Surviving Restructuring

Claaack!

In the silent executive office, the sound of a teacup being set down rang as loudly as a car horn.

The rookie secretary flinched at the noise she made herself. “I-I’m sorry, Chairman.”

The chairman paid it no mind. He knew very well that the chief secretary who usually handled all formalities was absent.

“Where is the chief secretary?” he asked calmly.

“There’s still no word yet, sir...” Her gaze dropped to the floor as though she had committed a grave mistake. Then, she straightened up. “She will report in soon! I’ll inform you immediately the moment we receive contact!”

Fearing the chairman’s displeasure, she promised to do something he had not even asked for, trying to compensate for a situation that had veered off course.

“That will not be necessary,” the chairman said evenly. “There is no need to be impatient.”

“Pardon?”

Instead of appearing urgent, the old man seemed leisurely enough to savor the aroma of his tea, even though not a single operative he had dispatched was responding.

He added, “This battle is not about the result.”

The rookie secretary blinked in confusion. “Sorry?”

It’s not about the result?

This was not some friendly exhibition match. What kind of fight did not hinge on victory?

“Don’t we have to win?” she asked carefully. “It would have been preferable if the System had simply cut them down at the root but...”

The damned labor union had ultimately gained recognition from the System. If the union continued to grow in strength, the company’s operations would inevitably face increasing restrictions. That was precisely why the chairman had personally dispatched the chief secretary.

“If we win, the reactionaries will lose their rallying point and collapse.” He set his teacup down, pausing before saying, “And even if Eun-Ho wins by some chance, they will lose their greatest source of strength.”

“Their greatest source?”

His answer felt deliberately vague.

As she tilted her head in puzzlement, he suddenly asked, “What do you think their greatest strength is?”

By “they,” he clearly meant the Labor-Management Cooperation Team, the labor union, and Eun-Ho.

“Their greatest strength?” She hesitated, then answered honestly, “Their moral justification perhaps?”

They stood on the employees’ side, advocating for improved welfare. They pushed back against unfair demands. They gathered the small voices of individual workers and amplified them.

“Ah! O-of course, I’m not saying the company is unjust, sir!” she added hurriedly, waving her hands.

“That is not entirely incorrect.” The chairman placed his teacup down with a firm tap and leaned back into the sofa. “To be precise, it is public opinion.”

“Public opinion?”

“The narrative that they are righteous and the company is evil. The pretense of acting for the employees’ sake. All of that stems from public opinion.”

Public opinion was an irritating force that could never be ignored. In politics, the first move was always to frame the narrative. In truth, one could say he had already allowed himself to be framed.

“But,” he continued slowly, rising from his seat with deliberate calm born of eons of experience, “those so-called righteous ones have now used force against the employees.”

“Well, that’s—”

“And not merely force. They will overwhelm them. Sweep them aside in a one-sided display.” A faint glimmer of madness flickered behind his gentle smile. “When that happens, what do you think becomes of public opinion?”

He looked at her, the corners of his lips curling ever so slightly. “Will they still be seen as righteous?”

***

In this world, one met blades with blades, and crushed force with greater force. Ever since things had changed, that had become the obvious logic. Enemies had always blocked Eun-Ho’s path, and the only way forward was to cut them down.

It was never always the right answer, Eun-Ho thought.

Back on Namsan, instead of killing the ones who had rushed at him, he had opened an auto-hunt field instead. That had been one such case. And once again, similar events unfolded.

“You foolish child. Do you not realize that deleting someone like you would be effortless?”

The chairman wasn’t playing around. Instead of deleting Eun-Ho outright, he had simply chosen to swing the hammer through innocent employees. He had even hidden masked subordinates within that chaos.

In a situation where every employee was watching, Eun-Ho knew that wiping out everyone who had come would secure a tactical victory, but he would lose strategically. Even if they won, it would be a self-inflicted blunder. In other words, the real battle this time was not about brute force.

And that fox of a chairman knows it.

Eun-Ho had known from the moment the chairman smiled with those narrowed eyes.

