Congratulations, Manager Noh
"Congratulations, Manager Noh."
Deputy General Manager Jeon Yonggi rose from his seat as well.
"Congratulations on the promotion, Manager Noh Hoojin!"
Associate Kang Bitna beamed as she offered her congratulations… Though, come to think of it, Associate Kang had been getting to the office early lately.
"Congrats, Manager Noh."
Manager Park Heegon tossed the words out while looking off into the distance.
That was unexpected. Now that I held the same manager title as him, I'd figured he would at least show some irritation.
"Congratulations, Manager Noh Hoojin."
Last of all, Assistant Manager Jo Cheoljeong — who had been buried in work since early morning — stood up for the first time and gave me a slight bow.
Would wonders never cease.
Jo Cheoljeong, of all people, standing first to bow in greeting.
"Ah… thank you, everyone. This is so sudden I'm not sure what to say. But I didn't really have any standout results last year…"
"Haha! Didn't you just pull off a major win recently, Manager Noh? Looks like the higher-ups decided to factor that in early."
As I trailed off, Jeon Yonggi clapped me on the shoulder and laughed heartily.
My promotion also meant the rest of the team had a strong shot at moving up in the second half.
Maybe that was why the atmosphere in the office felt so buoyant.
"You don't look like you believe it. Check the portal."
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
I sat down, powered on my computer, and pulled up the portal announcement.
To all LK Telecom employees,
We hereby announce the regular promotions for the first half of 2025 as follows.
We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the company's growth and innovation through tireless effort and dedication amid the rapidly changing ICT industry landscape, and we offer our sincere congratulations to all employees promoted on this occasion.
— Promotion to General Manager (alphabetical order)
Kang Jihoon (Network Operations Division)
Jo Minho (B2B Sales Team 2)
— Promotion to Deputy General Manager
Kim Nayoung (Marketing Team 1)
— Promotion to Manager
Song Jaehoon (Corporate Planning Office)
Noh Hoojin (Marketing Team 3)
There it was — my name, right at the very bottom.
I stared at the monitor for a long time.
Seeing my name on the promotion list felt strange, and at the same time, entirely natural.
After all, my role in the Han Yojung contract and the commercial shoot had been decisive.
Honestly, I was overdue for a promotion anyway. My peers had already made manager.
The week was off to a very good start.
And that wasn't all. A-Tech Solution, which I'd bought into last week, had stopped its slide and was surging again.
Retail investors were piling in, and the red candles just kept climbing without end.
I'd bought at 122,000 won; it was now at 140,000. Roughly a fifteen percent gain.
Monday morning. For most office workers, this was the hour of staring blankly at a monitor with coffee in hand, slowly warming up for the day.
Not me. Not anymore.
First, pull last week's ad campaign report…
My hands flew across the keyboard like a machine executing preloaded commands.
In moments, I had every metric from last week's "Han Yojung × 5G Youth Plan" campaign — inbound traffic, bounce rates, regional response, conversion rates by target age group — sorted into a clean Excel sheet.
Campaign performance: national average 8.2%, capital-area conversion 11.4%. More than double what we projected. It landed perfectly.
Telecom customers tend to be a concrete slab of loyalty. Cracking that slab was one thing — clearing ten percent conversion in the capital region alone was another.
It was a first in company history.
I even scraped real-time social chatter from the hottest regions, ran keyword clustering, and confirmed the viral lift around terms like "Yojung Phone" and "celebrity plan."
Next: cross-department collaboration requests.
My inbox held three requests each from the Video Team, Design, and CS Operations — mostly priority items from within Marketing, the kind of work that normally ate a full day or more. For me, a morning was plenty.
I stripped every unnecessary sentence, restructured the materials so the other teams could use them immediately, and fired off the replies.
The result: I was finished before eleven.
That was when Jeon Yonggi walked in with coffee, brushing past my desk as he spoke.
"Manager Noh, if you can get last week's report and the other departments' requests done today, great — otherwise by tomorrow morning is fi—"
"I just finished them, sir."
Jeon Yonggi stopped mid-stride and turned around.
"Huh? Already? Did you come in over the weekend?"
"No. I started after I got in this morning. The report is on the shared server, and I've replied to every cross-department request."
"Hah! Looking at that material, I didn't think it was a one-day job."
Ah. Had it looked that heavy?
I recalculated on the spot.
"…So I prepped some of it at home last night."
"Man, watching you work, Manager Noh, honestly feels like watching an AI."
Jeon Yonggi left the compliment hanging and headed back to his desk.
An AI… Maybe something like that really had taken up residence in my head.
