Demotion
He had given plenty of thought to quitting.
But the personnel transfer order had caught him completely off guard.
Worse still, the assignment was to Materials Management in General Affairs.
And he knew exactly what that meant.
Deep in the basement of Hansan Securities Headquarters sat an enormous warehouse, piled floor to ceiling with the supplies the securities business required. Whenever another department put in a request, deliveries had to go out immediately.
Monitors, keyboards, mice and other consumables, along with trivial odds and ends like ballpoint pens and sticky notes — all of it fell under his purview. In a word, the job made him a handyman saddled with every menial errand in the building.
But the truly worst part was this:
Materials Management had a staff of exactly one.
He would be handling every last one of those tasks alone.
Translation: they want me to walk out on my own.
There was already an employee who had been doing that job for five years — a man who clung to it like a poltergeist bound to the building. And as it happened, that very man appeared in the trading room that day.
"They said your keyboard needed replacing, so I brought one over."
A disheveled-haired man in his mid-forties pushed a cart through the door. During his eight months on the team, Siyoon had gotten to know his face well enough.
"Just leave it there. I'll take care of it."
But as Siyoon reached for the package, Deputy Head Shin hurried over from across the floor.
"No — leave it right where it is. You're not on our team anymore, remember? You're General Affairs now. Let's not go touching other departments' things."
With that, Shin picked up the keyboard and walked off. Team Leader Oh came up behind him, studied the disheveled man with an unreadable expression, and spoke.
"What a coincidence, the two of you running into each other here. You've heard the news, of course? As of today, our newest hire has been reassigned to Materials Management."
"Yes... I heard."
"How did that happen? Did you get transferred to a branch office or something?"
At Team Leader Oh's question, the disheveled man stared at the floor for a long moment before lifting his head.
"As of today, I've decided to resign."
Team Leader Oh's lips moved soundlessly, as if the words had snagged in his throat. The man dragged his cart out of the room, and Oh turned to Siyoon with a deep frown.
"You. Come with me."
Out on the outdoor smoking terrace, Team Leader Oh pulled out a cigarette and lit up, puffing out clouds of smoke before clamping a second one between his lips and turning to Siyoon.
"You know who that man is, right?"
"Well... not exactly..."
"You've heard he worked on the trading team until five years ago."
"......"
He had heard it in passing when he first joined the company.
Five years ago, that man too had blown the whistle from the inside — and afterward had been banished to inventory management, same as Siyoon now.
"He was the head of the bond trading desk," Oh said, lighting another cigarette. "A legend, they called him — made team leader just three years after joining. So how do you think he ended up like that?"
When Siyoon gave no answer, Oh's voice boomed out.
"Because he stuck his nose into other people's business, just like you! If he'd left it alone, the problem would've disappeared on its own. But no — he had to step up and play the hero!"
Heads on the smoking terrace turned toward them. Team Leader Oh's voice was every bit as enormous as his frame.
But Siyoon didn't so much as blink. Faced with that composure, Oh could only grumble.
"Aigoo... this kid's going to be the death of me."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry? You're sorry with a face that couldn't care less?"
In truth, he did feel genuinely sorry.
Though he was well aware it didn't look that way.
"So what now? Are you going to grind it out for five years like that has-been and then quit too?"
At the team leader's question, Siyoon scratched his head. Privately, he had already resigned himself to leaving the company. A demotion to the basement warehouse hadn't been part of the scenario.
Still, it wasn't something that required deep deliberation.
He was about to become a man with roughly six billion won to his name, and with that kind of money, there was hardly any reason to cling to a job.
Figuring out how to spend it was already giving him a headache. Having been demoted on top of that, there was no reason left to force himself to stay at this company.
"Thank you for everything you've done for me."
"What?"
Team Leader Oh's eyes went wide.
"I think this is where I stop..."
"Hey!"
Oh's voice rolled across the terrace like thunder. The startled smokers exchanged uneasy glances and quietly melted away.
The grumbling team leader only raised his voice further.
"Is that why I hired you — so you could work yourself into this mess and walk away? You've lived alone since high school, haven't you? That's why I praised your independence, your sense of responsibility!"
It was true that Oh had scored him generously in the interview. Though talk of independence and responsibility had been straight out of the interview playbook.
Even so, it hadn't been a lie.
Since joining Hansan Securities, he had worked harder than anyone and poured in more passion than anyone.
Had it not been for Manager Kim, he would have climbed the ladder step by step, and by next year he would have been running small positions of his own — actually trading.
If only he hadn't gotten caught up with Manager Kim.
Manager Kim's greed knew no bounds.
He was flouting internal regulations — digging up confidential M&A information and preparing a massive unauthorized trade. Siyoon couldn't simply look the other way.
