site it spits out in the heart of Gangnam, along with all its top-tier heavy equipment. In the name of that 'foreign fund' you are going to establish."
The Montblanc fountain pen dropped from his hand.
His pupils trembled wildly, as though an earthquake had struck.
I could almost hear an enormous puzzle coming together inside his head.
The reason I had poured my entire fortune into deep out-of-the-money put options aimed beneath the basement floor.
And the perfect coincidence between the tens of billions that would materialize at December expiry and the target company's arrival at a court auction.
"D-don't tell me……."
His voice had gone beyond awe into primal fear.
"Did you calculate everything from the start, even the timing of this country's collapse and that company's default, before setting all this in motion?"
How could a mere new employee perfectly coordinate the collapse of the macroeconomy with the minute details of a company's liquidation schedule?
In his eyes, I must already have been a monster beyond the bounds of humanity.
Instead of answering, I slowly rolled the ice around in my glass.
CLINK-.
Only that clear, sharp sound broke the heavy silence of the dealing room.
"You ask a lot of questions, Mr. Branch Manager."
I twisted my lips into a cold smile and stood up.
The remaining ice in the glass was melting, beading with water.
"A hound has no need to understand the intentions of a master who promises to make it money. It need only fetch exactly what it is told to fetch."
His shoulders gave a violent twitch.
"I will be going. Prepare the company setup thoroughly, as instructed. Ah, that reminds me."
As I put on my coat, I turned my head casually.
"I still do not know your name. The name of the figurehead CEO who will manage my tens of billions."
"Ah, I-I am Joo Yun-ha! Joo Yun-ha, manager of W Securities' Yeouido branch. I look forward to serving you!"
Joo Yun-ha bent into a ninety-degree bow and cried out in a trembling voice.
His pride as an elite professional at a foreign financial firm was nowhere to be seen. It was complete submission.
"Joo Yun-ha. I will remember it."
I lightly patted his shoulder a couple of times.
"Your title will have to change after expiry too. I have no intention of leaving you as a mere branch manager, collecting a paycheck under someone else. I will be in touch again soon."
"I-it is an honor, CEO Baek!"
Before the company had even been formed, the title 'CEO' had instinctively slipped from Joo Yun-ha's lips.
When I pushed through the brokerage's revolving doors, the cutting November wind lashed my whole body.
Yeouido's streets at night were distinctly different.
Nearly half the neon signs that had kept the city ablaze all night were dark, and the tented street stalls lining the road were filled with the sighs of men drinking soju without so much as a bite to eat, their ties loosened.
On the electronic board of a giant brokerage building, a red headline flowed like blood: 'National Default Crisis, Another Plunge Expected Tomorrow.'
The world was slowly freezing to death.
But the great heart inside me, the engine of capital forged for revenge, was heating up as never before.
A vast hunt that would tear the Taeseong Empire to shreds awaited.
At the end of this brutal winter, I would become the sole predator and feast on the richest meat.
Go on, then. Struggle all you like.
I will devour you completely, starting at the bottom of this hell.