EBCGM 00

Prologue

The National Assembly hearing room was a chaotic mess.

South Korea’s top corporate chairmen and vice-chairmen were all packed into the same room, while the politicians were having a field day, yelling at the top of their lungs like fish back in water.

“Why do these incidents keep happening?!”

“This is exactly why big conglomerates get trash-talked!”

“Say something! Did you all get together and match your stories before walking in here, or what?!”

People around me clearly hated being there. Looking side to side, I saw one executive clearing his throat while clenching his jaw so hard his back teeth were grinding.

“Isn’t it true that whenever workers face unfair treatment or end up injured, you guys just hush it up and sweep it under the rug?!”

“Resign immediately!”

“The people responsible are sitting there with their mouths shut tight! You should be ashamed of yourselves!”

A conglomerate is, well, a conglomerate. Naturally, a huge number of people work for these companies. That meant… as heartbreaking as it is, accidents and casualties inevitably happened behind the scenes. There were also plenty of workers suffering from unfair treatment.

I can’t speak for other companies, but whenever something like that happened at ours, we never made a fuss or asked too many questions—we just offered full support however we could.

“I guess you’re all so high and mighty that you’ve never suffered a single unfair thing in your lives!”

“Alright, enough! Of all of you sitting over there right now, if anyone actually served in the military, raise your hand! Anyone who served as an active-duty soldier, raise your hand! Nobody, right? Huh?!”

That comment from a politician made the executives around me look even more uncomfortable. They kept their mouths shut and their faces grim.

Right then, I proudly raised my right hand.

“I served.”

“Ha! But you probably went as an officer, didn’t you?!”

“No, I served as an enlisted soldier.”

The politician was visibly flustered by my response. There was no way he didn’t know that beforehand; he’d probably just spouted off in the heat of the moment. Either way, I had a clean conscience.

Suddenly, every politician’s gaze locked onto me. Even those flipping through documents looked up to stare straight at my face.

An awkward silence filled the room for a brief moment.

“So what, are you flexing just because you did something everyone else does?!”

“I was simply answering the question you asked—”

“Be quiet!”

Be soft with the weak, but tough with the strong—that’s my motto. I had done a pretty good job keeping my cool until now, but this was getting out of hand.

I mean, come on… do you have any idea how much hell I went through during those two years in the military?

“We’ll take a ten-minute recess.”

As the committee chairman called for a break, the executives around me stood up all at once and headed outside.

Through it all, I stayed right in my seat and took a small sip of water, naturally thinking back to the time that made me who I am today…