The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Prologue: That Damn Shiba Dog!

“Take it.”
“……??”
“Hurry up!”
“…….”

A grandmother wearing a deep indigo skirt embroidered with delicate peonies extended her right hand.

Her age was impossible to discern.
This old woman of uncertain standing held out her palm to me.

“Why’s the young bear looking so defeated? Life’s sometimes like the worst kind of shit, kid.”
“……!!”

My name is Tae Woong.

Since childhood, I’d been teased as “the bear cub” because of it.

“Don’t forget today! Without money, even holding a woman’s hand is a crime!”
“…….”

The blunt truth hit like a gut punch, and my heart lurched.

Right. Today my life is absolute shit.

Got fired from my job and dumped by my girlfriend.
To her, I was nothing—a man without money or connections.

“Tsk tsk. A man meant for good fortune, and you still haven’t come to your senses.”

The grandmother clicked her tongue.

“Sigh.”

All I could manage was a sigh.

“My arm’s getting tired. Take it already.”
“Huh?”
“Can’t you see?”

I understood—a bank passbook.
A bank passbook in a vinyl cover, complete with a seal.

“Open it.”

I accepted it without thinking and opened it.

“Wait——!!”

It was in my name.
The moment I saw the balance printed there, a sound escaped my throat.

“What… what is this??”

A bank passbook in my name, one I’d never seen before.
And the number printed in it was staggering.

One billion won.

I’d never laid eyes on this passbook before, yet it bore my name—Ha Tae Woong.

“From now on, live however you want! Money? Women? If you want it, it’s yours!”

The grandmother had drawn close without my noticing, stroking the back of my head gently.

I felt no revulsion.
The look in her eyes as she gazed at me was one of pity.

I was two years older than my peers.

It happened in first grade of elementary school.

Walking down the street, I was struck on the back of the head for no reason I could understand.
It was an era when random violence ran rampant.

They never caught the attacker.

This was before CCTV was common.
The assault happened in a blind spot of an alley.

The police took action, but it all fizzled out in the end.

I lost two years to that incident.

I was in a vegetative state for five months, then spent the next six months in rehabilitation.

Without precedent, I became a legendary second-grade repeater.

“First, buy yourself some of that trendy snack with this pocket money! You know, ta… what’s it called?”

Tanghuulu? Like that?

The balance in the passbook was one billion won.
Realistically speaking, that would barely buy one apartment in Seoul.

“What was it again? That fake money thing those Chinese folks like.”

Fake… money?

“You know, that puffed snack made with electricity!”

Made with… electricity?

“Ah! That thing with a name that has a moon in it, and there’s a dance, and… that damn Shiba dog thing too!”

Moon? Dance? Shiba…?
Suddenly, the connections clicked into place!

“Co… coins??”
Chapter 1. F*** You!

“Why are you resigning?”

The Daelyong Group ranked 99th in last year’s domestic conglomerate rankings.

This is the director’s office of the Strategic Planning Team at Daelyong Eco-Cycle, a subsidiary under the group.

The cold metallic furnishings alone must have cost a fortune in interior design fees.

Even for an executive, squandering corporate funds like this was unacceptable.

Swish.

Director Ko Dong-yeol tilted his head back arrogantly, looking down at me.
His gaze was as sharp and merciless as a viper’s.

Behind thin, angular silver frames, cold eyes gleamed.

He was thirty-three years old.
His short hair, gelled back sharply, added to his commanding presence.

Designer clothes and an ostentatious luxury watch were his standard uniform.

For a typical man of his age, an executive position at a major conglomerate would be nearly impossible to attain.

But Ko Dong-yeol came from different circumstances.

His grandfather was the chairman of the family conglomerate.
His father was the CEO.

His great-grandfather had been the founding chairman of a major national newspaper.

He was among South Korea’s most elite heirs.

“You’re not asking because you genuinely don’t know, are you?”
“I don’t understand, sir.”

