Delta One
“Well, if it isn't Deputy Kang~.”
“……”
“Terribly quiet as always today. I took the liberty of pouring you a coffee.”
“I bought one downstairs, though……”
“Forget that vending-machine swill. This is coffee I brewed with my own two hands. Tastes better, I promise.”
Deputy Yoo held out a steaming cup of instant mix coffee, and honestly, he seemed to do this every single day now.
“Do you do that on purpose?”
“Who's the best in trading? Is it your rank? No. The one racking up the best numbers is the best. That's all there is to it.”
At that, the other members of the team began chiming in, one after another.
“He's right. Deputy Kang is the top ace of our entire Trading Division. Heh heh.”
“Man, I still get chills thinking about it. How on earth did you even think to smash through a ten-billion-won sell wall? And you made a fortune doing it, on top of that.”
“Doubling the money, is that even human? In my whole life I've never once seen a day trader pull returns like that.”
Ever since the ten-billion-won sell wall incident, I had become a full-blown superstar in the Trading Division.
People from other teams came trooping down just to get a look at my face, and more than a few lined up for handshakes with me purely for the luck it might rub off.
“At this rate, selling protective charms would probably turn a better profit.”
“No kidding. If Deputy Kang actually started selling those, I'd be first in line to buy one myself.”
Hm. Maybe I should give that some serious thought.
“Oh! Team Leader. Good morning, sir.”
“Ah, yeah.”
The Team Leader, who always greeted me with a ready smile, looked distinctly off-color today.
“Deputy Kang.”
“Yes, Team Leader.”
“How's the position liquidation coming along?”
“Ah, yes. It should be wrapped up by today.”
“Mm……. Is that so?”
After I had demolished that sell wall and the stock went rocketing skyward, my account had swollen considerably as well. But dumping that much volume all at once risked collapsing the price, so I had been selling it off in small tranches every few days.
“By the way, did you check the internal announcement that went up today?”
“No, sir. I only just got in……”
“Then check it first.”
Internal announcement?
Tilting my head, I pulled up the company intranet.
“What could it be that has you like this?”
“……It's a personnel transfer notice?”
“A transfer? That has nothing to do with us, does it?”
I thought the same thing the deputy did. And yet, right there in the transfer listings, my own name was staring back at me.
“Uh…… wait, what? Deputy Kang. You've been reassigned to Delta One?!”
“Hold on. What did you say?!”
“That makes no sense. Our ace, shipped off to Delta One?!”
Delta One.
It sounded like the name of some commando unit, but it was a team that actually existed in every securities firm.
“Delta One means the Derivatives Division. Why on earth would they take Deputy Kang of all people……”
I was blindsided myself.
As far as I knew, that was the place that ran algorithmic program trading while also designing and selling products like ETNs, ELWs, and TRS — instruments cut from the same cloth as the ETFs everyone knew.
So why, out of nowhere, me?
“Did you request the transfer yourself, Deputy Kang?”
“No, sir.”
“Hm. That's odd. Why would this even happen……”
At that, the Section Chief clicked his tongue.
“Why do you think? Every other division in the building has got their eye on Deputy Kang, that's why.”
“On me?”
“Yep. When Deputy Kang first landed here, he was originally assigned to the Research Center, remember? Our Division Head leaned on the intern regulations and pried him away by force. Same song, different verse. Everyone's been enjoying the Deputy Kang effect, so now they all want to drag him into their own division and harvest it for themselves.”
Only then did it make sense to me.
Was this a good thing or not?
Having my abilities acknowledged by everyone was gratifying, but another abrupt transfer, sprung on me like this…
“Still, Delta One of all places……”
“Not thrilled about it?”
“I've been over there on business once or twice, and how do I put this — the atmosphere is nothing like ours. We trade loud, we shout, we dance the complete disaster blues. It's a jungle. Over there? Think of it as a laboratory full of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
A laboratory full of obsessives.
The words hung with an ominous weight.
“Most of them are engineering grads, see. You've got your straight-up nerds, your guys genuinely deranged about numbers, and then your neat freaks whose desks are immaculate down to the last pen and whose shirts are buttoned to the collar. Walk in the door and you'll feel exactly what that place is like within about ten seconds.”
Just from the description, something told me that place and I were a terrible match.
“Honestly, Deputy Kang, you don't want to go either, right? Then go to the Team Leader right now and request a correction.”
“Yeah. And our Team Leader, not to mention our own Division Head, would surely move heaven and earth to keep you from getting snapped up by those OCD patients.”
I mulled it over, and I was just about to head for the Team Leader's office—
“……!”
The moment I moved to rise from my seat, a violent stench slammed into my nose.
Don't tell me this is a signal to go to Delta One.
I tried standing up several more times. But with every attempt, the foul odor pressed down on me harder.
“Deputy Kang?”
“……”
Apparently, my nose wanted to work in the new department.
“Has the transfer notice gone out?”
“It has, sir.”
“And has Deputy Kang Suho seen it?”
“Yes. He's confirmed it.”
“Any reaction? A request to rescind the transfer, perhaps?”
“None. He's been quiet so far — I'd say he's accepting it.”
Just as expected.
Kwon Junyong nodded at his secretary's report.
In truth, this had been a test. If Kang Suho had raised any protest over this sudden transfer, Kwon Junyong would have rescinded it on the spot.
