I Just Wanted to Return to Farming
I Just Wanted to Return to Farming
In my 30s.
I was laid off.
That's right.
I ended up becoming a 'resting youth'!
We have reached an era where AI is not only part of daily life but also infiltrating the HR plans of large corporate development teams, and the blade of AI finally came for my neck.
-Team Leader Kim. This is, well, it couldn't be helped. You're not the only one leaving, are you?
Personnel reduction due to AI implementation.
-The industry itself is heading this way, what can I do about it?
I hadn't thought the blade would reach me, specifically.
My performance was good, and my skills were decent.
It wasn't so much that I was optimistic, but I just didn't think this company would 'fire me'.
If they were going to fire someone, they should've fired that Department Head who was always scheming behind our backs.
If I were being pushed out because I was difficult to work with, that would be one thing, but I couldn't help but scoff at this restructuring due to some half-baked AI implementation.
Because I could see that if they cut our team, this company was going to fall apart properly.
-So, Team Leader Kim. This is...
-Understood. I'll leave.
Run away--!
A hole was punched in the ship.
And not just any hole, but a massive one destined to sink it.
It wasn't going to sink mid-voyage like a wooden ship from the Middle Ages and become a ghost ship, but I had no intention of staying tied to a ship slated for retirement just to be scrapped along with it.
-Th-that quickly? No, to that extent... Uh, what are you going to do for a living when you leave?
-My uncle runs a rice cake shop in my hometown, so I'm just going to help him out while I take a break. See ya.
There was no farewell party.
I just didn't want to maintain even the slightest connection with people at the company who I didn't need to keep in touch with.
Was I disillusioned with the company?
-These bastards dare to fire me? Team Leader Kim, even now, we can go to the union...!
-Do whatever you want.
-No, Team Leader! If only you were with us...!
-I'm not going to be a union member anymore, I'm going to be a Nonghyup member.
That was part of it, but I didn't think there was any need to coddle each other and lick each other's wounds with people who were going to be fired one after another anyway.
The fundamental reason... was probably because I was good at investing.
-Ah, damn it. This is driving me crazy. Should I jump on the KOSPI now? No, the market is too hot right now...
-Hey. I heard Team Leader Kim is good at stocks. You hear anything?
-Sunbae. The KOSPI is up this high, what stocks? Don't do that, come look at some buildings with me. I have [a place] in the countryside...
Enough that I didn't have to act foolishly by buying some low-profit building or starting a business with the severance pay I received during the resignation process—which was written as 'recommended resignation' but read as 'voluntary retirement'.
-Team Leader Kim. Do you happen to have any savings? We are currently...
-What would someone returning to farming have?
Rather, I had to hide the fact that I had quite a bit of capital and escape the clutches of the bastards trying to fleece someone who had been forcibly turned into a 'resting youth'.
"Jinhyeok-ah. What happened?"
"I got fired, that's what."
After immediately wrapping up my life in Seoul, I went down to my hometown where my uncle was.
"Fired? Who? You?"
"That's how it happened."
For me, having already lost my parents, the only person I could call family was my uncle.
I told him this and that about the company.
"No, those guys, they leave that damn Department Head Park alone and..."
"It won't be long before Department Head Park gets fired too, right?"
"Huh? Why?"
"The company itself is wobbling. Uncle, did you put any money into stocks?"
"...I was debating whether to pull it out a while ago because it seemed suspicious, but you're driving the final nail in the coffin. Wait a second?"
It wasn't just because I worked there; my uncle had invested in the company based on his own judgment.
Since the opinions of those who could be called experts aligned, escaping the company was clearly the right thing to do.
"Sigh. That damn company. I hope it just goes under."
"It might not go under all at once... but it will gradually fall apart."
They say 'too big to fail', right?
A large corporation wouldn't immediately delist or go out of business.
Isn't there a saying that even a rich man lasts three years after going bust?
Three years.
"Phew. Barely managed to pull it all out. You escaped, right?"
"It's not even my company, why would I keep holding it? As soon as the resignation talk came up, I didn't look back and dumped it all."
"Well done. No, if there was talk like that, you should've told me. Aigoo, looks like what was supposed to come out of my shoulder is coming out of my waist."
If I had worked at some small-to-medium enterprise that was 'like family', I would have heard news about the factory closing, but a large corporation, while it might wobble, wouldn't collapse.
-...The government has begun a search and seizure of the company.
But it was on the news every day.
Every time a bad issue came up, its name was always mentioned, performance plummeted, and in communities where shareholders gathered, people repeated every day that the CEO bastard should get lost.
[Jinhyeok-sunbae. Did you hear the news? They say Department Head Park got fired too.]
The news that trickled in through the few connections I had left was exactly as expected.
