Listening to Yoo Jin-ha, his intentions were rather simple.
– I want to be a chaebol chairman too.
Well, of course.
I wanted that too. Unless you were someone weird like Yoo Seon-jun, who in their right mind would willingly give up such a magnificent seat?
If Yoo Jin-ha had been completely disqualified from such an environment, he would have given up as well... Unfortunately, Yoo Jin-seok was somewhat incompetent, and Yoo Jin-ha was quite capable.
Since there wasn’t much of an age gap between them, it was inevitable that Yoo Jin-ha would jump into the succession race. If Yoo Jin-ha had been older—or if the age difference had been closer to one year instead of three—he would have already won the heir competition long ago.
But right now, that wasn’t the case.
As one of Daehwa Group’s legitimate successors, I crossed my arms below my chest and smiled faintly.
“Thing is, I also want to be the chairman of Daehwa Group. You’ll yield, won’t you?”
“...”
Yoo Jin-ha didn’t really have a choice.
If he had any cards left to play, would he have come at me so openly, against his usual cautious nature? This was Yoo Jin-ha’s final gamble—his bluff.
Yes, a bluff.
Turns out, he didn’t know as much as he thought he did.
It was a textbook tactic—acting as if he knew everything, probing naturally to extract information.
But Yoo Jin-ha talked so openly that, for a moment, it felt like the lock on my mouth had been broken. Really, they weren’t wrong when they said the best security-unlocking tool was a club to the head.
– Tap.
I walked slowly through the mansion.
The place where we met was my mansion. The fact that he came here, instead of me going to him, already meant the game was over.
“...Why? Why the hell do you want to play lord in this tiny little country?” Yoo Jin-ha asked, sounding genuinely unable to understand.
“Because... I’m Korean? If most of the people around me were American, it might be different, but nearly everyone I’m close to is Korean.”
Yoo Jin-ha, who had studied in the U.S. and had plenty of American friends, might think differently, but I didn’t know that many people in America.
Besides... I was both a Daehwa Group person and someone who had seen the future.
“And Daehwa Group has plenty of potential. Uncle may have given up long ago, but still.”
At that, Yoo Jin-ha waved his hand, looking a little agitated.
“Of course! You’ve seen the chaos yourself, Ha-yeon! After ignoring obvious crises for years, the shaky foundation they built collapsed miserably! There were people with ambition, but they were either crushed by political struggles or broke against the wall of reality.”
Mm.
The IMF scars must have cut deep. I knew pessimism about Korea was widespread, but I didn’t expect Yoo Jin-ha to think that way too.
“The world has changed, but people haven’t. The public is still stuck in the mindset of post-liberation or military rule, and customs and systems that should have been eradicated ages ago still thrive. You can’t carve rotten wood, and patching up a mud wall is pointless. How can a great tree grow if its roots are worthless?”
“That’s true. But Grandfather became a great tree, didn’t he?”
“...That was only possible because he was Seong-pil. I’m not Yoo Seong-pil.”
His voice carried resignation and self-reproach. A man raised all his life in his father’s shadow ends up like this, I suppose.
Yes, he’d been made that way. By giving up on the future and focusing only on the present, Chairman Yoo Jin-ha of Daehwa Group slowly sank without innovation.
– Swish.
I ran a finger along the bookshelves of my library. Thousands upon thousands of books I had read since childhood glimmered in my memories.
“It’s fine. I’m better than Grandfather. And... roses can bloom in a pile of trash, and even ashes can nourish new steel. Didn’t you learn that too?”
“...”
Yoo Jin-ha couldn’t deny my words.
***
A strange thing.
Yoo Jin-ha had broken free from that old, outdated mindset and dreamed of innovation and a brilliant future, yet he himself was still stuck in the past.
Not that strange, really.
I was reminded once again—my uncles were born in the 1940s. Yoo Jin-seok was born right after Liberation Day, and Yoo Jin-ha was born on the very day the Republic of Korea was founded.
That’s old. Korea developed so fast that it feels like ancient history, but even now, people of my parents’ generation flinch at the sound of fireworks, thinking of the Korean War.
“Uncle.”
“...What.”
I smiled as I approached him. Since I couldn’t completely eliminate him as a threat, I had to persuade him.
