Ghosts of Eternity

The 67th floor of S-Tower.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that wrapped around Jung Se-ah’s office, a crimson sunset bled low across the sky.

Jung Se-ah perched sideways on the edge of her angular Italian leather desk. She wore an imperial-red jacket dress. Its structured shoulders, sharp as armor, and a slender silver choker wrapped tight around her neck glinted coldly in the crimson twilight. Smoky eye makeup and matte red lips gave her arrogance a ceremonial edge.

Se-ah casually swiped across the cold glass of her tablet. On the screen, a muted video played the final human-use validation study of AEC-101—better known as Lysis. A clear gel glided smoothly over a model’s hair-covered forearm.

No skin barrier damage, no pain. The original design handed over by Lee Seo-han precisely dismantled a specific point in the hair structure, leaving virtually no trace on the skin itself.

The numbers on the timer slipped away toward the 600-second mark. Soon, a swipe of gauze revealed skin so smooth that even the faintest shadow of coarse hair had vanished.

"A masterpiece," Se-ah murmured to herself, lightly pressing a metallic call button.

After a sharp beep, the door opened, and Director Kim from Strategic Planning stepped inside with measured strides, bowing his head.

“Is everything ready?” Se-ah asked, shifting her legs into a casual cross. She enjoyed observing where people chose to cast their eyes in her presence. Those who couldn't lift their gaze were cowards; those who held it too long usually overplayed their hand.

Director Kim kept his eyes lowered as he replied, “The production lines are fully calibrated. The final packaging design was also just approved.”

The screen he cautiously held out displayed a matte black container that seemed to absorb light. Bearing nothing but a sharply engraved gold logo, it possessed the stark, minimalist aesthetic of ultra-high-end cosmetics. Se-ah flicked her finger to slide the screen away.

“What about the distribution channels?”

“We've already received placement proposals from existing beauty brand stores and major department stores. Large health and beauty chains are also aggressively courting us for an exclusive contract.”

Before Director Kim could even finish his report, Se-ah tossed the tablet onto the desk. A dull, cold thud echoed as the screen smacked against the firm leather surface.

“Reject them all.”

Director Kim flinched, snapping his head up. “Excuse me? But we need department stores and major drugstore channels to secure initial revenue—”

“We don't need shelves. Strip away every bit of retail bloat created by middlemen like dermatologists and waxing salons.”

“What they control isn't the technology. It's the customer's path,” Se-ah slowly continued, looking at her reflection in the glass window. “A customer had to book an appointment with a dermatologist, clear their schedule, expose their body to a stranger, and endure pain just to get results. Waxing salons are no different. They package agony as a premium service and sell repetitive visits under the guise of 'maintenance.'”

Her fingertip traced a line along Gangnam Boulevard beyond the glass.

“We are cutting that path entirely. No appointments, no waiting rooms, no consultation desks, no treatment beds. An experience that begins and ends by simply closing your shower door—that is something the legacy market can never replicate.”

Director Kim's eyes wavered slightly. Se-ah didn't miss it.

“People don't just buy a product. They pay to reclaim the moments they never wanted to expose to anyone else.”

Se-ah stepped down from the desk and walked slowly toward the glass, the hem of her lavish dress sweeping the floor. “We are going with a subscription model. Activate our in-house D2C platform exclusively.”

“But ma'am,” Director Kim countered, his tone laced with anxiety, “to ensure a stable launch into the market, we need the credibility of established major distribution channels. Consumers won't blindly subscribe online to an unproven substance from a brand they've never heard of.”

Director Kim’s anxious tone did nothing to alter Se-ah's expression. She turned her head to lock eyes with him, a deep sneer playing on her lips. “Director Kim. Do you honestly think I jumped into this game to do something as utterly mundane as 'stabilizing' a launch?”

“Well...”

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“Destruction is the point.”

Her voice carried an unwavering conviction, underscored by the cold excitement of someone who had already seen the endgame.

“Pay a fixed monthly fee, and this gel is discreetly delivered right to your doorstep. Within the absolute privacy of their own showers, consumers will achieve results that surpass a multi-million-won professional laser treatment—all in just ten minutes.”

Se-ah pointed her long, manicured finger toward the sprawling expanse of Gangnam Boulevard outside. The brilliant lights of the dense skyscraper forest blinked back through the dark.

“See all those flashy dermatology clinics lined up out there? Forcing those people into loan defaults and bankruptcy because they can no longer afford the monthly installments on their imported laser systems worth hundreds of millions of won—that is my grand design.”

Director Kim swallowed hard. He realized that the scale of the game she was playing reached far beyond a mere beauty brand launch.

“The pushback from the medical association and the existing beauty cartel will be fierce. The dermatology association in particular will likely come at us with class-action lawsuits or try to frame our product as an unapproved, illegal drug.”

