Lions Raise Their Cubs Strong by Dropping Them Off Cliffs
I truly had no idea why one subsidiary within the same group would try to headhunt from another.
But from the receiving end, it felt absolutely terrible.
And was this what people meant when they said a dagger had been driven straight into their chest?
Thanks to that headhunting attempt, the president's office had gone ice-cold.
"……………."
"……………."
The owner of Black Bullet, Marian Blackrock, and the owner of Black Cell, Aileen Blackrock, were staring each other down without a word. Even the special agents and veteran mercenaries guarding the two witches were locked in a silent contest of wills.
I never imagined the members of the Blackrock family would get along this poorly. The figurehead president beside me, however, seemed thoroughly familiar with the situation—he was casually demolishing the refreshments.
I shot him a look that said, Is that really going down your throat right now?
But the puppet president, as if he hadn't landed this position by parachute at all, merely shrugged with a look that meant, Pretty entertaining the more you watch, right?
Just as I was losing the will to speak at the sight of him fully entering spectator mode, Marian—whose business card had been torn up by the Director—spoke first.
"Aileen. What you just did… you know exactly what that means, don't you?"
A business card wasn't just any scrap of paper; it was the face representing one's position and company. What the Director had just done was tantamount to a severe insult toward Marian.
But as if that witch wouldn't know that?
"Of course I know. Trash needs to be cleaned up, doesn't it?"
"Ha. Just because Father gives you special treatment, you think the other representatives of the group feel the same way?"
"Then what about you, putting your hands on core personnel that even Father handles carefully?"
Both of their voices rose, and a full-blown family fight erupted.
It would have been nice if the outsiders could leave, but the puppet president just gave me a good-natured smile and a signal to keep watching. Thanks to that, I was able to get a decent sense of the current group situation.
Just as I was thinking what a raccoon-like president he was—
"Acting so high and mighty while stuck on this tiny peninsula."
Marian struck first, belittling Black Cell's scope of operations. But the Director fired back with an even stronger counter.
"But you know full well that our net income here is thirteen times higher than that of your precious Black Bullet, don't you?"
Net income was what remained after deducting interest, taxes, and every other expense from operating profit—the actual measure of how much money a company was truly making. Numbers, after all, spoke only the truth.
In effect, the Director had just delivered a clean You guys barely make anything and just bleed money like a scam company, don't you?
Marian clenched her teeth at a fact she couldn't refute. But apparently Black Bullet wasn't simply a company for profit.
"We are the spear and shield that protect the family and the group. Just as a nation builds up its military for national security, we're simply making necessary investments."
So Black Bullet was the group's illegal private army, then?
This was a story that didn't even appear in the comic, so I kept listening to the two witches' quarrel with genuine fascination. The puppet president beside me looked thoroughly satisfied as he passed me some snacks.
After that, watching the two thoroughly enraged women bicker while eating cookies with the president, the situation only grew worse.
"Coming here to scavenge the crumbs of someone else's success…"
"You, the shame of the family…"
Now they were just straight-up attacking each other personally.
As far as I knew, everyone in the Blackrock family except the Director was an ability user. As if to prove it, black smoke began to seep faintly from Marian's body. But at the Director's side stood Security Director Yoon Carter, with his broken combination of Damage Transfer and Physical Amplification. Marian, who seemed well aware of that, didn't dare attack the Director rashly.
Instead, the veteran mercenaries guarding her started loosening up, and the special agents with Director Yoon removed the sunglasses they'd been wearing.
Just as the shrimp's back was about to break in the whales' fight—
"Ahhh!!! Chairman Nadan, is that you?!"
"""!!!!!"""
The puppet president held the key to resolving all of this. With his usual sly manner, he began reporting this and that to Chairman Nadan over his phone.
"Yes, yes! Lady Marian has just arrived at Black Cell. Hahahaha! Oh, nothing's wrong~ Lady Aileen gave her a very warm welcome!"
It had been a warm welcome in a completely different sense, but right now the puppet president was doing exactly what I had done before—riding the prestige of Chairman Nadan.
Unable to challenge the Demon King's authority, the Director and Marian glanced at each other, clicked their tongues, and signaled those behind them. The special agents and veteran mercenaries sighed and stood down.
The moment he finished his call with Chairman Nadan, the raccoon-like puppet president put on a pleasant smile and mediated between the two witches.
Clicking her tongue, Marian told me we'd meet again and promptly left Black Cell. The Director shot the president a look that made it clear she was thoroughly displeased with him.
But looking at the current situation, it was fair to say the president was something like a watcher planted by Chairman Nadan.
Then Black Bullet, being a fellow subsidiary, almost certainly has someone like him as well.
