IBACT Chapter 2

Guilty (2)

The curtains opened automatically. The warm light woke me with a gentler resonance than any alarm.

But as always, waking up was unpleasant. Becoming aware that I had fallen into this world. Having to realize what I needed to do.

I wanted to stay in bed, but I couldn’t block the sunlight that filtered through my closed eyes.

It wasn’t actually impossible. If I just said, “Close the curtains again,” the voice recognition system installed throughout the room would hear me and close them.

But that would be an escape. A brief escape that wouldn’t last even a few minutes.

I had to get up. There was much to do.

Things I had to do as Han Sanwoo, a member of the Hansan family.

“First… I should wash up.”

Vast technology and enough money to use it made my body comfortable, starting with the smallest things.

As soon as I got up, the computer managing my room began moving. The moment I entered the shower, warm water poured from the showerhead.

[Initiating shower procedure. Time, morning. Please place your feet in the designated position and wait until the machine stops operating.]

To keep my body from cooling, shower heads placed in front of and behind me, as well as above my head, sprayed warm water.

And a fourth showerhead moved silently, wetting various parts of my body. It sprayed water into every corner from my arms and legs to my armpits, groin, thighs, and feet.

[Proceeding to the next step. Please keep your mouth closed and maintain a comfortable position.]

Foam poured from a fifth robotic arm, thoroughly washing away the waste products on my body.

Finally, water showered down. Without me having to lift a finger, the shower was over in an instant.

“…Convenient.”

In this moment alone, I could forget how sad and miserable this world was.

Leaving the shower and entering the drying room, warm air blasted out instantly.

The air dried the moisture from my body in seconds, without making my face too dry.

Except for putting on clothes, there were no actions I needed to perform for the shower. At most, I just stood in the designated spot and waited for the machine to wash my body.

Even this could be done by someone else if I wanted.

People were cheap, and many would endure hardships to enter the Hansan Group.

I could find someone to serve me, or spend a bit more money on a strong AI maid to avoid the trouble of even getting dressed.

The original owner of this body probably did just that. Until I possessed him.

But for stability and security, I had driven out all the staff who used to wait in my space.

I needed time alone. I couldn’t completely hide my analog notes or my muttering to myself, but I couldn’t risk being discovered because of people.

However, I couldn’t handle meals alone. It was a matter of continuity.

I could act relatively freely. But there were limitations.

Even as a joke, rumors of “human substitution” circulated in this world.

Sinister body-snatcher stories about digitizing personalities, storing them in computers, and then overlaying them onto ordinary people’s brains to turn them into different people.

Of course, it wasn’t so simple. Not for technical reasons, but from a capitalist perspective.

At least the poor people’s notion of “I went to bed and woke up to find my wife had been replaced by someone else” was just a baseless rumor.

But that meant that for someone like me, the successor to the Hansan family, it wouldn’t be strange if such tricks were played on me.

To avoid suspicion that I had been replaced, I needed to act as similar as possible to the previous Han Sanwoo.

Fortunately, he wasn’t a model student who conformed to society and rules or tried to maintain order. If anything, he was closer to being a delinquent.

He never skipped meals, and he was a gourmet who would only eat the finest food.

There was no point in trying to save on food expenses now, so I accepted this.

“It’s ready, young master.”

Though I was just sitting at the dining table, a clear hologram of the view outside the door unfolded before my eyes.

“Come in.”

It wasn’t that she opened the door after getting my permission; rather, the house itself moved in response to my words. The door to my room slid open smoothly.

A beautiful woman in formal attire entered the room with a room service cart.

“Today’s meal is…”

“Enough. There’s no need for an explanation. Do you think I’m foolish enough to need a culture lesson from you?”

“I-I’m sorry!”

In truth, I didn’t know. Even with an explanation, I wouldn’t understand.

I knew it intellectually. Thanks to the memories left in this brain, I knew what words meant what.

But I couldn’t remember the taste. I couldn’t feel the memories, nor could I anticipate the food from the explanation.

In that case, it was better to just eat without listening.

The steak looked alive and beautiful. Surely countless technologies had been employed here too.

It was different from Korea. In my country, if you had a stable job and no debt, you could afford pork belly.

But here, raising pigs or cows itself was miraculous.

Perhaps they occasionally ate stray dogs, rats, or birds flying in the sky.

Even then, without artificial stomach implants, the concentrated toxins in those animals’ bodies would make you sick.

It was the price of neglecting environmental destruction. Sadly, that price was being paid not by the corporate perpetrators of those crimes but by ordinary poor people.

The meat that came to my table was made from cattle raised in places as clean as semiconductor factories, without a speck of dust.

The meat’s flavor was maximized through genetic modification, using preservation techniques that the poor couldn’t even imagine, and served on my table.

It was disgustingly delicious.

