Securing the Position
James watched the drugged-up fool with a cold, expressionless gaze.
He’s only enjoying himself now. But for how long?
With a young body like that, he might not notice anything wrong yet. Give it a few more months, though, and his body would be worn down by sickness after sickness. Leaving aside the unexplained pain and disease, the psychosis that came with dependence would make it impossible for him to remain in the real world much longer.
From here on out, you...
Ignoring Tae-jin, who had already half-lost his mind to the drugs, James lifted the little bag on the dresser with mana and opened its mouth. Inside was a tiny amount of white powder the boy had sneaked in with nervous, petty care.
You won’t ever run short on this stuff.
The white powder in the container inside James’s inventory flowed out in a soft hiss and filled Tae-jin’s small bag.
Dispell Castration. Action.
Then he lifted the castration spell he had previously cast, just as he had done with Choi Jeong-san. If Tae-jin’s sexual urges were also unsealed while he was already addicted to drugs, the effect would only deepen.
Your happy life is going to be shorter than you think. Enjoy it while you can.
Some time after James left the hotel room, Tae-jin began to come to himself.
“Ugh... Did I do too much today?”
Tae-jin thought he must have inhaled more powder than usual. The sensations in his body felt slightly different from before.
“Huh?!”
It did not take him long to realize what that difference was.
“I-it’s up? It’s up?”
He had once been a healthy young man who could wake up every morning with a tent in his pants, but for the past few months he had felt as weak as a man standing at death’s door. Not today.
“I... came back?”
As he took in his changed condition, Tae-jin grabbed his phone at once.
“Hey! Hey! It’s Tae-jin!”
-Well, look who’s back. The crown prince has returned? Then we need to have a proper drink.
The person he called was a friend he sometimes kept in touch with from the United States, one of the same guys he had always run around with even before fleeing overseas under the guise of studying abroad. One of the very people Choi Jeong-san had wanted Tae-jin to stay away from.
“Fuck. Call everybody today. Line them up with hot ones.”
-Haha. You’re really going to do that the moment you get back from America?
“Didn’t I tell you your brother came back with a corporate card too? I’m treating tonight.”
-Oh, damn! I’ll book the VIP room and pack it full of stacked-up beauties. Don’t worry about a thing.
After hanging up, Tae-jin hurried to get ready, already wanting a woman in his arms. Still, he couldn’t forget the steel straw and sweet powder he had tossed on the dresser, so he made sure to take them along.
“Just how many months have I been starving for...”
Then he noticed something strange about his bag of drugs.
“...Did this stuff breed or something?”
The bag he had thought was light had swollen a little more than before.
Whip.
He looked around to see whether anyone else was there, but there was no sign that anyone had entered the hotel room at all.
Did I really buy this much?
Tae-jin wondered whether it was actually the real thing and sampled a little.
“?”
And then he realized it was purer than what he normally bought.
“!”
He remembered tasting something like this before.
This is snowflake-level stuff.
It was comparable to the high-purity product manufactured and distributed in North Korea.
“W-what the hell...”
Tae-jin began to connect his body’s condition with the purity of the drug.
It’s tonic medicine. It has to be tonic medicine.
“Heh. Heh-heh. Hahahahah!”
For reasons he could not understand, something had gone wrong with his manhood, but he started to believe it had returned thanks to the high-purity drug.
“Wow. So this is what happens to my body because of the new stuff I bought?”
What was more, the drug he had brought this time happened to be something he had only bought shortly before returning to Korea, so it neatly slipped past suspicion. The increased quantity was easy enough to mistake, so he did not think much of it.
“Puhahahaha. The world is mine now! Ya-ha!”
It was the world of a horse with its reins cut loose.
Choi Tae-jin also found a single envelope on the back seat of his car after returning from the hotel.
“Huh? Was that there earlier?”
He had been in such a hurry to get into the car that he had not checked the back seat.
He reached out and grabbed the envelope, and instinctively knew what was inside.
Cash!
He tore it open in a rush and found a bundle of fifty-thousand-won bills. It was cash James had left behind.
“Oh, Mother. You even prepared generous pocket money for your son.”
But because his mother had said the car had been prepared, Tae-jin assumed she had also set aside the money in advance.
“I was going to need cash to buy more drugs anyway. You really came through for me. Heh-heh-heh.”
From the moment he returned to Korea, everything seemed to be going right, and he was in a great mood. His grandfather and father had called him to the company, and they said they would hand over a card and a car. On top of that, his body, which had been in such a bad state for a while, had improved like a miracle, and now he even had the money he cared about most of all: money to buy drugs.
“I’ll put it to good use, Mother. Heh-heh.”
It had been an extraordinary day, as if he were high already, and Tae-jin truly was drunk on drugs.
“Hahahaha!”
With hazy eyes, Tae-jin took the wheel and left the hotel. The car swayed precariously, but somehow he still managed to stay in his lane.
“Has that crazy bastard lost his mind and decided to die...”
The reason the bastard’s car managed to stay on its path was James, who had followed him to the very end out of needless concern.
“Damn it. I was going home, but now I’m stuck tailing him all night.”
James’s SUV fell in behind Tae-jin’s car. Thanks to that, he was able to see every detail of the way Tae-jin enjoyed the nightlife.
...The bastard really thinks he’s a king.
