Shooting Star
Yuseong
Yuseong Group.
South Korea's undisputed number one megacorporation.
It was the only domestic company ranked among the world's top ten, but it hadn't always been this untouchable.
It consistently made the Big Three, sure. But that was it.
In market cap and name recognition, it always lagged slightly behind Han-eun Group. Just another one of those well-known, ordinary megacorporations.
That all changed drastically in recent years.
Han-eun Group destroyed itself, and the whole board shifted.
Its atrocity—secretly attempting to manufacture biological weapons beneath Seoul—was exposed after a research failure, and the company shattered.
Han-eun's top executives all fled overseas. The remaining core researchers launched a terrorist attack and were subdued by—of all people—another villain.
Yuseong Group devoured the fragmented Han-eun subsidiaries, their stranded employees, and the technologies and trademarks left hanging in the air. The situation changed rapidly.
As if it had been waiting for exactly this moment—while the nation reeled from Han-eun's collapse and the ensuing terror—Yuseong began picking off other companies one by one through lobbying and coercion.
By the time the government caught on, Yuseong Group already had the Korean business world by the throat.
Now it was swallowing the political sphere, too.
And every last bit of it happened under the direction of one woman: Lee Seol-ah.
Lee Seol-ah.
A third-generation chaebol heiress and an A-rank hero—two titles most people couldn’t claim even once, and she carried both.
She seized de facto control of the company barely out of high school, and after the chairman’s unofficial retirement she was appointed president. That was when the world truly started learning her name.
In truth, it was already an open secret that every one of Yuseong's recent achievements was her doing.
With uncanny political maneuvering, inscrutable moves, and high-grade information no one could trace, she rattled corporations and the government alike. She'd become a symbol of terror among business leaders.
Add the fact that she was a hero with genuine public popularity—and that being Association-affiliated meant you couldn't just make her disappear—plus she was based in Busan, where she commanded deep regional loyalty.
She was, in a word, untouchable.
Now, as fear spread through the upper crust that she meant to move past business and politics and swallow the nation itself—
And now, the most feared businesswoman in Korea—
was bowing her head before me, flustered and at a loss.
"...Was I wrong?"
"Yes..."
The top floor of the Yuseong headquarters—the tallest building in Busan.
I was sitting in the president's office that she had entirely to herself.
More precisely, I was sitting in a wheelchair with an IV drip in my arm.
"No, but really—why on earth did you bring Shin Ha-ru along in that situation?"
"I, well... I was sure Ha-ru wouldn't recognize you, Dain... and I thought it might be nice for you two to get a little closer in private..."
"Hah."
At my sigh, Lee Seol-ah flinched and stole a sidelong glance at me.
I watched her and spoke again, voice deliberately low. Not in the casual way we normally talked, either—strictly formal, stiff as a board.
"...Sigh. Well, there’s no point dwelling on the past. So what if I wrecked my body by overusing my abilities, and now Stardus may have discovered my identity and could arrest me at any moment? I’m fine."
I was very clearly not fine. Lee Seol-ah's fingers kept fidgeting nervously.
She lifted her head just a little, met my flat stare, and immediately dropped it again.
I kept going.
"...That part I can live with. But personally, I’m disappointed in you, Lee Seol-ah. Now I don’t know what I can trust you with anymore. At this rate, you’ll be handing out my home address to other people and calling it a good reason, won’t you?"
"No! Never!"
"Quiet."
"Yes..."
Once I'd shut her up again, I asked. Partly to keep the pressure on, but also because I genuinely wanted to know.
"So. Why did you do it?"
"What...?"
"I mean, you must've had a reason. I'm asking what on earth you were thinking. Anyone with common sense could see that plan was incredibly reckless. And you had to know I wouldn't exactly think fondly of you afterward. What made you do it?"
"So, um..."
Carefully, Lee Seol-ah explained herself.
And when I listened, the reason turned out to be—
"Alcohol?"
"Yes. The alcohol temporarily clouded my rational judgment..."
The excuse “I was drunk and mentally compromised” sure had a familiar ring to it.
Still, just in case, I racked my memory of the Original Work.
I'd never paid as much attention to Lee Seol-ah as I did to Stardus, so I didn't know all the detailed lore, but—
Alcohol. She said alcohol.
I sank into my memory for a moment and recalled that, in the original, Lee Seol-ah got drunk once and impulsively crushed an entire corporation.
Oh. So she was always like this.
"No more alcohol. Understood?"
"...Huh?"
"Alcohol. Forbidden. If you don't like it, we stop seeing each other. Full stop."
"...Yes! Understood. I swear I won't drink anymore, starting right now!"
I turned the wheelchair as if to leave—she practically yelled her answer.
I usually teleported out. I had never actually rolled away in a car before.
