Chapter 18: The Skilled Clown
Before his regression, Shin-woo had known Jang Man-soo for about 8 years.
Their relationship began even before Triad Eye was formed, back when Shin-woo was still a freelance mercenary.
Their meeting had been particularly striking.
While taking a break in Paris after completing a mission, Shin-woo had noticed a man in a zebra-print jacket, red shirt, and shiny blue pants working on a laptop at a café.
That man, of course, was Jang Man-soo.
While Jang Man-soo had briefly stepped away, someone stole his laptop and bag, and Shin-woo had caught the thieves.
That’s how their bond formed, and together they laid the foundation for Triad Eye based on their respective skills.
When asked why he dressed like that, Jang Man-soo said it was just something he did when he wanted to dress up.
Perhaps the more nervous he got, the more he lost control of his fashion sense.
Today was Jang Man-soo’s first day at MH Group.
“…What am I supposed to do with this guy?”
As the start of the workday approached, the people who had paused began to disperse.
In the clearing space, Jang Man-soo, standing confidently in his flamboyant attire, spotted Shin-woo waiting quietly.
“C-Captain, no, Baek Shin-woo!”
Jang Man-soo, almost out of habit, called Shin-woo “Captain” before correcting himself.
Seeing Jang Man-soo approach in his dazzling outfit, Shin-woo instinctively took a small step back.
“…Should I just go up alone?”
He was being completely sincere.
Jang Man-soo came closer and addressed him.
“You’re the one who told me to come to work. Why are you just standing there?”
“…You’re not going to dress like this all the time, right? This is just for today, right?”
“Huh? What’s wrong? Don’t I look good like this?”
Jang Man-soo confidently spun around, his lime-green jacket flaring slightly.
What part of this was supposed to look “good,” Shin-woo had no idea.
“…Never mind. Let’s just go up.”
Shin-woo had already informed the Human Resources Department through Director Song Tae-hoon of the Strategic Investment Headquarters about Jang Man-soo’s arrival.
Since he had used his authority as the Director of Strategic Investment Operations to hire Jang Man-soo, there was no issue there.
However, the time spent waiting for the elevator was pure agony, thanks to Jang Man-soo’s outfit.
‘Please, he’s not going to show up dressed like this every day, right…?’
Worrying to himself, they finally arrived on the 32nd floor, where the Strategic Investment Operations office was located.
Even while walking through the office hallway and heading to Shin-woo’s private room, they continued to draw the attention of the staff.
“Wow~ This place is really nice!”
Jang Man-soo said as he flopped down loudly on the sofa after looking around the office.
“It’s just spacious, that’s all.”
“They’re treating you well, huh? So, where’s my seat?”
“I’ll set up an office for you right next to mine. Later, if you have any team members you want, we can hire more and assign them to your team.”
Jang Man-soo nodded, then glanced through the office glass at the staff of the Strategic Investment Operations office.
“What about those people? If they work at MH Group’s headquarters, they can’t be bad, right?”
He wasn’t wrong.
As Team Leader Ji Young-sook had mentioned before, they were indeed talented people selected from within MH Group.
However, Shin-woo had no intention of placing them under Jang Man-soo’s command.
“There’s someone planted here by the Myung family.”
“What?! They already placed someone from the Myung family here? Wow… they’re really on guard.”
“Yesterday, Myung Seong-cheol, the president of MH Retail and MH Food, sent his second son to the Strategic Investment Audit Office as Deputy Director.”
Jang Man-soo was even more surprised at this explanation.
“So, Myung In-chul, the eldest son, is the Director of the Planning Office, and now the second son is the Deputy Director of the Audit Office? They’re really making it obvious that they’re watching you.”
“They must have felt threatened after the last profit report. I’ve already taken precautions, but it’s impossible to leave things unattended now.”
Shin-woo now had to assess the internal situation, not only as the CEO of KITE but also within MH Group.
“I get what you mean. So, the rank is just as you mentioned before?”
“You’ll be a manager. Later, when you go to the HR department, they’ll give you your ID card and the necessary paperwork.”
