It Really Works? +18
Right after I left the chairman’s office, Director Choi took me straight to his own office.
Without even telling his secretary to bring tea, he shut the heavy door with a grave expression and said, “Sit down.”
Then he sat across from me on the reception sofa instead of taking the seat of honor.
His face was intensely serious. The pleased look he’d worn moments earlier in the chairman’s office, when he’d seen the two-billion-won proposal, was gone without a trace.
“Baek, Gunwoo. You do see what’s going on here, don’t you?”
“The situation... sir?”
“Yes. Why the chairman is coming at this from that angle.”
Director Choi let out a sigh and loosened his tie a little.
“The chairman really does think highly of you. But this proposal is a kind of test. You can see that, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. What the chairman wants to know is whether you’re the kind of talent that only works inside the Ground Equipment Division, or the real deal—the kind of man who can roam across land, sea, and air and tear systems apart to rebuild them from the ground up.”
Director Choi looked at me with worried eyes.
“If you stay in our division, you won’t lose face. Keep this up and making executive level won’t be hard at all. Maybe one day you’ll even sit in this ground equipment chair after me—or go higher than that.”
That made sense.
Even if I used this ability and stayed in the Ground Equipment Division as I had until now, I’d rack up more than enough results.
I’d clearly become an irreplaceable asset just by doing that alone.
“But if you go out there and let the people in other divisions walk all over you, then show your limits? The moment your standing takes a hit, your career will get tangled up from square one again. The chairman doesn’t hesitate when a card fails.”
It was a sincere warning.
Going to another division was like leaving a safe greenhouse and being tossed into the wild, where bullets could come from every direction.
Even back in the chairman’s office, I’d felt it—but now it seemed the stakes were much bigger than I’d thought.
This wasn’t simply a matter of me proving my ability to the company. It was a war between Chairman Cho and the outside private equity fund, with the Ground Equipment Division trying to survive in the middle of it all.
And I had somehow ended up right at the center.
But... if anything, that only made me more excited.
Maybe I’d get to work on machines I’d never even seen before, things I’d never once imagined touching.
And maybe, through that process, I’d be handed the chance to do the things I’d only ever thought about—things I’d dismissed as nothing more than fantasy.
Still, there was no way I could show even a hint of that to Director Choi, who was speaking so seriously because he was genuinely worried about me.
I answered in a calm voice.
“I’ll think it over carefully. Thank you for the advice, sir.”
“Good. Think it through.”
Director Choi patted my shoulder, looking both bitter and oddly proud.
*
Then that afternoon, the company intranet bulletin board and the messenger systems of the key executives lit up with furious red alerts.
As soon as people checked the notice, the atmosphere inside the company ignited.
This was a meeting personally chaired by none other than Cho Seunghyun, the owner of the company.
And right next to Chairman Cho Seunghyun’s name, the notice had the unfamiliar title “Baek Gunwoo, Department Head of the Technology Audit Team” listed in bold.
There was no way not to be fired up by that.
“Hah, well now.”
Han Taejun, the head of the Special Vessel Division and leader of the next-generation heavy torpedo lab, let out a dry laugh as he looked at his tablet.
“A mechanical engineering major is going to come in and tell us how to do our jobs? Ridiculous. What does some landlubber know about fluid dynamics?”
He clicked his tongue in irritation.
The fluid dynamics and acoustics of the deep sea were on an entirely different level.
They were not something some grease-covered land engineer had any business sticking his nose into.
At the same time, in the guided weapons research center, Seo Jinhwan’s face had gone cold with anger.
“Some guy who only ever looked at tank armor on dry land thinks he can make comments about materials for extreme environments?”
Jung Woosik, the head of the stealth drone communication protocol division, was no different.
He snorted when he saw the name Baek Gunwoo.
“What does some guy who only handled machines think he knows? Let him say one word in front of me, and I’ll strip him down to the soul.”
Fourteen monstrous projects that consumed half of South Korea’s defense budget.
The fury they radiated hung over the entire building like a taut wire.
*
The next day, 9:00 a.m.
The corridor outside the main conference room on the thirty-first floor of headquarters.
Heavy footsteps came thudding down the hall.
And into view came the company’s elite division heads—the same men who were supposedly among the most authoritative figures in academia as well.
I was already waiting in the conference room, and the moment I saw them, I had to swallow hard.
I remembered the reaction I’d had yesterday when I saw the post on the intranet board, remembering how I’d unconsciously clutched the back of my neck.
Honestly... it had been absurd.
