Stepping Stone
A stepping stone.
An opportunity.
No—an inevitability.
This thing called the world people live in.
In truth, it was all much the same. From below, you simply could not see what lay above.
It was like climbing a mountain. When you first start the ascent, fantasies of the summit bloom in full flower. But once you actually reach the top, there is nothing special about it. All you can do up there is shout a single “Yahoo!”
“President Park, you’re looking sharp these days, aren’t you?”
“Nah~ Just the same as always.”
“Same as always, my ass. I heard the business is doing great lately!”
He had come to an investment pitch session. A vast hotel ballroom had been rented out, and countless people clustered together in little groups. Every single one of them held a key post in some company or represented an entire firm. An ordinary person might have felt a wall of intimidation.
“Still not as good as last year, though.”
“Come on, didn’t you expand the business last year too?”
“Must be nice being you, President Park~ Business booming every single year.”
“Even a rat hole gets a ray of sunshine eventually, heh heh.”
They were human. They ate the same food and shit the same shit. They earned money through economic activity and spent it through consumption.
So how different could they really be?
Their intellectual level and the topics they gossiped about were not so far removed from ordinary people. The only real difference was scale.
“Hmm…… and who might you be?”
“I was invited.”
“Is that so? First time here, then. Do you know who I am?”
And status. In a capitalist society, the one with the money was the top dog—that truth hit hardest here.
You know the type.
The ones who lorded it over subcontractors. The ones who forced outdated customs on everyone. Honestly, from an ordinary person’s perspective it never quite landed. If it pissed you off, you could just quit. Grit your teeth until the severance pay came through, then cherry-pick your revenge on the way out.
“I don’t.”
“Huh…… you don’t know me?”
“Hey, President Park! What’s going on?”
“This kid says he doesn’t know who I am. Looks like someone who works in the industry.”
“Dangerous little friend we’ve got here.”
“If the boss hears about this, he’ll have a fit~.”
In business that option did not exist. The moment you stepped back, it was not resignation—it was bankruptcy. The law was far away; fists were close. Layer on the habits of the older generation and the power-tripping became as natural as breathing.
These old fossils are so damn loud.
Utterly inefficient behavior. The kind of people an investor learned to despise on sight. Three middle-aged men who looked at least fifty had surrounded him. They seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.
“Doesn’t seem like any of my business.”
“Wh-what did you just say?”
“This young punk has no manners…… You little shit, who’s your boss? Where is he?!”
“Somewhere around here, I suppose.”
“I need to see the face of whoever’s employee can act this cocky. You stay right there, you little bastard! Just try running.”
Bullying a social rookie was also a way of confirming their own social influence.
Hope they’re the kind of household heads who actually get that kind of respect at home.
Not like the henpecked husband he’d seen at Doolmart the other day.
“Why’s a young fellow being so stubborn?”
“President Park’s got connections all over this industry. Keep this up and you won’t be able to work in it!”
Maybe the stress had just piled up. They had struck up a conversation out of nowhere and the provocation flowed as naturally as water.
Thwack!
A common enough scene. Even now, in one corner of society, that pre-modern culture of power-tripping still sank deep roots.
“What’s going on here?”
“Oh, President Baek!”
“Just giving a young punk a little education…… Do you know him? One of your people, President Baek?”
The reason Korean corporate culture could never truly advance. When the water upstream was rotten, purifying the water downstream was meaningless.
Calling him the first of his kind might be a stretch.
But he could still knock some sense into them. Baek Hwa-seon, with whom he had grown especially close after the consulting work, hurried over. Watching him approach, Chan-uk smiled thinly—an expression that said, just watch.
To the Park-surnamed president, it must have looked like Chan-uk was feeling the pressure.
“This gentleman is someone I personally invited.”
“You should’ve seen the disrespect this kid showed~.”
“If President Baek is too soft to say anything, then as industry seniors we’ll drill manners into his bones……”
“He is not our employee.”
