Chapter 177

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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I was quietly watching the footage that made the morning news. A rocket was spewing flames as it soared high into the sky, when,

KABOOM~!!

With a massive explosion, it shattered into pieces and scattered everywhere.

Milton Tusk’s ambitious test flight rocket for low orbit had ended in failure.

“Still, Milton Tusk and Space aren’t calling this a failure. They’ve given interviews saying they learned a lot from this and will absolutely not fail next time.”

The flight failure didn’t shake Tisla’s stock price.

After all, Space is an unlisted company, and people viewed it as separate from Tisla.

“Moreover, they seem to believe that the rocket project Space is pushing forward will ultimately succeed. They’re actually achieving meaningful results.”

What Space is currently experimenting with is a fully reusable rocket.

A technology where, after a successful launch, the rocket separates and the booster returns to base for reuse. if this truly becomes reality, it would save an overwhelming amount of costs.

“In other words, rockets that can be operated like airplanes. That will be Space T’s ultimate goal.”

And those rockets will be headed for Mars.

“At first, when Milton Tusk said he was going to Mars, I honestly thought it was viral marketing to attract public attention, but it seems he’s really trying to go to Mars.”

Just looking at the companies Milton Tusk is currently running shows this. By operating a company that drills underground facilities, he plans to drill underground facilities first when they eventually go to Mars, since humans can’t live on the surface.

He’s also pouring immense interest into Bitcoin. If Mars terraforming really happens, it won’t belong to any existing nation. a new nation will be born.so he intends to use Bitcoin as the new currency.

Beyond that, androids that will go to Mars first to prepare settlements, rockets as transportation, electric vehicles that run on electricity instead of oil, and WorldLink that enables internet anywhere.

All his companies are focused solely on Mars terraforming.

What’s surprising is that our Gwangwoon is investing in those companies of Milton Tusk.

“Milton Tusk also tried to develop AI independently, but since our Gwangwoon is directly investing in Space T and WorldLink, he’s completely halted AI development and will instead maximize the use of XPT.”

He must recognize that we’re investors who consistently provide investment funds, and more importantly, XPT’s performance is improving day by day, so he seems to have judged that it’s too late to develop now.

Close AI recently released XPT-4 to the public, but an XPT with far superior performance already exists right now.

The age of artificial intelligence is truly not far off.

“Please continue to provide investment funds whenever inquiries come in. We don’t know how much it will develop in the future, and above all, we’re making good use of WorldLink.”

Thanks to WorldLink being usable anywhere in the world, our Sentinel is utilizing WorldLink the most.

Isn’t it technology that enables communication in places where communication is difficult?

Not only Sentinel but also our foundation employees going to remote areas are finding it useful.

“And President, about the ESG association the foundation is promoting?”

“Ah, yes. How is it going?”

“They’ve completed the building with headquarters and the structure is mostly in place. Now what remains is deciding who to place in each position, and head office sent me a candidate list for that.”

I thought head office and the foundation would arrange the members themselves, but they left the personnel authority to me.

Honestly, it’s burdensome at times like this. If I pick the wrong people, the association we’ve worked on could crumble.

“……”

But fortunately, I have one ability that others don’t.

After briefly scanning the profiles on the list, before long, lights started flickering next to each name.

“But… why are these candidates’ qualifications like this?”

Aside from the lights flickering, looking at the qualifications of the people on the list was intimidating.

“Will these people accept if we contact them?”

“There are some we arbitrarily selected as candidates, but the majority apparently submitted applications directly to our ESG association. These are the final candidates created through internal screening from among those.”

That was unexpected.

The ESG association isn’t really a big deal.

It was just created to have at least some positive impact on society and the environment while protecting the rights of workers in blind spots.

Even if we run this association, it’s questionable whether companies will follow us well, and even if we give evaluations, it’s uncertain whether that will really significantly impact sales.

Yet contrary to our intentions, people in surprisingly high positions were showing interest in positions at our association.

‘This is a bit burdensome, but…’

I thought I understood why my intuition was shining so clearly on each name.

I didn’t know if it was okay to bring people who were at the top tier. not just one tier, but two or three tiers. of the industry to such a humble place, but I quickly finished checking.

“Please forward this list as is.”

But they won’t all quit soon, will they?

***

“The list? Is it out?”

“Yes. President Jeong Jin-ho just forwarded it to us.”

As expected, fast.

A personnel decision came in just a few minutes after the report went in.

Normally when making personnel decisions, especially with such fierce candidates, it takes days, weeks, sometimes months.

That’s because the candidates’ qualifications are highly competitive, and we need to carefully judge who fits our association while also benefiting Gwangwoon.

“But Chairman, the fact that he made a personnel decision in just a few minutes means…”

“Jin-ho already had people in mind?”

“Yes. There’s no way he could make a decision this quickly otherwise. He wouldn’t have just looked at profiles superficially and randomly picked them.”

That’s true.

Hwang Dae-woon prides himself on having an accurate eye for people, but he knew how inferior his ability was compared to Jeong Jin-ho.

Jin-ho has never failed when selecting people.

Has there ever been a case in Gwangwoon’s history where someone Jeong Jin-ho picked caused problems?

He doesn’t know what process he uses to select people, but Jin-ho’s eye has always been accurate.

