The Overly Competent Junior Employee

“I cannot confirm that.”

Kang Sung-ho erased the friendly tone and expression he had been showing Dokyung until moments ago and spoke with a stern face.

Dokyung was struck speechless by Kang Sung-ho’s response.

He hadn’t been expecting just a yes or no answer.

He had been prepared to respond if Kang Sung-ho had asked, “How do you know?” or stated, “There’s no such thing.” But the answer that came from his seat was, “I cannot confirm that.”

“……”

The phrase “I cannot confirm” was perhaps more terrifying because it could be an admission, but it could also mean the opposite.

‘I can’t confirm it, so you make your own judgment. But you’ll also be responsible for that judgment.’

It was up to Dokyung how to interpret it, but if he took it a step further, it was also a warning that Kang Sung-ho wouldn’t stand idly by.

“Is there anything else we need to discuss?”

At Kang Sung-ho’s words, Dokyung took some documents out of his bag, placed them on the table, and stood up.

“I feel uncomfortable, as it seems I’ve committed a rude act by coming here so suddenly.”

“……”

“However, I’d like to show you this. Of course, the choice is yours, Representative. I hope we can meet with smiles next time.”

Dokyung bowed politely and left the CEO’s office. Kang Sung-ho, who had been watching him for a while, shifted his gaze to the documents on the table.

“……”

He had thought this industry fledgling would be terrified after understanding his warning well, but instead, he had left behind documents and a dilemma for Kang Sung-ho as well.

After staring at the documents for a moment, Kang Sung-ho brought them closer, seemingly not displeased.

“How audacious. Telling me to choose.”

Kang Sung-ho chuckled as he opened the documents.

And as he read the first page, Kang Sung-ho’s brow began to furrow more and more.

“This is……”

Kang Sung-ho stood up and opened other documents on his desk. Then he started focusing intensely on one section.

“Something smells fishy.”

Kang Sung-ho muttered to himself and picked up the phone.

“Come to the CEO’s office now.”

After making this brief call, Kang Sung-ho hung up and began examining the documents with a serious expression.

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“I’m still in the process of organizing the data. I’ve scheduled a meeting with the client in a week, so I think everything will be wrapped up in about three days.”

“There are no issues, right?”

Meanwhile, in the office of Team 3 at Yuseong Investment Securities’ Leaders Center, Han Dahyun was standing in front of Team Leader Seo Jeonghwan, discussing work matters.

“Yes, there don’t seem to be any problems at the moment. The profitability has been verified, and above all, the CEO is brimming with confidence about the exit.”

Seo Jeonghwan nodded at Han Dahyun’s words and looked at the report.

“Good. Then let’s talk again once the report for the client is ready.”

“Yes, understood.”

Han Dahyun bowed to Seo Jeonghwan and returned to her seat. Dokyung, who had been listening to their conversation from his desk, couldn’t help but sigh.

In truth, Dokyung also only had suspicions that the startup called Tribe might not have a normal structure.

That’s why he had gone to see Kang Sung-ho to discuss this issue and seek advice on how to respond…

‘I cannot confirm that.’

Faced with that cold response tinged with warning, he had left behind only the materials he had prepared.

‘Ah, what should I do…’

Dokyung felt like he was about to fall into an endless worry.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t even his business, and if he tried to explain this to Han Dahyun, it would be no different from interfering in her work based on mere suspicion.

‘7 billion won…’

It was something he could ignore, but ultimately, the client would invest 7 billion won, a significant amount, based on the report prepared by Yuseong Investment Securities.

Han Dahyun’s career was also at stake.

Dokyung, who had received a lot of help from Han Dahyun, couldn’t simply dismiss this uneasiness as someone else’s problem.

“I just need to turn suspicion into certainty.”

Even if that suspicion turned out to be nothing more than his own delusion.

Dokyung thought he would only feel at ease if he confirmed the reality.

Muttering this to himself, Dokyung took his mobile phone and left the office, entering an empty meeting room.

He then searched through his contacts list for a familiar number.

Ring ring- Click.

After a brief moment of ringing, as the other party answered the phone, Dokyung spoke.

“Assistant Manager Yeon-ji, this is Yoon Dokyung.”

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A café in Pangyo.

Dokyung had left the company under the pretext of an outside appointment and came here.

He found a seat in a secluded corner.

“Time… 5 minutes.”

He had arrived just barely before the appointed time.

Dokyung thought it was worth rushing here, fearing he might be late for the appointment.

“Yoon Dokyung-ssi?”

As Dokyung sat in his seat, he turned his head when someone called his name, and a man was standing there.

“Yes, hello.”

Dokyung stood up and bowed his head.

“I’m Yoon Dokyung, Asset Management Manager at Yuseong Investment Securities Leaders Center.”

“Hello. I don’t have a business card. I’m Kim Hyun-gyu.”

The man received Dokyung’s business card and sat across from him, and Dokyung looked at the man.

“Would you like a drink…”

“I’ll have an iced Americano.”

At the man’s words, Dokyung nodded slightly in response and went to the counter to order two iced Americanos.

The person Dokyung had come to meet in Pangyo was a game developer currently working for a large corporation, introduced by Lee Yeon-ji.

Lee Yeon-ji was working as a game industry analyst at Yuseong Securities’ Research Center, and despite Dokyung’s troublesome request after a long time, she had used her connections to find the person Dokyung wanted.

“Here you go.”

Dokyung placed the coffee in front of his appointment and sat down opposite him.

Then he took out a notebook and pen.

“The reason I asked to meet…”

“Ah, I’ve already been briefed.”