[It seems he was trying to get promoted to Director with his restructuring performance, but with that incident blowing up this time, his line got wiped out and he was kicked out.]
"Wow, someone really dropped a bombshell on the media. What about Department Head Park's Seoul jeonse deposit? I heard he was juggling debts."
[...It wasn't you who dropped it, was it, sunbae?]
"Why are you saying such scary things? If someone heard that, they'd think I was the kind of person who anonymously sprays data to media outlets. Why would I be crazy enough to fight a large corporation? What kind of world do you think this is these days?"
The start was lit by a cyber-wrecker.
That became the fuse that set the headquarters building ablaze, and it didn't take long for the Chairman to appear at the prosecutor's office in a wheelchair.
The source of that wrecker... started from an anonymous email, so it has nothing to do with me.
What I need to worry about is my new livelihood.
I have no intention of becoming a 'resting youth', and the thought of working at a company has vanished, so I need to create another livelihood.
"If you don't have a place to work, come make rice cakes."
And as it happened, my uncle presented a clear vision for me to choose the option of returning to farming.
"I'll pay you minimum wage. Or do you want to return to farming too? I can teach you this and that as a senior."
[Th-that's a bit...]
"Ah, really? That's a shame. Uncle was curious about you."
[...It's just a bit much to go down to the countryside.]
"It's not really that rural here, though. Alright. Let's keep in touch after you settle down later."
Returning to farming itself wasn't particularly bad.
"Jinhyeok-ah. Say hello. This guy is the village head."
"Oh my, a young man has come down. Nephew, do you have a car?"
"It's the car over there."
"Oh my, that's an expensive car. You, change your car first."
Telling me to change my car upon our first meeting?
I thought, 'Is this some kind of rural territoriality?' but...
"The old folks in this neighborhood, they keep asking for rides because the car is big."
It was an elder.
"Seriously... Ugh, those shameless old folks. They have cars themselves, yet they want to hitch a ride in a young friend's expensive car. Bastards who ate their age out of their asses."
"Thank you, elder."
"Be careful. There are crazy bastards who drive through the rice paddies after drinking."
"Hahaha..."
My uncle was very well-connected, and since it was a place I visited often in my childhood, I had some attachment to it.
"Jinhyeok-ah. What are you going to do for a living?"
"Shall I live by pounding rice cakes?"
"...Huh?"
"Making rice cakes, it seems like it would be fun."
My main source of income was the decent dividends from stocks I'd put away a long time ago, so the rice cake shop was just a time to ponder what to do while opening the second act of my life.
"Jinhyeok-ah. I don't have children, but I have no intention of telling a young person like you to inherit the rice cake shop. So don't feel burdened, do what you want to do. Your uncle has some money. I have some stuff put into Samjeon and Hanik..."
My uncle didn't insist that I inherit the rice cake shop.
Rather, just like when I slipped up on college entrance and had to study for another year, he supported me like a father.
"Then... shall I try attending an art academy?"
Just one thing.
If you take out the word 'art'.
"Huh? ...Where? Did I hear you wrong?"
"Why, I was really into trying for art school back in the day, remember? I'm thinking of trying again. There must be adult art academies, or I could just self-study at home."
"Uh, um, y-yeah. Challenges are good. Hahaha."
...Well, at first, I intended to walk the path of art.
The paintings at the Rembrandt exhibition I went to with my parents when I was young were so beautiful that I practiced hard all three years of high school with the thought that I wanted to draw things like that.
Although I applied and failed because of an accident, after that, I just studied and got into college based on my grades.
Rounding up, almost, a full 20 years.
After becoming an adult, I lived without even thinking about art.
I had saved up enough money anyway, so I thought it wouldn't be bad to set up an art studio to paint during the day and look at charts at night before sleeping.
Was that thought the root of the problem?
Or did I underestimate the countryside night too much?
Dudududu-
"Damn it."
Kwaaaaang-!
I was hit by a truck that was driving on the country road late at night like it was the Autobahn.
Whether they had put soju in a water bottle, or they were just drowsy, I don't know.
The last thing I remember was the night sky painted entirely black, and perhaps because it was the countryside, the starlight was particularly twinkling.
Whether it was because it was the moment of death, or because I was liberated from the fierce life of Seoul.
I thought the stars hanging in the night sky were particularly beautiful.
I was crazy.
Thinking the night sky was pretty while dying.
What I remember after that—honestly, there isn't much.
That I saw a ceiling that looked like an operating room.
That the people surrounding me were wearing something like white gowns.
And that, for a brief moment, I thought I saw my uncle.
Maybe it was a flash of my life passing before my eyes.
That was how I met my death—
Whoosh.
I was reborn as a new being.
In a wasteland where nothing existed.
As a naked, big-breasted elf.
"...Huh?"