Chapter 274. Shareholders’ Meeting (2)

“Congratulations on your promotion to assistant manager.”

“What’s there to congratulate? It’s nothing special.”

Back when Eun-Ho had been stuck as a two-year contract employee, assistant manager had been a rank he could never attain, no matter how well he performed. He had always been the one congratulating others.

He had meant those words sincerely, but not everyone who received them had been happy. The pay barely increased, yet the workload skyrocketed.

“You’ll be taking on more responsibilities now that you’re an assistant manager,” someone had once joked.

Looking back, that hadn’t been wrong at all. Eun-Ho had seen how work piled up endlessly the moment someone earned that title.

[Congratulations!]

[Your position has been updated.]

[Please check your status window.]

Today, for the first time in his life, Eun-Ho had obtained the rank of assistant manager. More precisely, he was the acting chairman.

[Lee Eun-Ho]

- Affiliation: Chairman’s Office

- Rank: Acting Chairman

- Stats: Stamina (80), Strength (73), Intelligence (65), Judgment (67), Agility (67), Endurance (83), Resistance (9,999)

- Trait: Rebel

- Skills: Acceleration(Lv. 12), Petrify(Lv. 12), Intermediate Swordsmanship(Lv. 9), Qi Circulation Breathing(Lv. 2), Blade Wind(Lv.1), Sword Thread(Lv. 3), Leadership(Lv. 3), Revive(Lv.-), Severing Muscle and Dislocating Bone(Lv. 1), Summon Ice Golem(Lv. 20), Taming(Lv.1)...

Eun-Ho muttered, “Still better than just being a regular assistant manager.”

“Pardon?” his secretary asked.

“Ah, nothing,” he said quickly.

Last time, he had skipped past assistant manager and manager entirely, jumping straight to team leader. This time, he had bypassed the division chief and director to become the acting chairman. It was an absurd, unprecedented promotion.

“If you’re feeling tired, would you like to take a short break?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

Ji-Eun nodded. She explained in a steady, precise tone, “There will be a Sales Bureau performance report at 2:00 PM and an executive meeting at 2:30 PM. Once that concludes, you’ll move to the former Operations Bureau site to check construction progress and encourage the staff. You’ll then return by 4:00 PM for a project status briefing from the Secretariat.”

She kept going.

“You’re not done yet?” he said dryly.

Without hesitation, she replied, “There’s more.”

“What a busy day. I’ll be done by around five, then?”

“Not quite. At 6:00 PM, you have a dinner meeting with the union executives. At 8:00 PM, you have a follow-up medical examination for your previous injuries.”

“Ah, I see.”

He hadn’t expected that even an acting chairman would have this much work.

No wonder there are so many trials.

[Category: Mid-to-Long-Term Trial]

[Trial: Achieve 20% Annual Sales Growth.]

[Rewards: 20 Points, 200,000 Welfare Points, and improved reputation.]

[Deadline: 6 months]

The long-term trials seemed similar to corporate performance goals.

[Category: Daily Trial]

[Trial: Preliminary Investigation for Appointing New Executives.]

[Rewards: 50,000 Welfare Points and trust from executives.]

[Deadline: 24 hours]

He also had countless daily trials to complete within the day. The rewards had grown significantly, at least.

This is on a completely different scale from when I was a team leader, Eun-Ho thought.

That was only natural, though. It was like comparing a small village to an entire nation.

“In five minutes, the Sales Bureau report will begin,” Ji-Eun added. “Since the director is absent, the division chiefs will be presenting. Also, we received a summary of today’s report materials this morning. Did you have a chance to review it?”

“I did. It was well-organized. You put that together, right?”

“Yes,” she replied with a small nod. “The reporting format has changed quite a bit, so I reorganized it in a way we’re more familiar with.”

Ji-Eun was an exceptional secretary. He had known that already. She had a reputation for being sharp, meticulous, and capable of seeing the bigger picture. However, this went beyond that. She felt more like an SSS-rank secretary.

“As you may have noticed, the projected performance for the second half of the year falls short of the target. They’ll likely request additional operational funds. It would be good to decide in advance how much you’re willing to approve.”

