A Dreamlike Reality — 4
Lee Sieun: "Haa... Yes. I received your call."
Cousin: "So? How was it?"
She had called for the first time in ages, and the first thing out of her mouth was how was it — the tone of a woman who already knew. It still got under my skin.
Lee Sieun: "How was what? Since when were we the kind of people who kept in touch?"
Cousin: "...So you don't intend to tell me."
Lee Sieun: "Do you even have time to worry about me? He'll be here any minute, won't he?"
Cousin: "...We'll talk later."
The line went dead without a scrap of courtesy. I had no intention of calling back just to be angry.
"Some cousin she is... I'm tired. I'm so tired."
Until yesterday he had been a name I barely spared a thought for — nothing more than a secretary. Now every last member of the owner family had him in their sights. Whether it was for their own gain, or because they felt their seats threatened, or because they had taken a genuine liking to the man...
"You poor thing. Caught up with a family like ours — though getting caught by me is the most pitiful part of all, of course."
When I first set out to build the entertainment company, and even now, I had achieved everything I planned.
"Still. I'm looking forward to him. That man."
An unexpected variable, slipped into plans that had otherwise gone exactly as designed. Someone who might even hand over the seat I had always judged a long shot for myself. And...
"Boss, we've arrived."
"Yeah... Thanks for the late night."
"Not at all. I'll see you tomorrow."
Someone who might actually be able to land a blow on that bastard.
"Is everyone here?"
"Yes. The full secretarial staff is present."
The six or so secretaries in front of me all wore exhaustion on their faces, but their eyes were sharp and alive.
"Between yesterday and today, the relationship between you and me has changed."
The joke landed, thankfully, and a few of them smiled. Until yesterday I had been Chief Secretary. Now I was president. Unreal as the situation was, we had to adapt, and quickly.
"I called you here because of what comes next."
These were people who worked for the company with their eyes on the Chairman. I hoped they would work just as hard for me, the man who had taken his place — but if they wouldn't, I would have no choice but to be cold.
"What's ahead of us is nothing but hardship. You'll be busier than you were attending the Chairman and launching new businesses. Feelings will get hurt. Further than that, you may get hurt yourselves."
I had managed to get past Lee Sieun today, one way or another. The threats that had been aimed at me, though, could fall on the secretaries from here on.
"If you resign even now, I will personally guarantee your severance. The situation being what it is, it may take some time — but I promise I won't send you off with less than you're owed."
There had been Makina's advice as well, of course.
> If you do not make this clear now, it may become a weakness later.
"So what exactly am I supposed to tell them?"
> Suggest that they resign.
"And the probability they won't take it?"
> ...Based on the data accumulated so far, to state it plainly...
Would the figure Makina had predicted actually hold? The worry was there — and right beside it, a hope that it would.
"Boss, how can you say something so unkind?"
It was Secretary Park Juwon, who handled finance.
"I mean, yes, we followed because we looked up to the Chairman. But think how long we've been at this. Just because you've suddenly ended up where you are, you think we'd turn on a dime?"
"Exactly. What do you even take us for?"
Choi Yura had been listening in silence beside them. She of all people should have been shaken — she had seen the will first — and yet she had kept her composure and held the front line the whole way through. Her brown hair was pinned up, and eyes of that same warm shade caught the fluorescent lights and seemed, today of all days, to shine. The optimism in her had always lifted everyone she worked beside, and in a crisis like this that gift was doing all of us more good than I knew how to measure.
"Boss... no. President. I don't think anything has changed just because your role has. This is when we all pull together."
"That's right, President."
"Seriously, Boss. You still worry too much. Same as ever."
Not a single secretary held back. Every one of them said they would follow me — that even in the middle of this chaos, they would shoulder the responsibility at my side.
> My prediction was correct.
The probability Makina had predicted was zero — the chance they would actually walk away. Honestly, I hadn't believed it. I didn't have the confidence that I'd been that good a boss. All I had ever done was work as hard as I could, proving myself by ability so the older hands wouldn't resent a young man climbing past them.
"For people as accomplished as all of you, this is a truly difficult road to choose."
There was no stopping now. The sun was coming up, and in a few hours the press conference was set to begin.
"All right. Let's get moving!"
Once I had handed out the work, I was alone again in the chairman's office. The quiet I had finally found — a rare thing — brought a calm that was nothing like Makina's Care.