The fact that this company has grown to this scale and still runs smoothly, and the game guild that’s hard to maintain has grown large enough to spread overseas. all of that is thanks to Jeong Jin-ho’s personnel selection.

“Actually, the middle process took the longest. When word got out about Gwangwoon recruiting people for the ESG association, requests came pouring in from everywhere.”

Everyone here, including Hwang Dae-woon, felt Gwangwoon’s power once again.

Those proud people who seemed like they would never bow to anyone were all rushing like wolves to beg to be selected when they heard Gwangwoon was opening an ESG association.

Thanks to that, employees had to work through the night to filter them out in the middle.

“Perhaps President Jeong Jin-ho already made up his mind during that process?”

“Probably. I was also surprised, you know? I never imagined this many people would apply.”

“Yes, the people’s qualifications are incredible too. By the way, Chairman, it seems we really didn’t understand President Jeong’s intentions well.”

“What?”

“Didn’t Chairman Kang Seong-ho say that this ESG association was created by President Jeong Jin-ho specifically to target Ample? He asked how we could not know that.”

At first, the thought was ‘no way.’

But upon investigating more closely, it seemed Kang Seong-ho was right.

After all, it was strange that Gwangwoon, which is currently destroying the Amazon region while proceeding with various mining and nuclear technology, would suddenly create an ESG association.

That’s why I’m still embarrassed.

I, who should know Jeong Jin-ho’s mind better than anyone, was worse than Kang Seong-ho, someone from another company.

“You can tell just by looking at the people selected this time. They’re all very friendly toward Gwangwoon, and among them are people who don’t get along well with Ample or who have been outspoken about Ample.”

“Then this really is…”

“Yes. If we attack directly right now, we could deal a big blow to Ample, but we would likely suffer significant damage too. Ample is Americans’ pride, and the US government wouldn’t want Ample to be damaged. There would probably be tremendous retaliation.”

Ample was even chosen as the company Americans are most proud of.

Because it represents innovation.

So Jeong Jin-ho chose a different method.

“Rather than a frontal attack, he’s attacking from the bottom. Touching the pride Americans have in Ample. If we work with ESG to wage a public opinion war saying the company they loved was actually something shameful, Ample’s value will keep falling.”

“And we could eventually take control of Ample?”

“Yes. Just like how President Jeong Jin-ho has devoured other giant corporations until now.”

Ample was now facing the same fate.

***

Ample wasn’t just sitting back and taking Gwangwoon’s attacks.

They were mobilizing every connection they could to plead for protection of Ample.

“The new product launch has been completely derailed, and it will take quite a while to procure parts in the future. All factories have stopped because the core parts aren’t coming out.”

All of this was Gwangwoon’s fault.

But what’s annoying is that Gwangwoon very cleverly avoided responsibility.

When they came out arrogantly asking how they could predict natural disasters and rebel attacks, Ample couldn’t refute them.

The moment they asked if Gwangwoon had caused all of that, Ample would become a worldwide laughingstock for being caught up in conspiracy theories.

“Any direct attacks from Gwangwoon yet?”

“No. We’re monitoring continuously, but there’s no sign of Gwangwoon trying to acquire Ample shares in large quantities.”

Should this be called fortunate?

Or should it be seen as Gwangwoon waiting for the right moment to bite the back of our neck?

Still, hearing there was no direct attack yet was somewhat reassuring.

Perhaps Gwangwoon might retreat after poking a few times, thinking it’s hard to swallow Ample. a small hope emerged.

“But CEO, it seems Gwangwoon is trying to attack us from a different direction.”

But was it just a small hope after all?

“Gwangwoon just established and announced a new ESG association, and the chairperson and committee members who took office there are quite troubling.”

Tim Hook already knew Gwangwoon was creating an ESG association from all the buzz.

“What does that association have to do with our company?”

“Nothing now, but there will be. Several of the key personnel in the ESG association are people from Wingard and WhiteRock.”

“…!”

Wingard and WhiteRock are major shareholders holding nearly 20% of Ample’s shares.

“Moreover, there are also former political figures and environmental group executives who don’t get along with us mixed in, so there are ongoing rumors that ESG is targeting Ample.”

“How much could that… affect us?”

“That’s the problem. We can’t calculate how much it could affect us. If they evaluate our company however they want and continuously expose it through media and SNS, our company image will inevitably be ruined in the long term.”

Hearing that, Tim Hook frowned.

“Isn’t that clear manipulation of public opinion?”

“Yes. That’s exactly the purpose of establishing this ESG association. In a tilted playing field, Gwangwoon sets their own evaluation criteria to give competing companies the worst scores, then completely destroys their image through the media they control.”

Listening quietly, it was strange.

What would happen if the ESG association really moves according to Gwangwoon’s taste?

“The ESG association becomes a weapon to attack our Ample while simultaneously stabbing any companies that oppose Gwangwoon in the future. If they touch their nerves, Gwangwoon gives evaluations saying they’re ruining society and the environment with an unfair governance structure, and takes control of public opinion.”

Only then did Tim Hook understand why Gwangwoon suddenly created an ESG association.

They had created a new weapon, using society and the environment as excuses, to trample all companies and competitors that oppose their power in the future.

And the first experimental target was Ample, known as America’s greatest company.

Because destroying Ample would mean being able to easily crush other companies too.

End