Honestly, this was a challenge from the start.
I’m a graduate of a provincial national university, with no professional title, no connections, and no family background.
Moreover, the legal community is a more closed-off organization than any other.
Courts, prosecutors’ offices, law firms.
Until the day I died, the places led by women could be counted on one hand.
However,
“Good morning, Attorney Go!”
Go Jong-tak merely nodded at the loud greeting of Yoon Yi-hoon, a new associate attorney.
Soon, his gaze fixed on me, who was standing next to him.
It must have been because the greeting that should have come out as soon as I saw him was still missing.
“Hello, Attorney.”
I forced the words out from deep inside, my face showing no emotion.
Go Jong-tak passed me by with an indifferent expression.
Complete disregard.
It was a very Go Jong-tak response to a slightly late greeting.
A reaction that inevitably made the other person feel humiliated.
And now, I understand well why he acts that way towards the secretary.
From the beginning, I was not a person to Go Jong-tak.
‘Still, it’s quite a shame. It’s hard to find a talented slave who’s as loyal as Director Kim.’
Since the beginning of human history, slaves were not considered people.
As he put it, I was loyal like a dog my entire life, but I literally wasn’t treated like a human being.
“Secretary Kim.”
“It seems Attorney Go had a bad morning. So don’t worry about it too much.”
“Excuse me?”
As I stared blankly at Go Jong-tak’s back, I heard Attorney Yoon’s voice.
Only then did I remember that Attorney Yoon Yi-hoon was beside me.
“That he didn’t return your greeting.”
“I don’t care.”
I only said that because he’s the kind of guy who would have stayed in the hallway until the very end if I didn’t greet him.
There’s no torture worse than continuously seeing that disgusting face.
If I had my way, I’d put him in a car and ram him with a truck, just like what happened to me.
But acting like Go Jong-tak would only make me the same as him, and that wouldn’t be revenge.
I have to make him suffer more than dying.
From now on, I plan to take away everything in his dirty hands, one by one.
And this is still just a hypothesis, but… no, it’s almost certain that,
‘Go Jong-tak won’t be at the top of the food chain.’
Unlike a typical hitman, the man who killed me was highly skilled.
No matter how despicable Go Jong-tak is, using a professional hitman is beyond his scope.
Anyway, his expertise is law.
Go Jong-tak’s way is to crush things with the law, even if he’s pulling strings.
In a word, it means Go Jong-tak and that man had no connection.
But how could he so naturally employ such a hitman as his own hands and feet?
More than anything, there’s something that bothers me.
It’s Juhan Travel.
The main culprit that caused my parents’ death.
‘Go Jong-tak said that was virtually a company managed by Han Joon.’
‘I merely handled that case legally without any fuss.’
I replayed Go Jong-tak’s words in my mind.
Thinking about it, my parents died 10 years before I died, and Han Joon became Go Jong-tak’s consulting client 9 years before I returned.
‘He gained trust by cleanly handling my parents’ accident, and eventually became their consultant.’
For a problematic place like Han Joon, the monthly consulting cases alone are significant.
And cases continuously lead to more cases.
So, when you take on a consulting contract, case retainers naturally follow.
It’s like a golden goose for a law firm.
Thus, all the truth is pointing in one direction.
However, I can’t move forward definitively.
Because I have to consider all possibilities.
Above all, no definite evidence has emerged, and at this point, it’s a future event that hasn’t even happened yet.
‘Until just before I died, I didn’t even know Go Jong-tak handled my parents’ case.’
That must mean Go Jong-tak knew my parents were among the people who died in the accident but pretended not to know.
Not only did he disgustingly use me, but he eventually killed me.
As I realized all these facts, an immense rage burned through my entire body.
I almost screamed, forgetting that I was in the office.
Go Jong-tak is a devil in human disguise.
Otherwise, how could he make me work for the very place that caused my parents’ death?
And that too, by grinding people day and night.
“Calm down.”
I barely managed to hold onto my sanity and tried to soothe myself.
It’s not time to be angry yet.
That can come after I gain power.
To do that, first, I need to understand the current situation.
I sat down with a solemn heart.
Then, I opened the work log saved on my laptop.
It was to check the tasks I needed to handle.
“I really did live diligently.”
Keeping a work log on my laptop instead of the company computer was a long-standing habit of mine.
To record even while on the go.
The reason it could be accessed anytime, even without internet, also played a part.
“As expected, I wrote yesterday too.”
What’s a weekend anyway? I would have been working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday, Friday anyway.
Looking at the file, meticulously organized without a single day missing, I once again realized how intensely I had lived for the past three years.
And I realized that I had definitely returned.
Otherwise, I, who records so thoroughly, wouldn’t fail to remember even working overtime yesterday.
As I read through the log, I let out a faint sigh.
‘Hmm, as expected, Attorney Ahn Gyeong-hyun is the problem.’
Currently, I have three attorneys I’m assigned to.
Partner Attorney Ahn Gyeong-hyun, Associate Attorney Yoon Yi-hoon, and Attorney Hyun Ah-jin, who hasn’t arrived at work yet.