When lunch came around, I went out with the team for the first time in a while. Promotion or not, I was buying.
"Lunch has to be kimchi jjigae, right?"
"No way, Manager. We had spicy pork yesterday — tonkatsu today."
Junior Associate Kim Seungho immediately pushed back against Manager Park Heegon's suggestion.
A crease appeared between Associate Kang Bitna's brows.
A few days later.
LK General Hospital, Seoul.
Lee Seokmin, Director of the LK Hospital VIP Center.
He oversaw the hospital's dedicated VIP unit, primarily treating and managing executives from major conglomerates, political figures, and high-ranking foreign dignitaries.
Five in the afternoon, after clinic hours.
In the director's office, he studied his smartphone with a grave expression.
"Ha. Absolutely incredible."
What had drawn the exclamation was none other than the A-Tech Solution stock chart.
Shares he'd bought while they were sideways around eighty thousand won had closed the day near two hundred thousand.
"Damn. If I'd known, I would have put more in."
He clicked his tongue with regret and tapped his index finger against the armrest of his chair.
His investment: roughly one hundred million won.
Current projected profit: one hundred fifty million.
"Still, this much is…"
He gazed at the valuation with a satisfied look.
In his entire life he had never once seen a stock window turn red, so the feeling was entirely new.
At first he had been half-skeptical.
But he hadn't been able to dismiss the man's words lightly.
Something unnameable had radiated from patient Noh Hoojin.
And when he considered that unnaturally vigorous brain, he had decided it was worth a leap of faith.
Sure enough, the recommended stock had climbed steeply, taken one correction, and was rocketing again.
Damn it. If he'd known, he would have believed completely.
A primary physician who couldn't trust his own patient. Malpractice, frankly.
His mood was swinging wildly. Of course he was happy about clearing a hundred million in profit — but the money he had left on the table was breeding regret.
On the verge of needing a visit to the psychiatry wing next door, Lee Seokmin shook his head hard and forced the thought away.
Then he began searching academic portals and overseas platforms for research on the brain.
Noh Hoojin's condition had raised serious questions.
Neuroscience, brain science, neurobiology, cognitive science — the brain was still largely uncharted territory, and the papers and materials on it were endless.
His fingers moved over the keyboard as he entered the academic portal and searched keywords like Neuroscience, Neuroplasticity, and Cognitive Enhancement.
Nowhere did he find a case resembling Noh Hoojin's.
He checked the world-renowned clinical solutions the hospital subscribed to as well.
If someone like Noh Hoojin existed, there would certainly have been clinical trials. Those, too, turned up nothing.
In a sea of material this vast, not a single useful hit.
Something was off.
His gaze grew steadily more serious.
An intuition that went beyond professional knowledge was creeping up on him.
Right then.
Ding—
An automatic mail popup appeared at the bottom of his monitor.
"Hm?"
He studied the subject line carefully.
His brow twitched.
National Special Factor Management Response Headquarters? An agency like that existed? And Security Level 3 on top of it?
He leaned back into his chair without thinking and narrowed his eyes.
"…What the hell is this?"
Lee Seokmin opened the mail at once and scrolled through it slowly.
The contents were far more detailed than he had expected.
Even after finishing the message, he stared at the monitor for a long while.
On the surface it looked like a routine government notice blasted out by an automated system — but the timing was far too convenient.
And because he already knew of Noh Hoojin's existence, every piece of the situation locked into place.
So the government is hunting for people like Noh Hoojin… At a glance, their intentions don't look friendly.
He hesitated for a moment, but not long.
I can't just let them find him.
Lee Seokmin sent his reply at once.
Brief, but unambiguous. Anything longer would only invite suspicion.
Whatever it took, he had to protect Noh Hoojin's secret.
Wasn't that a physician's duty?
And besides…
You don't cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs.
On the way home.
I checked the coin charts as I walked.
Over the past few days, twenty million won invested had earned me close to five million.
The method was the same as before.
Diversify, sell whatever spiked hard, then reinvest in other coins with potential.
Of course, about half of the hundred coins I'd held had either gone sideways or dropped — but overall, nothing had cratered.
I liquidated everything back to cash.
I'd gotten a feel for the flow and lived through it firsthand.
But I still couldn't go all-in.
My entire operating capital was still locked in A-Tech Solution — and it was still climbing, so I needed more time.
A-Tech Solution, which I'd re-entered at 122,000 won, had closed the day at 198,000. Looking at the momentum, it was about to punch clean through the 200,000 resistance.
I'd bought a thousand shares with a hundred thirty million won; the valuation was already at two hundred ten million. Roughly a sixty-one percent gain.
My steps on the walk home felt light.