Chapter 51
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Past (4), After the Deal
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#Past (4), After the Deal
Ayoung couldn’t open the door easily. The sounds of violence coming from beyond the closed door. It was the scene of her furious father, Chairman Go Geoncheol, rampaging to kill a single person.
Still, she had to go in. Even if he was the father she hated, and who hated her in return, Ayoung was the only one who could stop him. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open with her whole body.
A disaster greeted her.
“You quack bastard! You dare deceive me?!”
The chairman swung his nameplate at his personal physician. Smack, thwack! Brutal sounds rang out. The doctor, who had cowered and taken the blows on his back, fled to the corner sobbing. One shoe had come off. Every step left bloody footprints. The floor was covered in shards of broken glass.
But the doctor’s escape was pointless. He was seized by the chairman’s secretary and bodyguards and hurled back into the center of the violence. The attendants weren’t enjoying it either. Under a chairman with extreme distrust of people, they were simply crushed by his power. They glanced at Ayoung. Eyes pleading for how to handle it.
Few familiar faces. Another purge, it seemed. Ayoung thought about her father’s paranoia toward people. And about the mother who had created it.
“You’re here, Executive Director.”
As she drew near, the chief secretary bowed to Ayoung.
“How long has this been going on?”
“About thirty minutes.”
The chief secretary was trembling. On days when the chairman flew into a rage, a few people inevitably got axed. It wasn’t just losing a job. Being branded by the chairman ruined your entire career.
That was why his inner circle always sought out Ayoung when trouble arose. Only she could weather the chairman’s fury and emerge unscathed.
Crash! The moment a vase shattered, Ayoung clenched her fists tight. Her whole body shrank back.
‘I’m scared too.’
The memories of violence she’d witnessed growing up were deeply rooted. She herself had rarely been the victim. But it had been a time too harsh for a child’s sensibilities to bear.
A primal fear, hard to suppress with reason, scorched her nerves to the core.
The doctor wailed in a hoarse voice.
“I told you! Your erectile dysfunction, Chairman! It’s psychological! There’s nothing wrong with your body!”
The inlaid nameplate rose high. It mirrored his surging rage.
“Why tell me now!”
Smack!
“Information needed for the deal!”
Smack!
“Pre-provision is the rule!”
Smack! Blood sprayed in succession. The doctor, his forehead torn open, tumbled backward, then finally spotted Ayoung. With the look of someone clutching a lifeline, he crawled over and clung to her legs.
“Save me! Please save me! Executive Director! Executive Director!”
The chairman approached, huffing. His appearance was different from before. Ancient fury dwelling in a new body. He grew more distorted with each passing day. Chairman Go Geoncheol had twisted to the point where he no longer resembled the boy from before the deal. Could the inner self influence the outer form so profoundly? He was now a completely different person.
Ayoung finally moved. She positioned herself between the chairman and the doctor. Bowing her head, letting her hair fall forward to veil her face.
“Stop it.”
“Out of my way! Move now!”
He glanced left and right, then tried to shove his daughter aside with brute force. Ayoung clung desperately. You bitch! With a fierce slap, the chairman struck his daughter away.
Sudden silence. With eyes blazing fiercely, the chairman glared at his own hand. The one that had struck Ayoung.
“This isn’t me.”
Chairman Go Geoncheol growled, almost to himself. Then he fell silent for a long while. He didn’t move, like a statue. Even his ragged breathing quickly subsided.
At last, his gaze fixed on Ayoung. She didn’t meet it. Her face, resembling her mother’s, was her original sin. Even without looking, she could feel the outpouring love-hate. A contradiction—he could neither fully hate nor fully love her to the end.
“This isn’t why I started anew.”
Who was he speaking to? After another long silence, the chairman addressed Ayoung.
“Move.”
This time, she did. The doctor flailed about. But before he could grab her, the chairman approached first. He seized the doctor by the collar and hoisted him up. The personal physician couldn’t even resist properly.
“Don’t think you can screw me over and walk away unscathed. I give as I receive, and receive as I give. Come up with a solution. Find a way to fix this.”
It was a threat backed by precedent. His vast connections across politics and business—what he called “harmonious management partnerships”—made social burial possible.
Knowing this, the personal physician nodded frantically.
“I understand! I’ll do my absolute best! Trust me!”
“Good.”
The chairman released the doctor.
“Everyone out. Except Executive Director Go.”
Why? They had thought it was over and relaxed.
The attendants withdrew in perfect unison. There could be no delay in carrying out the chairman’s orders.
Now alone, the chairman spoke in a quiet tone unlike before.
“I was just about to call you, and here you come on your own.”
“……What’s going on?”
When Ayoung asked, the chairman bared his teeth in a boyish grin.
“Prepare for divorce.”
Her words failed her. Chairman Go Geoncheol’s “financial discussion” left even his most familiar daughter flustered. After a moment, Ayoung barely managed to ask.
