Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 476 - Hanpyeong Industry (2)

Every office worker had, at least once, dreamed of getting revenge on a boss or workplace that made their life miserable.

 

I was no different. When my resentment piled up, I hoped Manager Nam would get torn to shreds by the executives, or that he’d step on gum on his way home and have to throw his shoes away.

 

Sometimes, my rage crossed human lines. Caught up in emotion, I would imagine things a person shouldn’t imagine; then, once my head cooled, I would doubt my own humanity for having such extreme thoughts.

 

At a glance, hatred toward a superior seemed to follow a consistent graph. A gentle curve that spiked when I was angry and subsided over time.

 

But without me realizing it, the center axis of those waves was slowly sinking. The ‘highs’ where I felt okay didn’t even reach half of where I had been before joining the company, while the ‘lows’ reached a point where they interfered with my daily life.

 

Like slowly becoming ill.

 

I didn’t realize it back then. Only now, looking back, could I see it.

 

To say I hated Manager Nam or that I had no desire to rejoin the Hanpyeong Industry was true, but it wasn’t quite precise.

 

The truth was: I was afraid.

 

Just imagining the future—experiencing that time again, knowing exactly what words would be hurled at me, yet being unable to escape—made it hard to breathe.

 

I learned through Manager Nam that when hatred grows too large, it moves beyond the desire for revenge; it becomes a desperate wish to never cross paths again, even by accident.

 

Back when I didn’t know any better, it was easier. When I thought everyone lived like that, there wasn’t much reason to complain.

 

But once you work with good people for a long time…

 

Once you see a company clearly changing, however slowly, and taste the sense of achievement that comes from effort over and over again, you realize just how deep a scar that place left on you.

 

That’s why I wanted to ignore it for the rest of my life. I wanted to gouge it out of my memory entirely. And yet, there were people I couldn’t bring myself to forget.

 

Assistant Manager Hwang and Employee Song.

 

My colleagues, who would end up walking the same path because they had to fill the space I left behind, became my reason to go back to Manager Nam—a man whose obituary I didn’t even want to hear.

 

If this were before my regression, I would have had many cards to play. I had mountains of recordings, screenshots, records of unused annual leave, and work logs.

 

But now, all of that had ‘never happened’. Unfortunately, using old evidence to get revenge was no longer possible.

 

Investigating whether there had been other victims didn’t seem particularly useful either. In the history of Hanpyeong Industry, I had never heard of anyone Manager Nam bullied as much as he bullied me.

 

This made me hesitate, but surely there was a way. Humans had once built pyramids out of nothing.

 

If I needed a new path, I just had to find one. My fundamental goal was to make Manager Nam stop his power abuse. While exposing past insults to soothe my resentment would be ideal, I was willing to use a secondary plan if it meant putting a brake on his behavior.

 

‘The strongest weapon would be influence.’

 

The influence of an idol personally loved by his daughter couldn’t even be compared to that of a subordinate employee far beneath him in rank.

 

The risks were smaller too. Unless it was an industry insider close to Spark, a middle-aged department manager with no connections wouldn’t get much attention even if he mouthed off about me. Especially since Manager Nam wasn’t the type talented at drawing attention from younger crowds online.

 

Conversely, what would happen if a lowly employee named Kim Iwol rebelled against his manager?

 

He’d be lucky to head home with both legs intact. Even if he quit, the manager would surely block his future path by spewing vitriol every time a reference check came around.

 

Generally, celebrities were at a disadvantage in a public exposure battle. Those with a lot to lose had to be careful.

 

However, the idol Kim Iwol had gained a sort of protective barrier through several previous rumors and online trolls incidents. The fact that I had people who would take my side was an undeniable factor.

 

Besides…

 

‘I’m not alone.’

 

Since there were five others in my party, if Manager Nam tried to throw something, wouldn’t at least one of them step in and ask him what on earth he was doing?

 

The way I phrased it might sound like a joke, but I was being serious. Honestly, I didn’t have the confidence to stand up to Manager Nam alone. Years of being one-sidedly beaten down didn’t disappear, regardless of the actual difference in physical strength.

 

Wasn’t that why the System borrowed Manager Nam’s manner of speaking? Because authority carried the most weight for Kim Iwol? Just as the System judged, I was still under Manager Nam’s shadow.

 

I hesitated even though I could have made up any number of excuses to visit. My head screamed at me to go and act according to my conscience, but my body couldn’t move.

 

But if we could all go together, even if Spark didn’t actively do anything, I felt I wouldn’t simply be crushed and endure it silently. After all the advice I’d given them over the years, it’d be embarrassing not to mouth off at least one thing in return.

 

No, actually…

 

Just having them nearby would calm me down much more. Like that time we’d gone together to the sky garden to look at the night view.

 

No one should ever have to become another version of me because of Manager Nam. I hoped no one else had to experience that pain. That was all I wanted.

 

It felt like the greatest challenge of my life. The kind of thing I could only attempt because I had people on my side. Therefore, it had to be now.

 

The final thing to decide was ‘what method to use’.