This morning, I’d received an abrupt notice of standby assignment.

The stated reason: lax work discipline and personal misuse of a corporate card.

It was baseless and ridiculous.
I couldn’t accept it.

That dinner clearly had been a client entertainment event, approved by my superiors.
I hadn’t used the card for anything else.

So personal misuse? That made no sense.

Last month, a project I’d spent all year developing had been a massive success.
It was an ambitious project I’d spearheaded as a senior manager.

I’d practically lived in my alma mater’s engineering lab to secure the patent.

I’d even deployed my connections through a business school professor.

I’d acquired the latest eco-friendly biodegradable plastic production technology at a bargain from a professor at Yeon Kook University Engineering College who was researching it.
It was breakthrough research with sufficient price competitiveness.

I’d even opened direct dealings with environmentally conscious major European corporations.

Final supply contracts had been signed.
For the next decade, I only needed to collect annual royalties in euros worth hundreds of millions of won.

My colleagues had congratulated me on the substantial bonuses and special promotions I’d receive.
That was the office rumor too.

Upper management had even hinted at an S grade for my performance review.

And then today!
Termination notice.

“You don’t know…… Hehehe.”

Ko Dong-yeol laughed openly at me.

Click.

Hisss.

In the spacious director’s office, which he used alone.
Ko Dong-yeol brazenly lit a cigarette despite the in-house smoking ban.

Pufffffff.

Thick smoke curled in front of my face, obscuring the view.

“Tae Woong Ha.”
“…….”

Ko Dong-yeol said my name.

“Do you have any connection with me?”
“…….”
“You know—school ties, regional ties, family ties. That sort of thing.”
“None, sir.”
“Right, you don’t. Not even smoking buddies, right?”
“…….”

There was no way an ordinary man like me could have any connection with a junior member of the chaebol elite.

“Every time I look at you, I’m in a foul mood. Very foul! Why is that, I wonder?”
“I don’t know, sir.”

Ko Dong-yeol had only been assigned here a few months ago.
Before that, he’d worked at other group subsidiaries.

“Hehe. Yeah, that’s normal. You have no sense of things, do you? You’re just a tasteless bastard. That’s what you are!”

Ko Dong-yeol, who certainly knew everything about my unremarkable background.
He was insulting me openly.

I wanted to punch that smug face with my fist.

Outside the fence, he’d be barely worth a swing.

But I had to hold back.

Outside, without income, was a warzone.
Crises erupting worldwide in every direction.

Beginning in 2020, the fractures between nations had grown apparent.

The Russia-Ukraine war was unimaginable.

Then came the conflict between Israel and the Arab world—crises struck before the aftereffects of COVID-19 had even faded.

Then, starting in 2027.
The global bubble reached its all-time peak and then, in an instant—Pop!
Burst.

South Korea couldn’t escape it; we got hit hard.

Real estate speculators who’d specialized in gap investment collapsed overnight due to high interest rates.

The arrogance of landlords who’d reigned above all else became pitiful.

The feast of the newly rich was hollow.
Those who’d been caught up in it ended up on the streets.

The country lurched from one quasi-emergency to another.

Unfortunately, my own job prospects had been terrible.

When I first got hired, the economy wasn’t too bad.

Most of my university classmates got jobs at major corporations.
But whenever I applied alongside them, only I kept getting rejected.

I passed the document screening for first-round selections at several top-ten conglomerates.

But every time, I received rejection notices after the interview.
It wasn’t as if my credentials were poor either.

My GPA at graduation was 4.33.

I scored near-perfect on the TOEIC and TOEFL, and I could manage Japanese and Chinese reasonably well.

Later, when I tried for companies ranked fifty or lower, I kept getting rejected too.

Foreign firms also refused to hire me.

Bad luck dogged me relentlessly.

After years of drifting, I finally landed at the Daelyong Group.

It had about twenty subsidiaries then.
It wasn’t in the top hundred of Korea’s business rankings at the time.
Or so it seemed back then.

