“Drink. It’s puer, made from old tea trees in Yunnan by the traditional method.”

“Yes, sir! Director.”

“When it’s the two of us just call me sunbae-nim. Between us.”

“Yes, sir!”

Within the Jo and Jang organisation there is no such title as director, strictly speaking.

It is an interest group operated in a partnership form, with several chief attorneys and a large number of individual attorneys under contract.

The attorneys under contract take retainers freely, build their own teams and take the profit.

The capacity of the senior attorneys, who rank with division heads, decides that team’s performance.

And so people were needed who could control them.

People who regulate disputes with other law firms, and of course with the other teams inside the Jo and Jang organisation.

The director-grade figures are, for that reason, people who exist at Jo and Jang without a post.

Jo and Jang’s old senior attorneys, made up of the chief attorneys’ close associates.

Hong Ilsu, who has summoned Kim Gyeongmin now, is one of those figures.

Hong Ilsu is an attorney specialised in the corporate government-relations side.

One telephone call from him and there is no group his tongue will not work on.

He is a middleman with a name in the legal world.

Companies, the courts, the prosecution service, and beyond them the senior officials of the administration — Hong Ilsu managed all of them.

And Kim Gyeongmin, who has received a summons from a Director Hong Ilsu like that.

Kim Gyeongmin quietly drank the puer Hong Ilsu had offered.

The fermentation seemed to have been done properly, and the puer was nutty and clean.

Kim Gyeongmin emptied the whole cup of tea in silence.

Hong Ilsu has nothing particular to say either.

“Gyeongmin-a.”

“Yes, sir! Sunbae-nim.”

Hong Ilsu, his direct sunbae from Seoguk University’s law faculty and the research society.

He is ten years older, but the two are men with a bond going back into the past.

Both having served as officers of the research society, their bond was deeper than the other members’.

The kind of relationship in which each pushes and pulls the other along wherever they are.

The person who recommended Kim Gyeongmin to Jo and Jang was Hong Ilsu too.

“Has your style changed a bit lately?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s just that a well-behaved man like you seems to have changed a little all of a sudden.”

Who is it?

Kim Gyeongmin was curious about the source of the information.

Hong Ilsu had let slip a remark suggesting he had obtained information from around Kim Gyeongmin.

Perhaps thanks to the VIP Ha Tae-ung a rumour has gone round the upper class.

“I was in the position of having had a job worked on me, so there was nothing to be done.”

“A job?”

“Young as he is, the young master is a Ha too, it turns out.”

“Right, the Ha men are poisonous.”

Hong Ilsu, nodding his head as though he agreed.

“The contract has every confirmation on it, so it can’t even be taken back. The penalty exceeds my lifetime’s salary.”

“I know. It was a proper piece of work. Hahaha.”

Hong Ilsu showed an unexpected reaction.

A middle-aged man in a blue tailored suit, bursting into a hearty laugh and looking at Kim Gyeongmin.

He is not a figure who came out of the bench or the prosecution service.

Hong Ilsu passed the bar examination and went straight into the Jo and Jang firm.

His results at the training institute were top as well.

Afterwards he became the chief attorneys’ hands and feet and took the seat he holds today.

The impression he gives is dignified and kindly, and he is quicker than anybody to cut a loss in human relationships.

He is notorious in particular for clearing out attorneys without ability, without mercy, as each case arises.

“It won’t be easy to carry.”

Hong Ilsu’s advice went on.

“The betting went in large.”

“……I seem to have misjudged your ability. That your nerve ran to this much, I never…….”

Hong Ilsu’s words, with a bone in them.

Quietly he made him take in once more that the other party is Haryun Group.

“The first card in my hand is…… a pair of aces. One I absolutely cannot fold on.”

Kim Gyeongmin put strength into his eyes and declared his resolve.

It is what he had warned his team member Ah Yura about as well.

Kim Gyeongmin too is a piece set on the board Ha Tae-ung has laid out.

He has no intention whatever of remaining a pawn.

At the least it is a board on which he must become something like a knight swinging a spear for the king.

“I should like to meet the young master once myself. If a timid man like you has a frame of mind like this…….”

Curiosity settled in Hong Ilsu’s two eyes.

“Probably soon…… you will meet him.”

“My heart’s still shaking…….”

“Mine too.”

“Mad! How much is it in won, for God’s sake…….”

The Cheonghwa High School Management Studies Society room after the members had scattered.

Jang Jiyu and Kang Junu sat facing each other.

Classmates and relations, who have grown up walking the same course since kindergarten.

The level of their houses being similar too, the two of them sometimes had a sitting like this.

Jang Jiyu, socially Sindo Group’s eldest daughter, but privately a girl with many wounds.

And Kang Junu, who will inherit the management of the Ilseong Hotel.

The grain of them is similar, and something empty runs through the two of them.

More than that, today the two of them took a shock from the same thing.

