Surviving Restructuring

It was 3:30 PM. After Ayasa flapped away, clutching the neck of a crow who insisted to follow Eun-Ho, they headed back toward the office.

“Are you planning to release it?” Ji-Eun asked Eun-Ho as she walked beside him.

She was asking if he’d expose the Memory Orb’s content to all the employees right now.

“We have to release it,” he said calmly. “Just not yet.”

“Not the right timing?” she asked.

The orb left by the child was practically the only card they held. It was vivid proof of the horrific incident the company had tried so hard to bury.

“If we release it without any preparation, we’ll just end up getting counterattacked,” he explained.

“Oh...”

Right now, only the Personnel Bureau was openly targeting them. However, if they detonated this bomb prematurely, there was no telling how far the fallout would spread.

There were the unknown figures tied to the so-called “Arena”, with their black desires tangled together. There was also the director who had overseen the Future Research Center back then and still did now. There were also those higher up, which were the company’s top brass themselves. If their firepower converged all at once, the whistleblowing wouldn’t even get off the ground before it was crushed.

“That bastard’s right! If we’re going to fight the people up top, we need a shield first. Isn’t that right?!” Swear-Master shouted.

“Whether we use it as a shield or a spear, we’ll decide later,” Eun-Ho continued after organizing his thoughts, “first priority is reinforcing our strength as quickly as possible. An all-out war comes after that.”

“Understood, Hyungnim!” said Jae-Hyuk.

“For now, we’ll start digging into this Arena as soon as we get back to the office.”

That was what they had and could do for the time being.

“But how are we supposed to look into it?” Ji-Eun asked. “If it was really that serious, anyone who knows about it will be keeping their mouths shut.”

“We’ll dig it up.”

“Dig it up from who?”

There were people who couldn’t not know about what happened at the research institute. And among them, there was one woman he could still approach.

***

“Ryeon-Hwa.”

The old man’s voice, thin and airy in that way unique to the elderly, reached Cheong Ryeon-Hwa.

“Yes, Chairman,” she said.

“I heard the Sealed Ward has been purified.”

It was strange. His voice was as neat and composed as the fedora he had set aside, yet it made Cheong Ryeon-Hwa’s fingers tremble, as if a storm were raging in her teacup.

“That is wonderful news,” she replied.

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course,” she said gently, setting the teacup down on the table. “Leaving such a grotesque facility covered up had weighed heavily on my heart for a long time.”

“And who was it that tipped those children off about it?” the chairman asked.

“They say some of the junior researchers uploaded it as a prank.”

The chairman frowned slightly and pressed again. “It wasn’t that child who chain-smokes, was it?”

“If you mean Ayasa...” Cheong Ryeon-Hwa smiled sadly in response to his question. After a brief silence, she denied it in a low voice, “You know very well that couldn’t be the case.”

The chairman’s sharp gaze tangled with her sorrowful one in midair.

“... You’re right,” he said at last. “I must be getting old, being too suspicious of everything. I’m sorry.”

That marked the end of the sensitive topic.

“Then, next...”

They exchanged a few more agenda items and some polite pleasantries. Soon, tea time came to an end.

“I’ll get going now,” Cheong Ryeon-Hwa said.

“Alright.”

She bowed with a graceful motion and left the chairman’s reception room. Only then did she feel as if she could breathe again, exhaling shallow breaths as she walked.

“Center Director, would you like to get something to eat?” her secretary asked.

“No. My stomach isn’t well.”

“Understood.”

That was how she arrived at her office.

“Hm?” Just as Cheong Ryeon-Hwa reached for the door, she stopped. After a few seconds passed, she frowned, her straight, elegant eyebrows drawing together. “There’s an unfamiliar scent.”

The room she had left that morning was filled with a fragrance that belonged neither to her nor to her secretary.

The secretary, who had been waiting behind her, stepped in first and explained, “A gift has arrived.”

She gestured toward a flower basket placed on the table.

“Flowers?” Ryeon-Hwa asked.

“Yes. We ran a scan but there were no suspicious substances.”

Cheong Ryeon-Hwa tilted her head slightly. There were one hundred red roses, white baby’s breath to accent them, and lush green leaves tucked in between. It was a flamboyant yet beautiful arrangement.

“Who sent it?” she asked.

“Well, that’s the thing... It was sent anonymously.”

The sender was the problem.

“We believe it may be from one of your suitors.”

Foolish suitors.