I'd always wondered why a man like that held the president's seat. Sure enough, this was a colossal conglomerate where schemes and power plays ran rampant—anyone half-baked would never survive.
In any case, the Director made her dissatisfaction plain to the president.
"How much of this was the Chairman's plan?"
"Hahaha. Naturally, from beginning to end."
Whatever the reason for putting me in contact with Marian, the Chairman and the president had set the whole thing in motion without telling the Director a thing. Of course she was furious—but she simply told me to come to her office later and walked out of the president's office.
With the natural disaster finally gone, a sigh escaped me on its own. Watching this, the president gave a short laugh and handed me a cup of tea.
"Maxwell. Even from your perspective, the power struggles inside Black Group are rather vicious, aren't they?"
"They seemed worse than strangers, frankly."
"Mmm. An accurate assessment. Honestly, what you saw today was mild. No—you could even call it adorable. If you think about the fights between the eldest young master and the eldest young lady… those were truly vicious."
"Just how badly did those two fight for you to say that?"
"Roughly speaking, an entire island got half-destroyed."
So the eldest daughter and eldest son—both ability users—had fought like the navy admirals from a certain comic.
As I sat there dumbfounded, the president let out a long sigh and handed me his business card.
BLACK CELL
President Simon Logan
"Personally speaking, Maxwell, you strike me as the same breed as myself. To survive in a place this dangerous, shouldn't people of the same kind help each other out?"
The moment I heard the president's words, I paused.
Just now, President Simon had shown me the power struggles inside Black Group while also demonstrating his own standing. In short, he'd even used the Chairman to try to pull me onto his side.
And the Chairman had seen all of this coming?
Then that man wasn't on anyone's side. But he was clearly competent enough that the Chairman was allowing him a certain degree of freelancing.
I sighed at the tangled web of internal group politics—but one thing I could confirm with certainty.
"It seems I've been evaluated rather highly within the group."
"Hahahaha! As expected, Maxwell—your instincts really are sharp!"
The discovery of the Awakening Factor had raised my standing far beyond anything I'd imagined. And since industrial spies always existed, the Chairman had confirmed the possibility that I might be stolen by another group entirely—and had deliberately thrown Black Bullet at the Director as a sparring partner.
So the Chairman is acting like that nonsense about a lion dropping its cub off a cliff to raise it strong?
Either way, I had no reason to refuse President Simon's cooperation. We shook hands for the sake of surviving the cutthroat internal politics—and for our mutual benefit.
After leaving the president's office, I went straight to the Director's office. Secretary Min Chaerin at the reception desk looked extremely tense, and she asked me what on earth had happened.
"They say family fights are like cutting water with a knife—but those two were actually fighting with knives."
"Ah…"
As someone who also belonged to Black Group, the secretary seemed to grasp immediately what must have gone down. Letting out a deep sigh, she contacted the Director at once, and together we went to meet a Director who looked thoroughly foul-tempered.
I then had to report everything Marian had said to me—but since I had no reason to hide any of it, I told her straight away.
"What? Just a weapons research position?"
"I believe Lady Marian intended to offer me something like a general team leader role."
"Ha. So she came all the way here for something that trivial?"
Realizing that the reason her nest had been invaded was truly nothing special only made the Director's mood worse. But she immediately laid out a countermeasure.
"Maxwell. How are those kids doing right now?"
"I've been continuing the three-way meetings. At this point, I think they could live together without any major issues."
"Perfect."
The moment she heard my answer, the Director worked her laptop and showed me a mansion in a rather remote location.
"Try living there together for about a month as a trial."
"Uh… Director. If things go wrong, the entire mansion could get blown away. Are you sure that's all right?"
"It's my villa, so I don't care."
Apparently the youngest daughter of a chaebol group had such enormous wealth that even if that expensive mansion got wrecked, it wouldn't matter in the slightest. Of course, the Director had her reasons for this arrangement.
"Besides the bitch who showed up today, I suspect other people will come looking for you here. Use up some of that vacation time you've been putting off and take it easy."
Was she planning to pull me out of the group's internal struggles for a while? She even added a warning.
"The subordinates of that bitch you met today might try to kidnap you, Maxwell."
"Your family members really are something else."
The way they forcibly recruited talent reminded me of a certain marine corps, but I was immediately told that security personnel would be assigned in force.
However…
"Do you really think Black Bullet could kidnap me?"
"Hm? What do you mean by—ah… hmm…"
I even had a trump card the Director didn't know about. In any case, the Director—who knew full well the power of the kids who would be living with me—seemed to come back to her senses for a moment and fell into deep thought.
Still, having them was better than not, and she judged that special agents would make daily life more comfortable for us. And so, sooner than expected, I ended up living with the kids.