Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: Baghdad Declaration (2)
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Ammunition Group headquarters, 45th floor, Han Hwa-gi’s office. In the silence-filled space, the only sounds were the occasional rustle of a few sheets of white paper.
Yoo Ji-won, the Audit Team Leader with hollow eyes, stared solely at his master’s figure, oblivious even to the bobbing of his own Adam’s apple.
Eyes like those of a starving bird of prey, nerves taut with anticipation at the sight of food right before it.
Though Han Hwa-gi had been eliminated from the succession race, his sharp claws were still brimming with power.
Ready to snatch the prey away at any moment.
“Hey, Yoo Ji-won.”
“…….”
No response from the Audit Team Leader at his master’s call.
His vacant expression fixed on the eagle statue inside the display case behind him.
‘Damn, those eyes look just like his. Does he only keep decorations that resemble him, no matter what?’
Was it fatigue from the recent Ammunition Group financial affiliate separation project?
His mind was clouded with trivial, irrelevant thoughts.
And those murky clouds only cleared after a massive typhoon named Han Hwa-gi’s shout swept through.
“Hey! Yoo Ji-won! What the hell are you doing if you’re not focusing right now!”
“Ah, uh! Yes! W-what is it? What’s going on?”
“I asked how far the financial affiliate separation has progressed! Where do you even keep your mind…!”
Yoo Ji-won, the Audit Team Leader, flinched and shrank his head between his shoulders.
He frantically scanned the approval documents in his hand and replied.
“Yes! Well, as you mentioned before, we’ve nearly completed the rights separation for the two items that [Shanghai Capital] demanded.”
Core defense technology transfer and the cheap sale of overseas resource development rights. The two rights that [Shanghai Capital] desired.
If the affiliate separation succeeded, Yoo Ji-won, the Audit Team Leader, had poured every effort into securing those rights for Han Hwa-gi’s group.
Even running around on foot himself, despite having lost real power.
“We’ve buried most of the evidence, and the rest is tied to Seong Won-sik and Gu Seok-su, so they won’t be able to move easily either. However….”
Yoo Ji-won trailed off. He seemed to feel something nagging at him.
Having spent his life peering into ledgers at the Audit Team, and handling the practical work for this matter himself, he had an instinctive sense of déjà vu.
Ammunition Securities. He was certain there was a time bomb sleeping soundly inside, one even he didn’t know about.
“However?”
But that certainty couldn’t easily be voiced before his master, whose mood had soured.
Yoo Ji-won glanced cautiously.
In the end, something completely unrelated slipped from his lips instead of what he’d meant to say.
“Ah, no, it’s nothing. There’s no issue with the affiliate separation. It’s just that [Shanghai Capital] is taking too much equity, which bothers me a bit.”
“Ha, that’s all you were worried about? Well, you couldn’t see the big picture anyway, Yoo Ji-won.”
Han Hwa-gi let out a small scoff and looked Yoo Ji-won up and down.
He handed over the projected equity structure for the soon-to-be-formed Ammunition Financial Group.
A tangled web like grapevine branches. His finger traced along the thin twigs, past the thick stems, toward the core root.
“Circular investment structure. Even after separation, the new center remains Ammunition Securities. If we combine my shares with the family council’s….”
Eyes filled with confidence. Or perhaps gripped by misguided mania.
As Han Hwa-gi’s image overlaid the subtle déjà vu he’d just felt, something eerie began crawling up Yoo Ji-won’s spine.
Like a racehorse charging blindly toward ruin.
“[Shanghai Capital] won’t get their hands on core management rights, that’s for sure. Once the cleanup is done later, that’s when I’ll take Han Seo-jun’s head.”
“Th-that’s… indeed a brilliant choice.”
“My eldest son should have finished the related work by now. He’s overdue.”
Reluctant agreement laced with flattery.
With Chairman Han Seo-jun in Iraq, and orders to push the group affiliate separation as fast as possible, Yoo Ji-won wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
On this unusually chilly day. Sweat pouring regardless of the weather, sounding a strange alarm in his mind.
*Knock knock!*
A knock at the door.
Seeing the man who entered after rapping on the heavy wooden door, Yoo Ji-won couldn’t hide his crumbling expression.
The abstract alarm that had risen like smoke moments ago.
What had been mere foreboding now took solid form, approaching him as if to speak.
Bite your master’s hand and run far away now.
“Father. I’ve completed the review as instructed.”
Han Seo-ho strode straight to his father and reported, ignoring Yoo Ji-won as if he were invisible.
A mask of smirking amusement. Yoo Ji-won realized what lay beneath—stiff and rigid—upon seeing the summary at the bottom of the report’s first page.
-Ammunition Securities’ internal funds are confirmed to be extremely sound. Stable liquidity secured due to overseeing PF for the Iraq seawater desalination plant project….
“……!”
Yoo Ji-won froze in his seat, as if struck on the head by a heavy sledgehammer.
The massive 105 billion won raised for initial capital in the Iraq seawater desalination plant project.
