Chapter 51
.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Forty-Trillion-Won Trap
Minus 30 degrees. The Swedish winter training ground in Kiruna was being lashed by the North’s signature knife-like wind.
Inside the temporary VIP barracks, a massive heater thundered away at full blast, but the air within was frozen colder than the blizzard outside.
“Executive Director Cho Taehyung, and Director Jang of Taesung Heavy Industries. It seems neither of you has fully grasped how serious this situation is yet.”
Kim Seungyoon, the Deputy Director of the Presidential Security Office, sat in the seat of honor and tapped the table with cold, hard fingers.
Before him sat Jo Taehyung, Hanseo Defense’s Executive Director in charge of the ground weapons systems division, and Jang Hyuntae, a director from Taesung Heavy Industries, both holding their breath.
“This morning, the Swedish defense minister asked me for tea. Do you know what he said to me there?”
“What... did he say?”
“He asked whether Korean tanks were always this weak in the cold. Their tracks are collapsing, their shells are missing the target... while the German competitors have already finished testing perfectly and popped champagne.”
Jang Hyuntae of Taesung Heavy Industries opened his mouth carefully, as if wronged.
“Deputy Director, that’s only because Swedish snow has a different texture than Korean snow. It’s a temporary...”
“Director Jang.”
Kim’s voice dropped, low and metallic.
“Do you think the Swedes held winter testing because they don’t know what their own snow is like? They called you here to prove you could beat it. And do you know what else the minister said? He told me, ‘The nuclear power, communications, and urban infrastructure reconstruction package proposed by Korea is far more attractive than Germany’s. We sincerely hope Korea can overcome this tank issue.’ That is what he said.”
Kim Seungyoon looked from Jo Taehyung to Jang Hyuntae and drove the point home.
“This isn’t about selling a few tanks. This is a forty-trillion-won deal, the fate of the Republic of Korea’s economy hanging on the line. The Swedish government is holding a door open for us even though they’ve already got Germany, a sure bet, in their hands. They’re waiting on us by choice. And you two are planning to trip over that open threshold and knock this forty-trillion-won table clean over?”
A heavy silence pressed down on the barracks.
Jo Taehyung swallowed the cold sweat running down his back and answered politely, though his voice never wavered.
“...I apologize. I understand exactly what it means that the Swedish government agreed to postpone tomorrow’s final observer test.”
“Then prove it. Executive Director Jo, aren’t you the next heir of the Hanseo Group? If you smash the forty-trillion-won board your father laid out for you here, it won’t be the Blue House taking your head first. It’ll be Chairman Jo. I’ll see you again soon.”
Leaving behind that glacial warning, Kim and his entourage left the barracks.
The moment the barracks’ heavy door shut with a clang, Jo Taehyung finally let out the breath he had been holding and tore off the tie that had been cinching his throat so neatly.
Even he, flawless and unshaken as an elite should be, was under pressure that felt close to madness.
His gaze moved to the document the deputy director had tossed down: the Swedish evaluation team’s comparison sheet, Germany vs. Korea.
German Rheinmetall (Modified Leopard 2)
- High-speed maneuvering on ice: No issues.
- Continuous fire in extreme cold: 100% accuracy. No thermal deformation.
Republic of Korea Consortium (Next-Generation Export Tank)
- High-speed maneuvering on ice: Failure. (Loss of track tension and derailment due to freezing of the Nordic wet snow.)
- Continuous fire in extreme cold: Failure. (Thermal deformation of the high-end main gun caused by extreme temperature differentials.)
The red lines were brutally, devastatingly clear.
Jo Taehyung understood this dilemma better than anyone, and felt it deeper in his bones.
The tank prepared by the Korean side was a prototype built by packing in next-generation over-spec technology so far beyond the limits of existing systems that it could open the door to forty trillion won.
But that insane specification had collided with the savage natural environment unique to Northern Europe.
It had run headlong into an unforeseen physical limit, and now it was on the brink of disaster.
“Uh, Executive Director Jo.”
Director Jang from Taesung licked his dry lips and spoke cautiously.
“I said this before too, but this isn’t a sensor logic issue. Once the snow trapped between the tracks takes pressure, it freezes solid like concrete in an instant. There’s no way the existing tension adjuster can keep...”
“Director Jang.”
Jo Taehyung’s low, icy voice split through the barracks.
“I’m not a weather bureau employee, so why are you explaining Swedish snowflakes to me? What I want to hear isn’t an excuse about how the snow is different. I want an engineering solution for how we’re going to keep the track from coming off.”
“Th-that is...”
“The thermal deformation problem in the main gun that Hanseo’s handling, I’ll resolve it myself somehow, as the chief designer. So Taesung should spend less time making excuses and start resetting the suspension settings right now. Unless you’re planning to bury forty trillion won in the snow just because of one track.”
Director Jang bowed his head like someone who had just swallowed a mouthful of glue.
Jo Taehyung was just as dry inside. His perfect simulation data had become useless before the sheet of ice at the site, and the final evaluation that was supposed to happen tomorrow had been pushed back a week.
Even if the delay was only because of a technical issue, it was still a serious blow. And if they couldn’t solve it in that week?
There was no worse outcome than that.
And yet time was still lacking, with no clear solution in sight.
“...Damn it.”
Jo Taehyung muttered under his breath, too quietly for anyone nearby to hear.
Just then, the barracks door opened and his secretary hurried in.
“Executive Director. Hanseo headquarters has sent Executive Director Baek Gunwoo, and he just arrived at Kiruna Airport. He’s on his way by car.”
“...He’s here.”
Jo Taehyung’s cold eyes trembled ever so slightly.