But it was certain to climb several positions higher next year.
That was the critical point.

It would only happen because of my project’s success.

In that context, a standby assignment notice dropped out of nowhere.

I still had unpaid student loans to repay.
Current living costs were murderous.

I had too many reasons to endure.
I absolutely had to suppress my rage.

“Is there no way?”

I clenched my fist and gritted my teeth as I asked again.

“Of course there’s no way, buddy. Hehe.”

Ko Dong-yeol laughed broadly.
His eyes continued to mock me.

“What’s the real reason?”

Even if I was leaving, I wanted to know why.
The wave of early retirements had ended last year.

I was curious why the company was letting go of someone who’d brought it profit.

“Everything.”
“……??”
“Look. Your cocky eyes, your offensive tone, your disgusting face. Even your piddling abilities! You and I don’t have a single thing in common.”

This bastard!
He was clearly an INTJ psychopath with dominant tendencies, with ISFJ undertones!

Firing me over personal preference alone?

“Plus your posture’s too stiff. You act way too confident for someone of low birth. I hate that. So you—lowborn trash—have to go. Hehehehe.”

You’re the bastard here!
I find you repulsive.

Ko Dong-yeol’s education from an obscure American regional private university wasn’t even worth mentioning.

My project’s success had only solidified his position within the group.

My situation was different—I was a mere grunt.
Ko Dong-yeol collected nearly all the fruits of business efforts.

Yet he was jealous of a low-level employee like me.

He didn’t have the capacity to think big.
The conclusion was clear.

“I’ll submit my resignation.”
“Hehe. Good thinking. I’ll give you two months’ salary as severance.”
“What about the handoff?”
“What’s there to hand off from you? Get your face out of here right now.”

Crack.

My teeth ground together.
To the end, this man showed no courtesy—only mockery and contempt.

Thinking back, there’d been no new projects assigned over the past month.

I’d thought of it as a vacation of sorts.

Once that period ended, he’d accused me of work indiscipline.
It had all been premeditated scheming from the start.

Like using a hound to hunt a rabbit, then cooking the hound once it’s served its purpose.

Hisss.

Ko Dong-yeol’s eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of getting what he wanted—poison rising to the surface.
Like a viper rolling its yellow eyes, he mocked me.

If I followed my nature, I’d punch the ruffian’s face in.

But I held back.

I wasn’t some crude punk.
I was an educated man.

However.

Swish—I loosened the necktie that had been strangling me.

“Hey, Ko Dong-yeol.”

I called him casually.

“Ko Dong-yeol? You getting cocky now that you’re fired?”

He looked at me incredulously.

“No. We’re the same age, aren’t we? Drop the title. And tell me—is there even one thing you and I have in common? Kind words come out kind, harsh words come out harsh. What do you expect?”

I met Ko Dong-yeol’s gaze steadily and calmly.

“This… this crazy bastard!”

Ko Dong-yeol shot up from his seat and strode toward me.
Short. He was short.

Ah, I got it.

I finally understood why I was being fired at this moment.

Stomp.

I stepped forward to meet him, closing the distance with one long stride.

“……!!”

Swish—I extended my arm, bringing it close to Ko Dong-yeol’s throat.

“What… what is this!!”

He flinched and retreated, stepping back hastily.

He was scared.

“Watch yourself on dark streets. You know I’m Special Forces trained, right?”

Pat-pat.

I brushed his shoulder lightly with my palm.

Tremble.

I felt his racing heartbeat transmit through my palm.

A smirk escaped me.

It irritated me that a world existed where power plays by such men actually worked.

Since joining, I’d given my all to the company.
I had no regrets.

I’d leave cleanly.

“Process the severance cleanly. You’re not worth the sole of my shoe, you ruffian.”

No lingering attachment.

Severing my stable employment.

Even getting fired felt refreshing today.

I walked out without turning back—and gave it the middle finger!!

The first event of the day.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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