12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I wore a tie and put on a jacket. After looking in the mirror, I left the dressing room, went through the living room, into the children’s room. There were Seo-hyun sleeping like an angel, Se-hyun, and my wife taking care of the children. I looked at them for a moment. As my wife felt my presence, she turned her head, and spoke in a small voice so as not to wake the children.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes. How about Se-hyun?” I saw Se-hyun lying on the bed. He was just three years old, but last night he had been crying without sleeping, so my wife and I had a hard time taking care of him.

“Well, now, he is sleeping well… If he does it again today, I’ll take him to the hospital.”

“Yes.”

“What about breakfast?”

“Never mind. I’ll go down and get some food.”

“I’m sorry. Today is an important day, but I can’t do anything for you…”

I shook my head. My wife and I were the ones who couldn’t sleep last night because of Se-hyun. “No, I’m sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

My wife smiled at my words and said, “Can you do what you want?”

“Of course. I can do everything I want.”

‘Usually, these words are an expression of self-confidence when someone else says them, but they have a slightly different meaning when I say them. I really don’t have anything that doesn’t work out my way.’

“I’ll be back,” I said goodbye to my wife and left the children’s room. As I came to the front door through the living room, there was my collection of car keys. I bought this and that, and now there were about twelve of them, but it was very small compared to my wealth.

‘Today, I’m going to have to go with a more solemn concept, right?’

I picked up the Rolls-Royce key, with the two capital R’s overlapping, and headed for the first basement floor. My two secretaries were waiting for me in the parking lot there.

“Are you here, boss?”

I threw the Rolls-Royce key I had brought to Secretary Park and said, “Yes. Let’s go.”

After checking the key’s logo he had received from me, Secretary Park ran to the Rolls Royce’s driver’s seat. Secretary Lee also followed him to the back seat of the car.

Getting in the back seat, I said, “Let’s go!”

Engine purring, the Rolls-Royce left the Invictus building and sped down the boulevard through Gangnam. While Park was driving, I asked Secretary Lee, “So, how many people are attending the meeting?”

Secretary Lee looked into her tablet and said, “They’re almost all there. First of all, all of our executives are present. All the representatives of the subsidiaries are here, and some high-ranking officials from overseas branches are here to attend today’s meeting.”

“Yes, they should not miss it today.”

Today was the relaunch day of Invictus Investment. Over the years, I had been making money at a tremendous rate and buying back companies from the United States, China, Japan, and Europe, which had led to a huge increase in the number of subsidiaries, many beyond my control. So, I had decided to divide the companies according to Vice President Jang’s recommendations.

The business part would be divided into an investment firm and turned into a subsidiary, with Vice President Jang taking control, and I would become the chairman of Invictus Investment Holdings as the company’s owner, managing the subsidiaries as a whole.

Not long after Park started, we could see the company building with the ‘Invictus’ logo embedded in the building.

For the second Invictus building, I set up a separate business here for Vice President Jang, who had long devoted himself to the company.

———————-

There was a large crowd of people in the hall. I pushed my way through them and greeted the hero of the day. “Congratulations, President Jang!” It was a bit awkward to call my former vice president a president!

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

I also felt awkward to hear him call me Chairman. “I’m sure you’ll do well in the future.”

He bowed his grayed head, shaking my hand. “I’ll do my best. Please watch.”

After greeting President Jang, I proceeded along the event hall with my two secretaries. Everywhere I went, people came up to me and bowed their heads. “How have you been, Mr. Chairman?”

This might seem a little servile, but in fact they were some of the best people in their fields. In their companies, everyone was ruling as a boss. They just bowed their heads because I was the emperor. That meant they were as good as kings and empresses.

As I greeted them, I engraved their names and faces in my mind. I regularly scanned for people using People Search, but I didn’t know what was inside them. Sometimes only when the kings of the subsidiaries were called in and I was greeted like this would the empire would be maintained, though some kings did not need such a loyalty process.

“Big brother, congratulations on becoming the Chairman.”

I looked at Seo with my arms crossed, and said, “I also congratulate you on becoming the president of a listed company!”

“It’s all thanks to you.”

Ji-hoon, who had been my secretary, was now the respectable president of a KOSDAQ-listed company, thanks to his efforts and my help. The stake of the company was divided into seven of me and three of him. He had tried his best, but it had still been a difficult situation to succeed in with only that, so I had helped him some more.

For his business, I had arranged a hospital for data, wrote editorials to revolutionize regulations, and put more investment in at the right times. Of course, I got my money back out of his company when his company went public. The promise I had made to him in the past, “If you’re with me, you will ride a Porsche,” was completed hundreds of times over. With a thirty percent stake in the company, he could now buy more than a hundred Porsches. I’d had a few trillions of dollars by special fate, but he had also gained a special fate since he had been close to me in college.

