Normalization
The door to the conference room began opening one by one.
Click.
The executives came in at an unhurried pace and took their seats.
The head of production.
The head of sales.
The head of procurement.
The HR director.
The finance director.
The core leadership who ran the company drifted in amid low chatter, and before long the conference room was full.
“I hear the president personally called this meeting.”
“Hah. To make such a grand fuss just to see our faces.”
Snickers slipped out here and there.
The mood in the room was as languid as could be.
Even though the company’s key departments had all gathered, almost no one seemed tense.
Everyone knew that nothing would really change just because Kang Taeseong had called a meeting.
He’d probably just exchange a few pleasantries.
He’d probably give some vague instructions and call it a day.
At most, he’d ask which female employee looked pretty and what her name was.
It wasn’t that the employees were looking down on the president. Objectively speaking, that was simply the sort of man Kang Taeseong had been until now.
“...Tsk.”
A sound of irritation came from one corner of the room.
It was Choi Seong-uk, the Planning Director.
Song Taejin, the executive director seated beside him, also frowned in silence.
Things were different when the chairman was still around.
Kang Baekho.
The founder and chairman who had built KJ Group into what it was today.
Back when he personally ran the company, it was unthinkable for people like this to occupy key posts.
The incompetent were sent down, and the capable were promoted.
Strict principles, clear rewards and punishments.
It was an age in which anyone who failed to prove himself was left behind. He was constantly tested, and only those whose abilities matched the standard could rise to executive rank.
But after Chairman Kang Baekho’s health deteriorated, things changed.
More precisely, they changed when his son, Kang Taeseong, took over as president.
Kang Taeseong.
Thinking of that detestable figure, Executive Director Song Taejin clenched his teeth.
Kang Taeseong was... so incompetent it was hard to believe he was Chairman Kang Baekho’s son, a man to whom Song Taejin had once devoted his loyalty.
If he had only been incompetent, the company would not have been shaken this badly.
Kang Taeseong was incompetent, lazy, and greedy.
Sycophants were promoted one after another, personal connections came before ability, and irresponsible people took over every corner of the organization.
Poisons took time to seep in, but decay came quickly.
Before long, even this conference room had been filled more than half full with such men.
A tiger father, a dog son...
How could a son like that come from under such a father?
With a look of pity, Executive Director Song Taejin slowly shook his head.
That was when it happened.
Click—
The conference room door opened.
“The president is entering.”
The secretary’s calm voice rang through the room.
A figurehead or not, the president was still the president.
For this moment, all idle chatter stopped.
Every gaze turned at once toward the door.
How much weight has he put on this time?
Ugh... I’m tired. I wish he’d just hurry up and get this over with.
He’ll probably waddle in again with his belly hanging out like always.
Most of the executives thought exactly that.
But then—
“...Huh?”
Someone let out a short, involuntary gasp.
A man in a tailored suit stepped over the threshold.
His heels struck the floor.
Tap, tap, tap.
There was nothing sloppy in his stride.
The shoulders that had always slouched were held straight, and his head stayed fixed forward without a tremor.
...What is this?
He was only walking, and yet the air in the conference room seemed to sink.
The corners of the executives’ mouths, which had been raised in amusement, slowly fell.
It was Kang Taeseong.
His face, his build, even his clothes were not all that different.
And yet something was strange.
He was unmistakably the same man, and somehow he felt like an entirely different person.
Like a sleeping predator opening its eyes for the first time.
Each silent step he took pressed down on the room.
“Cough.”
“Gulp....”
Someone swallowed unconsciously, and someone else straightened their posture for no reason at all.
Kang Taeseong crossed the center of the conference room without saying a word.
Then he sat slowly in the innermost seat—the president’s chair.
Thunk.
The brief sound of setting down a notebook rang out.
For some reason, it echoed far louder than it should have.
The room had already gone so quiet that not even breathing could be heard.
“...It seems everyone is here.”
A calm voice.
“Yes, President.”
The first to answer was Executive Director Song Taejin.
But the moment he spoke, he found himself strangely perplexed.
...Why?
Why had he responded to President Kang Taeseong’s words? No one should have been more displeased with this meeting than Song Taejin himself.
That one line just now.
Long ago, back when Chairman Kang Baekho had held executive meetings.
The weight that filled the room, the way he slowly opened his mouth and looked over the executives gathered before him...
For some reason, it felt so familiar that Song Taejin had answered on reflex without even thinking.
Was that an illusion?
Song Taejin’s brow furrowed faintly.
Then Kang Taeseong slowly looked around the conference room and spoke.
“Let’s begin the meeting.”
*
Ugh, I’m about to shake myself apart.
Still, I’d managed to get everyone’s attention somehow.
I wasn’t used to having dozens of pairs of eyes land on me all at once.
Even in my previous life, I’d hated giving presentations in front of people.