As intuition chained into deduction, his clenched fists trembled in terror.
‘That money was definitely from derivative issuances in the U.S. securities market… Which means….’
What should he say?
That they need to review risks again? That his eldest son had caused a massive screw-up and was now throwing up smoke screens to bury it?
Yoo Ji-won tried to offer counsel, his pupils shaking.
But…
“Hey, Audit Team Leader Yoo. Why don’t you step out for a bit? How can someone be this oblivious?”
“Young Master Seo-ho…?”
“This is a matter needing a private talk, so get out. Can’t you even understand that now?”
Han Seo-ho’s overt eviction notice, having sensed it instinctively.
When he came to, Yoo Ji-won was already standing alone in the empty hallway.
In the elevator descending like a plunge into the abyss. To his haggard reflection in the mirror, the Audit Team Leader spoke.
“It’s over. Before it even began.”
His ears rang not just from the elevator’s speed.
Soon, his trembling hand slipped into his suit jacket’s inner pocket.
After repeatedly typing and deleting one number over and over, Yoo Ji-won finally made a call.
“Yeah… it’s me. Jeong Cheol-sik. Me, Yoo Ji-won. Doing well? Of course not, obviously.”
From the phone’s speaker leaked the Busan dialect of his fellow recruit and longtime rival, Executive Director Jeong Cheol-sik.
The perfunctory greetings didn’t last long.
“Nothing else. I want to live too. Connect me to Chairman Han Seo-jun through that Gu Seok-su connection of yours. Please.”
* * * *
Ammunition Group, the defense conglomerate.
Given its core business, the group’s rigidly disciplined culture had a notorious reputation in various senses.
It was so bad that posts like these popped up regularly on office worker community sites.
-Starting this fall’s Ammunition Group public recruitment… Is the military-style culture there really that intense? Heard they enforce strict dana-ka speech patterns.
-It’s way better now. Back in the day, all employees ran laps in white tracksuits first thing in the morning. At the ‘Seoul HQ,’ no less.
In the hotel suite in Baghdad, Iraq. During a break, idly searching ‘Ammunition Group’ on his laptop brought up exactly that.
I muted the sound of Kim Won-cheol chuckling and clutching his stomach beside me, scrolling with the mouse wheel.
Then. Click. A peculiar post caught my eye.
-The owner family there is pretty wild. Remember the Frankfurt speech? Chairman lost it on a business trip and summoned all the group presidents.
At the mention of Frankfurt, Kim Won-cheol abruptly stopped laughing and let out an exclamation.
Seemed recalling that memory was quite enjoyable.
“Whew… Someone actually remembers that? It was like 20 years ago, for real.”
“You didn’t write this yourself, did you? The writing style seems similar to how you talk.”
“Hey, what baseless suspicion. And I was right next to the late Chairman back then. Well, he was pretty wild himself.”
Kim Won-cheol pointed his thumb at himself, unpacking tales from that time.
Half self-praise, half exaggeration, but I listened quietly.
The conversation a few days ago with Vice President Yang Taek-su at the Yangpyeong fishing spot.
What I had to do from now on was draw wisdom from past experiences.
“I didn’t come all the way to Iraq just to imitate my father.”
“Heh heh heh… I know that much. There’s always a hidden reason behind such bold moves.”
Kim Won-cheol peeled a banana from the fruit basket on the table.
He bit into the white flesh inside the yellow skin and continued.
“The late Chairman did the same. Outwardly about modernizing group management, but really to purge the powerful founding merit executives.”
“You saw it up close, so you know well.”
“Heh heh heh… And now, you’ve got that late Chairman vibe. My nose is like a dog’s. Been secretary room chief for decades.”
I just smiled without answering.
Kim Won-cheol seemed eager for a straight reply. He peeled the yellow banana skin himself and offered it to me.
“Peel off the outer skin—Ammunition Group restructuring. What’s the white flesh inside? If you don’t say, I’ll eat it.”
“You peeled it, so you gonna eat it alone? Hand it over.”
I opened wide and devoured the white flesh completely.
Tossing the now-wilted skin on the table, I held up two fingers and spoke.
“Blocking everything that both [Shanghai Capital] and Uncle want.”
“Kuh, knew it.”
“No defense tech or overseas resource rights going to China. And no financial affiliate separation like Uncle dreams of.”
Using the Iraq seawater desalination plant project review declaration as a stepping stone to proclaim high-intensity group restructuring.
Protect my people like President Seong Won-sik from unnecessary prosecutorial interference, and block [Shanghai Capital]’s grab for defense tech and overseas resource rights.
I could definitely pull it off.
I had to.
“Your confidence could reach the late Chairman in heaven. Heh heh heh.”
“No choice.”
As if in response, my phone rang right then.
The long message from Executive Director Jeong Cheol-sik clearly pointed toward success in everything I’d planned.
Yoo Ji-won, Audit Team Leader.
Uncle’s last loyalist… had knelt to me.
“That’s why more and more are raising the white flag and surrendering like this.”