Badrutt's Palace Hotel. The event operations room.

Emilia Lorenz was paging through a tablet on the table, listening to a report.

She was one of the key executives who had planned the whole affair, from delivering the invitations to running the party.

Nearly everything went through her hands, from the young invitees' schedule to the dinner, the security and the private events.

"Vice Chairman Michael Herrington met Chairman Ha Tae-ung a little while ago."

Emilia's hand paused mid-swipe on the tablet.

"Michael Herrington?"

"Yes. Chairman Go Junyong of the Ilseong Group made the introduction himself."

"Ah."

Only then did she nod. She knew at least that much: Chairman Go Junyong and Michael Herrington were old friends.

But another thought pushed in right after.

A twenty-year-old had slipped in between the two of them.

Chairman Go Junyong had personally introduced Ha Tae-ung to an old friend of his. And to a heavyweight who'd lasted decades on Wall Street, no less.

That was no mere courtesy. At the very least, it meant Go Junyong thought very highly of Ha Tae-ung.

"How did the conversation go?"

"I'm told the mood was serious."

"The subject?"

"Our people caught snatches about the US stock market, tech stocks and semiconductors."

Agents posing as waiters and intelligence staff posing as bartenders were working every corner.

Whatever the big names let slip in St Moritz was gathered moment by moment, to be put to the right use in the right place as the times changed.

That vast store of information was exactly why Atlas hosted the event every year.

"Hmm……"

The look in Emilia's eyes changed noticeably. Last night came back to her.

The twenty-year-old Korean she'd sat across from over wine, talking for hours.

Liquidity after the pandemic, the outlook for US tech stocks. And on top of that, AI.

Ha Tae-ung had laid out every one of those subjects without a pause, as if he'd lived through them all.

And what about this afternoon? He'd accepted the ski race Alexander von Rosenberg had thrown down on a hot-headed impulse.

Watching the two of them in person…