“You have?”

“Yes. I didn’t expect to be talking with a manager from the IR team.”

The IR department was a department that listed companies on the stock market had.

It was a department that handled all stock-related matters, and even when analysts came to conduct due diligence on a company, it was the IR department people who dealt with them.

“I heard you wanted to see me because of Tribe.”

“Yes, that’s right. Thank you for coming out like this.”

“It’s nothing. It’s my former workplace now, after all.”

Dokyung’s counterpart was a developer who had left Tribe and moved to a large corporation.

Dokyung thought it would be good to find someone who knew Tribe’s internal affairs, and he had received help from Lee Yeon-ji.

“Hmm. Where should I start?”

Dokyung wondered where to begin the conversation.

He was about to open his mouth, pondering how to broach the subject to get the answers he wanted from the other person.

“CEO Heo Jun-soo was a man full of ideals.”

However, the other party opened his mouth as if to say listen to his story, and Dokyung focused on his words.

“I joined Tribe as a senior developer in its second year of establishment.”

“By senior, you mean…”

“You can think of it as an experienced hire. Just when I was getting bored of the daily grind at my previous company, I received a job offer through an acquaintance.”

The man continued his story as if recalling that time.

“Of course, the conditions weren’t great. I had heard that startup conditions were poor, but it was minimum wage level.”

“You must have been offered stock options.”

“Yes. It’s the industry practice. I also joined with stock options. Looking back now, it was no different from volunteering for free.”

If one resigned voluntarily, the stock option contract was essentially void.

“At that time, it seemed like we would go public any moment. That’s what CEO Heo Jun-soo had confidently declared.”

Dokyung started taking notes while listening intently to the man’s words.

“Tribe was fun when I first joined. It was a company where you could feel the platform changing in your own hands. And strangely, whenever we sought investment, we always received more than the amount the company wanted.”

The investment stages for startups ranged from Series A to C or even beyond.

“Everyone acknowledged CEO Heo Jun-soo’s management skills. And with that invested money, we were able to recruit new BJs and wedge ourselves into that narrow space of internet broadcasting.”

Dokyung nodded at the man’s words.

“Up to this point, it’s the success story of Tribe that everyone knows. But after that, the company started to struggle.”

“When you say it started to struggle…”

“It wasn’t because of other problems. Our competitiveness was just our star BJs.”

It couldn’t be helped.

Even though they had brought in star BJs by paying enormous transfer fees, it didn’t mean those BJs would broadcast 24 hours a day.

There needed to be broadcasts to fill the empty slots, but other BJs were unlikely to leave their stable platforms to transfer to a new platform.

The star BJs might have found it worth the risk since they received transfer fees, but…

“From then on, CEO Heo Jun-soo’s impatience turned almost neurotic. Hearing curses during meetings became commonplace.”

“Ah, I see…”

“Still, whenever investors visited the company, that man would change his face as if nothing had happened and sweet-talk the investors into making investments.”

Dokyung recalled the face of Heo Jun-soo whom he had met recently.

“The problem erupted here. One of the early investors made a demand on us. They said they couldn’t believe in our sustainability. They wanted us to prove it.”

Perhaps that investor had looked at Tribe with suspicious eyes earlier than others.

After all, recently there have been suspicious glances questioning the sustainability of startups.

“Why did they have such suspicions?”

“They said they entered Tribe every evening to look at the broadcast list, but the total number of viewers wasn’t increasing.”

Dokyung focused on the man’s words with an interested expression.

“It was true. Even when the star BJs were broadcasting, their average viewer count might be 2,000 or 3,000, but the average viewer count for other BJs in the same time slot was in the tens.”

“In the tens?”

“Yes. If we take the average, it would be about 30 people.”

“Then when the star BJs weren’t broadcasting…”

“The interesting thing is that it was still about 30 people.”

In other words, people who came to watch the star BJs simply left the platform when their broadcasts ended.

The platform’s business model was essentially collecting a kind of toll fee.

To collect toll fees, not only did they need high traffic, but they also needed people to stay on the platform for a long time.

This meant that despite recruiting famous creators with large sums of money, Tribe had failed to increase users’ stay time.

It was a situation where the sustainability of the business was bound to be questioned.

“As such suspicions arose, CEO Heo Jun-soo’s neurosis worsened. Then one day, a person came in newly appointed as the director of the development team.”

“The development team director?”

“Yes. After those people came in, the free atmosphere of the development team changed. The development team’s opinions were ignored, and it became a system where we only implemented what the business team said.”

This was the worst structure that shouldn’t exist in an IT company.

“When they brought unreasonable demands and told us to develop them, I felt like throwing the report in CEO Heo Jun-soo’s face.”

Dokyung nodded as if he understood.

“But as the investors’ demands continued, the person called director demanded something from us. He told us to create bots.”

“Bots?”

Dokyung furrowed his brow quizzically and asked again.

“Yes.”

“You mean Bot?”

“Yes. Programs that repeatedly perform specific tasks.”

“The reason for creating these bots was…”

As he was asking the question, Dokyung’s expression hardened as if something had just crossed his mind, and he opened his mouth towards the other person.

“To inflate the viewer count?”

As Dokyung asked, the other person nodded in response.

“Did you develop them?”

“Yes, we did. They’re probably still running now.”

“So… you artificially manipulated it to make it look like there were more users. To reassure investors, or to attract more investment.”

“Yes. There’s one more thing.”

“One more thing?”

“Those bots are set to shoot T coins at BJs at specific times. I’m not sure if it’s still happening now.”

At the man’s words, Dokyung couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh.