Surviving Restructuring

“Wait. Say that again. Raise the prices by ten thousand times?” Mu Ah let out a laugh that sounded halfway between disbelief and mockery. “Are you insane? Or maybe you just aren’t aware of it?”

Eun-Ho paid no heed to the pointless questions thrown his way. His gaze remained fixed on the system interface floating in front of him.

“What exactly are you writing?” Mu Ah asked.

What else would it be? Eun-Ho thought as he continued typing without hesitation. This administrative order has been issued to restore proper discipline within the company, which has recently become distorted...

In other words, it was the directive the director would soon send out to all the business branches.

“Send it out exactly like this,” Eun-Ho said calmly, sliding the completed document across.

Mu Ah initially stared at it with a puzzled expression, as if wondering what he had just been handed.

He glanced between the document and Eun-Ho several times before asking coldly, “Are you trying to play the hero?”

His face looked as frozen as ice.

“It’s all lies.” Mu Ah lifted his gaze and met Eun-Ho’s eyes directly. Those dark eyes, faintly tinged with red, somehow felt familiar. “You’re deceiving the union members.”

“What do you mean?” Eun-Ho asked.

“Raising prices only to bring them down later is all a staged performance.”

Deceiving them, huh.

“And you keep preaching about courage, saying you’re standing here because you’re weaker than anyone else...” Mu Ah continued, “but the truth is, you’re stronger than anyone.”

Eun-Ho almost replied that he wasn’t stronger than anyone, but he stopped himself. After all, the one trapped like prey within the spiderweb wasn’t him.

Mu Ah added, “If they were truly weak, they should bow their heads and survive. Instead, those weaklings you fooled with your greed will hold their heads high and get themselves killed.”

“My greed?” Eun-Ho repeated.

“You tell them to have hope. Laziness is a sin. Work hard at all times and anyone can become strong if they try hard enough.” Mu Ah sneered. “But aren’t you just selling that kind of hope to fools so you can profit from it?”

“What?”

Eun-Ho frowned and thought, Why is this guy so twisted?

“Those people will die because of you.”

Eun-Ho already knew the company was full of strange characters, but this was the first time he had encountered someone quite this warped. The director’s philosophy was nothing more than the cynical ramblings of a bitter man.

“If they had stayed quiet, they could have lived their lives without trouble. But people like you filled their heads with nonsense, and now they’ll die for it.”

“People like me?”

Moreover, Mu Ah’s reaction was unusually cold. It wasn’t just the chairman’s orders. There was clearly something deeper, like trauma or an inferiority complex. It had to be some intense emotion Eun-Ho could not quite identify.

I don’t know what his story is, but honestly this is better, Eun-Ho thought.

He welcomed people driven by emotion as they were easy to provoke. Once they exploded from within, they became far easier to manipulate than anyone else.

“Yeah, scum like you,” Mu Ah muttered.

“Well, if you’ve got an inferiority complex, maybe you should reflect on yourself instead of barking at me,” Eun-Ho said bluntly.

“Inferiority complex? Do you even know who I am?”

Ha. Got it.

Eun-Ho now knew exactly how to deal with him.

“You said I was deceiving the union members, right?” he asked. “There’s one thing wrong about that.”

“Something wrong?” Mu Ah’s eyes narrowed triumphantly. “Making excuses to me won’t change any—”

“I’m not just deceiving the union members.”

Mu Ah’s eyes widened. “You’re not—what?”

“It’s all employees,” Eun-Ho continued, “everyone. Whether they joined the union or not.”

Deception or not, his ambitions were far bigger than that.

“Raise the prices across the board,” he ordered calmly. “Don’t spare even a single ant.”

***

[You have returned to the Office.]

[Control Artifact ability has been activated!]

[One individual has been transported through bound movement.]

“Its Eun-Ho!”

“Hyuuungnim!”

He had finally returned. The office in the Wailing Castle was noisy as ever, but it was also comfortable.

“Young Man, you’re finally back!”

“But who’s this fellow?”

The team members stared curiously at Mu Ah, who was being dragged along with Eun-Ho, half walking. The reason they described him as walking, despite both his legs having been half-severed earlier, was because of the terrifying regeneration skill of his.

“Is it your Regeneration?” Eun-Ho had asked.

“This?” Mu Ah replied.

“Yeah.”

“Well, wounds close up eventually. I’m still young, after all.”

“But that’s more than just healing.”

Of course, the sword wounds on his limbs were still there, leaving the flesh ragged. Perhaps the damage had been too extensive to heal, or Eun-Ho had exhausted him with relentless strikes, or the Control Artifact was suppressing his regeneration.

Probably all three, Eun-Ho thought.

“He’s a hostage,” he said.

“Oh, a hostage—wait, what? A hostage?” someone repeated.

“Yes. We’ll need to use another cell in the prison, so please prepare it.”

One of the team members escorted Mu Ah away to the prison. Ji-Eun and Jae-Hyuk, who had been staring at him in shock, finally rushed forward in alarm.

“Hyungnim! There’s so much blood! Did you get hurt badly?” Jae-Hyuk asked anxiously.