If it went wrong, it wouldn't be something a team leader could smooth over. It would have snowballed into an investigation by the Financial Supervisory Service and the prosecutors, and the entire team's operations could have been suspended.
That was why Team Leader Oh felt such a tangle of love and resentment toward him.
"For now, go over to General Affairs."
"Team Leader..."
"You can quit whenever you like — but not before the injustice gets sorted out. Once things calm down, I'll handle the Manager Kim situation myself. So keep that in mind."
With those parting words, Oh headed back toward the office.
So even quitting isn't mine to decide.
That afternoon.
He stopped by General Affairs to swap out his access card, then returned to the trading room to pack up his desk.
There wasn't much to pack.
A few books, a phone charger, a disposable toiletry kit — that was the whole of it.
He was loading the box and heading for the door when Siyoon stopped, turned back, and bowed to his teammates.
Everyone was buried in their work. Only Team Leader Oh Ju-han and Assistant Manager Min So-hee gave him a nod in return.
He rode the elevator down to basement level four and made his way to the sprawling warehouse. When he opened the door, the disheveled-haired man was inside, drenched in sweat, sorting through the inventory.
Perhaps because he worked alone up here, he wore nothing but a white undershirt. He spotted Siyoon right away.
"Oh, you're here!"
Wiping the fogged lenses of his rimless glasses on that undershirt, he came over.
"Good to meet you, sir."
"Likewise. Is that all your stuff?"
"Yes."
Even by the man's standards, Siyoon's luggage looked pathetically bare. He didn't even own the humblest humidifier.
"Leave your things there for now — let's start the handover."
Unexpectedly, the man looked cheerful.
Was the job more bearable than it seemed? Or had five years simply worn him into it? Before Siyoon could finish the thought, the man was already walking and talking.
"This is Zone 1. Office supplies — pens, sticky notes, copy paper, that sort of thing. The stock must never run out. If it does, you'll catch hell from the General Affairs Team Leader, so watch yourself."
"......"
"Ah, that was a joke. Just a joke. Haha."
It wasn't funny at all.
The man moved on.
"This here is Zone 2. IT equipment — keyboards, mice, headsets. Oh, and this is a trading keypad. You've seen these in the trading room plenty, right?"
"Yes."
"Me and you, we've both spent our days hammering on one of these — and now look at what I'm doing down here..."
The middle-aged man let out a hollow laugh.
Once they had made a full circuit of the cavernous warehouse, they headed straight into a small booth, maybe a hundred square feet.
"And from now on, this little room is your office. Oh — Kang Siyoon, was it?"
"Yes. May I ask your name...?"
"My name... do you really need to know it?"
"......"
The man smiled bitterly.
"I don't know what brought you down here, but let me tell you this — no one is going to call your name, Kang Siyoon. You'd best keep that in mind."
Siyoon nodded.
He'd be working alone anyway. Who was there to call it?
Soon he was seated at the computer, and the man pulled up the materials management system, walking him briskly through the work: taking supply orders, checking stock levels, placing purchase requests, shipping procedures, inventory audits.
"If you get confused, just check the manual here. Nothing to it."
Two hours later, the entire handover was done. The man pulled out a handful of wet wipes and scrubbed himself down as if taking a makeshift shower, then slipped into a crisp, clean suit. Seen like this, he looked like a different man entirely.
"I never made it back to my old desk. But you, Kang Siyoon — I hope you do. I hope you make it back."
He held out his hand.
As their hands clasped, Siyoon felt a strange current of fellowship pass between them.
But this was where their connection ended.
"Take care of yourself."
And with that, the man walked away.
Siyoon watched until the man's back disappeared from view, then began to walk slowly across the warehouse — a floor as vast as a schoolyard.
One week later.
He arrived at work early in the morning and booted up the computer.
The moment he logged into the materials management system, he found orders stacked up like a mountain.
"Twenty-one requests today...?"
His head throbbed.
Thirteen outgoing shipments, three inbound deliveries, five low-stock alerts. He skimmed the details at speed and printed out the paperwork. One week on the job had taught him a single truth:
Keep moving. The moment you stop moving, the orders pile up!
Just in the morning, he had seven stops to make.
The bond desk, the quant strategy team, the risk management office, the executive lounge, and more.
He loaded the goods onto a cart.
He was hurrying out of the warehouse when —
Bzzt—!
The phone in his pocket vibrated.
He fished it out and checked the screen. It was the message he'd been waiting for.
He immediately took out his hardware wallet.
And checked the coins that had arrived.
Bitcoin: 50.47166068 BTC
Fifty-point-five bitcoin.
Converted to Korean won, that came to roughly 6.66 billion KRW.