And now this was a room full of KJ Group’s top executives.
Calm down.
I forced down my nerves.
Thankfully, Kang Taeseong’s face helped at times like this.
A jutting jaw.
A face swollen with flesh.
Heavy, harsh eyes.
Even if I made the smallest neutral expression, people took it not as tension but as anger.
Thanks to that, no one noticed that my heart was pounding like mad.
Good.
I slowly swept my gaze over the room.
The head of production.
The head of sales.
The head of procurement.
The HR director.
The finance director.
And Executive Director Song Taejin.
It had already been a month since I became Kang Taeseong.
On the employees’ side, I probably just looked like the president had started dieting, but I hadn’t spent that month doing nothing.
Quite the opposite.
I went to work after exercising.
After work, I dug through documents until dawn.
And without telling anyone, I put together a secret audit team.
Using Kang Taeseong’s authority, I secretly brought in auditors from outside accounting firms, and apart from the existing audit office, I had them investigate every corner of the company.
The result was... miserable.
Rotten to the core.
I opened the folder of documents I had prepared.
The soft rustle of paper echoed through the conference room.
“The reason I called this meeting is simple.”
I paused for a moment.
All eyes were on me.
“It’s to share the results of the audit.”
The atmosphere in the conference room froze.
Several executives’ expressions stiffened just slightly.
I ignored it and turned the first page.
“Production.”
The production head’s shoulders jolted.
“Receiving kickbacks during vendor selection.”
“...!”
“The amount is 120 million won.”
The color drained from the production head’s face.
I immediately turned to the next page.
“Procurement.”
The procurement head swallowed dryly.
“Manipulating raw-material unit prices, embezzling the difference, and drawing up false contracts.”
This time, I looked at the sales head.
“Personal use of corporate cards, and false claims for client entertainment expenses.”
One by one.
Every time I called out a name, the air in the room grew heavier.
Those with guilty consciences began trembling at the fingertips and wiping away cold sweat.
The faces that had tried so hard to look calm were all turning a dark, sickly shade.
Meanwhile, the executives who had done nothing wrong stared at me with their eyes wide.
After closing the last document, I spoke slowly.
“Everyone. Did you think I’d been doing nothing but exercise all this time?”
The room was dead silent.
“Unfortunately,”
I said, looking around at the executives in turn,
“I spent that month investigating all of you.”
The president had personally investigated and uncovered the corruption. While everyone was still processing that shocking fact, they were trying to grasp the situation.
“That’s impossible!”
The production head shot to his feet.
“The president... conducted an audit?”
“No way!”
“Someone must have deceived the president!”
Voices burst out from all over the conference room.
“This is a misunderstanding!”
“Hahaha, President! That’s a bit too much of a joke!”
“R-right! There’s a nice place I know! Let’s go there, and if you listen to me there—”
...
I stared at them in disbelief.
These guys.
What on earth did they think I was?
Right now, they couldn’t even believe that I had done something like this, never mind that their corruption had been exposed.
Kang Taeseong had planted people behind the scenes and run an audit.
He had gathered evidence.
He had set a trap and kept his mouth shut for a month.
That fact itself seemed to be the biggest shock to them.
Come to think of it, I could understand why.
It’s the sort of thing that feels like the sun rising in the west.
If it had been the original Kang Taeseong? He wouldn’t have cared about company matters at all.
At best, he would’ve gone looking for women, gotten drunk, and taken out his temper on employees he didn’t like.
So they’d been happily nibbling away at the company, safe in the belief that the dumber the president was, the safer they were.
They really did run this place comfortably.
I slowly looked around the room.
There were twenty-two executives gathered here.
Of them, nearly half were tied up in corruption.
Embezzlement.
Breach of trust.
Bribery.
Vendor kickbacks.
False contracts.
Misuse of corporate cards.
They had every flavor of crime imaginable.
If I cut them all out at once, the company would plunge into chaos for a while.
There would be a gap in operations, too.
But that didn’t mean I intended to leave them alone.
If you let rotten branches fester, the whole tree dies in the end.
I took out one of the prepared documents.
“Those who were named earlier,”
I said, my calm voice echoing through the room,
“are suspended from their duties as of today.”
“...!”
“I’ve forwarded the materials to the audit office and the legal team. We’ll proceed according to the law and company regulations.”
The room burst into commotion.
“President! Please, wait!”
“Just give us one chance!”
“It’s a misunderstanding!”
“This has been manipulated! Someone is framing us!”
The faces that had been so relaxed a moment ago were gone.
All that remained now were pale faces and frantic excuses.
I didn’t listen to them to the end.
“For now,”
I said, slowly surveying the room,
“I’ll start by dealing with the maggots sucking the company’s marrow dry.”
The room fell silent, so quiet that even breathing could no longer be heard.
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