Having parted from Chung-seop Jo, Seong-ho Kim headed to the conference room.

“My apologies.”

The moment Seong-ho Kim entered, everyone already seated rose to their feet.

Seong-ho Kim apologized first to those who’d been waiting.

“Something urgent came up, so I’m a little late.”

“Not at all. We’d already heard you might be about ten minutes behind, so it’s fine.”

“Well then, shall we sit and begin?”

Seong-ho Kim gestured for everyone to sit and put a question to the union representatives seated across from him.

“I understand you wanted to see me. May I ask why?”

The union representative wore a resolute expression at Seong-ho Kim’s question and said,

“We’re here to request the immediate suspension of all restructuring currently underway.”

“You want the restructuring stopped?”

Seong-ho Kim tilted his head and asked,

“May I ask the reason?”

“The workers are suffering greatly under management’s high-handed restructuring. Some employees have fallen into such distress that daily life has become difficult for them. We ask that management immediately halt the restructuring and issue an order returning everyone to their previous positions.”

President Jae-su Jeong and the other executives seated alongside Seong-ho Kim kept glancing at him nervously.

With Seong-ho Kim holding full authority over Ilhyeon Hotel, there was nothing they themselves could do.

The union side, apparently already aware of this, didn’t so much as glance at the executives, addressing only Seong-ho Kim.

“If management does not heed our demands, we give notice that we will enter an indefinite strike.”

“Are you saying you’ll go on strike?”

The union representatives exchanged glances at Seong-ho Kim’s question and nodded.

“If necessary, we won’t shy away from a strike.”

“I see.”

Seong-ho Kim nodded at the union’s words and said nothing further.

Seeing that the reaction he expected wasn’t forthcoming from Seong-ho Kim, the union representative looked flustered.

Normally, at a moment like this, there would be some attempt at negotiation, or at least a few placating words to soothe the union’s feelings.

But Seong-ho Kim only looked at the union representative quietly, as if inviting him to say more if he had more to say.

A silence, with no one speaking, stretched on for a while like that.

Eventually, unable to bear it, one of the union officials spoke first.

“What do you intend to do? Do you have no intention of stopping the restructuring?”

Seong-ho Kim, who’d simply been watching the union side, straightened his posture and answered the question with a question of his own.

“Do you know how large Ilhyeon Hotel’s losses are?”

“Why would we need to know that? Doesn’t a large loss simply mean the company was mismanaged? Why try to pass the consequences of reckless management onto the employees?”

“You’re right. Reckless management is what drove the company into difficulty.”

Seong-ho Kim readily agreed with the union’s words.

Then he turned to look at President Jae-su Jeong and the others and said,

“I agree that the management team bears considerable responsibility for the company’s troubles. Which is why…”

Seong-ho Kim gestured toward Byeong-jin Jo.

At Seong-ho Kim’s signal, Byeong-jin Jo, who’d prepared for this in advance, set down what he’d brought on the table in front of the union side.

Seong-ho Kim pointed a finger at the papers laid out and said,

“We’ve already collected resignation letters in advance from every executive here. Since reviving the company comes first right now, we’ve held off on actually processing those resignations — but once the company is normalized, we plan to review each person’s degree of responsibility and accept them accordingly.”

“What? Is that really true?”

The startled union representative looked at President Jae-su Jeong with wide eyes and asked.

President Jae-su Jeong wore a bitter expression and nodded.

“Every one of us here has written a resignation letter.”

At President Jae-su Jeong’s confirmation, Seong-ho Kim said to the union representative,

“Even so, do you still oppose the restructuring?”

The union representative answered Seong-ho Kim’s question loudly.

“We cannot accept this!”

“We’re not even cutting employees — we’ve only changed job assignments. Is even that something you can’t accept?”

“Calling it a job reassignment is putting it kindly, but isn’t it effectively telling people to leave? How is a bellboy supposed to do housekeeping work, or an elevator girl supposed to take reservation calls?”

“I don’t understand this at all.”

Seong-ho Kim shook his head.

“When a company falls into difficulty, everyone should overcome it together — and yet the union won’t even do that much.”

Seeing that further conversation with Seong-ho Kim seemed pointless, the union representative shot up from his seat.

“You have one week.”

The union representative had chosen a notice rather than a negotiation.

“If things aren’t restored to their original positions within a week, we will enter an indefinite strike. Bear that in mind.”

“Yes, I wish your strike every success.”

At the sight of Seong-ho Kim showing not the faintest trace of fear, the union representative ground his teeth and stormed out.

The union officials who’d come with him followed after and left as well.

President Jae-su Jeong looked back and forth between the departed union people and Seong-ho Kim.

Once the union people were no longer in sight, he asked Seong-ho Kim cautiously,

“Director Kim. What do you intend to do?”

Hearing President Jae-su Jeong’s question, Seong-ho Kim smiled lightly and rose from his seat.

“I’m busy, so I’ll be on my way. If you have something you’d like to say, please come find me separately. Well, then…”

Without answering the executives’ question, Seong-ho Kim gave his farewell and left the conference room.

Once outside, Byeong-jin Jo came up to Seong-ho Kim.

“You really think President Jeong’s side and the union have joined forces?”

Byeong-jin Jo glanced back at the conference room they’d just left and continued,

“Management and the union are sworn enemies, aren’t they?”

“Sworn enemies or not, if they share a common enemy, they can join hands.”

“And that common enemy is you?”

At Byeong-jin Jo’s words, Seong-ho Kim smiled deeply.

Then he turned to Manager Byeong-ju Jeong and asked,

“How did it go?”

Byeong-ju Jeong understood the meaning behind Seong-ho Kim’s question and answered right away.