The club staff, the friends around him, everyone was fawning over Tae-jin, and women who had painted themselves up and dressed to the nines came clinging to him, calling him oppa. His friends even pulled out a new item they had found while Tae-jin had been away in America.
“Tae-jin. You know what this is, right?”
“......”
Tae-jin tilted his head, looking at the white powder inside the small, transparent plastic bag the other man had taken out.
This bastard too?
“You know you’ll be called a loser if you don’t know this stuff these days, right? Heh-heh. You can get it anywhere in Korea now.”
“So everyone here has tried it?”
The man looked around at the people standing around them and asked.
“Anybody who doesn’t know this can get out. Only people who want to do it together stay!”
But nobody was leaving. In fact, some were even licking their lips at the sight of the white powder in his hand.
“Heh. See? I told you. There isn’t a single person who comes to this club who doesn’t know about it.”
“...I almost fell behind the times.”
While Tae-jin had been overseas, Korea had changed a little. Drugs that had once been traded in secret and hidden deep in the shadows had begun to spread through the younger generation.
“Hahaha. You just need to trust me, Tae-jin. These days, if you can’t do this stuff, you’re really...”
“Hey. Idiot. Who are you trying to feed that tiny amount to?”
Tae-jin pulled a larger bag from his jacket than the one the other man had produced.
“Wouldn’t you need this much?”
“Whoa.”
“Oppaaaa.”
The moment Tae-jin’s status shot back up vertically.
“Tae-jin’s become a big shot in America, huh? Hahahaha!”
No one worried about the fact that they were carrying illegal drugs, and no one hesitated to inhale them either. As Tae-jin sprinkled a little powder onto the glass table, everyone rolled up bills and rushed in.
Hssst.
“Wow. This purity is... insane.”
“It’s on a completely different level from the cheap stuff.”
Tae-jin, too, could swagger to his heart’s content thanks to it.
“......”
James watched their behavior with cold eyes.
Like attracts like.
“Hey. Take it off.”
“Oppa. Here?”
“Then do you want to go somewhere even more private?”
“......”
The drugged-up fools began to behave like degenerates, and James, no longer wanting to dirty his eyes any further, left the place. It was time to go home.
“So those guys are the children of chaebol families...”
Tae-jin’s friends were not ordinary people either. They were the children of companies that, while not on the level of TY Group, were names any Korean would know at least by reputation.
“The world really does turn the wrong way.”
James clicked his tongue and left the club.
Vrrrmm.
Keep living like that. Your end is coming soon enough.
* * *
Chairman Kim Seong-oh was in his office, receiving a call through the intercom.
Beep.
“Yes? What is it?”
-Chairman, you have a visitor.
Anyone wishing to meet Chairman Kim Seong-oh had to make an appointment in advance. Usually he would ask who had come, but today was different.
“Is that so? Bring him in.”
He remembered exactly who was scheduled to arrive at this hour.
-Yes, sir.
The door to the chairman’s office swung open, and James stepped inside.
“Good afternoon, Chairman.”
“Hah-hah-hah. You came at last.”
Chairman Kim Seong-oh was still under James’s spell. Because of that, there was deep warmth in the way he greeted James, both in his words and in his manner.
“Chairman, what would you like to drink?”
“Just bring me some cold water. And you, James? Is there anything you’d like?”
“An iced Americano, please. No syrup.”
“You heard him?”
“Yes, Chairman. I’ll have it prepared right away.”
After the secretary left, James sat on the sofa the chairman had indicated.
“I bet you were surprised when I called you to the company all of a sudden.”
“Not at all, Chairman. I’d been waiting for you to call me.”
“Hah-hah-hah. You’ve always had a habit of speaking so prettily.”
“Oh, really. I mean it.”
In truth, James did not need to be this polite. If he wanted, he could make Chairman Kim Seong-oh kneel and hold a conversation that way.
But you’re Su-ji’s father.
The only reason James did not do that was Su-ji. Even now, he found it distasteful to control the parents of the woman he loved with magic, and because of that he was careful with both his words and his actions toward Chairman Kim Seong-oh.
Good parents deserve to be treated as such.
Kim Seong-oh was a father better by far than Choi Jeong-san could ever be compared with. Though his marriage had been arranged through a strategic union between families, he was a romantic who loved his wife, and he had devoted himself fully to raising his children properly. His two sons had started from the bottom as ordinary company employees, never even enjoying the privilege of being the owner’s children. Of course, they had been guaranteed slightly faster promotions than regular employees, but there was none of the obvious favoritism you saw with other conglomerate heirs.
His desire to connect Su-ji with a good family had also sprung from a father’s profound love for his daughter.
“The fact that you called me here means this is official business, yes?”
“It’s about time we started preparing.”
It was about CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. There was still plenty of time left, but booth placement had to be secured well in advance.
“I’ve already discussed this matter with Tony Anderson several times.”
“Already?”
“I’ll make sure you secure a better spot than our domestic rivals, and better than the other overseas companies too, Chairman.”
“Hah-hah-hah.”
At an exhibition, the real advantage came down to location. Who occupied the best spot and drew the most attention was what mattered.
Of course, the fundamental factors that made buyers want to purchase were product quality and the application of new technology, but ST Group was already a company whose electronic products were known around the world. In their case, the technology they possessed was itself world-class.