Among them, Attorney Yoon has the kind of academic background considered “blue-blood” in the industry, from a family of professional elites for generations.
Now, as a fresh new hire, he’s working himself to death, but when I become the head, he’ll be the chief of corporate litigation.
Above him are only the managing partner and the managing attorney, so he’s essentially at the pinnacle of practical work.
However, Attorney Ahn Gyeong-hyun was the exact opposite.
For a partner, who is a constituent member of the law firm, performance is crucial, but as I recall, Attorney Ahn had the lowest performance among the constituent members.
“If things continue like this, Attorney Ahn will be let go in a year.”
I must prevent that. Otherwise, I’ll have to take charge of Go Jong-tak.
I became Go Jong-tak’s secretary because Attorney Ahn Gyeong-hyun was being let go, and the company assigned me to the secretary position for Go Jong-tak, whose previous secretary had gone on maternity leave.
After that, the former secretary even used parental leave and then immediately resigned.
A secretary who lasted a whole year before I became Go Jong-tak’s secretary.
[Being assigned to Attorney Go Jong-tak’s team essentially means being told to quit.]
The rumors openly circulating in the company weren’t for nothing.
Of course, even within that team, the absolute worst was, without a doubt, Attorney Go Jong-tak’s direct secretary.
Due to the nature of the team, the workload was hell, and Go Jong-tak himself had a terrible personality.
‘What kind of battle did I fight in my last life?’
To work until death in a position where others are praised just for lasting a year.
I later found out that Go Jong-tak personally appealed to the company, saying he wanted to keep me as his secretary even if the previous secretary returned.
Naturally, the company readily complied with the wishes of a high-performing partner.
A slightly delayed greeting this morning won’t change that future.
As a third-year employee, I already had a reputation for working myself to the bone.
And Go Jong-tak’s favorite type of talent is someone like me.
‘A slave who works like a dog.’
Just imagining working with Go Jong-tak makes me want to throw up.
If I don’t want to face that garbage-like face, I must prevent Attorney Ahn Gyeong-hyun from being let go due to low performance.
And one more thing.
That’s because Attorney Ahn is one of the important keys in my future plans.
“But how can I raise performance right now?”
If I use my memories, I can do more than just improve performance.
The problem is time.
I can’t save Attorney Ahn with ordinary results.
That’s because his performance so far has been too terrible.
At the very least, it needs to compensate for the last three years.
More than anything, the most regrettable thing is…
‘The immense information I had in my last life.’
That’s not just information.
It’s the outcome exchanged for my life.
Moreover, human memory clearly has limitations.
I only worked myself to death; I’m not a genius.
The difference between having data completely in hand and relying on memory will surely be significant.
Because the law can be overturned by a single minor detail.
‘Ha, if only I had that laptop I had before I died.’
I sighed deeply and tapped the trackpad of my laptop.
Then, a pure white light flowed from the laptop.
“Huh?”
This is the light I saw just before I died.
A pure white beam of light, leaking from the shattered laptop, spread in all directions.
“W-what is this…?”
I quickly looked around.
However, the expressions of the people passing by my desk showed no change.
‘Am I the only one who can see it?’
Why?
As I thought deeply, something flashed through my mind.
The fact that I returned to the past after seeing this light.
And it was light flowing from a laptop, of all things.
As if possessed, I looked around the laptop.
There was nothing particularly different.
Except that my parents sold their wedding rings to buy this for me as a congratulatory gift for joining the company.
I closed all windows and returned to the desktop.
Then, Mom and Dad were smiling brightly at me from the background.
‘How did this photo get put here?’
‘Hehe. I told the uncle that I wanted you to think of us whenever you saw it, since it was for our daughter, and he helped me.’
My mom proudly pointed at the laptop screen and answered my question.
‘He’s a good person.’
‘Of course! It’s because we bought the best laptop there.’
‘Really? Why did you buy such an expensive one? I just need to be able to do word processing.’
‘No, actually, it’s cheap. I wanted to buy you the best one in my heart, but…’
Hearing my words, Mom quickly made excuses, as if afraid I’d feel bad, and gently folded the hand that was pointing at the laptop.
I immediately grabbed her hand and told her, ‘This is the best for me.’
I didn’t know it would be the only photo of my parents left.
“Now both of you are here. That’s enough.”
From now on, I need to take many more photos with my parents.
Unconsciously, I wiped away the tears that had welled up and traced my parents on the screen with the mouse, feeling so relieved that I had truly come back.
At that moment.
A search window appeared next to the photo.
“What is this…?”
The palm-sized window was entirely white except for the area to type text.
I stared blankly at the search window, lost in thought.
Because it was a function I had never seen on any computer or laptop I had used so far.
“Is it an error?”
I didn’t know where it came from, but somehow, it didn’t even have an X button to close the window.
It was truly just a place to enter search terms, all alone.
Unable to find a way to close it, I pressed the forced shutdown button on the laptop to reboot it.
“How come it won’t even turn off…?”
In movies, you can enter the world of gangs on your own terms.
But turning this on and off wasn’t within my control.