She wasn’t just relaying information; she was thinking ahead for him and offering her own insights. That kind of initiative was rare in his previous workplace.

She’s probably doing this for me, he thought.

They had been through life and death together. She trusted him enough to speak her mind, knowing he wouldn’t take offense.

“I’ll need to review the chairman’s authority limits first, but...”

Still, something felt off.

This is awkward.

Even Ji-Eun was speaking in formal honorifics, addressing Eun-Ho as chairman with rigid politeness.

“Ji-Eun.”

“Yes, Chairman?”

“I haven’t even had an inauguration ceremony yet. You can speak more casually.”

“That’s not possible. If I do, the other employees might follow suit.”

It was true. He lacked the traditional authority of a chairman, especially as someone who had risen from a regular employee. She was probably worried that others would grow too comfortable with him and start disrespecting him behind his back.

“I won’t be able to tolerate that,” she added.

He understood her concern. “But if even you act like this, I won’t have any room to breathe.”

Startled, she repeated, “B-breathe?”

“This feels like working twenty-four hours a day without a break.” He gave a faint smile. “Or do you want me to address you formally as chief secretary every time?”

“C-chief secretary?”

“You’ll be helping me run the company, after all.”

Ji-Eun froze completely.

“Wasn’t that the plan?” he asked casually.

Her eyes blinked rapidly in shock.

Was that really so surprising?

The chief secretary was one of the highest-ranking positions below directors, overseeing the entire organization like a caretaker. It wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion.

“I’d honestly appoint you as a director right away if I could,” Eun-Ho continued, “but as you know, things are still unstable. For now, I think it’d be better for you to oversee the secretariat and get a full picture of operations before deciding where you’d fit best.”

“I-I understand, but...” She hesitated. “Being your personal secretary is one thing, but as chief secretary, I would have to manage the entire department and...”

She trailed off, clearly struggling.

Is she having trouble refusing?

That would put Eun-Ho in a difficult position. Hence, he added, “To be honest, there’s no one else I’d rather have working with me.”

“Huh?”

Smack!

Ji-Eun abruptly lifted the stack of documents she was holding and covered her face, seemingly smacking herself with it.

“Are you alright?” Eun-Ho asked.

With the documents muffling her voice, she replied, “Hm? What do you mean?”

“Your forehead. That sounded pretty loud.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that loud. I think you misheard.”

“I don’t think so. It sounded like a watermelon cracking.”

“Anyway, I have a lot of work to get to, so I’ll—”

Eun-Ho suppressed a laugh at her obvious fluster behind the file. “You’ll take the chief secretary position, right?”

“I’ll take it. Of course I will. Who else would take it if not me?!” she answered quickly.

Ji-Eun turned to leave the office but then began muttering to herself, unprompted. The documents were still muffling her voice, making it hard to catch everything.

“So I’m not Secretary Kim anymore, but Chief Kim now. That’s a promotion, right? Yeah, it’s definitely a promotion...”

“Ji-Eun.”

“You should call me chief secretary—”

“Let’s not do that when it’s just us.” He stepped closer and gently lowered the file she was hiding behind. “And you treat me the same way, too.”

Her face was revealed, flushed red like she had been drinking. Her breath had stalled mid-inhale, and her eyes darted around nervously.

He smiled, extending his pinky finger. “Deal?”

She hesitated, glancing away before sneaking a quick look back. Then, slowly, she hooked her pinky with his.

She whispered, “Deal...”

***

The secretariat was in chaos. Whenever the person at the top changed, it was only natural for everyone beneath them to become overwhelmed.

Not only did they have to explain everything from scratch to someone who knew nothing about the work, but they also had to explain it all over again to get approval. They had to fend off his unexpected questions as well, which were asked just to avoid looking ignorant.

Furthermore, he had started saying things like, “Why was this done this way?” or “I don’t know how it used to be, but this isn’t how you should do it,” putting them in a hopeless situation.

“What? You want us to do what?!” someone exclaimed.

“A full review,” came the reply.

The few secretariat staff who had managed to survive until now floundered in despair.

“We’re not dealing with just one or two projects here!”

“There are exactly sixty-eight,” someone corrected. “And thirty of them are large-scale projects worth over a billion.”