I’d thought they were just gathering the division heads of some departments that had been sucking up budget for years without producing results.
But these were the people?
“Ahem.”
“Khrrm.”
As they exchanged brief nods and entered the room, they spotted me and let out highly disapproving coughs.
There was killing intent in their eyes when they looked at me.
But the die had already been cast.
Acting like nothing was wrong, I tightened my fist under the table and tried to keep my expression calm while scanning the room.
From the greatest authority on next-generation submarines to the number one expert on heat-resistant materials for hypersonic missiles.
These were national-level minds, the kind of people the company had no choice but to invest in for the long haul with trillions of won, because they were locked in brutal competition against the limits of modern science.
The overwhelming hostility they exuded prickled against my skin.
There were fourteen super-elite division heads gathered here.
And I was the only one who had to face them.
Besides the one ability I’d gained after my concussion, I was just an ordinary engineer.
A chill ran down my spine.
But that sense of danger quickly turned into a strange kind of curiosity.
I wanted to know what those fourteen impossible problems were that had driven even these elites to despair.
I wanted to dig into each flaw, tear it apart, and rebuild it into a machine that worked perfectly.
That engineer’s instinct stirred inside me.
Then—
Rrrrck.
The door behind the seat of honor opened, and Chairman Cho Seunghyun stepped in.
The executives scrambled to their feet, but Chairman Cho didn’t even gesture for them to sit. Instead, he nodded toward Vice President Kang, who stood behind him.
Vice President Kang wheeled a large cart into the conference room.
Thud.
The sound of a stack of heavy file binders hitting the table.
When I looked, I saw that they were documents labeled as executive summaries.
If these were the summaries brought to a meeting like this, then they had to be the condensed core defect reports and limitation data for the fourteen classified projects being discussed today.
Vice President Kang slid the lethal stack of summaries not toward the chairman, not toward the executives, but straight toward me.
In an instant, the room froze.
The executives’ faces turned pale, then flushed red.
Years of sweat and blood—summed up into classified documents that exposed only the most unfixable Achilles’ heels of their work—had just been tossed in front of a mere department head like prey.
So that’s what it looked like when blood rushed backward into your head.
Then Chairman Cho, seated in the seat of honor, looked back and forth between the summary files in front of me and the rigid-faced executives.
And then he grinned.
“All right, now that we’re all here, let’s start talking.”
No sooner had Chairman Cho finished speaking than complaints burst out as if they’d been waiting for the cue.
The first to open fire was the special vessel division head who’d been glaring at me openly from the start.
“Chairman, I’m well aware that Department Head Baek has achieved remarkable results in the ground equipment division. I acknowledge that. But... the sea is different.”
He frowned and glanced at me before continuing.
“The physics of the deep sea—where pressure, salinity, and fluid resistance change moment by moment—are completely different from those on land. What exactly is he supposed to do with the instincts of someone who’s only ever handled tank engines and transmissions? This is a waste of time.”
“Agreed. The communication interference and vortex phenomena we deal with are the same. This isn’t mechanical engineering, it’s the realm of quantum mechanics and radio engineering. Auditing us like this is absurd.”
Even the stealth drone chief, Jung, chimed in.
It was an attack based on thoroughly logical, painfully specialized knowledge.
Which made it all the harder to refute.
They were right, after all, so I couldn’t immediately think of a response.
I wasn’t some genius; how was I supposed to understand the physical laws of the sea?
Just as my mind was beginning to tangle, Chairman Cho set down his teacup with studied ease and looked at me.
“Well, Baek Department Head. Those boys are questioning your abilities. Are you just going to sit there and listen?”
No, seriously, this old man...
Unlike my own bewilderment, every eye in the room swung toward me.
What was I supposed to do?
I couldn’t beat these men with mere talk.
To steady my nerves, I casually reached for the file sitting on top of the stack of fourteen summaries and opened it.
Defect Report on the Propulsion System of the Next-Generation Heavy Torpedo
It was the file belonging to the torpedo chief who’d attacked me first.
When I turned the page, a detailed cross-section of the torpedo’s stern and its pump-jet propeller system appeared.
I was just idly letting my eyes rest on the drawing, reading the summarized critical defects and limitation data, when it happened.
Woooong—
A ringing exploded in my ears, and the world in front of me suddenly spun.
It was the exact same strange sensation I’d experienced when I looked at the Kanksa power pack diagram.
Since I’d been through it once already, I wasn’t as startled as before.