“You mean the Personnel Office? Sounds good. Thanks to you, I’ll get to be a manager in a big company.”
“Oh, and be careful with what you call me, too.”
Up until now, Jang Man-soo had been calling Shin-woo “Captain” at every opportunity.
After knowing each other for 8 years before the regression, the habit had stuck.
He had almost slipped up again in the lobby downstairs.
“So should I call you Director? Or CEO?”
Although part of it was due to Shin-woo holding two different positions, Jang Man-soo was clearly teasing him.
“Just call me whatever’s comfortable. It’s not like it won’t be obvious to everyone that we’re friends.”
“Ok―!”
“You’ll take care of your work as usual. But make sure that the task we talked about before is handled as planned without any issues.”
“You mean the 400% profit within three months, right?”
“It’s a conditional project tied to my position as the CEO of KITE. Since Myung Jin-seok is now in the Strategic Investment Audit Office, he’ll be reviewing the investment strategy you’ve designed.”
It was a warning to be cautious.
However, Jang Man-soo smiled, as if he had something in mind.
“I’ll have to invest in companies with solid foundations.”
“If you can do that, I’ll appreciate it.”
“I’m the same guy who used to secretly make slush funds for the NIS without getting caught~!”
“Watch how you say that, too.”
It was all talk about their experiences and habits before the regression.
Even though there wasn’t a bug in the office right now, if something like that slipped out, it could lead to a misunderstanding.
“Ok! Ok―!”
Jang Man-soo cheekily made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.
“Oh, the Director of Strategic Investment Headquarters might want to meet with you.”
“Huh? The lady?”
It was a teasing comment, just like last time.
“Do you want to die?”
“I’m just kidding. Anyway, if she calls me, is there anything else I should know besides what we talked about?”
“For now, just stick to what we discussed. There’s nothing on the surface that’ll cause trouble.”
“I’m supposed to say we met in the military, kept in touch occasionally, and then I got scouted while working as an investment trainer, right?”
At this point in time, there was no public connection between Shin-woo and Jang Man-soo.
The fortunate thing was that Jang Man-soo had finished his military service early.
Publicly, Shin-woo had been discharged as a non-commissioned officer from the Army Special Warfare Command’s logistics division.
During his service, he could claim to have met Jang Man-soo while dispatched to another unit.
Such events during one’s military service didn’t leave detailed records, so it was a plausible cover story.
“After that, say we only exchanged a few messages and that you don’t know anything more about me. Even if they think it’s suspicious, they won’t be able to dig any deeper.”
“This feels like a full-on spy mission. Got it. So, I just take over the project you were working on, right?”
“Please.”
“Then shall we head to my seat?”
“I’ll show you where it is.”
Shin-woo led Jang Man-soo out of the office and toward his designated spot.
【Strategic Investment Operations 3rd Team Leader (Manager) Jang Man-soo】
A nameplate with his title and rank was already set up on the partition in front of the desk.
The desk itself was equipped with six monitors and a high-performance computer, ready for stock trading and analyzing countless data.
“Oh~ This spot is nice. They even put my name on it.”
Jang Man-soo sat down, immediately booted up the computer, and pulled something out from his belt buckle.
Shin-woo, startled, whispered.
“A USB?”
“I wasn’t sure what they might have done to this system, so I brought this with me just in case.”
The USB had been disguised as a metallic belt buckle.
Jang Man-soo inserted it into one of the computer’s ports as it booted up.
Tatatatadak―
His fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard, bypassing MH Group’s security to get the unauthorized USB recognized.
The program on the USB soon loaded, and a familiar screen from Jang Man-soo’s workspace appeared.
【LEUCO Operating System Access】
【Log－in】
Shin-woo, now even more surprised, almost raised his voice before quickly lowering it.
“Hey―! How is this possible?”
LEUCO was supposed to only work from Jang Man-soo’s workshop.
But here it was, running on a freshly booted-up computer.
“You told me to come to the office, so I modified the OS so it could work from anywhere.