> Chairman. There is something I did not get the chance to tell you.
"Yeah? What is it?"
Lee Sieun → Chairman
+2%
"What are you— hold on. You had a function like that?"
I asked it with genuine disbelief. A system out of a dating sim, sitting inside reality.
> The largest share of Lee Sieun's criteria for judging people is whether they are competent. From your handling of the present situation, and from the conversation a short while ago, she appears to have decided that you are capable to a certain degree.
"And if that Favorability Rating goes up, what happens?"
> I can state with confidence that it is, at the very least, nothing bad for you.
"Haha... I suppose I should call that a relief."
A system like a game, realized in the real world. The absurdity of it dragged an empty laugh out of me.
"Right. That can wait. The older cousin we were talking about earlier — President Park Namil. What kind of man is he?"
I had rarely attended the family gatherings, so I knew little more than that he ran an arms business. What I did know was that, back when I was a secretary, the people loyal to his mother had tried relentlessly to win me over. They were vicious about it. Even thinking back, a sigh came on its own. Block one, and someone new would reach out; temptations built on money and women were simply assumed. They had gone so far as to sabotage company projects I was responsible for.
> What I am able to tell you is...
Makina let the words hang for a moment, then spoke in a tone that brooked no argument.
> That he is, at present, the person most dangerous to you.
"Dangerous how?"
> In every way.
"Every way?"
> Yes. He is a man who can put both your current position and your life itself in danger.
"...And if I handed the chairmanship over to him?"
If the chairmanship is surrendered under any circumstances,
probability of death: 90%
"...So it really is like that."
> Yes. An analysis of every move he has made shows that he is not a man who leaves so much as a sprout standing.
She was right. Even the paperwork alone was enough to show, in the way he did business, how meticulous he was, and how cold. A man like that would never leave alive someone whose name had been written into the will. And even if he did spare me, he would keep watchers on me. That much was obvious.
"Then what are the odds I can keep the chairmanship out of his hands?"
With Makina
100%
I smiled at the confidence in her answer. Strange as it was, I trusted what Makina said. Perhaps that was the transcendent ability of hers at work.
"Then I should rest first. There's the press conference, and I'll be seeing that guy for the first time. I can't face either of them looking like this."
The face in the mirror, even viewed generously, belonged to an office worker who had just finished an all-nighter.
> Yes. I was just about to recommend that you rest.
I washed in water Makina had brought to a comfortable temperature, and the moment I lay down on the sofa in the chairman's office, the fatigue won. I dropped straight into sleep.
Somewhere in Gimpo, on a landing strip standing in for Incheon Airport after the terrorist attack, a plane sat waiting where it had come down.
"Sir, preparations are complete."
"Good. Then let's be on our way."
The young man nodded, opened the aircraft door, and stepped outside. The cool night wind brushed across his face.
"Fine weather. Far too fine a night for catching a thief."
The crowd waiting beneath the plane bowed at the waist.
"You've had a long journey, sir!"
He lifted a hand to take the greeting, then looked off toward the company his grandfather had built.
"Sir, perhaps you should go to the hotel and rest first..."
"Hmm."
Something about it displeased him. He folded his arms and sank into thought.
"Presi—ghk!"
He drove a kick hard into the leg of the secretary who had stepped closer, and the sudden pain dropped the man where he stood.
"Now that I think about it, I don't care for it. A thief may be squatting in the seat, but to keep calling the man who's about to become chairman President..."
"I... I'm sorry. Chairman."
The secretary forced the words out through the pain, scrambling to soothe him.
"Mm. Better."
Only then satisfied, the man smiled and came down the stairs set at the aircraft door.
"As you said, we'll go to the hotel first."
"Yes, sir. Chairman Park Namil..."
The moment Park Namil climbed into the car, dozens of vehicles rolled out around him in escort — the insolence he had always been permitted, and the long ledger of results made possible only because he looked at people and saw tools.
"And what is that thief doing now?"
"As I understand it, he's still at the company, working."
"Tsk. Take a seat that doesn't suit him, and he ought to have either died or stepped down."
Park Namil smiled as he said it. That base, vicious smile — the one he never showed where the world could see.
"Teaching a brat who doesn't know his place... I suppose that, too, is our role."