“And you want us to review all of them again? We’re already short-staffed!”

To make matters worse, most of the secretaries had followed the former chairman into death. From a workforce of ten thousand, only five hundred remained. The rest were either dead or too severely injured to continue working. In other words, five percent of the original workforce was now handling everything.

The workload had already spiraled into chaos, but since there was no one left to properly assess it, things had been quietly swept under the rug.

Someone groaned, “Seriously. Why would he do this on his first day?”

“What do you expect? He’s just trying to assert dominance.”

However, they were the chairman’s secretariat—the sharpest, most perceptive elite employees in the company.

Another confidently remarked, “There’s no way he’s going to check everything one by one. Just fix up the first page and resubmit it.”

“What if we get caught?”

“Shuffle the presentation order, and tweak the formatting and design a bit. He’ll never notice.”

“Whoa, you’re a genius!”

No matter how capable the new chairman was, people thought he was still a rookie. They would show him what experience meant.

With that resolve, the entire secretariat silently prayed.

Please, let the new chairman be clueless.

However, their prayer was broken before even a day had passed.

“I’ve reviewed the materials,” Eun-Ho said. “I also looked at the previous report, and I noticed some changes.”

“Yes, Chairman. As per your instructions, we conducted a full review—”

“No,” he interrupted with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m talking about the numbers.”

“The numbers?”

Tension rippled through the room. The secretaries gulped hard as Eun-Ho’s gaze shifted toward the screen.

Click—

At the same time, his personal secretary moved without a word, pulling up a page filled with dense tables and graphs.

“Last year’s first-quarter non-operating income dropped from 118.2 million to 99.5 million,” he said calmly.

The presenter and everyone else in the room frantically scanned the screen, but they couldn’t find it.

Damn it! We packed it in like that on purpose so no one could see it clearly!

They had never imagined he would spot it. After all, it wasn’t even the operating income; it was a minor, less important figure.

Why would the chairman bother looking at something like that?

“N-non-operating income? Where?”

“Table 211. Third row from the bottom.”

And he still found it?!

Their own trick had come back to bite them.

“I also don’t understand how past performance figures can change. These aren’t projections,” added Eun-Ho continued.

“Umm...”

“And if the numbers changed, why is the total still the same?”

“T-that’s...”

Eun-Ho pressed on relentlessly. “When I told you to review things, I meant to find ways to improve project profitability, not manipulate the margins.”

It felt like they had stabbed themselves in the foot repeatedly.

“You must have been very busy,” Eun-Ho added.

“Yes! We’ve been short-staffed, so the workload has been overwhelming, and we didn’t have time to—”

“But you had time to change the design, switch fonts, and rearrange paragraphs?”

The presenter’s face drained of color as he hiccuped involuntarily. “Hic—!”

The other secretaries lowered their heads sharply, avoiding eye contact. However, there was no escaping Eun-Ho’s words.

“At this rate, our company won’t just miss this year’s revenue target. We’ll miss our profit target as well. Are you aware of that?”

“Yes, we are.”

“And knowing that, you thought it was a good idea to divert operational funds into land purchases and unnecessary construction?”

The room fell silent in shock. It had only been a single day since Eun-Ho had begun working as the acting chairman, yet he had already grasped the company’s situation, including the core issues and even the flaws in the secretariat’s projects.

“You there! Assistant Manager Mi from Team Two. Answer me.”

“T-that is...”

“Manager Sa from Team Three, would you like to respond instead?”

He’s already memorized our names?!

They couldn’t win. This wasn’t just an ordinary superior. He was on an entirely different level.

Seeing their pale, defeated expressions, Eun-Ho said again, “I know you’ve all been working hard. That’s why, once this round of project reviews is complete, I’m considering awarding a special bonus.”

Carrot and stick?!

“Assistant Manager Jo, what do you think?”

“M-me? I-I think that sounds great!”

“Good. Then we’ll proceed with that. Let’s meet again at the same time the day after tomorrow.”

“Y-yes! Understood!”

Asserting dominance?

If this was meant to establish authority, then it was a complete success, because every single person in that room was thinking the same thing.

We’re screwed!