There was no way she would welcome a bribe from one of them. It was common for them to lace perfume with aphrodisiacs or hide cameras among fully bloomed petals. At the same time, if it wasn’t a suitor but someone new, that was no less unsettling.

She was left with only one conclusion. “Throw it away.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

One hundred roses were unceremoniously dumped into the trash.

***

Min Yeo-Jin, who had been pricking up her ears, scratched her cheek. “Well, she threw it away right away.”

The plan was the so-called Flower Delivery Operation to plant the micro-recorder that Jeon Do, the Inspection Bureau’s division chief, had given Ji-Eun.

“We expected that,” Eun-Ho replied.

The core of the operation had never been the flowers themselves, but the delivery.

“Good thing no one noticed,” Min Yeo-Jin said.

“Most people check the package, not the delivery person’s face that closely,” he answered.

That was why they had deliberately made the flower basket so flashy in the first place.

[Concealed Microphone - Active]

[Recording Status - Stable]

The trap was complete, and all that remained was to wait, or so he thought.

A sigh-laced voice flowed from the small speaker connected to the recorder.

—Right. It was something that had to be done sooner or later.

“They’re talking!”

“Shh.”

—Ayasa... It seems like that child has finally managed to dig up the past.

—Time has passed, after all.

The plan might move faster than expected, he thought.

“Ayasa was the client you said you met, right?” Min Yeo-Jin asked.

“That’s right.”

After a brief explanation and showing her the Memory Orb, Min Yeo-Jin tilted her head. “But why does her voice sound so wistful? It’s like she’s talking about a favorite idol who messed up and is reflecting on it.”

“Hey. Why are you bringing up favorite idols right now?”

“If you don’t get it, stay out of it. A kid who’s never been in love wouldn’t understand.”

“What did you say?”

A favorite idol who messed up and is reflecting...

Eun-Ho had suspected that Cheong Ryeon-Hwa had been the one who ordered the experiment. He still couldn’t say for certain that she wasn’t.

However, there was one thing he was sure of: she cared about Ayasa. Just as that thought settled in, the conversation continued.

—Well, it’s been a hundred years.

A hundred years ago? That must be about when the child was taken.

—Or six thousand years, depending on how you look at it.

What’s with six thousand years now?

The conversation wandered into strange territory, but then his ears perked up.

—What about the Arena?

—There’s been no notable movement.

—Keep monitoring it. And be careful not to let that demon Seung Gi notice you.

—Okay.

“Seung Gi? Who’s that?” Min Yeo-Jin asked.

“Is that an employee’s name?” Ji-Eun wondered.

“For now, just keep watching,” Eun-Ho said quietly. “We need to find out what this insane company is hiding.”

Min Yeo-Jin behind as she clenched her fist, eager to be entrusted with the task. “Got it!”

In the meantime, he organized his thoughts and brought up the system window.

“Keyword alert.”

[No alerts have been registered.]

[Would you like to register a keyword alert?]

“Please register Arena.”

[New keyword Arena has been registered.]

[You will be notified when posts containing this keyword are uploaded.]

He set it so that he would be alerted the moment any post containing Arena appeared on the internal network.

“I’ll need past records as well.”

“If there are any similar posts, I’ll scrape everything, organize it, and send it to you,” Ji-Eun said crisply.

“Understood, Hyungnim!” Jae-Hyuk also replied energetically.

Good. With this, I’d be able to secure both past records and any new information going forward, Eun-Ho thought.

Just as he was feeling satisfied, Ji-Eun suddenly seemed worried, as if something had occurred to her. “Um... but what about the Personnel Bureau?”

“What about the Personnel Bureau, Noonim?” Jae-Hyuk asked.

“Yeah. An attack will probably come soon. Is it really okay to just keep an eye on the research institute?”

Eun-Ho smiled faintly. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

Jae-Hyuk nodded along. “Oh! Hyungnim, you must have a plan for everything!”

Min Yeo-Jin snapped her fingers as if she got it. “I get it! While we investigate the Arena, you’re going to take on the head of Personnel yourself, right? One target per person!”

Well... That had been the plan.

“Taking them down is right,” Eun-Ho said. “But not one at a time.”

“Huh?”

—Keep monitoring it. And be careful not to let that demon Seung Gi notice you.

Cheong Ryeon-Hwa had just handed them an enormous hint as it was a name he recognized.

“Seems like the Arena and the head of the Personnel Bureau are on the same side,” Eun-Ho muttered.

