Won't You Leave It to Me?
When Kim Sang-Myeong said he wanted to use the Engine Guild’s ruins dungeon for research purposes, Jeong-Hoon was ready to hand it over free of charge.
“Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon, I’m grateful for the thought, but then I’d have no leverage to raise my voice with those people, would I? I would prefer if you could lease it to me at a low price.”
Kim Sang-Myeong politely declined the free offer, stressing that the arrangement had to take the form of a paid lease no matter what.
“You say it’s for research, but once excavation starts, the end result is basically the same as developing the dungeon, isn’t it? So why insist on calling it a lease?”
The biggest reason scholars who wanted dungeons for research usually got turned down was simple: digging and studying a dungeon almost always meant the chance to harvest its natural resources went up in smoke. Jeong-Hoon pointed that out and questioned why anyone would bother leasing a dungeon that would be worthless once the dig was finished.
“Aren’t you curious as well, Chairman Lee?”
“About what?”
“About what might come out of the Engine Guild’s dungeon. If you lease it to me, you’ll be one of the first people to hear the research results.”
Hearing the real reason for the lease arrangement, Jeong-Hoon nodded quietly.
“Ah, so you’re saying you want to get me hooked on dungeon civilization research?”
“Hahaha, caught me, have you? Wouldn’t it be good if someone like you, Chairman Lee, took an interest in dungeon research?”
Jeong-Hoon understood the plan at once: use the lease to feed him results and keep him interested, and use the rent payments as a permanent link between them. He nodded.
“All right. Building a good relationship with someone like you, Chairman Kim, can only help me.”
“I’m glad you understand. Friends who share the same taste in liquor are hard to come by.”
There was nothing to lose by getting close to a genius businessman who succeeded at every venture he touched. When Jeong-Hoon agreed, Kim Sang-Myeong immediately produced a set of documents from the waiting secretary—papers that had clearly been prepared in advance. From the moment he had been invited to the Blue House, he had resolved to settle the matter with Jeong-Hoon somehow; the contract was flawless.
Kim Gi-Yeong, grandson of SB Group Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol, was infamous in business circles as a purebred chaebol third-generation delinquent. True to the reputation, he was sprawled out dead drunk. While Korean society reeled from the shock of tens of thousands of deaths, he had treated the entire disaster like a story from another world and spent the night carousing.
Several pairs of eyes looked down at the unconscious young man. The Twelve Vassals—minus Butler Ju—plus Hwarim and Jeong-Hoon all stared at him with identical expressions of disgust.
“Wake him up.”
“Yes, Gaju.”
Slap!
At Jeong-Hoon’s order Hwarim stepped forward, seized the limp Gi-Yeong by the collar, hauled him upright, and cracked him across the face. She had only hit him hard enough to wake him; if an SS-class Awakened had struck with real intent, Gi-Yeong’s head would have exploded.
“Gyaaaah!”
To the man who had been sleeping off a pleasant drunk, the sudden shattering of a molar and the instant swelling of his cheek was pure agony.
“He’s awake, Gaju.”
Once she confirmed he was conscious, Hwarim casually flung him onto the bed. Even on the soft mattress the impact jolt that ran through his body told him how hard he had been thrown.
“Which bastard—!”
“Me, you bastard.”
Gi-Yeong tried to surge up, roaring at the insolent stranger who had dared lay hands on him. Jeong-Hoon simply kicked him square in the chest and sent him crashing back onto the mattress.
“Cough—cough! L-Lee Jeong-Hoon?!”
He had been dead drunk in his own room, yet now Jeong-Hoon and a small army of people filled his vision. Gi-Yeong’s eyes darted around. The room of a chaebol grandson was already large and lavish, but the place he found himself in made it look shabby. This was no ordinary Lumen suite; it was the underground panic room reserved for true emergencies—an ultra-VIP facility even third-generation heirs rarely set foot in. People could die in here and no one would ever know.
“This is Lumen? Y-you kidnapped me? You think you can get away with this?!”
“We made sure no one will ever find out, so stop worrying about us and start worrying about yourself.”
Gi-Yeong was linked to Ju Yong-Ha and there were signs he had been siphoning SB Group funds. Jeong-Hoon scratched his head. Even for the sake of rooting out the Organization, kidnapping a chaebol heir still left a bad taste in his mouth. But if they failed to uncover the Organization, disasters like the recent one could happen again. He had no choice.
“Let’s keep this simple. I ask questions, you answer honestly. Sound good?”
“D-don’t be ridiculous! What do you even want from me—gah!”
When Gi-Yeong started yelling, Jeong-Hoon kicked him in the chest again.
“I said let’s keep it simple. Don’t tell me you’re too stupid to guess what happens if you refuse?”
“Cough! Cough!”
“Ah, maybe I kicked a little hard. Hwarim, give this guy a potion.”
He had only put a little warning force into the kick, yet Gi-Yeong was coughing up blood. Jeong-Hoon shook his head.
Hwarim seized a fistful of Gi-Yeong’s hair, forced his mouth open, and poured the potion down his throat. The moment he swallowed, color flooded back into his face.
“W-what do you want to know?”
“Good. Cooperation is much better.”
The fear that Jeong-Hoon might simply beat him to death had finally sunk in; Gi-Yeong’s speech turned extremely polite. He had dismissed Jeong-Hoon as a twenty-year-old punk, and now the terror radiating from the man made his whole body tremble. This was the same man who had built the Lumen empire with blood on his hands and become a world-class player.
