Monster Company Tycoon – Chapter 1

Author: Cireng

Chapter 1

When I had just graduated from college, I thought all companies were pretty much the same.

Of course, I knew that large corporations were impressive places to work, but I believed that all the companies below them were more or less alike.

As the eldest of three siblings, I felt a sense of urgency. I needed to find a job quickly and become independent. So I believed that as long as I got hired somewhere, anywhere, I would have fulfilled my responsibility.

I got a job immediately after graduating from college.

It was a company located in the Seoul metropolitan area with fewer than twenty employees.

I had no dreams, nor did I have any particular desire to make good use of my college major. As long as the company paid my salary properly, I was fine with anything.

“Choi, you really shouldn’t work at a company recommended by a professor. And it’s not even a large corporation. It’s a small business.”

“My professor said it had a lot of room for growth. He said I could grow alongside the company.”

“That’s just lip service. You’re really going to have a hard time if you go there.”

The company I currently worked for was one my professor had recommended when I was about to graduate.

The people around me had repeatedly tried to talk me out of accepting a job at a company recommended by a professor. But the fact that I could start working immediately after graduation meant that… I couldn’t hear a word they said.

“Making money isn’t supposed to be easy anyway. I’ll be fine.”

“What are we going to do with our little Chihuahua…?”

“Don’t sneakily call me a Chihuahua.”

For the first three months after joining the company, I thought I was one of the lucky ones.

While my friends were suffering through the job hunt, I had already become a proper member of the working world.

I felt so proud of myself for going to work. I thought I looked so cool and grown-up.

That is, for exactly three months.

Right. That was when my probationary period ended.

Looking back, there had been so many warning signs……

Warning signs telling me to get the hell out of there before it was too late……

“Wait, a shaman was actually sitting there during your interview?”

“Not a shaman, a face reader…”

“Hey, come over here and listen to this. Chihuahua had her fortune read during her job interview!”

My interview story became a favorite topic for the entire department to gossip about for years. By now, even the freshmen knew the story about how I’d interviewed at a gukbap restaurant and how a face reader had been sitting among the company’s executives.

Still, the face reader had said a lot of nice things about me.

Apparently, I was overflowing with good connections?

“Your face shows that benefactors are naturally drawn to you, and that you attract good fortune in general. Your saju also indicates that you’re destined to succeed through your own efforts. You’re the kind of person who can turn a ditch into a river just by sitting in one place, so put her somewhere she can talk a lot.”

“Then we should put her in charge of hiring. She’ll recruit good talent and help the company grow.”

Anyway, thanks to the face reader’s bizarrely enthusiastic praise, the company president decided to hire me right then and there.

When I joined the company, they hastily put together a management support team for me, which, naturally, was a one-person department.

I received my handover from the president’s wife, who had been handling the relevant tasks on his behalf up until then….

And from the moment I joined the company until now, I’d been left to handle every aspect of running the business by myself, including HR, accounting, and general administration.

For a full four years, no less.

It took me four years to finally come to my senses……

Four years to realize that this company was the infamous black company, the kind of absolute shithole workplace people on the internet liked to call a gae-josso……

They’d said I had so much good fortune with people, but wasn’t the professor who had shoved me into a company like this a source of misfortune rather than good luck?

“Hey, Wawa Assistant Manager, where are the plastic bags?”

As I snapped out of my thoughts, the miserable reality of the office appeared before my eyes once again.

“Good grief, Manager. Choi’s been a team leader for ages now, and you’re still calling her an assistant manager. Chihuahua Team Leader. Oops, my mistake. Team Leader Choi, is that really all the holiday gifts the president gave us? Are you sure?”

“Manager Kim! If you come any later, all the kitchen supplies will be gone. Didn’t you say the madam told you to make sure you took the dish soap?”

“Hold it! Anyone who’s been with the company for less than three years, keep your hands off the shopping bags! The only things you can touch are the Styrofoam boxes! Just take some fruit!”

As one might expect, the company I worked for didn’t give us any holiday gifts.

Every year, it was customary for us to open the gifts sent by outside companies and divide them up among ourselves. And more gifts had been sent to me than to the president himself.

Even the kitchen supplies had been sent by a business partner who’d found out that I personally washed the employees’ cups every morning……

The boxes full of fruit and the nutritional supplements had also been sent by people who thought I looked pale and worn out.

“What’s the point of being a team leader when you’re a one-person team? Hey, Wawa Assistant Manager, are there any gift certificates? I saw you going to get the president’s approval for some gift certificates the other day.”

“There are some…. They’re worth only 1,000 won each, though. Would you still be interested? The president said we could have a maximum of five per person.”

“Five of them would be 5,000 won?”

“Yes…. But if you take the gift certificates, you can’t take anything from the gift bags. The president said you have to choose one or the other…”

I watched Manager Park walk away with a hollow expression, then silently returned to what I had been doing.

I had a pen in one hand and a job application form I’d printed at home lying on my desk.