But look at this, they’ve been messing with it.”
On the screen, a list of programs detected by LEUCO OS popped up.
It showed a series of programs that recorded all user activity, including website login IDs and passwords, and sent them to an unknown location.
“Did you delete them already?”
Jang Man-soo continued typing rapidly, alternating between making new screens appear and deleting data.
“No, I rerouted everything through the router and used packet sniffing to divert the monitoring program.”
He had redirected the monitoring programs to another destination through the network.
Shin-woo had enough knowledge to understand the concept.
“Where to?”
“To a place where revealing the surveillance program would be a real headache.”
“And where is that?”
Jang Man-soo tracked the IP address of the computer receiving the surveillance data and found the names and positions of the people involved.
“…It’s a guy named Kim Yong-sik, the Head of the Personnel Management Department at MH Group headquarters. And the one receiving the program logs is Assistant Manager Moon Ji-hoon under him. But if this is going on, isn’t your computer at risk, too?”
“I called someone from the Personnel Management Department the moment I arrived and had them format my computer before installing only the essential programs under my supervision.”
Shin-woo had already anticipated this level of scrutiny and acted accordingly.
Plus, his computer had also been safeguarded by Im Hee-yeon to ensure that no one from the Myung family could tamper with it.
However, Shin-woo wasn’t aware of the extent of this situation.
“Well done. Just to be safe, I’ll give it a check. I’ll also set it up so anything installed later can be deleted automatically.”
“I’d appreciate that. But won’t this trigger MH Group’s system?”
“I told you, it’s a master key. As long as LEUCO is in play and the server isn’t completely isolated, everything is connected.”
“Even so, be careful.”
LEUCO was a program even the National Intelligence Service had tried to acquire.
Its risk level depended entirely on the user’s intentions.
“Don’t worry. I’ll finish up some work and then pay a visit to the Personnel Management Department. You get back to what you need to do.”
“Got it.”
With that, Shin-woo returned to his office.
***
MH Group Headquarters, Personnel Management Department.
Beep― Beep―
Kim Yong-sik, the department head, was hard at work when a security alarm suddenly flashed on his computer screen.
At the same time, his computer froze completely, and a password input window popped up.
“What is this? What’s going on?”
He was baffled by the unexpected situation.
He tried moving the mouse and typing on the keyboard, but nothing worked.
“Can someone take a look at this? My computer’s acting strange all of a sudden.”
One of his subordinates approached and glanced at the screen.
“It looks like the safety program installed by the Systems Management Department has been triggered. Maybe it detected some kind of dangerous virus?”
The Personnel Management Department was responsible for overseeing the staffing within MH Group.
Given that they handled sensitive employee information, security was of utmost importance.
“What? A virus? What should I do?!”
“We should contact the Systems Management Department immediately.”
“Hurry and call them!”
Before long, a Systems Management employee arrived.
“Excuse me.”
The employee quickly halted the frozen screen and entered the administrator password to assess the situation.
“Ah… It looks like there’s a surveillance program installed on this computer.”
Upon hearing that, Kim Yong-sik’s frustration and anger skyrocketed.
To him, it could only mean that someone had targeted his company computer.
“What?! Why is something like that installed? Who put that on my computer?”
“One moment, please. It seems like the program was set up to transmit logs… If we trace it back…”
The Systems Management employee was skilled enough to conduct an efficient search.
It didn’t take long before they traced the IP address connected to the surveillance program.
“Uh… The person responsible for transmitting the logs seems to be from this very department.”
“What?! Who is it?”
With a conflicted expression, the Systems Management employee spoke carefully.
“It’s coming from Assistant Manager Moon Ji-hoon’s computer.”
“Assistant Manager Moon?! Where’s Assistant Manager Moon Ji-hoon? Moon Ji-hoon!!”
Kim Yong-sik knew exactly who he was talking about.
His eyes blazed with anger as he looked around and shouted the name.
At that moment, Moon Ji-hoon emerged from the break room, humming a tune with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.
—
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