12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

Tadak tadak tadak. I quickly moved my fingers, and then got up from my chair with my eyes blinking.

‘Hoo, this is work.’ For three hours, I’d been writing a document. It was a contribution article to the press. As the material that Crow had given me was so large, it was quite difficult to abbreviate it into a contribution article. But still, I’d done this over and over again.

My motive was twofold: first, there were elements in this report that I was curious about. Among the reports, there was the following content.

– President Jung Gi-woong of Bisang Construction has been making contacts with Seoul City officials for many years, and he knew it would be advantageous while selecting the business operator. However, he could not afford to buy stocks due to his personal debt. At that time, stock price manipulators, including Tak Joon-gi and Kang Joo-hyuk, came into contact with him. President Jung Gi-woong was offered $5,000,000 in gold in exchange for allowing them to manipulate stock prices. $300,000 was paid in advance, and changed in the Sun Precious Metal on Jongno three-ga to gold bullion and distributed as bribes to Seoul City officials.-

It contained information on the connection of Tak Joon-gi and Jung Gi-woong.

– Reporter Kang Joo-hyuk threatened to expose all the facts on Tak Joon-gi to the BKS network. However, Tak Joon-gi responded with a photo of his daughter returning home and threatened him back. Kang Joo-hyuk, seeing the photo of his daughter, surrendered and accepted the suicide offer. Instead of taking the blame for the stock manipulation, he signed a contract not to touch his family. The contract and Kang’s original will are in Kang Joo-hyuk’s Google Mail account.-

It also included the process of Kang Joo-hyuk’s suicide. I could write a document without getting tired while reading this long report, because it was so fun.

The second reason I stuck to writing this document was that I was running out of time. I could see from the inside story of Kang Joo-hyuk’s suicide that Tak Joon-gi was someone who could actually kidnap and kill someone.

It was obvious when he had threats, and it had worked. A day or two from now, my parents and Ah-young who had gone abroad would return home. I wanted to make Tak Joon-gi a national star before that, able to do nothing. I took a cold bottled water out of the refrigerator, gulped it down, and sat down in front of the computer again. I would finish this work today, and I would send Tak Joon-gi to hell tomorrow.

——————————

Tiriri tiriri. I opened my eyes to the ringing alarm. I had been working on the document until late yesterday, so I had a slightly sore back and my eyes, but I got up right away. I had a lot of work to do today. I washed, ate, put on my clothes as usual, and said to myself, “Let’s go.”

I went to work with Secretary Seo and Jang Geun. On my way to work, I talked to Secretary Seo, “Check Oracle News CEO Jung So-young’s schedule today and ask her to come see me in the morning if she’s free.”

“Yes, boss.”

I opened my mailbox as soon as I entered the president’s office. There was an email that I had sent to myself yesterday. Attached to it was a document that would destroy Tak Joon-gi. I downloaded it to my desktop for now. I could throw it right into the media if I wanted to, but I decided to put up with it a little bit. Because this document I had written contained not only Tak Joon-gi’s name, but also high-ranking officials of the prosecution, police, and media who had protected him.

I didn’t know that when I started writing it yesterday, but this document was not a sniper rifle, but a mortar that would sweep away everyone in the vicinity. So I decided to discuss it with Jung So-young and let it out. If I had sent it out, I wondered whether Oracle News would be able to manage it, so there was a little bit of a question.

“Boss, CEO Jung So-young will be here as soon as possible, before ten o’clock.”

“Yes.”

At 8:45, upon receiving the report, I turned the HTS on as usual and read the future news.

‘Well, yeah, Sung & A has an earnings surprise…’

Then suddenly I had a strange idea, ‘Wait a minute, what happens if I search Tak Joon-gi today?’

I was going to publish an article about Tak Joon-gi. Meeting with Jung So-young to discuss the matter was just a matter of procedure, and he should be a star on the nine o’clock news today, if nothing unusual happened in the middle. I tried writing ‘Tak Joon-gi’ in the People Search of 12 Hours After. There was an article.

[The key person to the corruption scandal in Bisang Construction and manipulating stock prices is Suyeon Group’s third generation, Director Tak Joon-gi.]

That was just the article I wanted to see. I clicked on it. The content of the article was not much different from what I had put on the desktop yesterday. It was only rewritten so that everybody could have a clearer picture of the proceedings.

It was a little funny that the future I made was on the future news. I read more of it. The prosecution, the police, and the senior press officials I’d been thinking about a little bit, were all real names. It seemed that the mortar must have gone out instead of a sniper gun.

‘That’s what happens in the end.’

It was decided after half an hour.

“Are you calling, CEO Han?” Wearing a soft beige suit, CEO Jung So-young of Oracle News visited me. She looked over the documents I presented her.

“Oh, my God… What is this?” At first, she was a little surprised, but soon, she recovered her composure and told me, “I’ll… I’ll get it out there, sir. Of course, it’s not that it’s not a burden to our company, but… We need to be able to get this out. It’s the press.”