If I filled it out on the company’s computer, there would be a record of it, so I planned to write it out on paper first and transfer it to the computer at home later.

That’s right. I was going to change jobs.

Just as the face reader had predicted, the company had grown tremendously during the four years I’d worked there.

It had filed numerous patents, acquired more business partners, and seen its revenue increase significantly as a result.

It was all thanks to the talented employees who had worked there before me. Every time passionate, capable, and perceptive people joined the company and eventually left, the company advanced another step.

If those people had continued working there, the company might have become a mid-sized enterprise or even gone public before long.

The important thing was that every single one of those star employees had left. Not a single one remained.

“I managed to hang in there for so long because I liked the people here. Especially because of you, Choi.”

“Who would make this place their lifelong workplace? Still, thanks to you, Assistant Manager, I got to pursue my dreams for a while before leaving. Let’s definitely meet again. I’d love to work with you again someday.”

Even though revenue kept increasing, our salaries remained frozen, and the performance bonuses we’d been promised were repeatedly brushed aside until they eventually disappeared into thin air.

The president was such a miser that some of the employees who still came to work out of sheer habit actually believed the company was poor.

“Choi, just think of this as advice from an older friend, okay? Change jobs. There’s no future here. I just think you’re too good for this place. You’d do wonderfully wherever you went, and you’d be treated much better.”

It was when an employee I’d been close to resigned that the scales finally fell from my eyes.

“Try asking for a salary increase. If they won’t give you one, don’t look back. Just leave.”

The president refused to grant my request, and I eventually decided to change jobs.

White was the paper, and black was the writing.

It had been years since I’d written a résumé, and my rusty brain wasn’t cooperating.

With the arguments between employees over how to divide the holiday gifts serving as background noise, I kept writing until the paper was gradually filled with something that looked like a respectable résumé.

Will any company even accept someone with this kind of experience? The employees who left all said I’d be better off anywhere else, but……

Even if I somehow managed to pass the document screening, I was worried about the interview.

Hello, my name is Gong Choi. As for the tasks I handled at my previous company… everything.

I’ve even cooked breakfast at the office every morning. Thanks to that, I know how to make just about any kind of soup…. Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t mention that.

“Hey, Chihuahua.”

I’ve also……

“Chihuahua! What are you thinking so deeply about? Aren’t you going to take your share of the gifts?”

I jumped in surprise and hurriedly scattered the papers around to make them look less suspicious.

He hadn’t caught me writing my résumé, had he?

“Huh? Oh… the gifts. You can just take my share, Director. I’m fine. I’m a little busy with the accounting, so…….”

“Oh! No taking it back now! You’ve been working hard as always.”

Judging by his reaction, thankfully, it seemed he hadn’t noticed.

I was about to shove my résumé into my bag when I suddenly noticed that the name field had already been filled in.

Chihuahua.

Apparently, I’d written down the nickname the director always used for me without even realizing it.

For a moment, I was so annoyed that I wanted to tear it up, but since I was going to copy it over anyway, I decided to leave it alone.

It was almost time to leave work.

I passed the remaining time watching the employees, who were still bickering over how to divide the holiday gifts.

Tick.

The minute hand on the commemorative clock hanging on the wall, one celebrating someone else’s company anniversary, pointed precisely to twelve, and I stood up.

“Huh? Wawa Assistant Manager, you’re leaving on time?”

“Ah… something urgent came up.”

In four years, I had never once left work at the scheduled time.

The president believed that the longer someone stayed at the office, the better they were at their job.

Normally, I would have waited until the president’s own designated time to leave, but now that I was about to resign, there was no reason to bother.

“I’ll be heading out first.”

It was such an ordinary thing to do, yet it felt like a tremendous act of rebellion to me. I even felt just a little guilty.

The bus, which I usually had to wait ages for, arrived just as I left the company. I even managed to get a seat.

I had a feeling that today was going to be a very lucky day.

“Wow, I’ve never seen that shop open before.”

By the time I usually left work, the shop had always closed for the day, so I’d only ever seen it with its doors shut.

Thinking I’d take this opportunity to stop by, I reached into my bag for my wallet, only for the résumé I’d carelessly stuffed inside to suddenly slip out.

There wasn’t even the slightest breeze, yet, strangely enough, the résumé that had escaped from my bag seemed to fly away from me as if it were running off.

“Hey! Where are you going?!”

Embarrassed at the thought of someone else seeing it, I hurried to retrieve it, but the résumé kept drifting farther away, just out of reach.

This bizarre chase continued all the way to the end of the alley, and just as I was finally about to catch it…

“…!”

A hole suddenly appeared in midair, and the résumé slipped right inside.

“W-What…? Am I so tired that I’m hallucinating?”

I froze in place, utterly shocked, when a voice came from beyond the hole.

A strange voice, resonating with tremendous power, spoke.

“I’ve received your résumé. You’re hired.”

Before I could even begin to understand what was happening, a gigantic hole opened beneath my feet.

Below me was nothing but an endless, pitch-black void.

“Aaaah!”