12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I mumbled, with my arms crossed. “It’s so strange to see…”

In my mind, watching the news over and over, a hypothesis floated up. Such a hypothesis was unlikely, but not entirely impossible. “No way…”

I touched my lower lip at the articles before me. But in the meantime, the telephone rang.

“Yes.”

“Boss, twenty minutes from now, we have an interview for the next president of Suyeon Electronics in the conference room. Shin Jae-chul, former CTO of Susung Electronics, and Maverick Turner, former vice president of Intel, both came early and are waiting now.”

“Okay. We’re also seeing someone in the afternoon, aren’t we?”

“Yes, he is the interim president of Suyeon Construction. Vice President Jang wants you to move on to greet him right away.”

“… Okay. I’ll get out of here.”

“Yes, boss.”

After the call, I looked at the mailbox with the future news and closed it. Right now, right after the acquisition of Suyeon Group, there was too much work to do.

‘… my hypothesis is not sure yet. After work… let’s get the news one more time in the evening and think again. Maybe… it’s a coincidence.’

I got up from my seat after thinking that.

————————

I asked with my hands together. “Yes, I heard you well. Lastly, do you have anything you want to say?”

“I first joined Susung Electronics in 1992, just thirty years ago. I’ve been in this industry for a long time, and I’ve got some insights.”

I thought as I listened to him, ‘Hmm… really? Insight? Perhaps it’s more important to listen to me than that. No matter how insightful he is, he can’t be better than me, because I look at the future.’

“If CEO Han Sang-hoon and other directors of Invictus Investment choose me as president…”

A middle-aged man with half his hair going white spoke in front of me like a politician shouting for pledges. Shin Jae-chul, former CTO of Susung Electronics, and a graduate of Seoul National University’s Department of Electronic Engineering, joined Susung Electronics as a mere worker without a particular background, and climbed to the company’s top rank. But he, too, was caught up in a fight inside the group and was known to be not very good at finishing with the group.

“I will use my experience and try to run the company wisely, so that next year’s operating profit is up twenty percent from now on.”

I looked at him with great care. It was not a company worth just a penny or two, but thirty billion dollars. I could not leave it to just anyone.

“… I’ll do it.”

At the end of his speech, I nodded to him. “I heard your speech well. Then, I’ll discuss it with the board and let you know as soon as we make a decision. As you know, it hasn’t been long since our company acquired Suyeon Electronics, so it’ll take a while.”

He replied quickly, “It’s okay. I’ll wait. Mr. CEO.”

As expected, he had the sense to quickly tell me the answer I wanted because he had been in the Susung Group for a long time.

“Yes, I’ll let you know the result in two months.”

The reason was that there were two candidates for the next president. It would take two months for Crow to dig in the backgrounds of two people.

“Yes, sir.” He nodded to me and left the interview room.

I asked Vice President Jang, who was sitting next to me. “How do you think of him?”

“I thought he’d be a little speechless as he has a Ph.D. in engineering, but he is a good speaker. Should I say he has charisma?”

I lifted the profile before me and replied, “In addition, he went to the U.S. to get an MBA at the expense of the company.”

“It’s like someone from Susung Group was making efforts to raise him to president or vice president.”

“But he was pushed out in the middle?”

“Yes, the company is… a jungle.”

In fact, Vice President Jang was a man who had been forced out of the company after being embroiled in a political fight. ‘An evil may sometimes turn out to be a blessing in disguise.’ Now he would get ten times the salary he had used to get, I thought as I shifted the profile of Shin Jae-chul, former CTO of Susung Electronics, to the side.

‘Well, he’s a victim of offitics… I don’t think he was in the same situation.’

The next profile had a picture of a typical Caucasian blond man.

“Next… he’s Maverick Turner from the United States.” Director Kwon said, sitting apart a little bit. “He is a former vice president of Intel, and everybody knows him in the electronics industry.”

I’d heard of him quite a few times. I gestured, “Please let him in.”

————————

“I’ll go then.”

“Yes, sir. Please go up. Thank you for your hard work today.”

“You too.”

I broke up with Secretary Park in front of the elevator, rubbed my eyes and sighed. Today was quite a tiring day. In the morning, I made a series of interviews for one and a half hours per person, and in the afternoon, I called in Suyeon Construction’s interim president to talk about short-term management policies and the spin-off of subsidiaries.

After dinner, I even discussed with the directors the idea of renaming the companies I had just acquired to SHH. I’d been working hard all day, but I would continue this hard schedule for a few more days. It was not normal to take over Sooyeon Electronics, worth thirty billion dollars, Suyeon Construction, also worth thirty billion dollars, and dinosaur companies worth sixty billion dollars in total.