The man his younger sister Yerin praised with foaming enthusiasm.
He had flown in at the government’s request because they could no longer stand to watch this situation collapse.
As a doctrinaire, theory-first elite who had earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from an elite university overseas, Jo Taehyung honestly did not fully trust Baek Gunwoo’s way of doing things, which involved actually taking a wrench to the machine and working with his hands.
He believed, with absolute conviction, that mechanical engineering was the art of rigorous numbers and data, not some superstitious realm solved by a person’s intuition or gut feeling.
But Jo Taehyung was in no position to worry about that now.
This was a situation so urgent they’d have to borrow even a cat’s paw if they could.
All he could do was hope that Baek Gunwoo would arrive, solve everything, and help them escape this mess in one piece.
* * *
“What insane weather.”
The moment I got out of the vehicle, the knife wind slapped me across the face so hard I let out a dry laugh.
I had gone from Geoje, a warm southern island, to the far north of Sweden at minus 30 degrees.
Every time I breathed, it felt like the inside of my nose was freezing shut.
“It’s, it’s too cold...”
“Feels like even the inside of my nose is freezing. Flying all the way to Sweden on the company dime sounded good, but the moment I got out, I’m already wanting to go back to Korea.”
Manager Maeng and Chief Jo had flown with me on the private jet.
Wrapped in heavy cold-weather gear just as thick as mine, both of them were shivering uncontrollably.
“They said this was the forty-trillion-won project, didn’t they? This is where it’s stuck. We just have to endure it. We’ll adjust. Even cold like this becomes bearable after a few days.”
“Even in a place where you’d freeze solid the second you tried to piss outside?”
Manager Maeng shot back in disbelief.
I gave a bitter smile and shrugged.
“People still live in places like that, don’t they?”
“Damn it. If it were a hot country, fine, but I hate cold countries.”
“It’ll be warm once we get inside. Come on, let’s move. Hurry up.”
Just as I was coaxing Manager Maeng into motion, a massive silhouette appeared beyond the fierce snowstorm blurring my view.
The master key to the forty-trillion-won MOU forged by Hanseo Defense, Taesung Heavy Industries, and the Agency for Defense Development.
The next-generation export tank, K2SE.
“...What a mess.”
I didn’t even need to get close to know.
Already, my eyes could see the red, screaming lines of metal from far away.
The murderous tension in the right track, frozen so hard it was ready to snap like a drawn bowstring, with chunks of ice wedged between the road wheels like wedges.
And the horrific residual stress lingering around the fastening bands that held the gun’s thermal barrel sleeve in place, scars left behind by repeated high-speed firing and rapid cooling.
The barrel wasn’t bent right now, and the track wasn’t derailing, but the pain left by parts that had been forced past their limits and made to hold their shape was plain as day.
I could see it all far too clearly.
“Executive Director Baek. What are you doing? Let’s go inside. It’s so cold we’re going to die out here.”
“Huh? Ah, yes. Let’s go.”
At Manager Maeng’s urging, we pushed through the blizzard toward the VIP barracks standing on one side of the training ground.
The moment we opened the heavy windproof door and stepped inside, the heat from the heater hit us at once, but the silence waiting within was heavier than a funeral parlor’s.
Director Jang Hyuntae of Taesung Heavy Industries was sitting there with both hands on his head.
A stranger from ADD was staring fixedly at his laptop screen.
And in the seat of honor, a man with cold, sunk-in eyes watched us enter.
Jo Yerin’s older brother by blood, and the executive director overseeing Hanseo Defense’s ground weapons systems.
Jo Taehyung.
“You’ve arrived, Executive Director Baek.”
As he rose, Jo Taehyung offered a flat greeting.
I had heard he had worked very hard to keep Jo Yerin out of the succession line for Chairman Jo.
And now, somehow, he was the one welcoming me, the man who had ended up as one of Yerin’s strongest allies.
Of course the greeting was going to be flat.
“Good to meet you, Executive Director. I’m Baek Gunwoo. Nice to meet you.”
“Yes. Thank you for coming such a long way. You’ve probably heard the basics, but the test has been postponed by a week. The problem still hasn’t been solved. The documents summarizing the on-site data and simulation error rates are here...”
Just as Jo Taehyung was about to slide a thick stack of data files across the table, I pulled off my snow-dusted gloves and shoved them into my pocket, then gently pushed the papers back.
“Executive Director. Before the documents, I’d like to see the machine moving first.”
“...Shouldn’t we look at the documents first if we’re going to identify the problem? They contain all the data and interpretations our engineers worked themselves to the bone to review.”
“I’ll look at the papers later. I want to see the machine first.”
“......”
Jo Taehyung narrowed his eyes.
It was obvious what his expression said. What the hell is this guy?
From the standpoint of someone who was an elite theory man to the marrow, it had to be absurd.
I was refusing to look at the painstaking data from top-tier brains, chewed raw by minus 30 degrees after tens of thousands of simulations.
Regardless, I kept talking.
“You said there’s exactly one week left until the evaluation. If I spend all that time reading and analyzing that thick stack of documents, reverse-engineering the errors the doctors missed, I’ll lose far more time than if I just go out there and see with my own eyes what’s actually going on, using my own method.”
“...Hah.”
Jo Taehyung let out a deep sigh.
He had sent me over with full authority, and they themselves had no immediate answer. In the end, he must have concluded there was nothing to do but clamp his mouth shut and tolerate my method by force.
“Fine. Do it your way, Executive Director Baek. Director Jang, call the test crew and get them ready to move immediately.”
With Jo Taehyung’s cold order, we stepped back outside into the savagely blowing snowstorm and headed toward the outdoor training ground again.
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