Chapter 19: Deceptive Tactics

Han Yeri understood my words, but she didn’t fully grasp them.  

“An enemy of our enemy? Who are you talking about?”  

“Who else? The ones who want a stake in Kangseong Foods.”  

“…You’re suggesting we use others from my family?”  

“Yes.”  

Han Yeri let out a short, incredulous laugh and shook her head.  

“You’d better come up with another idea. No one’s going to help.”  

“Why not?”  

“In a family feud, it’s all about minimizing bloodshed. The moment you show weakness, you’ll get hit from behind.”  

If they fight tooth and nail, spilling blood, all I need to do is pick up the scraps and profit from it.  

There’s no reason to jump into that war and get bloodied myself.  

“To pull those people in, offering up Ribbon Corporation wouldn’t even be enough.”  

“You’re saying we need more than just a solid benefit?”  

“Not just solid. Overwhelming benefits. And I’m not keen on pulling them in while handing over that kind of gain.”  

Bringing in others to solve an immediate crisis  

is like pulling out the foundation pillars while trying to repair a house.  

At least, that’s how Han Yeri seemed to see it.  

“So, Mr. Kang, you’d better choose your next words carefully.”  

“I know what you’re worried about, Ms. Han. You’re concerned that other relatives might take the shares, right?”  

“That’s just a bonus. But the biggest worry is inevitable.”  

“Then what if we could shake things up without giving away any shares?”  

“…What are you proposing?”  

I grinned and said,  

“Iron ore.”  

“…What?”  

“I’m going to sell iron ore to Kangseong Steel. At a steep discount, no less.”  

The next field I’m diving into is heavy industry, specifically steel.  

If I can use Kangseong Steel as a stepping stone for this venture,  

I can shore up my cash flow and deal an unexpected blow to my rivals.  

I haven’t figured out how much to sell it for yet.  

But I’m confident I can sell it cheaper than the iron ore imported from overseas.  

The iron ore coming through as offerings doesn’t incur tariffs or distribution costs.  

At my words, Han Yeri set down her wine glass and sank into thought.  

She seemed to be calculating whether the card I’d played was enough to move the other side.  

It looked like she found it a bit iffy.  

But I was confident.  

Kangseong Steel has no choice but to accept.  

There aren’t many ways to boost profits in heavy industry.  

Setup times, production times, and the high cost of production equipment mean that simply increasing output doesn’t significantly raise net profits.  

But if you can cut current expenses?  

If you can reduce the cost of raw materials, higher profits are guaranteed.  

From Kangseong Steel’s perspective, rather than dragging out a messy fight over shares,  

strengthening their core through this deal would be a far more attractive option.  

The problem is, this isn’t exactly a sweet deal for Han Yeri.  

It’s like handing a weapon to a future enemy.  

“Mr. Kang, you realize the only ones who’ll be thrilled about this are you, my eldest uncle, and my cousin, right?”  

“But you, Ms. Han, could secure a stake in Kangseong Foods.”  

“Compared to what those two would gain, it’s not enough.”  

The scales, which had been tipping back toward balance, tilted in my favor again.  

Han Yeri was trying to level them once more.  

But I couldn’t just concede blindly.  

“This choice is inevitable. It’s not like we can deal with anyone other than Kangseong Steel.”  

“SJ Steel, you mean? If you join hands with them, my grandfather would rise from his bed in a rage.”  

If we brought in outside forces beyond the family feud, even in his clouded state, the chairman would wake up and roar in fury.  

So, this is the cleanest and safest way to go.  

When I reminded her of this, Han Yeri’s expression turned sulky.  

“You must think I’m some morally bankrupt jerk, but I’m not planning to demand anything excessive.”  

“Then what do you want?”  

“Just once. Come when I call you, just one time. That’s all.”  

Just one time, coming when Han Yeri calls.  

I couldn’t quite gauge how she’d use it, but it seemed like it could be useful in many ways.  

At the same time, it wasn’t a bad deal for me either.  

So,  

“Not when I’m busy. And no sudden calls out of nowhere.”  

“You worry too much. I wouldn’t do that. I have some sense, you know.”  

“If it’s a weird request, I’ll rebalance the scales, so keep that in mind.”  

“Geez, you really don’t let even a tiny loss slide in business, do you?”  

“Of course not. That’s what makes a businessman.”  

We shared a brief laugh and clinked our wine glasses.  

A temporary alliance was formed.  

***  

“Jeong Yuha, sorry, but I need to head to work. Urgent matter.”  

What, what? Why all of a sudden? I thought you were on vacation!  

“If I want to take another vacation later, I need to go in now.”  

Where’s the Mr. Kang who said people come first?!  

“Well, uh…”  

Yeah, good point.  

I said people come first, but is it okay to give a vacation and then take it back?  

But, but…  

To pay that person’s salary, doesn’t the company need to keep running?  

Ugh, you still don’t get what ‘people first’ means, do you?  

“…I haven’t tried it, so how would I know? I’ll figure it out as I go.”  

Double my vacation next time. 

And throw in business-class tickets to a resort.  

“I’ll book you for Hawaii.”  

The guilt of taking away a vacation should be offset with a bigger reward.  

I’m not sure if this is truly putting people first, but for now, let’s call it a temporary fix.  

Straight to the warehouse office, right?  

“Yeah. I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”  

Got it. See you soon.  

I quickly called Yuha and got up from my seat.  

“Let me know when you set a time with Kangseong Steel. It probably won’t take long.”  

“Understood. Oh, I forgot to ask one thing.”  

“What’s that?”  

“Kangseong Foods. What if I turn the tables and take it?”  

