Chapter 33 : A Trick of Fate. (3)
Chapter 33: A Trick of Fate. (3)
The factory acquisition proceeded quickly.
The loan shark who usually wore a tracksuit like a uniform had, for some reason today, dressed up neatly in a silver-gray suit.
“Here! And put your seal here. Oh, good job. And the back page is here. Right here.”
He seated the factory owner beside him and flipped through the documents one by one.
At first glance, he looked kind, but in truth, he was not.
The owner stamped his seal almost in tears, biting the bullet.
The contents of the contract had been thoroughly checked beforehand.
It stated that in exchange for repaying the entire debt within the set period, the owner would transfer the shares of the Fourth Factory to me and hand over full management rights.
In its early days, the Fourth Factory had been a small-to-medium enterprise barely able to pay employee salaries.
The owner had kept the business afloat by even taking out bank loans.
Then, by sheer luck, he ended up receiving subcontracted work under the conglomerate <Seosan> Group.
The third band factory reached annual sales of 1 billion won, and the following year, 3 billion.
The year after that, 6 billion, and before long, it surpassed 10 billion.
Thus, the Fourth Factory continued to grow steadily for several years.
It was a time when fortune came rolling in bundles.
The problem was severe mismanagement.
The owner secretly siphoned off company funds and squandered them on luxury, pleasure, women, and gambling.
He had slit open the belly of the goose that laid golden eggs with his own hands.
“The last page is here! Just this one, and we’re cleanly finished!”
“Huuhk.”
The owner, about to lose his factory, burst into tears and stamped the final seal.
When all procedures were completed, the loan shark clapped his hands.
“Okay! Here you go. CEO Choi.”
He handed the documents to me.
CEO Choi.
I had risen to the top overnight.
‘That title doesn’t quite feel natural yet.’
Kkalkki, who stood beside me, gathered the contracts and carefully stored them in a 007 briefcase.
Because I had been obsessively attached to money, I knew this well.
Making money was easy.
As long as you had hands and feet, anyone could do it.
Even I, with no particular skills and only a high school diploma, managed to save a huge sum of 1 billion won thanks to working steadily for thirty years.
However, spending that money was just as easy.
What was truly difficult was—
‘Protecting the money.’
The loan shark extended his hand toward me.
“Well, that wraps it up. Just as you wanted, you swallowed the factory whole. Congratulations.”
I shook his hand.
Though he was a vicious loan shark who demanded high interest,
I liked his swift and clean way of handling things.
“Please be sure to pay the remaining 1.2 billion won within the agreed deadline.”
“I will.”
The loan shark put his arm around the owner’s shoulder.
“Now, now, President Kim. We’ve got something to discuss separately, right?”
“……Uh. Yes. That’s right.”
The owner broke out in a cold sweat and glanced around nervously.
I had paid off in full the loan taken out using the factory as collateral.
But the owner’s personal debts still remained.
An antlion pit you couldn’t escape no matter how much you repaid.
That was how terrifying private loans were.
The loan shark almost dragged the owner away by force.
“I’ve got a car waiting outside, so let’s head to my office and have a nice, slow chat.”
“Um, well…….”
“What is it? Thinking of running away again?”
When the loan shark bared his gold tooth and smiled, the owner lowered his head deeply.
“N-no.”
After they left.
Only Kkalkki and I remained in the office.
I spread my palm toward Kkalkki.
The guy grinned and gave me a high five.
“Boss! That’s freaking awesome! A factory ain’t some triangle gimbap! You just went and bought it whole! That’s crazy cool!”
I tried to act unfazed, but I was still dazed myself.
To think I had acquired the workplace I used to work at in my previous life.
“Boss. No, President. What are you gonna do now? You gonna play golf all the time like the old presi-dent, buy sports cars, do all that stuff?”
Kkalkki followed closely behind me.
With that nonstop chatterbox, I opened the office door and stepped outside.
The eyes of everyone in the factory turned toward me.
They all stopped what they were doing and stared at me with stiff expressions.
It seemed they all knew how the situation had unfolded.