““What……?””
He was not in a position to be treated that way. All he needed to teach them was that the person they had told to “just wait and see” was not someone to fear.
Even if they pull a stunt like this, under normal circumstances it would just get swept under the rug.
They had that much social standing. The power-abuse scandals that occasionally made TV were only the tip of the iceberg.
“He has been assisting us with store consulting and IR counseling. He is an important partner helping our company.”
“Th-this young?”
“I thought the same thing once, but age turned out not to matter.”
Most things they simply crushed with raw power. Or rather, from the subordinate’s position, no one even dared raise an objection. That was why they could pick fights so freely. Now they would learn what happened when you did that carelessly.
“Even so!”
“A green little brat daring to interrupt when the presidents are talking……”
“You gentlemen know Representative Gwak Woo-seok, I assume?”
“Ah, that President Gwak.”
“I heard the stories~ Overextended the business and then, tsk tsk.”
“The man standing here, Mr. Chan-uk, is the one who helped him. Truth is we were in quite a difficult spot ourselves, but thanks to his help with both the consulting and the IR, we managed to survive.”
““…….””
He could teach them that lesson in the not-too-distant future as well. They might not know Chan-uk, but they clearly knew Representative Gwak Woo-seok well enough.
Former representative now, I suppose?
It was a small world. They would know exactly what had happened. If a company went under and they somehow remained ignorant, that would be even stranger. Truly bizarre. When a decades-old company collapsed or got absorbed, the industry inevitably buzzed with the aftermath.
“As you’ve heard, Hales Food is now operated by our Food Market, and Mr. Chan-uk himself owns forty percent of the shares.”
“F-forty percent?!”
“That much……?”
“Ah, he is not a co-manager. Thankfully he entrusted full management rights to me.”
What the future held was anyone’s guess. But they would have understood that if he ever felt like it, he could launch a management battle at that level of ownership.
And just how much that stake was worth.
17.285 billion won. That was the sum Representative Gwak Woo-seok had received in exchange for handing over sixty percent of the shares. Chan-uk’s own investment had reached 11.5 billion. Once the company stabilized, its valuation would jump at least threefold.
“That’s roughly the sort of work I do. If you ever need anything, give me a call. Say, if there’s a company you don’t particularly like.”
““Ha, haha…….””
Cheap. And still they had been unable to join the acquisition fight. The forced laughter on the presidents’ faces said everything.
Business doing great, my ass.
Inflation and rate hikes. There was no environment in which business—especially the food business—could truly thrive. All that talk of success was about revenue figures. Anyone could tell the reality was a hollow shell.
They edged away, one by one. If they wanted to avoid ending up like Hales Food, they would have to watch their mouths from now on.
“I’m sorry. I had something urgent and stepped out for a moment……”
“I came prepared to put up with that much.”
“I-is that so?”
“More importantly, how did that favor I asked turn out?”
“Ah! That, I prepared thoroughly.”
Those small fry. He had not come to this place crawling with middle-aged men just to swallow a few more of them.
From the start.
He had only ever intended to use it as a stepping stone. He planned to dispose of the Hales Food shares as well. Baek Hwa-seon wanted the same thing. They had agreed that once the company stabilized, he would gradually take them over.
Creak—!
Not even as payment for that. The competition with Hales Food had been that fierce, and Baek still felt the debt of gratitude. That was why he had accepted even a difficult request.
A company sitting at the very top of the food industry.
Doolmart.
It was not about scale. It had nothing to do with the company’s vision either. Something more fundamental. Understanding the Korean economic world was required.
“Chairman.”
“Ah, you’re here?”
“Yes. This is the IR counselor with the foresight I mentioned before.”
“Oh~ Young, isn’t he?”
“Very young, right? But his name is already well known in the industry……”
Chaebol. You heard the word at least once wherever you went. What it actually meant, surprisingly few people truly understood.