Han Yeri stared into my eyes, then smirked.  

She finished her wine and said,  

“If that happens, I’ll pay a fair price and buy Kangseong Foods from you. How’s that?”  

“Not a bad proposal.”  

“Not tempting enough to make you drool?”  

“It’s tempting now, but I’m not sure if it’ll be then.”  

“Geez.”  

“I’ll keep it in mind.”  

With that, I left the suite and called a driver.  

As I sped toward the warehouse with a generous tip, I opened the Dimension Observation.  

System, how much time has passed in the dimension?  

[About 200 days have passed since the last observation.]  

Phew, in those 200 days, have the Tinyfolk pioneers crossed into the other dimension?  

[Yes, they’ve now established a residential area in the new dimension.]  

If a residential area’s been set up, mining operations should start soon.  

Any projections for mineral output?  

[Based on the pioneers’ current labor capacity, annual production is estimated at 102,000 tons.]  

The system displayed a graph in my field of vision.  

Perhaps because of the inclusion of the Bloodkin, the output was higher than I’d expected.  

Excluding the amount needed by the two races, how much is left?  

[Calculating the amount needed for armament upgrades and lifestyle improvements.]  

[Approximately 48% of the production will be consumed.]  

[That percentage is the minimum.]  

They could consume it all if they wanted, but considering the minimum growth rate for civilization, it’s 48%.  

If I offer all the remaining iron ore as tribute…  

The amount of iron ore I could receive daily would be  

284 tons.  

That’s 8,500 tons a month.  

Not a small amount, but…  

“Not enough.”  

Kangseong Steel’s monthly iron ore consumption is 3.2 million tons.  

That’s about 376 times our production.  

This amount might be worth it if I gave it away for free, but even at a discount, they wouldn’t bother.  

I briefly considered recruiting more pioneers to build another village.  

But even then, it’d only double the output.  

It’s hard to expect a significant change.  

A way to make Kangseong Steel eagerly accept this amount.  

What could that be?  

The entire drive to the warehouse was filled with relentless pondering.  

New ideas emerged and faded, strategies were devised and discarded.  

Still, after repeating this process several times, a decent idea began to take shape and refine itself.  

“Sir, we’ve arrived.”  

I handed the driver a generous sum and stepped into the warehouse. 

Yuha was already there, having finished preparing for the meeting.  

“Starting the meeting right away, right?”  

“Yeah.”  

“What’s the agenda?”  

I recounted the conversation I’d had with Han Yeri.  

Yuha let out a wry laugh at the audacity of the big corporations.  

“This is the kind of thing we used to do, isn’t it?”  

“Exactly.”  

“Then we can’t lose, right? In this game, the one with the most money always wins.”  

The one with the most bullets, the one with the most money, wins in business.  

But that’s not always true.  

“Remember when we built that server program at Spectrum?”  

“Yeah, when we were acquiring that Indian company, right?”  

“Exactly.”  

That bastard Yoo Jinsang had made a pretty decent server-building program once.  

But a startup in India developed a similar system.  

Naturally, our quality was superior, but to eliminate a potential global competitor, we tried to acquire them.  

“It fell through, didn’t it?”  

“Yeah.”  

The company rejected our acquisition offer.  

Regrettably, we tried to tear them apart limb by limb.  

We poached their staff and made them prey for other companies, crippling their operations.  

We didn’t suffer a single loss while cutting off their arms and legs.  

But even so, that company survived.  

“They were the first and only company we failed to take down.”  

“How did we fail?”  

“The problem was they were too far out of our reach.”  

At the time, Spectrum was focused on breaking into the global market, with a lot on its plate.  

That led to frequent gaps and internal chaos, which that company exploited to target the market.  

Bit by bit, they carved out their share and ultimately survived.  

“It’s probably one of our few failure cases. Because of that, we couldn’t break into the Southeast Asian server rental service market.”  

We could probably take that market now if we tried.  

But it’d come with significant bleeding, not just profits.  

Would the new CEO make that choice?  

I don’t think so.  

“I’m bringing this up because we’re going to use that strategy as our base.”  

“Uh… you mean we hit their gaps and break in?”  

“I said base. We’ll put a twist on it.”  

Our chaos is an opportunity for our enemies.  

Conversely, if we create chaos for our enemies, it becomes our opportunity.  

“Is that possible?”  

“I’ll make it possible.”  

I handed Yuha a list of contacts.  

“What’s this?”  

“What do you think? The contact info of the reporters who gleefully wrote articles when I got fired.”  

“You kept track of all these?”  

“Of course.”  

I don’t forget what’s been done to me.  

Turning someone’s pain into mere gossip?  

It’s only natural their names are etched into a corner of my revenge list.  

“Those guys will write up a storm if it’s about me. It’s juicy stuff.”  

“Hmm, what are you going to leak?”  

“That our franchise business is screwed.”  

Publicity is all about amplifying what you want to show and cutting out what you want to hide.  

And those guys will write up my downfall with zest and flair.  

It’s a bit infuriating, but what can I do?  

If I can use them as my puppets, I’ve got to give them something.  

“They’re the kind who watch our every move. If news keeps breaking, they’ll quiet down for a bit.”  

“Then they’ll start talking among themselves about how to handle the deal.”  

“Yeah. It’ll probably get noisy.”  

I don’t know what kind of deal they’ve made.  

But one thing’s certain: that deal is designed to either swallow Ribbon Corporation or tear it apart.  

Well, then. Greedy bastards only do one thing.  

“They’ll fight over who gets the bigger piece.”  

“And in the meantime, we land the big blow.”  

“Exactly.”  

What’s life, anyway?  

It’s all about that one big shot.