Was That Really the Only Way?
After the storm had passed, only silence settled over the conference room.
At first, more than twenty people had been gathered there.
In the end, only ten remained.
Not even half of the original number.
And yet not a single one of them left their seat.
The head of planning.
The head of finance.
The head of quality control.
Managing Director of Management Planning Song Taejin.
Under the secret audit, they had all come away with not a single blemish to their names.
They were the kind of people you could shake down from head to toe and still not find a speck of dust.
And even they had stiff faces now.
It had been a purge so sudden it might as well have been a raid.
Watching their colleagues dragged out right in front of them was not something anyone could easily accept.
In that frigid silence, Kang Taeseong slowly opened his mouth.
"...I’m sorry."
Everyone in the conference room lifted their heads.
It was the last thing they had expected to hear.
"I made the company this way."
His voice was calm as he continued.
"After I was appointed president, I neglected the company. As a result—"
Kang Taeseong looked at the empty seats.
"—it turned into this mess."
"...."
With a heavy expression, he studied the vacant chairs before turning back to the executives who remained.
"Thank you all."
"..."
"Thank you sincerely for not abandoning the company even in an environment like this, and for staying at your posts until the end."
The conference room fell silent again.
Some of the executives still looked dazed.
...He apologized?
Kang Taeseong?
It felt utterly unreal.
On the other hand, a few senior managers, including the head of planning, still would not let their guard down.
No way.
He can’t have some other motive, can he?
A person who had already lost trust once was not so easy to believe again.
As if he understood their reaction, Kang Taeseong spoke once more.
"From here on, this company will change."
"The process will be fair, and the evaluations transparent."
"Those with ability will be rewarded according to their ability, and those who produce results will be treated according to those results."
There was no flourish in those words.
They were plain and sturdy, yet they sounded as if they carried genuine sincerity.
Those words lingered long in the hearts of the people left in the conference room.
Then it happened.
Scrape—
A chair slid back.
It was Song Taejin, the managing director.
He rose slowly and walked toward Kang Taeseong.
Every executive’s gaze turned to him at once.
Kang Taeseong, too, tensed for an instant.
What now?
Song Taejin.
A man who had practically no presence in the game.
In the first place, KJ Group was a company that would be brought to ruin by the protagonist and Kang Taeseong.
In the original story, Song Taejin was only ever mentioned by name.
There was no telling what he might do.
Song Taejin stopped before Kang Taeseong.
Then he bowed deeply in front of him.
It was such a deep bow it could only be called a ninety-degree greeting.
"...President."
His low, solid voice rang through the room.
"I look forward to working with you."
In an instant, the mood in the conference room shifted in a strange way.
What...?
Song, who’s usually so stiff, is bowing to him...!
He’s acknowledging Kang Taeseong?
It wasn’t only the other executives who were stunned.
Kang Taeseong himself blinked for a moment.
Song Taejin.
He was a veteran executive who had supported Chairman Kang Baekho from the company’s earliest days.
Which meant that within the company, a single word from him carried more weight than the words of two or three ordinary executives combined.
And now he was formally recognizing Kang Taeseong as president in a public setting.
For a moment, Kang Taeseong looked taken aback, then soon smiled softly and extended a hand.
"I look forward to working with you as well."
Song Taejin took that hand without hesitation.
Clack.
A hand hardened by years of labor and a hand of equal resolve clasped together.
The executives watching them began to stir.
Kang Taeseong said nothing, simply holding Song Taejin’s gaze.
To be honest, he was only startled.
He had not expected someone of this caliber to bow first.
But no one here could have guessed the meaning behind that expression.
He already had a fearsome face.
With his tightly shut mouth and sharply lifted eyes, the whole thing combined into an oppressive air, as if he were measuring the other person.
A small whisper slipped out from the back of the conference room.
"...Look at those eyes."
"Is he locking horns with Managing Director Song?"
"Even if Song is a senior executive..."
Someone swallowed dryly.
"...So that’s what he means. He won’t go easy on anyone."
"He’s drawing the line as president."
"He really is going to establish discipline."
The murmur was very quiet, but every executive left in the room was thinking the same thing.
Even the old guard would be no exception.
At that moment, Kang Taeseong smiled first and spoke.
"I look forward to working with you as well."
Only then did the frozen air begin to loosen, just a little.
Song Taejin, meanwhile, kept staring at Kang Taeseong’s face until he finally let go of his hand.
...Just as I thought.
Only Song Taejin in that room could read the resolve hidden behind that ferocious expression.
That rough face, that presence that overwhelmed people.
For an instant, it overlapped with Chairman Kang Baekho in his younger days.
Chairman.
Song Taejin muttered inwardly.
The tiger cub... has finally returned as a tiger.
The expectation he had carried for so long came alive again in his eyes.