The investment balance Ha Tae-ung, Haryun Group’s descendant and a charity case, had made them confirm.

The after-image flickering before their eyes would not go away.

“That isn’t all of it.”

“There’s…… more?”

“Yeah.”

“Whaaa…… at.”

A gasp broke out of Jang Jiyu’s mouth.

“It was futures investment. Ten times at the least.”

“Isn’t that too cool-nerved? If it goes…… to the opposite position…….”

“He won’t lose.”

“Why?”

“My gut says so.”

“Just your gut?”

“Jiyu-ya. The gut is intelligence.”

“…….”

At Kang Junu’s words Jang Jiyu shut her mouth.

It is a strength of Kang Junu’s that she acknowledges too.

“Is that the reason you picked Ha Tae-ung?”

“Yeah.”

“Impressive. Our Junu~”

“You’re going to invest too, aren’t you?”

“……A few notes, lightly.”

“More. If you can afford it.”

“How much are you going to do?”

“I’m going to pack it full.”

“Does your mother allow it?”

“It’s mine, so.”

“……I’m envious. I have less than I look like having.”

Jang Jiyu opened up honestly.

The whole of what she has is the assets left by a mother who threw her own life away.

The shares inherited from her grandfather cannot be disposed of yet, her status being a minor’s.

Her father too has not set anything large aside as Jang Jiyu’s portion.

She is plainly the eldest daughter, but the house has not acknowledged her in name.

Her grandmother, to begin with, discriminated against a small Jang Jiyu, calling her a child got from some song-and-dance girl’s blood.

“It’s a chance. Take it as you see fit.”

Kang Junu’s advice, cold but necessary.

“Pff…….”

Jang Jiyu, who knows what it means, stuck her lips out.

Shall I invest properly, for once?

The look in Jang Jiyu’s eyes changed.

She has secret funds that nobody knows about.

There was a slush fund her mother left.

That money, which is like her mother’s last breath!

Nobody in the house knew.

Jang Jiyu called to mind the thing she is hiding.

And she was torn.

“Ha Tae-ung looks likely to cause a big incident, doesn’t he?”

“……It looks as though it will be interesting.”

Kang Junu, his eyes glittering at Jang Jiyu’s question.

The war of succession and inheritance, like a fate none of a group’s descendants can avoid.

It is an ambition Kang Junu too came to hold at some point.

He did not want to end as a mere hotel manager.

A dream not permitted to his mother, and a goal beyond it!

Crunch.

Kang Junu, adding imagination to a hot passion, gripped his fist.

Ha Tae-ung, the charity case who has become his friend.

He has become the driving force by which Kang Junu designs a new future.

Kaaang!

“Nice~”

The Cheonghwa High School golf practice range.

The pupils and the teachers have for the most part left the school.

Two people warming up at their leisure at the range.

An Hyeonju was full of admiration at Ha Tae-ung’s clean driver.

It gets more precise as it goes. There isn’t one thing to correct in the form either.

The driver form is fine enough to be believed a professional’s.

The average carry too seems to be well over three hundred metres.

Ha Tae-ung, sending a long ball out accurately to the target he wants.

“That’s refreshing.”

Ha Tae-ung, who from the moment he came to the range has swung the driver about a hundred strokes in a row.

Sweat shows on his forehead.

“Is something the matter?”

An Hyeonju, asking it on a woman’s instinct.

Ha Tae-ung, driver in hand, gazes at the target far off.

Whirrrl.

His hair scattered on the evening wind blowing in.

At the sight of Ha Tae-ung, sculpted and sunk in deep thought, An Hyeonju bit lightly at her lip.

Ha Tae-ung, an adult in years but a pupil in social standing.

An Hyeonju’s subtle feeling, tilting toward him.

“……It seems there is high and low in people, that’s all.”

Ha Tae-ung called to mind the Management Studies Society members who had been testing him.

He went over again all the feelings toward himself that had been held in their eyes.

Wariness, envy, jealousy, despair and fear, and awe followed by a sense of defeat, and the rest of it.

Fellows who put on airs more than anybody at school and who, when you know them, are of no consequence.

With numbers on a screen he brought the fellows to their knees.

They were fellows he could not even have dared look at in the past before the regression, and now they looked beneath him.

There was a satisfying feeling to it, but at the same time it was slightly disappointing.

Before long the AI age is realised.

Those people are, in the end, the managers who will take charge of the Republic of Korea’s future.

Whether the level of consciousness of the group heirs, who will exert a profound influence on that future, can keep step with a rapidly changing AI age.

“Shall we have a drink?”

An Hyeonju said it, stepping closer.

At the words Ha Tae-ung suddenly felt a mouthful of cold beer to be urgent.

“Shall we?”

“Today noona’s paying!”

An Hyeonju’s voice, as she watched Ha Tae-ung’s expression, changed to a pleasant high tone.

At exactly that moment.

“Heeeeeeey! Ha Tae-uuung!!”

(End of Chapter 115)