But Lee Seol-ah looked genuinely uncertain whether she could actually keep that promise, so I sighed.
Who the hell turned her into an alcoholic, anyway?
...If I was being honest, that would have been me. I decided not to dwell on it.
"Hah... hack, hack."
I sighed, then coughed up more blood. Her face went sheet-white.
I wiped it with the handkerchief I'd brought, then spoke again, bone-tired.
"Haa... you know what? Thinking about it, how is any of this really your fault? It’s my fault for trusting you. If I’d been just a little more careful, this never would’ve happened—I put too much faith in you. Cough. The more I think about it, the more this feels like my own carelessness."
"...I'm sorry. Sniff."
Ah. Did I lay it on too thick?
I'd piled on pressure after pressure, and now Lee Seol-ah was on the verge of actual tears. That did sting a little.
But I didn’t have a choice. Something like this could happen again, so I had to make it sink in. Intentional or not, Shin Ha-ru had nearly figured everything out. We had almost lost it all.
"You messed up, right?"
"I really messed up..."
Originally, I was going to get closer first and then bring it up.
Might as well do it now.
"If you're sorry, do business with me."
"...Excuse me?"
She looked up, confused by the sudden proposal. I pressed on.
Even if we launched the business later, I needed her approval now.
My face and name were already known anyway. There was nothing left to hide.
***
"Phew..."
Right after Dain left.
Lee Seol-ah quietly poured herself a wine glass full of grape juice and drank.
"At least I avoided getting cut off completely."
She murmured bitterly and downed the grape juice in one shot.
Zero proof, so it wasn't going to fix the headache, but the placebo effect settled her a little.
"...Haa. You crazy bitch. Why did you do it?"
Lee Seol-ah held her head in her hands, replaying her past sins.
How had she arrived at the conclusion that bringing Ha-ru along was a good idea? Now, sober, she couldn't even fathom it.
The result: the distance between her and Dain had widened again, and he'd gone back to speaking formally to her. Honestly, she was grateful he hadn't exploded in fury and cut her off completely. She'd been fully prepared to get on her knees and beg.
"...Yeah. From now on, I don't pull crap like that. I just have to rebuild trust."
She probably could. No—she had to.
Because she absolutely could not let Egostic—Dain—slip away from her.
Hah. Damn alcohol. That stuff was poison.
...If those lunatics hadn’t been causing such a mess, she wouldn’t have been drinking in the first place.
"...I swear—by the end of this year, I’ll swallow Yeouido whole."
Lee Seol-ah's eyes blazed with fire.
Once she'd completely devoured South Korea... wouldn't Dain finally look at her again?
Just remembering his disappointed gaze still made her chest ache.
...Right, and she also had to look into that PMC and academy or whatever he mentioned at the end.
Yeah. She was busy.
From now on, with zero hesitation, she was going to crush them all and absorb everything.
And so Lee Seol-ah's eyes kindled like crackling flame.
That was the day Yuseong Group's expansionist campaign began in earnest.
***
I got out of the wheelchair and pulled the IV from my arm.
I wasn't hurt that badly. I'd just played it up a little to guilt-trip Lee Seol-ah. The IV bag was only saline to begin with.
"Dain! What are you doing, ripping out your drip?!"
"No, it was just for show—"
"It wasn't for show, so put it back."
At Soo-bin's insistence, I meekly reattached it.
Bottom line: the unending chain of events that started at the beach had more or less wrapped up.
I’d asked Lee Seol-ah to find out what Stardus was thinking, but since my face and name weren’t plastered on any wanted lists, I seemed safe for now. Strictly speaking, my face was protected by Perception Inhibition and I could use an alias, so the name wasn’t a problem. I’d probably still have to abandon this identity, though.
Looking on the bright side, I had used the opportunity to plan several attacks in advance and gotten Lee Seol-ah’s approval for the PMC. Good was good, right? And since the one person I absolutely couldn’t afford to be exposed to—Stardus—already knew my identity, I could use it without hesitation. Silver linings.
Haha.
Thinking such thoughts, I dragged my saline drip into the living room. This thing really was inconvenient.
Seo-eun, who was already there, spoke the second she saw me.
"Big bro, did you see this?"
"Huh? See what?"
She worked the remote and pulled up a news report.
And on the screen:
[Breaking news! As of today, local time, Brazil has been utterly destroyed! All contact with Brazilian authorities has been lost, and satellite imagery confirms that the nation’s territory—centered on the capital—has been completely obliterated. The unprecedented event has paralyzed the international community. The KOSPI is in freefall, and world leaders are issuing coordinated statements...]
Breaking news: an entire country had been, quite literally, wiped off the map.
Yep. Just like the original. The shitstorm was starting right on schedule.
"...Guess it's time to get genuinely serious about preparations."
Preparations for the end.
Stardus, you rest.
I’ll handle the rest.