Chapter 157

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Chairman. As of today, market cap has dropped to $500 billion.”

“……”

Lainjov rubbed his face dry and let out a deep sigh.

“Why is the stock price falling like this?”

“There are two major pieces of bad news for our Bluezone. One is the mass layoff of 15,000 employees due to poor performance, and the other is the goods shortage because ships are stuck at sea due to the pirate problem. Ah, and there’s also Gwangwoon and Kangsung unilaterally cutting off semiconductor support to our BWS.”

But what dealt the decisive blow to Bluezone was something else.

“The rumors floating around on SNS are what’s having the biggest impact on stock prices right now.”

“Are you talking about that garbage that Mylon Tusk posted?”

“Yes. He’s saying things as if the Chairman has already sold all your shares and escaped.”

You have to acknowledge what’s true.

Mylon Tusk is the greatest attention-grabber on SNS.

Such a person was going around saying Bluezone is already finished and Lainjov had long ago dumped all his shares and fled using the space industry as an excuse.

The problem was that whenever Mylon Tusk posts on SNS, people worldwide see it, so many actually believe it’s true.

“Why is that guy suddenly acting up again when he was keeping quiet?”

“The relationship between Gwangwoon and Mylon Tusk has been talked about for a long time. Rumor has it Mylon Tusk is working under Gwangwoon.”

“That arrogant weirdo? What a joke.”

Lainjov knew what kind of person Mylon Tusk was.

He would absolutely never crawl under someone to work.

“But circumstantially, it’s true that Mylon Tusk is currently joining hands with Gwangwoon to pressure our Bluezone. Thanks to that, Gwangwoon is continuously buying our shares at low prices, and Mylon Tusk keeps posting on SNS to lower our company’s stock price.”

“Release a statement saying that’s absolutely not true. When did I sell all my shares!”

“But Chairman. It’s true that you’re still steadily selling shares to put into Blue Space.”

“I still hold more than 10% of shares.”

“That’s irrelevant. People only care that you really sold shares. When you stepped down from CEO to become Chairman, didn’t you promise to grow Bluezone even more? In people’s eyes, that promise has been broken.”

The story that Lainjov was selling his shares for the space industry actually came out long ago. But back then people didn’t pay much attention.

Because Bluezone wasn’t in crisis like now.

“Mylon Tusk and Gwangwoon are exploiting exactly that weakness. Pushing continuously when people’s attention is focused. Also, doesn’t Mylon Tusk’s Space T business overlap with Blue Space? He’ll be doing his best to eliminate a new competitor at this opportunity.”

“So Gwangwoon is deliberately helping Mylon Tusk?”

“They’re helping each other while profiting. Gwangwoon wants to acquire our Bluezone, and Mylon Tusk wants the Chairman gone from the space industry.”

Currently Blue Space was still in development stage.

It wasn’t at a scale to threaten Space T.

But in a few years it would definitely catch up.

Hadn’t he already reached an agreement for a future contract with NASA?

So Mylon Tusk wanted to cut the sprout even one day sooner before Blue Space could grow.

“At this pace, we’ll be forced to choose like Faceweb. Before Faceweb was taken over by Gwangwoon, wasn’t it suffering from all kinds of slanderous news like us now, with stock prices crashing and doing major restructuring?”

Now Faceweb and Bluezone’s situations were flowing similarly.

Both did major restructuring due to poor performance, and stock prices were crashing from attacks that started externally.

“Asset management companies that never intervened in any business direction are also starting to pressure our board.”

The biggest problem was that even asset management companies like Whiterock or Wingard, which hold massive shares but don’t participate in management, were pressuring the board.

“Sigh. If I knew this would happen…………”

Every time the name Gwangwoon reached his ears, Lainjov didn’t pay much attention.

After all, it was just a company that started from a small country.

He thought it was woefully inadequate compared to Bluezone’s prestige.

But while he was ignoring them, Gwangwoon had been exerting influence worldwide.

Mylon Tusk knew that early too—wasn’t that why he bowed his head and went under them in advance?