“But you know, Korea’s actually a decent place to live. Maybe I can’t judge since I haven’t lived that long... but do I need to know all those old stories?”
“...Old... stories, huh.”
He bit his lip.
“Yes, old. What you’re trying to overcome is... too far in the past for me to really grasp. Even the June Struggle was when I was ten. So for people being born now, they’ll never relate to your stories.”
Those born and raised in the 21st century neither remember nor feel the military dictatorship. That’s natural.
What remains only in the memories of the old has value only in those memories.
“And... ahaha, America still has plenty of racism. You know that too, Uncle.”
Go a little into the backcountry, and they treat me like some Japanese prostitute. Sure, I dress lightly, so part of it’s on me, but at least in Korea, if someone says crap like that, they shut up the moment I drop Daehwa Group’s name.
“That’s true. But the opportunities can’t compare. You do know being chairman of Daehwa Group won’t be easy, right? You won’t be able to secretly pull strings as Alpha Fund’s shadow CEO anymore.”
“Mm, it doesn’t seem that bad. Grandfather isn’t doing much right now either.”
“...That’s because you never saw him in his prime. No matter how much of a genius you are, there aren’t enough capable people in this country who can fully understand and execute your orders.”
“Ah, I get what you mean. I’ve been feeling that lately too. Like winning a war and expanding territory, only to retreat because there’s no general to govern it... yeah, I get it.”
– Clack.
I pulled a book from the shelf—it was my middle school yearbook.
“That’s why I prepared. You can’t carve rotten wood—true. But you don’t seem to think of planting new trees, Uncle. I’m the type to take Arbor Day seriously.”
“This is... don’t tell me you stayed in school all this time just for...!”
Yoo Jin-ha’s eyes widened, his voice full of mixed admiration and shock. I smiled and nodded.
“Oh, so you didn’t know.”
For chaebol families, finding lifelong comrades during school days is common. Friends you meet young stick around the longest.
So Yoo Jin-ha must have assumed I was just making normal connections. He never imagined I was trying to turn the entire school into my faction.
“Well, thanks to that, I have quite a lot of people now. Hundreds of friends who listen to me perfectly, are young, and think very progressively.”
Normally, seniority would prevent putting them to use right away, but I’m different. With overwhelming power and wealth, I can bulldoze through that.
“...Ha. So you’ve been planning this all along. Since when?”
“Mm, around when I was seven?”
“So that whole ‘I don’t remember the June Struggle’ thing was total bullshit.”
“Well... it’s just a figure of speech.”
I chuckled as Yoo Jin-ha shook his head in disbelief.
If you think about it, Yoo Jin-ha and I didn’t want exactly the same thing.
I wanted to be Daehwa Group’s chairman. Yoo Jin-ha would settle for any chaebol group—escaping his father’s shadow might even be better for him.
To put it in terms of my favorite game, Rune Pyramid keeps its cards instead of discarding them, but because it’s not Preservation, it doesn’t benefit from the Power Domination card effect...
That sounded more complicated than it should.
Anyway, Daehwa Group is a subset of chaebols.
“So, how about this—what about another group instead of Daehwa?”
“...?”
“I need mid-level managers, but Daehwa Group’s a bit tricky. There are other chaebol families I’ve already smashed, you see.”
What, only about seven of Korea’s top fifty chaebols are still intact?
The rest have all gone bankrupt. With me holding the Bank of Korea by the throat with money, they have no realistic chance of recovering.
“They’re not as good as Daehwa, but {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} if you lump three of them together, it’s close enough. I was going to liquidate half of them due to lack of manpower, but since you’re here, this works out nicely.”
Yoo Jin-ha was the type who judged people by numbers and ruthlessly restructured—what you’d call a “bean counter.”
But right now, someone like that was exactly what I needed. Post-IMF Korean chaebols couldn’t survive without restructuring.
“So, what do you think? My proposal.”
“...You’re saying you’ll just hand that over? Right away?”
Suspicion thick in his voice. A man who’s spent his life deceiving others never lets himself be easily deceived.
I smiled brightly and nodded.
“Normally, eating half-rotten meat is unwise, but if there’s a good butcher nearby, it’s different. I’m greedy—I want to eat even that.”
Leave healthy companies to this man, and he might carve up even the fresh meat, but right now, almost everything was already rotting, so it didn’t matter.