“It’s not my blood.”

“Huh? Then whose—ah!”

Honestly though, whose blood it was wasn’t the important part.

“But why are you two hanging off him like that?” Eun-Ho asked.

“Sorry?”

One of the twin Ghosts was riding on Jae-Hyuk’s shoulders like a child on a piggyback ride. The other was sitting cross-legged on top of his head, balancing like some sort of acrobat.

When the second one spotted Eun-Ho, they stood up on one foot and began waving their tiny hands enthusiastically, as if asking for praise.

“Monster!”

“You’re back!”

“Why so late?”

“Yeah! Why so late?!”

They even jumped up and down excitedly.

“Wailing Forest!”

“Tour finished!”

“He carried us!”

“He’s strong!”

“It shakes!”

“It’s fun!”

“He’s not an amusement ride. Get down,” Eun-Ho said flatly.

“H-Hyungnim? Who are you talking to?” Jae-Hyuk stammered, turning completely pale.

“Look at him. You’re scaring the poor guy,” Eun-Ho said in a slightly stern tone, trying to scare the twins into behaving.

However, they took it as a compliment.

“Us?”

“Scary?”

“We’re a little—”

“Scary indeed!”

“Is it the o-ones from b-before? You’re joking, r-right?” Jae-Hyuk stuttered helplessly.

The twins grabbed his hair and began shaking it as if they found his reaction hilarious.

“Scary, right?”

“Scary, right?”

“Eek?!”

Eun-Ho grabbed both twins by the backs of their collars and plucked them off Jae-Hyuk’s head. “Enough.”

He had to do something before the poor guy dropped from a heart attack.

“Hey! Monster!”

“Let us go!”

The twins pouted for a moment. Then, as if nothing had happened, they floated up again and drifted lazily between the team members.

“Why do my shoulders suddenly feel lighter? Am I imagining it? Yeah, it must be...” Jae-Hyuk muttered, shaking his head.

“Light?” asked one of the twins.

“Are we heavy?” asked another twin.

Just then, Sol-Ah appeared behind Jae-Hyuk, saying calmly, “Welcome back.”

After exchanging a few brief greetings, asking whether the blood belonged to Eun-Ho and if he had been injured, she turned to Jae-Hyuk. “You asked me to treat your shoulder, remember? Where does it hurt?”

Jae-Hyuk practically jumped out of his skin, as if denying reality itself. “M-me?! When did I say that?! It doesn’t hurt at all!”

“What are you talking about?” Sol-Ah replied. “You’ve been saying your shoulder was stiff once every minute since earlier.”

“Hic!”

Ah, maybe I should’ve pretended not to notice, Eun-Ho thought.

“Yeah, Jae-Hyuk. Ever since Mr. Soeju came earlier you kept saying—oh, right!” Ji-Eun smacked her fist into her palm as if something had just clicked in her mind. “Mr. Soeju came earlier! You didn’t run into him, did you?”

“Oh, he contacted me,” Eun-Ho replied. “He said he’ll come again another time.”

Though that reminded him about the strange message Soeju had left him.

Soeju: Your team members seemed very well trained.

Soeju: What’s your secret?

He still had no idea what that compliment was supposed to mean.

“Anyway, the inventory’s all gone, right?” Eun-Ho asked.

“Yes! Everything is sold out!” Ji-Eun answered proudly.

Now that he had become a team leader, Eun-Ho understood something. There was nothing more satisfying than hearing that his team had been praised while he wasn’t around.

“I’m sure it was stressful since I left without explaining everything properly. But you all worked hard. Thank you.”

The chaos likely had been tremendous, especially considering the prices that were supposed to go down had instead jumped ten times higher.

In fact, even the usually composed Yeo-Jin and Sol-Ah looked visibly uneasy. Ji-Eun wasn’t hiding it very well either.

“Well... Um...”

They seemed to hesitate to ask whether things had gone well, perhaps worried about putting pressure on him.

Therefore, Eun-Ho asked first, “How did the employees react?”

“Well...”

“Mister, you shouldn’t leave the Castle right now. The employees have gathered outside and are protesting.”

“Not just union members, even the non-union employees say this whole thing spilled over onto them. They’re demanding someone take responsibility.”

After piecing together the hesitant explanations from his team, Eun-Ho summarized, “So they’re saying this happened because we angered the company?”

They nodded.

“And they want the labor union dissolved?”

They nodded.

“And the Labor-Management Cooperation Team dismantled too?”

They nodded again.

“How big is the crowd?”

“We didn’t count exactly, but it looks like more than ten times the size of when fifteen thousand union members gathered.”

At minimum, that was one hundred fifty thousand people. It was a crowd large enough to sweep the entire forest clean if they really wanted to.

“Don’t worry. I expected this level of backlash,” Eun-Ho said calmly.

Of course he had predicted it, because he was the one behind it.

Mu Ah, still listening nearby, sounded thoroughly displeased. “If you expected it, you shouldn’t have caused it in the first place.”

“Ji-Eun, please bring this guy with us,” Eun-Ho said.