“You will be lighting the spark of rebellion with your own hands, Chairman.”

The old man’s dark intent was plain to see. He wanted to extinguish the flames of rebellion without getting a single drop of blood on his own hands.

“How many young men like you do you think there have been?”

He had likely handled countless others this way, pushing them to the edge so they could neither carry the revolution through nor retreat from it.

What a sly old fox.

“I happen to be more fox than bear myself,” Eun-Ho said lightly.

“Mmph! Mmph?!”

That was precisely why he had brought the chief secretary with him. No one understood the Chairman’s patterns better than she did.

[Kavacha Form 1 - Shock Absorption]

[Kundala Form 1 - Release]

The Sun’s Armament possessed terrifying power. If its unlock rate had not been capped at thirty percent, he would not have been able to regulate the output. The entire forest would have exploded.

This place would have burned down too, he thought.

Tap. Tap.

The potions he had taken from the woman sloshed. Even within their specially manufactured containers, the red-and-green liquid churned as though about to burst.

[Transcendence Potion]

- A potion created by liquefying a pure essence passed down since ancient times.

- For one minute, Stamina and Spiritual Energy surge to twice their maximum capacity.

- After the duration ends, both are reduced to half their original maximum capacity for twenty-four hours.

- Warning: consuming more than one bottle per day permanently drains the vitality of the soul.

Stamina and Spiritual Energy...

He had seen warning windows whenever he pushed his Sword Aura beyond his mental limits. Normally, he resolved it through Qi Circulation Breathing.

This could be useful in a situation where there’s no time to recover.

In the future, there could come a time when he would have to fight with every ounce of strength, trading blows without a moment to recover.

He carefully stored the three remaining potion bottles he had taken from her. “Store.”

The woman let out muffled, beast-like cries of pain. “Mmph! Mmmph!”

Despite no longer having the strength to lift her limbs, her face was twisted with ferocity.

“Good thing I had restraints left over,” Eun-Ho remarked.

Besides preparing suppression devices for the thousand defeated enemies, he had even added a sealing gag to prevent any accidental skill activation. As a result, the woman had barely clung to life as he dragged her here.

“Mmph! Mmmph!”

The room was minimalist but equipped with everything necessary. The lighting was a soft daylight hue, slightly dim yet easy on the eyes. Not even a single decibel of noise penetrated the silence. It was, in every sense, a room worthy of the name Secret Room.

He surveyed the space with satisfaction and asked her casually, “It’s more comfortable than a prison cell, wouldn’t you say?”

She only stared back in disbelief, not that it changed anything.

[Instant Room, Secret Room, has been created.]

[You may designate one secret.]

The true essence was not the room itself, but the secret.

“Make it a secret that I am holding this person here,” Eun-Ho had said.

[Setting complete.]

[While this Secret Room persists, the designated secret will not leak.]

Since it would vanish once its creator left or a day passed, it was a temporary measure rather than a permanent solution. On its own, that made its applications complicated.

[A Secret Passage has been established.]

Nevertheless, it came with a hidden route that allowed him to enter and exit the castle undetected. That alone justified its value.

Plus, I can also monitor what’s happening outside from here.

[The Castle Lord’s authority has been confirmed.]

[Initiating monitoring.]

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop—

Hundreds of screens materialized across one wall. It felt like standing in the control room of a massive facility, surveying live video surveillance at once. He could get views from rotating turrets, various points along the castle walls, and the top of the spires. Among them, he could spot his team members facing off against intruders.

「Step back! If you come any closer, we’ll fire!」

「 Hey! Cross that line and you’re done for, got it?!」

Messages continued flooding in.

Yeon Bo-Ra: Oppa, where are you right now?

Yeon Bo-Ra: You don’t have to reply! Just stay hidden!

Min Yeo-Jin: Don’t come out. Absolutely don’t!

Kim Ji-Eun: They’re pouring in from the Warrior Board!

Myung Tae-Pyeong: Those lunatics are sharing it with each other like crazy!

Pouring in from the Warrior Board?