“I welcome it,” Se-ah said, pulling a heavy bottle of red wine from the cellar built deep into her cabinetry. The cold touch of the bottle's neck seeped into her palm. “The more they thrash around because they can't handle the discomfort, the more our marketing costs drop to practically zero.”

“Slash the consumer price aggressively to just thirty percent of what traditional clinics charge for laser treatments. We capture the masses while we segment our customers aggressively based on subscription retention.”

She poured the crimson liquid into a crystal glass. The deep ruby wine coated the transparent walls, leaving behind streaks that looked like bloodstains.

“Then, design a limited edition reserved exclusively for our top-tier Black members. Tie it tightly to membership perks at high-end private clubs like Avalon. Stroke the hidden vanity of the elite.”

Director Kim held his breath, racing his pen across his leather notebook. Her commands were relentless, revealing a flawless grasp of how capital moved.

“Understood. Shall we proceed with the brand name as planned?”

“Lysis.”

Se-ah swirled her glass lightly and took a sip. A bold, dry flavor bloomed across her palate.

“The breakdown of a cell. It's incredibly intuitive and elegant, isn't it? At the same time, it is my declaration that I will dissolve that rigidly entrenched beauty market without leaving a trace.”

Se-ah picked up her phone from the desk and shot a brief text to Lee Seo-han's personal number.

[Sample testing complete. I’ve meticulously laid out the board, so just sit back and watch, Dr. Lee.]

There was no immediate reply. As usual, only silence met her message, but Se-ah didn't care. Watching that aloof academic stubbornly guard his pride was an amusing spectacle in its own right. Se-ah set her phone down and gave a dismissive wave of her fingers toward Director Kim.

“Execute it immediately. Launch the teaser page within a week, and blast samples out to a curated list of influencers. Give them only one directive.”

Se-ah’s eyes narrowed to serpentine slits.

“Have them post videos exposing the irritation and repetitive damage caused by traditional waxing and laser methods. Back it up with numbers and visuals. Sowing fear is the fastest form of marketing.”

“Yes, ma'am. I'll get on it immediately.” Director Kim closed the heavy door behind him as he left.

Left alone, a chilly silence reclaimed the room. Se-ah lifted her tablet once more. The intricate blueprint of Lysis glowed with a faint blue light across the screen. She slowly traced the interconnected lines over the cold glass with a fingertip.

“You built an incredible gun, Dr. Lee,” Se-ah murmured, a smirk twisting her lips. “But in the end, my finger is on the trigger.”

The dark ruby liquid remaining at the bottom of the crystal glass rippled quietly under the lights. The fortress walls long fortified by the legacy beauty industry were destined to be helplessly dismantled before Lysis’s precise molecular manipulation technology. The D2C subscription platform she engineered was no mere expansion of a distribution network; it was a dagger forged to fundamentally sever the supply chain of the establishment.

Taking one last elegant sip of the wine, Se-ah set the glass down. The intricate blueprints displayed on the screen had already translated into astronomical capital value, filling her mind's eye. All preparations were complete, and the massive gears of market reshuffling had already begun to turn.

The next morning, through a thick dawn mist, the teaser website for Lysis finally unveiled itself.

[Pain is not maintenance. Repetitive irritation is not liberation. 600 seconds, a new way to touch your skin. LYSIS.]

The crisp, provocative copy and a sensory video showing the rough traces of hair vanishing in a mere 600 seconds exploded across the internet and social media within moments. The private online community of Gangnam's prominent dermatologists was instantly thrown into chaos.

At first, mockery dominated the board. Comments dismissing it as just another exaggerated ad, jeers targeting a cosmetics company trivializing the medical domain, and sneers labeling it cheap viral marketing driven by a handful of influencers flooded the screen.

But within thirty minutes, the tone completely shifted. One by one, the dermatologists fell silent as they analyzed the close-up skin shots in the video frame by frame. There was virtually no inflammatory response. No erythema, no epidermal peeling, not even a trace of common contact dermatitis. Most importantly, the before-and-after comparisons were terrifyingly clean.

Someone uploaded a screenshot of Lysis's corporate registry. A newly established entity under S Group. And printed in small letters under the original technology provider section: Aether Bio.

The moment that name surfaced, all jokes vanished from the community.

• "Is this actually real? Did they get MFDS approval?"

• "Is it a drug or a cosmetic? The boundary is completely blurred."

• "I still have four years left on my laser equipment lease. If this takes off, our hair removal revenue won't just hit half—it’s going to completely evaporate."

• "Who's filing a complaint with the MFDS first? We need to move as an association."

Jung Se-ah stared expressionlessly at the real-time traffic graph spiking vertically. With every click of her mouse, the multi-trillion-won valuations of the legacy beauty industry shuddered and began to crack.

It was the prelude to destruction.