In fact, I only grew more intrigued by the phenomenon, frowning slightly as I stared into the empty air.
The core defects and limitation data I’d skimmed a moment ago began to ripple, rising up into the space before me.
At the same time, the conference room vanished, and all around me the world transformed into the deep blue sea.
In the center of that abyss, something solid was being assembled.
What appeared before my eyes was a massive steel torpedo, its screws spinning at high speed as it cut through the water.
And in my vision, I could see the scream of that enormous mass of machinery.
The stern of the torpedo was supposed to spin smoothly in a clean, normal blue light.
Instead, red sparks were flickering like they were about to burst from the third screw blade attached there.
Microscopic air bubbles were forming and bursting, hammering the drive shaft with shockwaves and vibration so intense they were almost painfully clear to see.
So that was it...
They’d twisted the propeller blade angle too far in order to suppress noise, and now they were shaving the rear bearing shaft to pieces.
Seeing this, I knew for certain.
I knew exactly how this propulsion system needed to be fixed.
The moment that conclusion formed in my head, my vision returned to the conference room.
*
A faint smirk crept onto Han Taejun’s lips.
Despite the sharp rebuke, Baek Gunwoo sat there with the papers open in front of him, not moving an inch.
He looked utterly blank, staring into space like a man whose soul had left his body.
He’s shaken. His mental game cracked.
Han Taejun clicked his tongue inwardly.
Of course it was only natural. How was some engineer who only handled slabs of metal supposed to understand the complex system of the deep sea, where pressure, salinity, and fluid resistance all overlapped?
This was Chairman Cho Seunghyun’s reckless overreach.
Just as Han Taejun was about to cough in triumph, certain he’d won, Baek Gunwoo’s tightly shut lips slowly opened.
“Head of Division. It looks like, to suppress the cavitation in the tail fins, you forced the drive shaft screw angle to bend more than it should have.”
“...What?”
Han Taejun’s eyebrows twitched.
Baek Gunwoo continued speaking with the same indifferent expression.
“If you just force the flow rate down like that, the current coming from the front will slam into the third blade and amplify the noise even more. At this rate, the vibration will wear the bearings down even at a frequency of 1.5 hertz. You brought this here as a solution?”
A suffocating silence fell over the conference room.
Han Taejun’s face went rigid as stone.
His pupils shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck inside his head.
1.5 hertz? How the hell did he know that number...?
Gooseflesh rushed down my spine.
That had been a top-secret value, confirmed only yesterday after months of simulation on a supercomputer.
And that ground-equipment department head had glanced at the drawing and recited it in less than ten seconds.
“Y-you... how did you know the drive shaft vibration frequency...?”
Han Taejun stammered.
At that stunned reaction, Seo Jinhwan, sitting next to him, narrowed his eyes.
Why is that guy acting like that? He’s getting dragged into it.
Seo took in the air inside the conference room as it chilled around them.
If this kept up, the momentum would be completely lost.
This whole gathering had been intended to neutralize the Baek Gunwoo card Chairman Cho had put on the table.
Even if the opponent was just some engineer from the Ground Equipment Division who knew nothing, they still couldn’t simply let the chairman directly interfere with every division one by one.
To preserve the autonomy of their departments, they needed to shake off this check before it took root.
“I have no issue with the company auditing the divisions. That’s a perfectly natural system. But I do have serious doubts about whether the people performing that audit truly possess the necessary expertise.”
“Doubts?”
“Yes. Someone who only has eyes for existing tank parts wants to assess the hypersonic domain? In the Mach 5 regime, even conventional aerodynamics formulas become useless. On what grounds, with what knowledge, are you planning to judge right from wrong in technologies we’ve poured years into developing? Why don’t we hear this wonderful audit plan of yours?”
Seo’s voice trailed off for a beat.
It was because of the expression on Baek Gunwoo’s face as he listened.
There wasn’t the slightest hint of panic.
Baek Gunwoo merely nodded once, as though he’d just heard something interesting.
“I’ll explain it soon. Please wait just a moment.”
“Hah. Wait? You mean you’re so unprepared you can’t answer me right now?”
“I apologize. Just a moment.”
With that awkward little smile, Baek Gunwoo opened the report submitted by Seo’s TF.
His eyes swept across the pages at a startling speed.
And then, had only about two minutes really passed?
Baek Gunwoo closed the report, stared into empty space as though deep in thought, and finally spoke.
The moment the words came out of his mouth, Seo’s eyes went wide.
In a trembling voice, he said, “If... if we do that, it’ll work?”