***

“Nigeria is the 10th largest oil-producing country in the world. It’s also an OPEC member. Additionally, its natural gas reserves rank in the global top 10.”

In gaming terms, it would be like a cheat map.

A blessed land where milk and honey flow.

But Nigeria’s current state was very impoverished despite all those resources.

The wealth gap was enormous, and people’s lives were devastated by endless civil wars and conflicts.

“Foreign companies did rush in seeing the overflowing oil and natural gas in Nigeria, but most have now withdrawn.”

“Is it because of civil wars?”

“Yes. Civil wars are one thing, but apparently there are too many forces attacking pipelines to steal oil. Even when crude oil prices surge, oil theft happens uncontrollably.”

Even when companies tried to extract oil, armed rebels or other military forces would appear and steal the oil, making the companies just do favors for others.

And the government wasn’t actively protecting that either.

There were many rotten people within the government and many who were in cahoots with these criminal organizations, so companies eventually gave up and withdrew.

“Also, even when they diligently extract and sell oil, the money only goes to certain interest groups while citizens below don’t receive a single penny, so everyone falls into criminal organizations, making the situation worse.”

This situation ultimately meant there were many thieves in the country.

If they had carefully distributed money from the top to look after people’s livelihoods, the number of people falling into criminal organizations would have plummeted, security would have gradually stabilized, and it would have become a much better country than now.

“But the elite class severely monopolized wealth, and Nigeria as a whole was ruined. That’s also why civil wars keep happening.”

The resource curse. Nigeria is selected as the representative country for exactly that.

A phenomenon where even though they have resources that could make them wealthy, their people’s livelihoods become poor instead.

This was the horrific result of relying only on resources, collapsing industrial diversity, and corrupt politicians.

“But Somalia is even more serious. They also have enormous oil and natural gas reserves. Even uranium, iron ore, copper, and so on. Various resources are buried there. But nothing has actually been developed.”

“And isn’t the fishing ground there incredible too? I heard it’s one of the world’s best fishing grounds.”

“Yes. The problem is there are many pirates there, and many criminal organizations and rebel forces, making development itself impossible. After the regime collapsed in ’91, the stateless period continued, and now there is a central government, but there’s a massive rebel force called Al-Shabaab, and except for the capital, rebels are ruling the rest of the regions.”

Somalia was also a land of opportunity no less than Nigeria.

But it was stateless for a long time, and though the UN intervened to make it function as a country, soon a massive rebel force appeared and now everyone has cut ties.

“The situation has also gotten worse because developed countries haven’t been able to pay attention to other countries like before due to successive financial crises.”

I let out a short sigh.

“It’ll be tough for us too. To do our shipping business safely.”

“Yes. We’ve joined hands with the military for now, but I’m not sure if investing a lot of money will really let us control things as we want while growing our power.”

The Vice President’s words scared me too. I worried we might just lose money while the security situation worsens, dealing a fatal blow to our shipping business.

“President. And this is the list of people who applied to our PMC. There were more applicants than expected, so we filtered once on documents and gathered only those with top-tier specs.”

“Really? Were there that many applicants?”

“Yes. I didn’t know there would be this many either. Plus there are many people who worked at intelligence agencies like the CIA.”

I looked over the list the Vice President handed me.

I’d heard people who worked at CIA or MI6 sometimes go to PMCs.

True to that, there were quite a few who quit after working at intelligence agencies.

“……..”

Even if I read all their profiles, I can’t judge who I really need.

But my intuition can.

I briefly closed and opened my eyes.

Sure enough, lights began emanating from each name.

I checked every name that lit up without missing any, then handed it to the Vice President.

“Please hire them exactly as marked.”

“Um……… won’t you conduct interviews?”

“No. Instead, I should meet them once after hiring. To distribute positions too.”

“I’ll handle that.”

“Yes. Then please do that.”

I felt bad making the Vice President handle so many things.

But I felt at ease that something seemed to be progressing.

***

“Honestly, I didn’t expect you to hire employees en masse based only on documents without interviews.”

“That’s our President’s style.”

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan suddenly had his workload explode by temporarily taking charge of the PMC matter too.

But he wasn’t annoyed at all.

