No Charges to File
Ontel had become the hottest company on the stock market.
It had delivered a spectacular slap in the face to countless hedge funds and financial titans, surging in what could only be described as a catastrophic rally — but that upward momentum didn't last nearly as long as one might have expected.
Whatever the future might hold years or even decades from now, the cold verdict from the experts was that the current rally was madness itself. The public, whose reason had short-circuited as Ontel's stock skyrocketed after the announcement and who had done nothing but hammer the buy button, only began to recover their senses and analyze the situation coolly after some time had passed.
Two hundred dollars.
Ontel's stock price had found its footing at around $200 — roughly a fivefold climb from the $41 it traded at just before the announcement.
And Raymond, the SEC special investigator who had watched this entire saga unfold from beginning to end with meticulous care, wore an expression that said this is a tricky one as he spoke to his superior.
"Regarding the investigation into allegations of stock manipulation at Ontel... we were unable to find any grounds that could definitively be classified as unlawful conduct."
The investigation into Ontel for breach of fiduciary duty and stock manipulation had begun with intelligence fed to the SEC by various factions on Wall Street.
The core allegation was that Ontel had signed an absurd contract with an unheard-of foreign company called Limitless and manipulated its stock price with false claims. But by the time the investigation was wrapping up, the situation had taken a dramatic reversal.
"Contrary to what we assumed, Ontel really did succeed in developing an optical semiconductor chip. Therefore, the technology transfer agreement Ontel disclosed three months ago and the CEO's announcement were not stock manipulation through false statements — they must be judged as a legitimate, lawful contract and a business decision made to maximize corporate profit."
Had they failed, it would have been fraud. But when they had actually succeeded, there was no way to establish it as a crime. Still, Raymond's superior took a quiet sip of coffee, looked at him, and asked in return.
"The allegations against Ontel didn't end there, did they? What about the misuse of non-public information?"
"That, too, is beyond reproach. Ontel never failed to meet a single disclosure obligation."
He was right.
Ontel had faithfully disclosed everything the law required. The signing of the optical semiconductor technology transfer agreement, the plan to devote itself to developing optical chips, the share buyback, and the additional stock purchases by its own executives and employees — all of it had been disclosed transparently, and every detail had been reported to the SEC. The problem was...
"People simply didn't believe it, because they judged it too absurd to be true."
The fact that not a single soul had taken their disclosures seriously.
"Hmm..."
His superior drummed his fingers on the desk as if deliberating over Raymond's report. Then he leafed through the submitted documents once more and muttered in a low voice.
"So prosecution is impossible?"
"That's correct."
"Tch. Wall Street's crowd has been burned enough times to know better — they'll be whining in our ear from behind the scenes again, won't they."
Ontel had inflicted far too much damage on Wall Street's powerful players for the matter to simply be waved through without a fuss. With direct pressure already bearing down on the SEC from multiple directions, the superior shook his head with a faint air of a headache coming on.
"And... this person who runs the company called Limitless?"
"Mr. Kang? There's nothing for us to touch there, either."
He was the central figure of the entire affair. But as his superior pored over the materials related to him, he realized — just as Raymond had said — that there was truly nothing to grab onto, and his brow furrowed.
"Hm... He didn't buy a single share of Ontel stock, even in the middle of all this."
Had the core developer of the optical semiconductor technology bought up massive quantities of Ontel shares in advance, the SEC could at least have taken a jab at him once on insider trading charges. But whether he had anticipated exactly that, his trading records were immaculately clean.
"He's a foreign national, so we'd have no grounds to force a summons and investigation without cause. And Ontel would very likely push back hard against it as well."
"I suppose so. The Commerce Department is watching this matter quite closely too, so one wrong move and this could get tangled up in politics and turn into a real headache."
The optical semiconductor was a next-generation technology capable of dominating the semiconductor market of the future.
It was no longer being evaluated as a mere novel technology, but as something interwoven with industries across countless fields — an essential technology for seizing the technological hegemony of the future. The Commerce Department and various other relevant agencies had already begun treating Ontel's technology as a next-generation core technology, with talk circulating of designating it a strategic controlled material. Which meant that if the SEC poked at this matter without proper justification, the odds of drawing blood — their own — were high.
"What would you like done?"
Raymond had finished everything within his purview and submitted his report. From that point on, it was a matter of politics, so he posed the question to his superior, who was weighing his options against a host of problems.
The deliberation didn't take long.
"...There's no reason for us to stick our noses in and bleed for it. Let's close the case as no grounds for charges."
"Understood."
Raymond nodded at his superior's decision to handle everything strictly by the book and left the office. After he was gone, the superior glanced at a single sheet of paper containing the file of the culprit and mastermind behind the whole affair, examined it at leisure, then smirked and murmured to himself.
"Gun, is it..."
"What an unusual name."
Somehow...
It was the kind of name that left an impression too striking to ever forget.
The Limitless Research Institute, located in Chungju, South Korea.