Even while living in a country ruled by chaebols.
Doolmart was a subsidiary of the Old World Group. And above that stood the Osung Group. A relationship bound by blood. If you did not understand this structure, you could not claim to know “Korea.”
“Sonik-jwa?”
“Ah~! That guy.”
“Is he famous?”
“A rising analyst these days. Also famous for making hundreds of billions through personal investing.”
“Is that so?”
Baek Hwa-seon had connections among food-industry figures. Those connections reached all the way to the very top—to the chairman of Doolmart himself. And the chairman had recently taken an interest in the hot industry topic of Hales Food’s collapse.
“Come, come. Sit down first. Don’t just stand there making your legs hurt.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“Excuse me.”
As pure entertainment, of course. Doolmart, with a market capitalization of five trillion won. The bloodline of the chaebol family that dominated the Korean economy.
Would a mere few hundred billion even register in his eyes?
Even the men who had been addressed as “President” earlier looked like nothing more than small-to-medium subcontractors from up here.
This was what people meant by “the celestial realm.”
“So you’re the one who brought down Hales Food?”
“It’s not as grand a story as that.”
“Haha! I didn’t call you here for complicated talk either. Can you handle your liquor?”
“A bit.”
The hotel’s VIPs occupied the entire third floor that had been rented out. And the VVIPs were enjoying their own private tea party here in the annex room.
Glug-glug-glug~!
Accompanied by alcohol, of course. From an unlabeled glass bottle, a pale amber liquid poured out.
“It’s a little strong.”
“I handle the strong stuff just fine.”
“Do you now?”
“It would be a shame to look down on kids these days.”
What the hell kind of nonsense was this. From the perspective of someone who knew better than anyone.
So that culture really existed.
A glass bottle with nothing written on it. That decanter was meant to hide the liquid’s identity. What kind of liquor is this? Would the likes of you even know? It was a method of putting someone in their place.
Gulp!
Fine liquor was a culture for the rich. Ordinary people trembled just pouring a glass of thirty-year Ballantine’s. They certainly would not know the taste. The idea was to crush his spirit before the conversation even began.
“Decent whisky, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Quite a nice Glenfarclas.”
“……Huh?”
To someone who had tasted every liquor under the sun and gone out drinking right up to his final moment, that little game did not work.
It’s obvious.
A proper tasting would verify it in an instant. Even that alone seemed to have surprised them considerably. The staff surrounding the chairman watched his expression and finally voiced the thoughts they had been holding back.
“H-how did you know?”
“We didn’t say a word.”
“Well, it’s simple, isn’t it? Tropical fruit notes of fig and pineapple. Characteristics you only get from old, traditional sherry casks. But the fact that you can still taste the original maltiness means the cask has been used for a very long time, and there aren’t many perverted distilleries that still own oak like that—so I casually deduced Glenfarclas.”
““…….””
They stood with their mouths hanging open, unable to close them. Not the look a major conglomerate’s chairman ought to be wearing.
Guess they’ve never seen the real thing.
Tasting. Not many people could actually do it. If it were that easy, the Judgment of Paris would never have happened. To begin with, it was expensive. A single bottle ran into the tens or hundreds of thousands. The number of people who could drink them all and pick out each one’s characteristics was vanishingly small.
“Oh…… right. So you’re a friend who knows his liquor.”
“I do know my liquor a bit.”
“Ha, haha! Know it? Of course you do! Interesting fellow.”
He was one of that tiny handful. Even after regression had wiped out his fortune, his palate remained intact.
Or maybe the fortune was already gone before that.
At any rate, he finished the initiation lightly. Then he steered them toward the real topic.
“I heard you’ve taken an interest in Doolmart?”
“A great deal.”
“‘A great deal’?”
“I only drink a little, but I do a fair amount of stocks.”
“Haha! I like that.”
Now he would be willing to hear Chan-uk’s story.