“What do you mean by that?”

“That’s his true name.”

The team’s eyes went wide at the sudden revelation.

“You mean the head of the Personnel Bureau who’s coming after us? That bastard?”

“R-really?!”

It had to be true. That name showed up often in the glowing anecdotes posted under the director’s name. They were stories the director had personally curated after wiping the internal boards clean to maintain his image.

“Wow... So the real scumbags really do commit every kind of evil, huh?”

“That’s good news,” Eun-Ho said. “We were going to clash with him anyway.”

They had already been preparing, knowing the director would make a move sooner or later. Perhaps it was time to pull out another card he had been saving specifically for the director.

“Dmitri,” Eun-Ho said, “shall we have a quick talk?”

***

“Not easy,” Dmitri said with a stiff expression. The Russian drug peddler’s face was usually set in stone, but it seemed especially rigid today. However, there was a reason for that. “There won’t be any dramatic effects.”

“I expected it to be difficult,” Eun-Ho replied. “It’s practically the same as reversing time.”

“No.”

It was time to inspect the first trial the strong man had ever given him.

“I succeeded.”

“What?”

“It’s not dramatic, but it definitely worked.”

A strange light flickered in Eun-Ho’s eyes. His hands moved faster than his mouth.

“Is this it?” Eun-Ho took a small, palm-sized vial with a low profile. “With this level of effectiveness...”

The substance inside was thicker than an ordinary potion, resembling a white facial cream.

“This is enough,” Eun-Ho muttered after studying the pale concoction and its description window for a long while. He nodded in satisfaction. “Thank you. I can’t exactly call this repayment, but there’s something I want to show you.”

With that, he brought up a screen in front of them.

“What is this?” Dmitri asked.

“An underground fortress.”

It was a map showing a bird’s-eye view of the fortress. Hundreds of rooms were linked together like an anthill, forming a massive complex.

“Do you see this room?” Eun-Ho asked, pointing to a particularly spacious one. “Right next to the Clock Plaza.”

Of course he could see it as he wasn’t blind. However, knowing Eun-Ho wasn’t the type to speak carelessly, Dmitri nodded anyway.

Eun-Ho then casually said, “Move your things there.”

“Pardon?”

Dmitri fell silent.

I already picked a bedroom. So why is he giving me another room? Don’t tell me the others said they didn’t want to share with me, so he’s isolating me? Dmitri pondered.

Eun-Ho scratched his head as he explained, “I set up a proper laboratory, but it will probably be short on equipment. I asked Ji-Eun to put in some basic furniture, but I don’t know what you’ll actually need.”

Wait.

There was a mountain of questions Dmitri wanted to ask, but he swallowed them all. “A laboratory?”

What if everything vanished like it never happened if he spoke carelessly?

“Use it however you want,” Eun-Ho declared firmly. “Develop some truly useful drugs while you research in a space that big.”

Dmitri clenched his fist without realizing it. His eyes burned with passion. “I swear I will.”

“There’s no need to swear—”

“On my hair,” Dmitri vowed terrifyingly earnestly.

In the meantime, Eun-Ho scratched his cheek again and stood up from his seat.

Dmitri asked lightly, “Where are you going?”

It was meant to be a casual question, but the answer he got was anything but casual.

“Into enemy territory.”

This time, Dmitri was the one left speechless. “E-enemy territory?!”

Something like going to a bar or going to the bathroom would have been far more appropriate answers given Eun-Ho’s calm expression.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“No, I'm dead serious.”

“Why? Why now?”

“Oh.” Eun-Ho slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again. When he looked up, his gaze had changed completely into that of a beast. “To find out.”

“Find out what?”

“When, where, and how the blade aimed at our throats is going to fly.”

Dmitri gulped. “A-are you all going together? The big guy and the strong woman too?”

Is it trust in his companions that makes him so calm about infiltrating enemy lines?

What Eun-Ho said next, however, proved him wrong.

“I’m only taking Yul with me. This needs to be handled quietly.”

That wasn’t it at all.

He’s infiltrating enemy territory with nothing but a kid who’s five or six years old? No matter how strong this man is, this is dangerous!

Countless thoughts raced through Dmitri’s head, but only one line made it out of his mouth. “It sounds dangerous.”

Eun-Ho simply smiled calmly in response. “It’ll be fine.”

He then lifted the Skin Regeneration and Elasticity Enhancement Potion, which was something a cosmetics company would have drooled over.

“Because you made the key.”