 

No matter how friendly the other party might consider me, the current me and Manager Nam were total strangers. Conciliation and persuasion would take too much time, and the probability was high that he wouldn’t listen seriously anyway.

 

One-off events or rewards lacked longevity. A shallow promise like, ‘If you do me this favor, I’ll give your daughter an autograph’, couldn’t reform a man like Manager Nam.

 

I needed hardline tactics. In an environment where no one could intervene, I needed to stand in a position so overwhelmingly advantageous that he’d have no choice but to listen to me—a third party.

 

And for a long time—probably until the day he retired—I needed something that would continue monitoring him from up close…

 

I had to plant fear.

 

To ensure the temporary control didn’t break, and to prevent him from taking his anger out on someone weaker.

 

It was time for him to pay the price for making subordinates constantly monitor their own behavior around him.

 

I would use everything I possessed to create a situation where Manager Nam couldn’t help but change his ways. There was no plan more concise than this.

 

I decided on the method. All that was left was confirmation.

 

‘System.’

 

When I called the System, a glowing dialog box appeared.

 

I wasn’t so naive as to dismiss the fact that the stage was perfectly set, that I had reached the conclusion to meet Manager Nam, and the specific solution I chose as mere coincidences. If the table was this well-set, it could be interpreted that the System also had a clear desire.

 

‘I think I know what the ‘small reward’ you mentioned is, so I want to confirm.’

 

If the System truly wanted me to overcome life’s obstacles, it must have prepared a proper safety net.

 

The System immediately outputted an answer.

 

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ You’ve been employed here for four years. Surely Assistant Manager Kim can guess what I’m thinking by now, right?

 

The System blinked.

 

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ External PTs for business expansion aren’t included in the scope of leaking corporate secrets, so have a comfortable trip~

 

As expected, the System declared it wouldn’t increase the synchronization rate or impose penalties. As the System turned off, the car’s speed gradually slowed down for parking.

 

* * *

 

Stepping out of the car, the exterior of the building was as neat as always.

 

Judging by appearances alone, you’d think it was an excellent company. People who valued appearances tended to invest in what was visible rather than substance. Hanpyeong Industry was crawling with such people.

 

Even though they were stuck with leaking ceilings and toilets with weirdly weak water pressure because they’d hired an acquaintance’s construction company for cheap cost, they had made such a fuss about plastering the company’s panoramic view on job postings as if they provided a great working environment.

 

‘Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.’

 

I was doing quite well, to the point where I felt silly for worrying I might lose my nerve. Perhaps because I had steeled myself before coming, I was actually calm.

 

If I had even a shred of affection left, I might have felt a hint of nostalgia. But the only emotion I felt now was negativity. The fact that my hostility remained unchanged was a good sign. For what was about to happen, anger was essential.

 

While I was busy cursing them out in my head, someone walked into the lobby. It was an unfamiliar face.

 

“You’re here for the Spark shoot, right?”

 

I vaguely overheard him speaking with the managers. I racked my brain for the name, which was as unfamiliar as the face, before realizing the man’s identity.

 

He was one of the 83 senior assistant managers who had passed through the HR team—the kind of predecessor I’d only learned about by desperately digging through meeting minutes, approval documents, and company servers because there hadn’t even been a proper handover document.. If this place wasn’t a graveyard for assistant managers, what was?

 

It was a strange feeling to see a senior, who was now a distant memory, dressed in a dapper suit. The fatigue etched around his eyes despite his smile, and his nearly torn slippers, shortened the psychological distance between us, even though we were meeting for the first time.

 

“Hyung, how did you know about a place like this?” 

 

Lee Cheonghyeon asked.

 

I whispered in his ear. 

 

“I came across it while doing research a long time ago.”

 

“Aha.”

 

Lee Cheonghyeon, recalling the days before we had a dedicated team when I handled everything from A to Z myself, was easily convinced.

 

After riding the agonizingly slow elevator and passing through a suffocating hallway, I saw the familiar office. It was the corner office I used to manage—the one that was impossible to use because the heating and cooling didn’t work.

 

It was also a place with a history of being neglected for years until it caught the eye of the executives, who then cursed out the employees for ‘how on earth are you managing this company?’, leading the staff to manually convert it into a storage room. Well, maybe you shouldn’t have dissolved perfectly functional departments and tanked businesses until the company became a ghost town.

 

The office where the filming would take place was right next to it. It was a space reserved for the Task Forces that were hastily put together every time the CEO saw an article like, ‘TF team of Enterprise OO pulls it off! Achieving top results through an agile organization’.

 

At Hanpyeong Industry, it was an annual event: they’d form a TF, run it for three months, disband it when results didn’t show, then hear about someone else hitting it big with a small TF and start a new one all over again.

 

Thanks to that, it worked out perfectly for me. I got a cheap office rental for filming, and I gained a legitimate excuse for coming here to confront Manager Nam. Thanks to the background knowledge passed down like folklore, I could draw a specific picture of everything from where to film to how to confront Manager Nam.

 

While the staff rearranged the desks in the rented space, we were guided to an empty meeting room.

 

Just as I was about to go over the roles and overall flow one last time before starting the full-scale shoot, I heard a knock.