It was a one-man company that hadn't even properly begun operations yet — and yet the institute was already being flooded with every conceivable kind of contact, with crowds of people streaming in and out, making it wildly popular.
"CEO! I'm from the Hankook Ilbo! Please, just one interview — I'm begging you!"
"CEO! Are you interested in investments at all, by any chance? Hm? I've got a genuinely great business idea! Just give me a chance to explain it, please! CEO!"
"Donations! Please, donate! Even tonight there are stray cats shivering and starving in the cold. Just a small helping hand...!"
"I want to work here! I'll work hard at anything — just give me a job, any job! I'll bury my bones here!"
"What in tarnation is this place, anyhow? Eh? How come it's been on the TV every time I look?"
Reporters barging in without warning, shoving cameras in people's faces in a desperate bid to snag a single story.
Beggars angling for a piece of the vast sums of money I was said to have received, pleading for investments or donations.
Job seekers thrusting out their résumés unprompted, begging to be given any work, despite the fact that no hiring notice had ever been posted.
And finally, unidentifiable old men and women who'd caught sight of their neighborhood on the news and come to have a look around...
People of every stripe were literally swarming the company. The entire building had transformed into something like a marketplace, with strangers of unknown identity milling about in every direction — and the person suffering most from all of it was none other than Kim Cheol-min, a lawyer on Ontel Korea's legal team and... my exclusive secretary, albeit only on a temporary basis for now.
"You can't be in here. Leave, now!"
"Why do you keep hanging around after the CEO told you he's not investing? Didn't we say last time that we'd call the police if you came back? Do you actually want to be sued for obstruction of business?"
"We're very sorry, but employee recruitment will be conducted formally through a public notice at a later date. Please go home for now."
Assigned to the front lines of driving back the merchants and peddlers who swarmed in every single day, he had spent the entire morning locked in one scuffle after another, and only after shoving everyone out of the building did he come trudging into the office, drenched in sweat.
"Whew..."
"Another hard day's work, I see."
"CEO, setting everything else aside, let's sign a contract with a security firm first. More and more outsiders keep gathering around the company, and at this rate I honestly can't keep up."
"He's right. At this pace we'll end up going home having done none of our actual work, just dealing with those peddlers all day. We need to hire security personnel first and foremost."
"Oh, and that man asking us to invest in his solar power thing or whatever — you really should sue him. Today he wrecked the office bathroom and ran off, you know?"
Kim Cheol-min shook his head as if to say he simply couldn't take any more, hands raised in total surrender. And as several employees stepped forward in agreement with him, I shrugged and said,
"Well... sure, let's do that. It's not like money's an issue, is it?"
After all, we were set to receive a contract payment of one hundred million dollars from Ontel. It was to be paid in annual installments of twenty million dollars, so we hadn't received it all yet — but even twenty million dollars came to roughly twenty-five billion won, a fortune by any measure. Signing a contract with a single security firm was hardly a challenge.
Besides, the only money going out at the moment was the maintenance fees for this building we'd acquired for free.
"On that note... how are things progressing with the new research lab construction?"
"Ah, we've commissioned the design work. As you instructed, the plan is to purchase the nearby rice paddies and fields and build the new headquarters there, and we're proceeding with the relevant procedures..."
Knock knock knock.
The sound of knuckles rapping on the door cut abruptly into the middle of his explanation. And when two middle-aged men in suits, visible through the glass door, moved to open it and come inside, Kim Cheol-min immediately bolted out again, calling back,
"Good grief, there are still people who haven't left? One moment, CEO... Our company strictly restricts access by outside visitors. Please turn around and leave!"
He blocked them from entering the office, pushing at their backs to shoo them out. For a moment it was the usual scuffle outside the glass door — but then he accepted something the two men handed over, glanced around with a slightly flustered expression, and carefully cracked the office door open, poking his head through.
"Um, CEO...?"
"Hm? What is it?"
"It seems we have... guests. What should we do?"
"Guests?"
Unlike his usual habit of calling the flood of outsiders peddlers, this time Cheol-min had called them guests. At that reaction, curiosity welled up in me, and I nodded, gesturing for him to show them in.
"Hahaha. What a pleasure it is to meet you in person like this."
The middle-aged man clasped my hand in both of his and shook it with easy, glib charm. But when a complete stranger I'd never seen in my life greeted me with an almost overbearing friendliness, I could only wear an expression full of discomfort and ask,
"Ah, yes. And... who exactly might you be, and what brings you here...?"
"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kim Yoon-sik."
He drew a business card from his breast pocket and handed it to me. And without examining the card closely, I needed only to glimpse the golden logo stamped on it to know at once where these men had come from.
Aseong Electronics
Kim Yoon-sik — Head of Device Solutions (DS) Division
"We've come to pay you this visit in order to present you with a very fine proposal, CEO."
South Korea's number-one company — a semiconductor powerhouse whose influence ranked among the greatest in the entire world.
Aseong Electronics.
The very people who had once dismissed my proposal with a single stroke, through a subordinate, had now come in person.
And a man of division-head rank had hauled his weighty backside all the way here to do it.