“Why……why? Why all of a sudden…….”
“You asking because you don’t know?”
Ayoung’s childlike father smirked mockingly.
“That bastard broke the principles of fidelity and sincerity. A married man daring to fool around with another woman? He deserves punishment.”
Principles of fidelity and sincerity. Ayoung trembled. It was once the incantation her father spat while cursing her mother.
“Why now?”
Ayoung swallowed her words, then continued in a groan.
“Why bring it up now? You’ve known for ages that he had another woman, haven’t you? Didn’t you deliberately turn a blind eye?”
“Yeah. I pretended not to know.”
The chairman revealed his savage rage once more.
“To crush that bastard thoroughly, I needed time to prepare.”
Prepare? Ayoung instantly grasped his meaning.
“Paradise Group’s management rights…….”
Her husband was the heir to Paradise Group. He held substantial shares. A divorce where fault lay with the husband, and the resulting asset division. Ayoung shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“I made it possible. Why else would I need time?”
Chairman Go Geoncheol’s cynical reply. Ayoung felt dizzy. Without thinking, she uttered words she shouldn’t have.
“Don’t take the father away from my daughter. I endured it too. At least let my child be happy…… It has to be that way. Do you know how lonely I was…….”
“What?”
Go Geoncheol cut his daughter off. Ayoung realized her mistake and squeezed her eyes shut.
“You don’t miss that bitch, do you?”
It wasn’t the boiling rage from before. It was horrifyingly cold. The chairman reached out in a convulsion. His grasping hand didn’t touch his daughter, twitching slenderly instead.
“It was a fair contract.”
A voice thick with resentment leaked out. The chairman roared.
“I paid with my life! To buy that bitch’s life! It was fair to both sides! No one can blame me! No one should side with her! You shouldn’t miss her! Especially you—never you! If you’re truly my flesh and blood, Go Geoncheol’s, you must!”
“I didn’t miss her. I was just lonely.”
“Don’t try to fool me!”
Ayoung opened her eyes. Just as expected. Always the same. Human-like distrust glaring at her. On this matter, her father had never once trusted his daughter. The chairman muttered in a voice laced with contempt.
“Once bitten is enough. With half that unreliable blood mixed in…….”
“…….”
The chairman turned away.
“At least for today, don’t show your face before me again.”
Ayoung bowed her head. This feeling of hitting a wall. It hurt. She’d crashed into it countless times, thought she no longer had the heart to shatter.
She let out a familiar sigh.
#Journal, page 82, Camp Roberts
Even after the operation ends, an officer’s duties don’t.
After returning from Atascadero, I was ordered to submit a combat report.
“They say they’re making a ‘Trickster’ combat manual from our report. Write it as detailed as possible. Why we moved that way in each phase, the basis for our decisions, Trickster’s characteristics, etc.…… They stressed not to omit even the smallest detail.”
That was Jeffrey’s explanation. The operation had been highly evaluated in many ways. Thanks to taking out a special variant without prior intel and with no casualties. Word was other places had suffered considerable chaos and losses.
The entire platoon had worn combat cameras this time. Helmet-mounted gear that recorded or transmitted exactly what the soldier saw. As intel on variants grew crucial, the U.S. was increasing combat camera distribution rates.
Jeffrey and I reviewed the recorded footage over and over. One platoon’s worth meant it took no small time to scrutinize thoroughly.
Report writing was originally Jeffrey’s job, as the commander. But upper brass apparently deemed my input more important. It could’ve bruised his pride, but Jeffrey nodded that it made sense. Then he said this.
“Do well, and you’ll get another medal.”
When I asked if that could really happen, he burst out laughing.
“With evidence this clear?”
He pointed to the screen still playing.
“Quit being modest and aim for the Audie Murphy of this era. You could do it.”
I’d heard the name Audie Murphy before. At the Silver Star ceremony? When I admitted ignorance, Jeffrey seemed surprised. Like it was odd not to know. Then he nodded to himself, apparently recalling my background.
My expression must’ve been odd, because Jeffrey awkwardly defended himself.
“Who’d think you’re a refugee these days? It’s normal to forget, like me.”
I wasn’t so sure.
Anyway, I got the explanation. Audie Murphy was America’s most legendary war hero. Active in WWII, he earned 27 medals from three countries in just two years.
Being compared to someone like that was burdensome in itself.
But if they thought highly of me, I was grateful. Now, I had people to protect.
The report took considerable time.
I added my thoughts from the second day’s search to the end. Hypotheses on the infected variants’ proliferation and their new abilities. Just my speculation, but I think it’s plausible.
I just hope this isn’t the harbinger of a new catastrophe.
============================ Author’s Note ============================
They say the world’s most dangerous animal is the one that walks on two legs.
Dear readers, you walk upright, don’t you?
Sigh... I knew it...
The author welcomes arthropod readers.