The elevator door opened, and Ah-young, who was waiting at the front door, said to me, “You’re late?”

“I worked overtime a long time.”

“Are you tired?”

“Yes, but it’s fine. It’s nothing compared to the overtime I used to work in the old days.”

That was true. Even this overtime was different from the one that had been at “the level of squeezing people.” First of all, the intensity of work and the length of time were different, but now I did not have to notify anyone, because I was the owner.

“Hmm, then? When you were a low man in the old days?”

“Yes.”

Ah-young accepted my jacket from me and asked, “Can you tell me more, then?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to tell.”

I really didn’t want to talk about it. Even now that I was the richest man in Korea, I didn’t want to recall the hardships I had experienced at that time. I changed the subject right away.

“How are you feeling, anyway?”

“I’ve had a good rest for two days and I think I’m almost well.”

“Good to hear that. But you should rest until tomorrow. Don’t go anywhere else, okay?”

“Okay, oppa.”

I took off my pants and picked up the phone that was in there. It was just 8:42 p.m. ‘It’s time for the evening news to come.’

I was drunk yesterday, so I put off watching until this morning, but today I didn’t want to delay for a moment. I had a theory to verify. I went into the shower and said, “Don’t worry about me and rest. I’m going to take a shower and do some more work in the study.”

“Huh? You have more to do?”

“Yes. Work never ends.”

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After taking a shower, listening to the sound of the TV in the bedroom, I headed to my study. I turned on the computer and opened the email box. There was five news from ’12 Hours After’ to ’12 Years After.’ I clicked the news 12 Years After this time, before any other news.

‘No way, this time again?’ Thinking about it, I read the news.

[Politics – Is there any variable to President Joo Sung-won, who is likely to be reelected?

Economy – The global stock market stretches itself. Is the Chinese nightmare over?

Society – Where is a teacher going to stand in the holographic age?

Life/Culture – A VR aquarium, walk into the sea.

World – Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano explodes again after six years.

IT/Science – Space travel costs could be lowered to $50,000 within this year.

Sports – FIFA’s 24/25 season best eleven.

Entertainment – 2025 Grammy Awards, the star’s glittering figures.]

And, looking around at the news that came out, I thought. ‘This time again? That’s right, isn’t it?’

This time, there was no news to deviate from. I went over it from the top, one by one.

‘Politics – Joo Sung-won’s re-election story… Since he was elected last year, this is the 2025 news.

Economy – Is the Chinese nightmare over? This is news that could come out this year. This year or next…

Society – Holograms will be commercialized around next year. Then this is news that will be released in two or three years.

Life/Culture – A VR aquarium can still be built today. It’s just a level difference.

World – The volcano erupted in 2018… It exploded again after six years, which will be 2024.

IT/Science – $50,000 for space travel? Now it costs $200,000, so it won’t be long.

Sports – 24/25 season best eleven.

Entertainment – 2025 Grammy Awards.’

All of them were all the same. I got the Grandmaster Class yesterday and until this afternoon, the four “12 Years After” news I received were all without exception. Obviously, it was news until twelve years from now, but there was no news coming out after 2026. I stroked my chin and thought. ‘What the hell? Errors?’

But it could never be an error. Future news such as a knife clearly showed what was specified.

‘At first, I thought I was just unlucky and they didn’t come up with a science fiction story.’

There was only one possibility in this situation. ‘Since 2026… Did something happen where there’s no news coming out?’

That was the hypothesis I’d been thinking about since this morning. I searched ‘Han Sang-hoon’ in the People Search.

[Han Sang-hoon, CEO of Invictus Investment, is Korea’s richest man in 2025, too.]

As expected, my news was not available after 2025. The same went for searching for President Joo Sung-won or actress Oh Hyun-joo. Every news was talking about what they did until 2025. No news had come out since 2026.

‘What would have happened?’

But then, there was something that came into my eyes: Ranking News, which was below the People Search, and would show the most viewed news during the designated period, first and second place.

‘… First and second place in the news that they’ve seen the most in 12 years…’

Cooldown time was once a month, anyway. I pushed the Ranking News and activated the active skill. Then, two lines of news came out. I saw it and swore loudly in spite of myself, “Goddamnit all…”

Within twelve years, the first and second biggest news stories in our country were as follows:

[The Chinese nuclear bomb hit Washington, leaving the U.S. capital in ashes.]

[The U.S. nuclear bomb hit Beijing, estimated ten million civilians dead.]