I patted Seo on the shoulder and said, “Don’t be satisfied here, and work harder. Half of the money that you got from the IPO is ants’ money. You have to take responsibility and work hard for other people’s money. Don’t think about flirting with that, or when the stock price goes down, you will be blamed.”

“Don’t worry about that, big brother. I’ll work hard!”

After that, Kwon Oh-hyuk, president of OH Entertainment, came up to me and greeted me, “Mr. Chairman, congratulations!”

I was very happy when I saw him. “Ah, President Kwon. How are you these days? It’s not easy to raise your kid, is it?”

“Haha, that’s right! However, it’s worth raising her, because she is so pretty!”

He had recently married actress Oh Hyun-joo, despite being in his mid-forties. Oh Hyun-joo’s fans were a little shocked that she had chosen a fat-bellied man without hair as her husband, but as Oh Hyun-joo stepped up directly and said, “This man loves me most, and he helps me a lot with my work,” it was received warmly after the announcement.

These two were kings, too, but they were among the more special kings. Compared to SHH Electronics and SHH Construction, their market capital was not that big, but he was treated better within the group for being a member of the company’s early days and for being closer to me. After all, they were the founding fathers of my empire.

Towards the end of the meeting, Maverick Turner of SHH Electronics also said hello. “Mr. Chairman, congratulations!” In his fourth year in Korea, he now knew how to speak Korean quite well.

I replied to him, “How was your business trip to the U.S.? Did you see your brother?”

“My brother told me to say hello to you.”

His brother, Senator William Turner, was gradually gaining ground as the next presidential candidate in the United States, so I could ‘edit’ him in the next one. The more his presence grew, the higher and closer his probability came to 50%.

Shaking the current U.S. President two or three times over a scandal would build up enough possibility before the next presidential election. The U.S. President would be also made by me. There was no need to mention the benefits from that.

“But when I went to the U.S. this time, I heard something funny.”

“What?”

“On Wall Street, there is a rumor that you are going to take over Apple to create synergy with our company.”

Apple, which had enjoyed the best of the 2010s, had been struggling in the 2020s. Since Steve Jobs’ death, there had been no real innovation, but the biggest factor had been our company, SHH Electronics. It was not surprising. Apple predicted the future, but I looked at the future. They could not be a match for me.

Mr. Turner asked me, “I thought it was just a rumor… but it’s true that Apple has been looking for another owner these days, so I thought it might be possible. What’s the truth, Mr. Chairman?”

Instead of answering his question, I asked him something else, “The total market capital of Apple is… 1.4 trillion dollars, right?”

“Yes, it’s about 1.46 trillion dollars. It came down a lot.”

‘1.46 trillion dollars…’ I thought about that amount for a moment. Currently, the total market capital of the affiliates I owned was 3.6 trillion dollars, and if I used the cash I had to buy Apple, the total value of the companies under my command would be over five trillion dollars. That meant I could reach the last P Class in a single moment.

“Why would I have to buy Apple? At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before SHH takes over the market.”

Apple was a company that would only get cheaper over time. I didn’t have to buy it now.

President Turner nodded and said, “I see, Mr. Chairman.”

President Jang, who was today’s main character as well as one of the founding figures, grabbed the microphone and said, “Thank you, distinguished guests here today.”

I listened in anticipation of what he would say. But then, Secretary Park looked for me, “Mr. Chairman.”

I looked at him with a slight frown. He was interrupting me at this important moment!

“I got a call from your wife.”

“What?”

“Well, I think you should take it yourself.”

I got a cell phone from him, and I heard my wife’s voice, “Oppa, Se-hyun…”

At the few words of my wife, I was frozen, but I soon came to my senses. I said to Secretary Park, “Let’s get out here. Drive.”

———————–

A university hospital near my house…

A doctor in a white gown stuttered and said, “Mr. Chairman… So… It’s…” He looked very nervous.

“Just tell me the point.”

He swallowed once, and said, “It’s a pediatric brain tumor.”

I asked, covering my crying wife’s shoulders, “So, is it curable?”

“He needs to have surgery as soon as possible. But his tumor is growing in a dangerous place. It won’t easy…” The doctor blurred the last word.

I pressed him, “What’s the level of difficulty?”

But hopelessly, the doctor shook his head and said, “It won’t be easy… It’s almost a miracle for a baby to come back from the surgery without side effects…”

It was a task that needed a miracle. That meant there was a near zero percent probability. I was mesmerized, even touching my wife’s shoulders.