I agreed, nodding to her, “That’s good. Don’t worry too much about external pressure. If Oracle news gets stuck somehow… I’ll use another means.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I will send you an email as it is written. Please let the article out today.”

“Yes, sir.” After the meeting with me, Jung So-young opened the door and left.

——

It was time. Secretary Seo grabbed the door of the president’s office and told me, “Well, boss.”

“Hmm?”

“While you were just talking to Jung So-young, another person asked for a meeting.”

“Who?”

“Well… Director Tak Joon-gi of Suyeon Travel. He wants to come and meet you around eleven o’clock.”

“Really?” I was a little surprised. He was moving himself.

‘Hmm…’ If I thought about it, it was no wonder. Last week, I said to Ahn Yong-kyun, the former head of Blue E&M, “How much did you decide to receive from Tak Joon-gi?” Now that I had said that, he must have known that I knew all his intentions and strategies. He must have been certain about the Bisang Construction.

‘The man who’s going to jail tonight… is coming to see me?’ I thought of it, but nodded to Secretary Seo, who was about to close the door. “Yes, let him come.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Oh, wait.” I stopped him.

“Jang Geun. Come in for a second.” Instead, I called Jang Geun into the president’s office.

Jang Geun replied to me in his peculiar, masculine low voice, “Did you call me?”

I felt somewhat relieved to hear his voice. I spoke to him, “At eleven o’clock, there’ll be someone who looks like a very skinny person, someone who seems to have money from foot to head.”

“Yes.”

I swallowed and said, “That’s my enemy.”

Jang Geun lowered his eyes for a moment, then nodded slightly and said to me, “Yes, boss. Don’t worry.”

—————–

Tiriri tiriri. I got a call from Secretary Seo. I didn’t need to check who came.

“Let him come in.”

The door opened and Director Tak Joon-gi came in as usual.

Before he’d say ‘Oh, who is this,’ he had been overly chatty… but he was keeping his mouth shut today.

It was worth seeing. So I did it this time, “It’s been a long time, Director Tak.”

In the meantime, there was a commotion in the back.

“You can’t get past me.”

“If I have to?”

“Do it if you can.”

Jang Geun and Tak’s secretary, two giants were facing one another. To be honest, I was more interested in it than I was in Director Tak Joon-gi. Tak’s secretary had a huge body size, but he had a small head compared to Jang Geun. In addition, Jang Geun was a master at judo, and had won a silver medal at the World Championship. The giant’s secretary was wearing a suit, a shirt and a tie, which was no different than saying “kill me” to a judo expert. Without recognition, I was thinking, ‘Once they fight…’

Unfortunately, Mr. Tak intervened, saying, “That’s fine. Get out.” He waved, and it ended.

The situation was settled, and only Jang Geun entered the president’s office. Jang Geun stood behind our visitor.

Mr. Tak told me if he felt burdened, “Can’t you ask him to stay out of here?”

I shook my head, “No. Something might happen. I’m confident that I will not lose fighting you one on one,, but I don’t know if you are going to use anything weird…”

Tak said with a frown, “You mean I’m wielding a knife in someone else’s office?”

“I thought you might,” I said right after. “As far as I investigated.”

As I said that, Tak’s eyes grew bigger. No wonder. That must have been the biggest question he’d ever had, ‘How did he know?’

I told him, “The more I know about you, the scarier you are. My first impression was a little bit like that.”

Whatever I said, he told me, “When I came here today, I came here for a truce.”

“A truce?”

“… Yes. A truce, I won’t touch your company any more. The short stock sale that went into Blue E&M will be returned at a higher price at my own expense.”

“That’s a matter of course. You bet, and if you lose, you throw up. If you’re a stock trader, you should accept that.” I added one more word to that, “Didn’t you go through Bisang Construction already?”

He lost his composure by bringing up the story of Bisang Construction. “What?” He got up from his chair, as if ready to beat me up at any moment.

But then, as Jang Geun came forward, he had no choice but to sit back down, his face flushed. That big man’s secretary was no match, and if it was a normal-sized Tak Joon-gi, Jang Geun could throw him up in the sky and play with him.

I said pointedly, “Don’t be angry. If you get angry here, only you will be hurt here.”

He sat back in his seat in a fit of rage. He had lost a hundred million dollars, but he had to come down from his anger himself. Jang Geun’s forearm was the size of his leg. It was very reliable.

“Let’s do it anyway, let’s call a truce. I won’t do anything that will do you any harm in the future. Let’s make sure we don’t care about each other again. Let’s live without knowing each other, and let’s stop the bad relationship.”

I clicked on the table for a moment and said to him, “It’s not a bad story. I don’t want to get involved with Mr. Tak anymore. I made some money, but there is not just Mr. Tak’s money in the market.”

Then I mumbled my words and added some more, “But… there’s one thing I need to do. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you.”

He replied curtly, “What’s that?”

I said with a big smile, “Implementation of Justice.”