* * *

The formal meeting ended.

Most of it passed in an instant without needing my intervention.

That was natural. Han Sanwoo could hardly be said to work hard, even as empty words.

Not attending meetings would have been more characteristic of Han Sanwoo than attending them.

Nevertheless, I deliberately attended the meeting because I needed to pick a fight. I had laid enough groundwork; now I just needed to wait for his patience to wear thin.

“Sir, what on earth are you doing?”

Officially, my position was president of Hansan Electronics. It wasn’t a very meaningful position.

The previous “Han Sanwoo” had just thrown a tantrum to get a high position, but the company’s business was being handled in an instant without me.

But this meeting wasn’t just for people from my company.

It was a meeting for executives of the Hansan Group, and among them, executives of a certain rank.

Since Stella City was a free city located in the United States, and the core personnel of the Hansan Group were not in the U.S. but in Korea, they weren’t such high-ranking people if you really thought about it.

“What, do you have a complaint?”

And the person trying to argue right and wrong in front of me was, if anything, a loyal retainer.

That didn’t mean he was morally flawless. To begin with, people who can empathize with others’ pain don’t survive long in corporations. No, they can’t survive long in society either.

But his loyalty was real. He was a genuine talent who sincerely worried about the future of the Hansan Group and could offer his life to give faithful counsel to the Hansan family.

If he hadn’t been pushed to a minor position for speaking truthfully, he would have been in a much higher position than now.

“Mr. Jang Guhan. What makes you so discontented that you’re acting out towards me?”

Though he looked young, his actual age was probably much older than mine.

Physical modification for appearance management and anti-aging technology had such definite efficacy that it made 21st-century Korean plastic surgery seem like “naturalism.”

For wealthy people, appearance and youth were merely elements they could choose. Just as rich people buy luxury clothes, they could purchase appearance by paying expensive costs.

“The chairman was… very worried too. Do you know how heartbroken he was when you couldn’t get up?”

“So what?”

It wasn’t particularly comfortable to speak harshly to such a person. But it was necessary.

This was also the kind of behavior Han Sanwoo would likely exhibit, and right now I needed to provoke him.

“Please… think seriously about the future of the Hansan Group. You’re the chairman’s grandson.”

“Did you really call me here just to say that?”

“…Please.”

Of course, I knew. To touch his patient heart, quite a lot of groundwork was needed.

I openly picked fights with employees he cared about and loudly mocked him when he spoke. Among other things, I did countless things that would make him look at me with annoyance.

But the position of being a member of the Hansan family is absolute. Even for him, it’s difficult to specifically mention what I’ve done wrong.

“You there, Guhan. You were the branch manager of Hansan Foods for Stella City, right?”

“Not Stella City, but the U.S. branch manager.”

“Ah, that’s not my business. Well, why don’t you do your job properly?”

Perhaps guessing that what I was trying to do wasn’t normal, his face hardened.

“Sir, what on earth…”

“No, as you said, I’m also an executive of the Hansan Group. So I should also manage how hard the kids below are working, right?”

It was an overreach of authority. But in this world, conglomerates were closer to empires than companies.

Even if a prince conducted inspections beyond his authority, unless it was another royal or a subject of comparable rank to me, they couldn’t easily challenge it.

“Hey, Suhwa!”

“Yes, young master.”

I tapped her shoulder to call my secretary, who followed me like a shadow.

“Cancel all of today’s schedule. That Hansan Foods factory was nearby, right? I should go there first.”

I smiled a vile smile. It was half sincere.

I didn’t have any particular malice, but they would interpret my smile differently.

“S-Sir!”

“Ah, forget it. This is your choice?”

Frivolous words unbecoming of a conglomerate heir burst out too easily. Sincerely, this wasn’t my problem but the problem of the original “Han Sanwoo’s” low-quality mouth.

He was a delinquent who hung out with troubled heirs and crime bosses, so there was no way formal speech would stick to his mouth.

Unnecessarily protected by Hansan Group’s chairman, Han Sanmok, there was no one to guide Han Sanwoo on the right path.

“Prepare the car. Let’s leave right away.”

There was no reason to waste more time here since the objective had been achieved.

“You won’t find any faults. Since hearing voices from the field is also important, I’ll accept it.”

Realizing that stopping me would be meaningless, Jang Guhan nodded heavily.

“I like how quick you are to understand. That field? The field is good.”

I thought he might urgently follow me, but surprisingly, he didn’t move.

Well, in a way, it was natural. Unlike me, who could sweep away schedules like dust, he was a real businessman.

For him, with many tasks remaining at Hansan Tower, it might be difficult to move rashly.

Perhaps he also thought it was easier to clean up after me than to face me.

At least the first button was properly fastened. Desperately hiding my trembling expression, I left Hansan Tower.

I needed to start the “safety inspection.”