That I had revived a factory that was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Each of them opened their mouths and spoke a word.
“……Yong-gi.”
“Hey! Watch your mouth. He’s got the president title now. You think he’s the same as us?”
“Oh, is that so? Sorry about that. CEO Choi.”
They clearly seemed uncomfortable around me.
The former owner had frequently abused his power.
On top of all kinds of verbal abuse and emotional mistreatment, he had forced excessive overtime and night shifts to meet deadlines.
As I walked forward step by step, everyone’s gaze followed me.
“That’s right. As of today, I have become the owner of this factory.”
Kkalkki beside me also shut his mouth tight and listened attentively.
“I.”
I slowly looked around.
Automated conveyor belts, press machines, robot arms.
A bleak landscape filled entirely with metal came into view.
“At one point, trapped in a sense of defeat, I considered this place a hell where I had imprisoned myself.”
Some people tilted their heads in confusion, while others nodded as if they understood.
“That was a pathetic thought. No one had ever imprisoned me here.”
I hated poverty.
I obsessively made money and desperately clung to my assets so I wouldn’t lose them.
However, in the process, I lost my grandmother and my younger sibling.
Under the capitalist sky, everyone wanted to become rich.
They competed to buy expensive houses, foreign cars, and luxury goods, flaunting their wealth.
However, life was not about gaining.
It might be a process of losing things, one by one.
“This place is not hell. You are not puppets moving without souls like those machines over there.”
Someone shouted, “That’s right!”
The eyes of those looking at me gradually grew hotter.
“I am not in the president’s seat to rule over you. I want to help you.”
Most of them were workers who drowned themselves in alcohol after work, spending each day in emptiness.
I wanted to lead them onto a more mature path.
I walked forward, meeting each person’s eyes one by one.
“Nepalese. Thai, Bangkokian. Bangladeshi! Let’s not hate one another. Let’s grow together and move forward together.”
Someone shouted, “Wow! You sure know how to talk, our president!”
Heroes in comics save the world with strength and superpowers.
But the role of a hero in reality was different.
It was to give people courage.
I stopped in the center of the factory.
Gazes flew at me from all directions.
“The protagonist here is not me. You are not slaves or mere parts of the factory. Each of you is the protagonist of your own life.”
Everyone clenched their fists tightly.
Like an active volcano on the verge of eruption.
“Just as the Fourth Factory creates new equipment every single day. From today onward, you too can live a new life!”
I was not trying to bind them together in one place by appealing to sentiment.
Workplace hierarchies could not last long without mutual interests and benefits.
So I decided, I would give these people something.
The rightful compensation for their labor.
A reward for believing in me and following me.
“We are one team. We are comrades running toward the same place. We are……!”
Going beyond a business relationship.
I spread both arms and stopped beneath the falling lights.
“We are family.”
An excited Kkalkki took off his work gloves and threw them up into the air.
“Kiya! Boss! That’s awesome as hell!”
Everyone shouted in their own way and followed him, tossing their gloves upward.
Cotton work gloves shot up here and there toward the high factory ceiling.
The heated cheers showed no sign of dying down.
Watching the scene, Park Chang-seong checked his watch.
“Alright, alright. Everyone calm down now. Let’s go eat first.”
Before we knew it, time had passed and it was lunchtime.
Kkalkki checked the menu on his phone.
“Eugh. Pork cutlet again.”
I had bought the factory with money stolen from Cha Chi-do’s safe.
Cha Chi-do’s fortune had been built by skimming off the blood and sweat of industrial complex workers.
I bought the factory with that money.
I had never intended to use it solely for myself.
I needed to return a fair share to its original owners, too.
“Every damn day it’s pork cutlet. Shit!”
Kkalkki sighed, imagining oil-soaked frozen pork cutlets.
I walked up to the guy pouting his lips and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You asked me earlier what I was going to do next, right?”
“Huh?”
“Let’s rebuild the cafeteria first. Fucking huge.”
Kkalkki’s pupils widened.
“Yes! Boss is the best after all!”
I patted the shoulders of Kkalkki, who was hopping around in excitement, and shouted to everyone.