Because even Kang Ji-hwan could vaguely sense that something tremendous was about to happen.

Rather, he was grateful to be entrusted with such core work.

It meant President Jeong Jin-ho trusted him that much.

“It’s a shame. I really wanted to meet President Jeong Jin-ho at least once, using an interview as an excuse.”

“Our President?”

“You might not know this, Vice President, but do you know which place the CIA, MI6, and numerous other intelligence agencies I worked at were most interested in? It was Gwangwoon. Especially President Jeong Jin-ho, called the supreme decision-maker at Gwangwoon, draws a lot of interest.”

“……….”

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan tried not to show it, but his throat had already gone dry.

“So they dug into this company quite persistently, but really not a speck of dust came out. Even investigating in connection with all those incidents, I’d never seen a company with so little connection. To a scary degree.”

“…….”

“Such a mysterious company suddenly recruiting PMC employees? Those who were once in intelligence agencies couldn’t resist. Neither could I. That’s why I rushed to submit my application.”

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan looked at the profile of the person before him.

Anthony Watson.

Worked at CIA for 15 years.

That was it for specs, and that was enough.

The problem was people with such deadly backgrounds were flocking to Gwangwoon’s PMC.

“Do you know what work you’ll be doing at our PMC?”

“Yes. I roughly understood from the briefing earlier. That’s why I got even more chills.”

“Pardon?”

“Looking at the people hired this time, I recognized many faces. Of course, there were unfamiliar faces too, but talking with them a bit, they were people who worked in departments similar to mine.”

“Similar departments…………”

“Operations. On the surface it’s called operations as a department, but the actual work is covert ops. Slowly weakening and dismantling opposing forces, making them kill each other, then taking control of the area.”

“…….”

This was something Vice President Kang Ji-hwan hadn’t known at all.

“Joining hands with the military to take control of and eliminate not just that government but rebel forces and criminal organizations through covert ops. You’ve gathered only specialists in exactly that kind of work. Probably everyone hired here, including me, realized today why they were selected. And what they need to do.”

“…….”

“But what’s even more surprising is that neither I nor the familiar faces here ever properly disclosed what our specialties were. Covert ops involves a lot of classified national secrets, so it’s not revealed outwardly. We don’t write it well in profiles either. Yet as if knowing all that, they selected and filled only people from that field—”

Anthony shook his head.

“I expected it, but Gwangwoon’s intelligence capabilities indeed exceed imagination. I think I understand why they hired without interviews too. They already knew everything. Including that we would submit applications. Isn’t that right?”

“…….”

Kang Ji-hwan recalled President Jeong Jin-ho checking off profiles without hesitation.

To others it might have looked like careless selection, but actually President Jeong Jin-ho had already decided who to hire.

Then who had brought those profiles before Vice President Kang Ji-hwan?

“If you make me the manager who can lead this PMC team, I’m confident I can properly carry out what Gwangwoon wants.”

“What kind of work?”

“What Gwangwoon wants is to take control of Nigeria, Togo, and Somalia. But it must not appear to outsiders that Gwangwoon is pulling the strings behind this. That’s our specialty, isn’t it? Through covert ops, not exposing Gwangwoon’s name while making forces collapse naturally.”

“You’re going to do things our Gwangwoon didn’t even ask you to do?”

“Yes. Making sure the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. If you just support us well, there will absolutely be no exposure.”

You shouldn’t independently handle things the company didn’t order.

But if that’s really what President Jeong Jin-ho wants?

“Positions probably haven’t been decided yet, but please consider carefully. With the people gathered here, I think we can do the job very well.”

“Nothing has been decided. I’ll notify you separately about positions.”

“Yes. Shall I call in the next person?”

Grinning, Anthony left the interview room.

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan stared blankly at his retreating figure before lowering his gaze to the profile.

It was a lie that positions hadn’t been decided yet.

Actually, President Jeong Jin-ho had already assigned positions after selecting the personnel here.

And Anthony Watson, who had pitched that he could do everything without exposing Gwangwoon’s name, his position was—

“……”

Director General, able to command all employees.

<End of Chapter 157>