*
A storm of blood and steel swept through KJ Group.
The news of the sweeping personnel reshuffle spread to every employee in an instant.
Lawyers rushed back and forth in a frenzy, and the audit office’s lights stayed on well past midnight.
Every corner of the company was in turmoil.
It was the kind of atmosphere no employee could possibly fail to notice.
And then, to top it all off, a giant notice was posted on the company bulletin board.
Notice Regarding Disciplinary and Personnel Actions
Employees began gathering one by one in front of it.
"Wow... what is this?"
"They really got away with a lot."
"Even the head of production got hit?"
The board listed the misconduct and the names of those subject to discipline.
Embezzlement.
Breach of trust.
Receiving kickbacks from partner companies.
Falsified contracts.
Improper use of corporate credit cards, and so on.
The severity of the punishment varied depending on the offense.
In serious cases, dismissal or suspension from duty.
In lighter cases, pay cuts or overseas assignments.
This measure carried two major meanings.
First, it was a warning.
Kang Taeseong was warning them that this was the last time.
The company could not go back and punish every wrong committed over the years.
If they tried to punish every single person who had committed even the smallest petty corruption, the company would never function again.
But from here on, things would be different.
There would be no more tolerating the siphoning off of company money.
Those who had not been listed on the board but had quietly intended to pad their own pockets swallowed hard.
Second, it served as a kind of signal announcing reform.
From now on, the company would be run properly.
Those who produced results would be rewarded for their results, and those with ability would be judged fairly according to their ability.
Especially now, with so many senior managers stepping down, the door to promotion had opened wider for competent employees.
Some ambitious staff members’ eyes gleamed as they coveted the vacant positions.
"The president is finally doing something."
"So the rumors were true."
"People really can change, huh."
"Looks like he’s serious this time."
Before long, the board was surrounded by a crowd.
Everyone buzzed with their own opinions.
In the middle of it all, Assistant Manager Park Soyoung from the HR team stood quietly in front of the board as well.
Normally, she would not have paid much attention to rumors like this.
But the company had been turned upside down to this extent; she could hardly avoid looking.
Suddenly, she remembered a conversation from the company cafeteria not long ago.
The president seems different.
Those were the words Lee Juhee, her coworker, had said.
Back then she had only half-believed it, but now... had it really been true?
As Park Soyoung scanned the board with complicated feelings, her eyes soon widened.
"...What?"
Unbelieving, she checked the list again.
Sales Team 2 Assistant Manager Lee Junho
Discipline: Assignment to overseas branch
"...Junho oppa?"
He had not been dismissed like the senior executives, nor dragged off by investigators.
And yet an overseas assignment all of a sudden?
Even to her, as someone in HR, it was essentially a demotion.
Her fingertips went cold.
No way...
Had Junho done something too?
With trembling hands, Park Soyoung took out her phone.
Then she called Lee Junho immediately.
"Soyoung...."
The voice that came through the receiver had no strength in it.
It was not the confident Lee Junho she usually knew.
That one word alone was enough for Park Soyoung to know her bad feeling had not been wrong.
"Oppa."
"I... what am I supposed to do now?"
"..."
"They’re telling me to go overseas...."
"It was true."
His strength seemed to drain from the end of every sentence.
Normally, he would have said that it would be okay somehow, that they should find a way.
But this time was different.
The personnel transfer had already been finalized, and it seemed he had even heard that the president himself had approved it.
An overseas branch assignment was practically a demotion, and who knew when—or if—he would ever come back to Korea.
In the first place, Junho was the one who had done wrong, so if she had any complaints, the only choice left was to leave the company.
"Oppa."
Park Soyoung said it while barely keeping the lump in her throat down.
"I... I’ll do something. I’ll figure this out somehow."
"Soyoung, no. I’m, I’m fine. Okay?"
"You’re not fine!"
Her voice rose before she could stop it.
"Just stay put. I’ll... I’ll do something, okay?"
The call ended.
Park Soyoung stared at her phone for a long moment.
Do something...
As far as she was concerned, there was only one way.
Slowly, she closed her eyes.
A memory she had not wanted to recall drifted past her.
Until not long ago, whenever Kang Taeseong looked at her, he had never bothered to hide the unpleasantness in his gaze, even if it was not openly indecent.
He had summoned her under flimsy excuses with a tone full of implication.
There had been moments when he came close enough that their fingertips nearly brushed.
He had never made any overt move, but anyone could tell what disgustingly selfish intentions were hidden behind it.
"...."
Park Soyoung bit her lip.
Was that really the only way?
She shut her eyes tight.
If that truly was the only way to protect Lee Junho.
Then she would have to bear it herself.
Park Soyoung slowly opened her eyes, drew in a steady breath as if making up her mind, and soon began walking toward the president’s office.