“You know Ju Yong-Ha. Tell me everything you know about him.”
Jeong-Hoon’s killing intent spiked. Gi-Yeong’s teeth chattered.
Yong-Ha was a younger guy who often showed up at gatherings and drank with them. On the surface Butler Ju served as a Lumen director; Yong-Ha had used his grandfather’s position to create a private club for chaebol third-generation heirs and had used that club to bind them together.
“H-he’s just someone I run into now and then. He hosts the gatherings, so I contact him once in a while, that’s all.”
As he spoke, Gi-Yeong scanned the room, realized Butler Ju was absent, and instantly understood that Yong-Ha must have caused some catastrophic mess. Why else would they kidnap him and demand everything he knew?
“There’s something more important than that, isn’t there? Stop dodging the point.”
“I-I mean, I did give him operating funds for the club, but that’s—gah!”
“You handed over hundreds of millions every month and you call it operating funds? Do you think this is a joke?”
Jeong-Hoon kicked him again, expression pure disbelief. They already knew the scale of the third-generation club. The heirs partied extravagantly, yet the money they funneled through Yong-Ha dwarfed the actual club expenses by a factor of ten.
“I-i-it was an investment! He said he had a sure-fire investment opportunity, so I gave him money!”
Gi-Yeong scrambled upright and shouted. Jeong-Hoon let out a long sigh and snapped his fingers. Han Su-Ho stepped forward and handed him a single document.
“This is what I want to hear about. I keep saying let’s keep it simple. Why can’t you understand that?”
He tossed the papers detailing how SB Group funds siphoned by Gi-Yeong had flowed straight to Yong-Ha. Gi-Yeong stared at them until his face went paper-white.
“Th-this is…”
The previously cooperative heir clamped his mouth shut and began to shake. His entire posture screamed that this was something he absolutely could not talk about. Jeong-Hoon, finally sensing he had stepped on the real tail, smiled and leaned in close.
“Fingers or toes. Which would you rather live without?”
“…I-it was Grandfather! Grandfather introduced me to that Yong-Ha guy and ordered me, as a team leader, to siphon the funds!”
The threat to start cutting off fingers or toes worked perfectly. Gi-Yeong spilled everything he knew. And the more they heard, the more Jeong-Hoon’s and the Twelve Vassals’ faces hardened by the second.
They had gone so far as to kidnap Gi-Yeong because the people Yong-Ha normally associated with showed no connection to the family’s traitors. They had been hunting for that missing link. The sudden appearance of SB Group Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol left Jeong-Hoon shaking his head while he drained a hangover remedy.
Kidnapping Kim Gi-Yeong had not been on today’s schedule. The plan existed, but it was supposed to happen later. The only reason they had done it tonight was that Jeong-Hoon had gotten thoroughly drunk with Kim Sang-Myeong and decided, under the influence, to just go for it. Originally one of the Twelve Vassals was supposed to handle the interrogation; Jeong-Hoon had insisted on doing it himself precisely because he did not want to order a crime and then pretend his own hands were clean. The truth that emerged, however, was so shocking that he had immediately reached for something to kill the alcohol.
“Cleanup finished?”
“I carefully erased his memories with magic and put him back in his own bedroom. He probably won’t have the faintest idea what happened.”
Jeong-Hoon nodded at Hwarim’s report and replayed everything Gi-Yeong had confessed.
SB Group Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol had not been doting on an incompetent grandson out of pure affection. He had been using the boy as a connecting thread to Yong-Ha. In return he had made a show of treating him like a successor, taking him everywhere and spoiling him. Looking at the membership of Yong-Ha’s third-generation club, it seemed every single member had been exploited in exactly the same way.
“If this is true, we’re in trouble.”
“Definitely. Roughly seventy percent of Korea’s major conglomerates are enemies of the family.”
“Do we even need to stay a secret organization at this point?”
Jeong-Hoon had believed the family had protected the world while keeping its true nature hidden. Discovering that so many corporations were tangled up with the Organization left him laughing hollowly. They had thought only the family itself was secret; apparently everyone already knew.
“I don’t think it’s that bad. Even the Organization’s ringleaders and the family’s traitors would have concealed the family’s identity and recruited them under different pretenses.”
It was not empty reassurance. Hwarim’s guess made Jeong-Hoon look up.
“Think about it, Gaju. The chaebol chairmen aren’t idiots. If they found out the family could go toe-to-toe with the United States in a pure cash war, who would ever cooperate?”
“…Wait, that’s possible? Fighting America in a money war?”
“Oh my, Gaju, didn’t your uncle ever tell you? We could actually win.”
He had felt a twinge of dissonance ever since they treated five hundred trillion won like five-hundred-won coins, but he had never imagined the family’s assets were truly on that scale. Jeong-Hoon shook his head.
“We’ll need a more thorough investigation, but you don’t need to worry too much, Gaju.”
“Well, if Butler Ju’s approach doesn’t work, we can always just overthrow the government.”
“My, what a terrifying thing to say. Founding your own country would be faster.”
“That’s even more terrifying.”
Even in chaotic times, the casual way Hwarim spoke of founding a nation told Jeong-Hoon he could never beat her at banter. He shook his head again.
“By the way, Gaju, about the PS Association you just established…”
“Yes? What about it? How is that related to any of this?”
“Won’t you leave it to me?”
Hwarim’s expression said she had just had an excellent idea. Jeong-Hoon, completely lost, simply nodded.