“The sorting-out is mostly finished, so we should be able to confirm it by tomorrow.”

“Good. Then let’s proceed as planned.”

Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo nodded in agreement at Seong-ho Kim’s words and followed after him.

Whether the union declared a strike or management and the union joined forces to try to shake the company, Seong-ho Kim didn’t care in the slightest.

Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo could only click their tongues in wonder at the sight of Seong-ho Kim, utterly unshaken.

Manager Byeong-ju Jeong began reporting to Seong-ho Kim what had been confirmed so far.

“From the furniture in Ilhyeon Hotel’s guest rooms to the cleaning supplies, bedding, sanitary products — even the memo pads on the tables and the lead in the ballpoint pens — none of it meets quality standards. Every item is substandard, the kind of thing you wouldn’t find even in a 4-star hotel, let alone a 5-star one.”

Seong-ho Kim smiled and said,

“When the people working have no discipline, there’s no way the goods would be up to standard either. So what about the suppliers?”

“There’s a company called DS Furniture that’s had an exclusive supply contract with Ilhyeon Hotel for the past ten years. They supply the furniture and bedding, and for consumables like cleaning products and memo pads, the hotel sources from a company called Dongsan Supplies… and it does seem, well…”

“The two are basically one body. Is that what you’re saying?”

At Seong-ho Kim speaking as though he already knew, Byeong-ju Jeong’s eyes widened and he asked,

“What, you already knew?”

“I didn’t know. I only just heard the names DS and Dongsan from you a moment ago — how would I have known?”

“Then how did you know they’re one and the same, if you didn’t know?”

“Hmm, cases like this are usually obvious.”

Seong-ho Kim recalled his experience from his past life and explained to the two of them.

“When a hotel doesn’t purchase goods directly but sources them through someone else, it’s an extremely convenient setup for skimming off privileges. Once you’ve charmed a few people at the top, of course you’d want to grab furniture, cleaning supplies, memo pads, even the pen lead — anything you can get your hands on, wouldn’t you?”

“You sound like a total expert.”

At Seong-ho Kim’s uncanny grasp of exactly where the company had gone wrong and where it had rotted, Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo looked at him with amazement.

Combined with how he hadn’t so much as flinched at the union’s move to shake things up, Seong-ho Kim’s performance was so skilled it seemed as if he were exactly what a restructuring expert should look like.

Of course, there was a reason Seong-ho Kim appeared this skilled to Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo.

‘I’ve seen this kind of thing until I’m sick of it.’

Having combed through the Ilhyeon Group inside and out over more than twenty years, the current situation at Ilhyeon Hotel was, to Seong-ho Kim, nothing more than one of the most common patterns imaginable.

Which was why the exact state of Ilhyeon Hotel, and how the other side would react, all sat neatly in the palm of Seong-ho Kim’s hand.

Seong-ho Kim said to Byeong-ju Jeong and Byeong-jin Jo, who were looking at him with wonder,

“Now that we understand the relationship, we need to find evidence to pin them down.”

“Is there a way to find evidence too?”

Byeong-ju Jeong looked at Seong-ho Kim, curious what method he’d propose this time.

Byeong-ju Jeong had tried to find evidence himself and failed, and Seong-ho Kim knew this as well as anyone.

So Byeong-ju Jeong assumed Seong-ho Kim understood just how difficult finding evidence really was.

And yet Seong-ho Kim brought up the subject of evidence as easily as pulling something out of a drawer, which made Byeong-ju Jeong wonder whether he’d found some method after all.

“It’s hard for us to find evidence from our end, so we need to make them move first.”

As Byeong-jin Jo and Byeong-ju Jeong looked at him, waiting eagerly for what came next, Seong-ho Kim smiled and laid out the method.

“Announce that the exclusive supply arrangement is being switched to a competitive bidding process. Say that even the existing suppliers, DS and Dongsan, will start from zero and compete fairly along with everyone else.”

“You’re switching supply to a competitive bidding system?”

“Yes. Whichever company wins the bid will supply Ilhyeon Hotel for two years, and after two years, we’ll run the bidding again — either keeping them on or selecting a new supplier. That’s only fair.”

At that, Byeong-ju Jeong slapped his knee and said,

“Right. That would let us find physical evidence.”

“Exactly. Once that happens, their side will move first on its own, so put someone on DS and Dongsan. We just follow along behind and collect the evidence.”

Seong-ho Kim smiled lightly at Byeong-ju Jeong’s words, then instructed Byeong-jin Jo,

“You find out if there’s anyone among the executives who might be willing to turn.”

“Turn — you mean someone willing to come over to our side?”

“They don’t necessarily need to come to our side. They just need to turn away from theirs.”

“So not quite a full betrayal — just find someone who’s sort of drifting on the outside of their group?”

“Right.”

Seong-ho Kim pointed a finger at Byeong-jin Jo and said,

“Find someone like that and just arrange a meeting between us. I’ll take it from there myself.”

Byeong-jin Jo and Byeong-ju Jeong were curious why Seong-ho Kim was looking for an executive on the outs with the others.

But given that nothing had gone the way they’d expected from the very start up to now, they wondered what use there’d be in trying to resolve their curiosity right away.

They had the feeling that even if they got an answer to what they were curious about now, another question would just follow right behind it.

The two of them nodded and left the office to carry out Seong-ho Kim’s instructions.

Seong-ho Kim leaned back comfortably in his chair and muttered to himself,

“What should I do with Ilhyeon Hotel once this is all wrapped up?”

With not the slightest worry about the restructuring itself, Seong-ho Kim spun his chair this way and that, spending his time thinking about what to do with Ilhyeon Hotel once the restructuring was complete.

(End of Chapter 37)