Seong-ho looked at the three men staring at him and asked with a smile,

"Is my coming here such a surprising thing?"

"Of course it is!"

Hyeong-sik U answered as though he'd been waiting for the question, and pulled himself in close toward Seong-ho.

"You aren't a man who comes to a place like this, President Kim."

"What sort of place is it, that you'd say so? Is it a place these two gentlemen may come to, and only I may not?"

Smiling, Seong-ho gestured toward Director Myeong-cheol Park and Managing Director Gu-taek Song, seated across from him.

Hyeong-sik U followed Seong-ho's finger, looked at the two of them, and gave an awkward laugh.

"With apologies to both gentlemen… I think there's a difference between them and you. This place is far too small to hold a son-in-law of Ilhyeon, a man who led a company as great as Ilhyeon Heavy Industries. And the work itself… won't satisfy you either."

Having spoken frankly, Hyeong-sik U shot Myeong-cheol Park and Gu-taek Song an apologetic glance.

But the two of them, apparently in agreement with him, only offered a smile to say it was all right.

Because the notion that Seong-ho Kim and men like themselves were different was something not only they but everyone in the world agreed upon.

Unlike Myeong-cheol Park and Gu-taek Song — salarymen who could be cut loose at any moment — Seong-ho Kim could fairly be called royal family among royal family.

His wife was Chairman Tak-hyeon Lee's youngest daughter, and that youngest daughter was president of two of the Ilhyeon Group's major affiliates.

He himself had passed through the group's major affiliates one after another, and the place he had come from before this was Ilhyeon Heavy Industries, which had shaken the whole of the Republic of Korea.

On top of which there was talk that he had met the President one-on-one as Ilhyeon Group's representative.

To hold a man like that, the World Cup support committee was small and shabby beyond all measure.

Hyeong-sik U shook his head, as though he still couldn't make…