And the fact that he accepted it without a word means…
It meant Kwon Junyong's guess had been right.
Kang Suho truly intended to become an All-Rounder and write a new chapter in the history of Korean finance.
And that aligned perfectly with the will of Director Geum Gaho, who was maneuvering to install a new successor.
So Kang Suho had never been a mere parachute hire dropped into this securities firm after all.
He had joined Daeseong Securities to bring Director Geum Gaho's blueprint to life. Which meant all Kwon Junyong had to do was play dumb and push things along from behind.
Exactly as he was doing right now.
Act too conspicuously, and the group was bound to notice.
“Hm?”
His phone rang, and Kwon Junyong glanced at the caller ID. His brow immediately knotted.
“Why is this bastard calling out of nowhere……”
The one person who could summon profanity from him without even trying.
“Yes, CEO Joo.”
A rasping voice came through the receiver at once.
“CEO Kwon. It's been a while, hasn't it? Why is your face so hard to come by these days?”
“I could say the same. What can I do for you?”
“You're a stiff one, aren't you? Maybe I just called because I missed the sound of your voice?”
Joo Yongwook.
A member of the Ilseong Group's royal family and CEO of Ilseong Securities — a man with condescension pre-installed as a default setting.
Because he belonged to one of Korea's three great financial dynasties while Kwon Junyong had clawed his way up from ordinary beginnings, Joo clearly considered him a rung or two beneath himself.
Frankly, this sort of thing was more common than people realized. The top seats in any company were mostly occupied by the royal family, after all.
“I received a rather interesting report recently. You know about AS Bio, don't you, CEO Kwon?”
“Yes. I'm aware of it.”
“The ones who shorted that stock were our boys. And somewhere along the way they got played — ended up hemorrhaging money, the whole lot of them.”
“……”
So the short sellers were Ilseong Securities.
He had had no idea whatsoever.
“Word going around is that Daeseong was the one who engineered it.”
“……Is that so?”
“What, this is news to you?”
“I'm afraid I don't keep track of such trivial matters.”
Trivial matters.
From this affair alone, Ilseong Securities was looking at losses in the hundreds of billions of won. Enormous money to an individual, perhaps — but to the royal family steering Korea's largest financial group, it was nothing at all.
“Right. Pocket change. Losing that much is like scooping a single bowlful out of the Han River and dumping it. No, what burns me is that Daeseong of all places hit us from behind. This isn't even some localized provocation — am I wrong?”
“When people trade against each other, all manner of things happen. Wouldn't you agree?”
“You think I'm nitpicking like some back-alley hustler? Fine — it happens. The stock market is a wilderness where everyone devours everyone else. But keep your people on a leash. If some spat between underlings spreads, the grown-ups might have to step in. Remember this: this one time, we're turning a blind eye out of the generosity of our hearts. Next time, you won't be left with even the soup.”
It was a threat: cross the line again, and this time it could escalate into a war between the groups themselves.
“Anyway — let's have a drink sometime. It's been far too long.”
“Yes. Goodbye.”
The moment the call ended, Kwon Junyong's face contorted.
He felt like spitting on the floor in front of him.
That man, for all his one-year advantage in age, had treated him like a junior clerk from the very first day they'd met straight through to this moment.
But what could he do?
He had to endure it.
As much as it galled him to admit, between the two of them lay a gulf of status that Kwon Junyong simply could not cross.
“But still…… that was Ilseong?”
He had naturally assumed the short-selling force that Kang Suho had annihilated was foreign capital.
Short selling was so reviled in this country that eighty percent of it currently came from foreign investors. So he'd taken it for granted that foreigners had been the ones swept out this time too.
But it had been Ilseong Securities.
That Ilseong Securities — those street-thugs of the market — had been thoroughly trampled by Daeseong Securities. It was exhilarating, and at the same time, deeply worrying.
Competitors or not, there were lines neither side crossed. If this fight carelessly spiraled into a war between groups, the headache would be truly monstrous.
The group's insides were already in an uproar over the succession question. To pick a fight with Ilseong Group at a moment like this…
“Wait.”
Kwon Junyong froze.
“Did Kang Suho not know this?”
The AS Bio sell wall affair had been, to anyone watching, a play built on a perfect reading of the opponent's position. That was precisely what had made such a reckless, leveraged bet possible.
Only a man with absolute certainty that a fixed sum slammed into the wall would force the shorts into a squeeze and their liquidation could attempt something that insane.
But to put it another way — it meant Kang Suho had known the short sellers were Ilseong Securities.
“Why on earth Ilseong Securities, of all people……”
Information precise enough to dissect the enemy's positions down to their loss limits could only have come with the Director's help.
So why provoke Ilseong Securities at such a critical juncture?
If this really did escalate into a war between groups…
“Or is it actually good for us?”
This once, things would blow over, one way or another.
But if it happened again, how would Ilseong Group see it then?
Their eyes wouldn't land on Director Geum Gaho alone — they would land on Daeseong Group itself.
In other words, the moment a war between groups began, the chairman family's succession work would grow even harder, and the entire ownership structure would start to shake.
“……Am I reading too much into this?”
Kwon Junyong still didn't know the details of Geum Gaho and Kang Suho's plan. It was entirely possible all of this was simple coincidence.
But if it wasn't coincidence — if this was the design of those two men—
“……”
Geum Gaho and Kang Suho.
Those two together would make a genuinely chilling combination.