Eun-Ho thought the event had not seemed impactful enough to draw such attention.

Sharing... That must be it.

“Then it’s the group trial,” he muttered, glancing at the chief secretary. “You set it up so they’d share it among themselves. You were aiming for a viral effect at my event.”

The woman who had struggled and growled moments ago now merely glared at him.

“Well, of course. If you want to inflate comparative power, the easiest way is to strip the other side of their numbers, right?”

Employees were rushing in from the Warrior Board, while his own group could not act freely because of public image concern. Though the labor union’s attention and momentum had surged thanks to public opinion, its loyal support base remained fragile.

“Politics really is about negative campaigning.”

The chairman had calculated all of it. It was a clever strategy.

“But Chief Secretary.” Eun-Ho locked eyes with her. “Do you know something?”

Her eyes widened.

“There’s one thing about negative strategies. They don’t last long.”

“Mmph? Mmph?!”

There was a single gamble that could flip this tilted board in one move.

***

Leira: Yeo-Jin! Did you check the board?

Leira: The public opinion is turning bad.

Min Yeo-Jin ducked behind the castle wall where she had been holding the line and pulled up a floating screen. There was their story, the one that had just become the hottest topic online.

“Unnie! Mister! Come look at this!”

────────────────

Exposing the Filthy Truth Behind the Labor-Management Cooperation Team

I attended the Labor-Management Cooperation Team’s union launch event. Then, suddenly a group trial popped up. I tried to complete it, and next thing I know there are turrets and tree monsters everywhere...

It honestly felt like they’d prepared a trap in advance because they knew this would happen. Is this really acceptable?

────────────────

└ Wait, they attacked you even though you were just standing there?

└ Aren’t they supposed to represent employees? How is this okay?

└I’m kinda disappointed. The company and those guys are the same.

└But the OP’s tone is weird. Is this a company alt account?

└Your tone’s weirder tbh

└Lmao the forced hate is insane

“What the hell is this?!” the cleaning lady shouted.

“They left out the most important part!”

The team members were dumbfounded. The post had conveniently omitted the so-called sudden group trial that had ordered participants to kill Eun-Ho.

Jae-Hyuk flushed red with anger, even snorting through his nose. “Can’t we just explain the trial details in the comments?”

Yeon Bo-Ra snapped back, grinding her teeth. “And say what exactly?”

“The truth. In detail—”

“That the trial said to kill Oppa? That everyone who participates gets a promotion? So now a bunch of crazy employees are charging at us with fire in their eyes?”

“Yeah. Okay. That’s bad.” Jae-Hyuk froze. He slowly shook his head. “Then what do we do?”

“Are we even sure we should keep fighting?”

“We need to tell Eun-Ho right now.”

“Do you think he’s even in the right state of mind right now?”

“He organized this with good intentions, and now people are trying to kill him! He must be devastated.”

“Hyuuuuungnim...”

The team’s reactions splintered. One group argued that since they had evacuated him for now, they should keep this from Eun-Ho until the situation settled. Another group argued just as fiercely that they had to share all information in case things escalated.

Ji-Eun insisted. “Still, we should tell him. He deserves to know.”

“Yeah. Hell, that bastard might’ve already predicted this,” said Swear-Master.

The tension between the two sides was about to erupt when a team message arrived.

Lee Eun-Ho: What exactly did the trial say?

“H-hic! Hyungnim asked first?!” Jae-Hyuk yelped.

“We don’t have a choice. Let’s tell him.”

Therefore, they explained everything including the exact wording of the trial window, the reactions of the employees they were facing, and the worsening public opinion.

“And tell him it’s not his fault, so he shouldn’t feel too ba—”

She never got to finish the thought. As usual, Eun-Ho’s response did not follow their expectations.

Lee Eun-Ho: Please share that trial with me as well.

“What?”

Lee Eun-Ho: Let’s all receive the reward together.

“Excuse me?!”

“Receive the reward together?!”

“Wait, does that mean Hyungnim is saying that we should all kill him together...?”

“What kind of insane nonsense is that?!”