“Huh? Oh, yes!”

“Jae-Hyuk, can you assist her?”

“Yes, sir!”

“And Yul, could you hide these gentlemen for a bit?”

“Okaaay!”

Leaving the sneering Mu Ah in their care, Eun-Ho turned around and started walking.

“Mister! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to deal with the protesters.”

“What?!”

Flap—

Jet-black wings unfurled behind Eun-Ho.

“Wait! Didn’t you hear? There are a hundred and fifty thousand of them!”

The director’s urgent voice reached him faintly, muffled by the beating of the wings.

“For now, you should hide! Lower the prices first and calm public opinion, then give a speech later or take the credit or whatever!” Mu Ah shouted passionately, but his voice slowly faded as his head grew smaller beneath Eun-Ho’s feet.

“Are you worried about me right now?” Eun-Ho asked.

“Are you crazy?! You said you were taking me with you! I don’t want to get stoned to death!”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want that either.”

“If a hundred and fifty thousand people rush you in a frenzy, they won’t hear a single word! How exactly are you planning to settle this?!”

Flap—

In the gale stirred by the massive wings, Eun-Ho looked straight into the man’s eyes. “I’m going to deceive them.”

“What? What the hell does that—”

Telling people not to give up on trials, to have hope, and telling them that anyone could become strong with enough effort, maybe those words really were deception.

“Hang in there.”

There had been times when even Eun-Ho found those irresponsible words of encouragement too heavy to bear.

“But even so, there are people who need them.”

There were always people who found a spark in fake courage, fake hope, and fake encouragement, and turned it into something real.

Eun-Ho smiled. “So I’ll do it. I’ll play the hero.”

I’ll play the hero, even if it’s one I created myself, an inflated symbol of hope.

He was determined to make it real, so that when this battle of illusion and design ended, everyone would be smiling.

“What are you saying right now?!”

“Just shut up and follow me,” Eun-Ho said.

***

Mu Ah followed Eun-Ho in silence. The Crown Prince of the Operations Bureau was not the sort of man who followed others, nor the sort who obeyed when told to keep his mouth shut. However, he had no choice.

Whoosh—

Ji-Eun gestured. “Sh. We’ll land in the corner.”

She had lifted him up with her ability and now lowered him again, leaving Mu Ah little choice but to comply. Furthermore, the forest was already on the verge of exploding from the sheer volume of shouting. The crowd had long passed the boiling point.

“When is this going to be resolved?!”

“Are they even doing anything about this?!”

“I already withdrew from the union. So why are prices still ten thousand times higher?!”

On top of that, under the direction of several loud-voiced agitators, the accusations were becoming increasingly organized.

“Everyone! We cannot let this incident pass quietly!”

“That’s right!”

“Absolutely not!”

“Let’s dissolve the labor union! The root of all evil!”

“You’re absolutely right!”

The old man must have sent those guys... Mu Ah thought.

The caps pulled low over their faces and their forgettable clothes made that clear. Somehow, they had already handed out wooden placards and headbands bearing slogans like, “Down with the Labor Union! Down with Lee Eun-Ho!” and “Dissolve the nuisance union!”

Even though the price surge had expanded to affect all employees, which was something that should have caught him off guard, the chairman had already prepared to turn it into a public opinion campaign. No matter what kind of performance Eun-Ho put on now, the fight had already been lost before it even began.

“What do you think Hyungnim is planning?” Jae-Hyuk asked.

“I have no idea. Even if he speaks, it doesn’t seem like anyone would hear him...” Ji-Eun replied.

“Oh! Megaphone! Do you think he brought one?”

A megaphone? Shouting louder wouldn’t make any difference here, Mu Ah scoffed inwardly.

“Take responsibility for the price riot!”

“Take responsibility for the price riot!”

Not only were lives being threatened, the justification was also clear: not just one person but all employees were suffering damage. Moreover, there was a convenient enemy for the chairman.

This was a battle that could not be won by the union. Public opinion had already tipped the scales. In fact, the union’s side had fallen straight into the abyss.

“Dissolve the labor union!”

“Dissolve the labor union!”

Watching events unfold exactly as he had predicted, Mu Ah curled his lips in a faint sneer.

“Step down, Lee Eun-Ho!”

“Step down, Lee Eun-Ho!”

At that moment, a burst of light exploded above everyone’s heads. Then, darkness spread across the sky.

“W-what is that?!”

“The sun disappeared!”

A thick haze gathered like smog, blotting out the light. The ominous energy alone was enough to send chills down anyone’s spine.

Mu Ah recognized that suffocating darkness instantly.

It’s the Death Hand! Realizing it, Mu Ah jerked his head upward. Oh no. There he is.

At the center of the sky, where the deathly aura blotted out the light, a figure stood.

Jet-black wings spread wide, and below him lay the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-strong crowd of protesters.

Fwoosh—

In his hand burned a red torch, the flames writhing like the tongue of a demon.

—Attention.

He had not shouted, yet the single word rang through their skulls. The mere presence of the man made fingers tremble.

Then, Eun-Ho began to speak.