“After work, everyone stay. To celebrate me taking on the president title…….”
I pulled out a card and raised it high into the air.
“I’m buying cold noodles!”
Cheers thundered so loud it felt like the factory would lift off.
The Fourth Factory began to change noticeably.
First of all, the number of employees increased.
Originally, this place had an extremely small workforce compared to its sales.
It was because the former president hadn’t hired people to cut labor costs.
As a result, one person had to do the work meant for at least three or four.
Once manpower was added, things improved compared to before.
Of course, I couldn’t just keep pouring endless money into the factory either.
So I prepared a realistic solution.
“Hey! Not there, grab it here! How many times do I gotta say it? Damn it, you’re killing me.”
Bae Woo-rim shouted at the boyish-looking male students.
“Yes, sir!”
“I’m sorry!”
“I’ll try again!”
The students answered energetically.
Those kids were high school students attending hunter vocational schools.
Some had lost their fathers at a young age and lived with their mothers and sisters, others had disabilities that made one leg hard to use.
Anyway, each of them had their own circumstances.
The former president only hired experienced workers.
He wanted people who could be thrown straight into the field.
Once in a while, he accepted hunter high school students, but under the excuse of “training,” he forced passion pay without giving them a single won.
Chicks were bound to be less capable than veterans.
“You can’t work like this when you’re getting paid.”
“Yes! I’ll work hard!”
Even under harsh scolding, the high schoolers didn’t lose their spirit.
Unlike the former president, I guaranteed those kids a proper starting salary.
“Man. Look at this kid, why’s he so bright? You happy?”
“Hehe! I’ll work hard!”
“If you show me just one more time, I’ll really do well this time!”
Those kids were trees.
Even if it took time and money to teach them right now.
Someday, they would grow tall like baobab trees and carry the weight of one full person.
I turned my head.
I saw Kkalkki yelling sharply at people lined up in a row.
“You foreign worker bastards. You wanna get your hands chopped off?! Don’t even question the safety rules, just memorize ’em by heart!”
“Yes.”
“Listen to that answer. Damn it! Louder!”
“Yes, sir!!!”
Low birthrates had been recognized as a serious problem for quite some time.
To revive rural areas and manufacturing, the government accepted foreigners.
As the number of foreigners increased, those staying illegally or with criminal records naturally got mixed in as well.
Many places hired illegal residents to cut costs, but the Fourth Factory only accepted foreigners who had entered the country legally.
Kkalkki took on the role of teaching them.
“You guys don’t know how lucky you are! Our boss is such a good person. If it was the old president, he’d have slapped you right away! Got it?!”
Kkalkki was called the discipline leader.
‘That punk. He’s doing well.’
Leaving the discipline leader behind, I moved and approached someone.
“Team Leader, may I step out for a bit?”
Today, there was important business to attend to.
Something I had put off for a long time.
Park Chang-seong spoke to me.
“President Choi.”
“Please speak comfortably.”
“……Alright. Yong-gi.”
He patted my shoulder.
“Thanks to you, the factory’s full of life. The food tastes way better, too. I think I’ve grown pretty attached to this place. Thank you.”
Seeing the sincerity in his eyes put my mind at ease.
Without saying much, I nodded.
Park Chang-seong rubbed my back.
“Hurry and go. Leave things here to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But where you headed?”
“I’m going to the Hunter Association to register as an awakener.”
“Ahh. Right.”
“And.”
There was something even more important.
Something I absolutely had to do to become a hero.
“I’m going to join a guild.”
Park Chang-seong’s mouth formed a circle.
“Guess you’ll be living in a different world from ordinary folks like us now, huh.”
“I won’t neglect the factory work.”
This place was both the foundation of my life and my refuge.
Hero and factory president.
And finally, hunter.
I intended to catch all three rabbits.
“Which guild you applying to? Jincheon(振天), or Superior(Superior) would be good, right?”
He mentioned two of the Republic of Korea’s three major guilds.
“I’m not sure. I’ll be back.”
With a light smile, I opened the factory door and stepped out into a world full of light.