Yokai Come to the Countryside Café

Chapter 54: The Reward of Good Deeds (3)

The Divine Eye reveals a great deal.

The past, the present, the future, even the tail and ears hidden by the Divine Beast.

However, it does not show everything one wishes to see.

In particular, the future glimpsed through the Divine Eye is only a very limited portion.

Moreover, knowing the result does not necessarily lead to discovering all the causes, and even if one does, it cannot change the future where the event occurred.

What is bound to happen will inevitably happen.

The only thing one can do is put their hope into the flow of time leading to that fragment of the future and try their best.

Like a maze leading toward a predetermined exit from the very beginning.

And I happen to be quite good at finding my way through that maze.

Having confirmed a fleeting scene through the Divine Eye, I slowly opened my eyes.

“Manager Kim, were you asleep?”

“No. I just had something to think about. Please go ahead and eat first. I’m going to stop by Sales Team 2 for a bit.”

“Why are you going there?”

“I forgot a document I need to deliver.”

As expected, the office of Sales Team 2, which I arrived at skipping lunch, had the atmosphere of having already finished eating.

Going to lunch earlier than other departments was a sort of privilege of the Sales Team, who frequently go on business trips. If they dash to the cafeteria as soon as it opens and eat quickly, their lunch break effectively lasts about an hour and a half.

Of course, their long and flexible lunch break has its pros and cons.

If they suddenly get a lunch appointment with a client, they often have to eat without even realizing whether it’s going in through their nose or their mouth.

Fortunately, it seemed that everyone had eaten at the cafeteria today.

Team Leader Kang, with a toothbrush in his mouth, spotted me standing outside the door and quickly opened it.

“Oh, Manager Kim. What brings you to our office? You should’ve called if you wanted to eat together!”

“Hello, Team Leader. How have you been?”

“What’s this? You're greeting me like we haven’t seen each other in years. Come into the lounge and wait a moment. I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll help.”

“I said go inside.”

The lounge I was semi-forced to enter first was furnished with a soft sofa and a low table instead of hard chairs, befitting an office frequently visited by clients.

Even to someone like me, who doesn’t know much about furniture, it was obvious the leather was the cheapest kind of faux leather, but comfort-wise, it was on a whole different level from regular chairs.

“Here, your coffee.”

“Thank you.”

“But really, what brings you here? You’re usually too busy to even call.”

“I have a favor to ask.”

“A favor?”

“I’m planning to raid the warehouse.”

‘Raiding the warehouse’ was a slang term used only in our company.

For some reason, the headquarters’ archive was called ‘the warehouse’, and inside it lay business plans that had been dropped in the planning stage for various reasons, out of the dozens proposed each year.

To raid the warehouse meant to dig through those old plans and try to salvage a usable business idea.

“Wait, you’re in the Strategic Planning Team. Why would you raid the warehouse? Planning to transfer to the Sales Team?”

“No. I’d like you to review something for me, Team Leader.”

“M-me?”

Flustered, the team leader stuttered.

It was understandable. Raiding the warehouse was essentially no different from stealing other departments’ projects.

And to make things worse, the ones being ‘stolen’ were mostly business plans dropped due to poor profitability or impracticality.

You’d get criticized regardless, and no matter how much you polish it, a project born with flaws would likely not be welcomed by upper management.

That’s why departments rarely raided the warehouse unless a major crisis made planning new businesses difficult.

Sales Team 2, which had secured a stable maintenance business, had no reason to raid the warehouse. Let alone review anything that came out of it.

“What kind of business is it?”

“An artificial intelligence development project from seven years ago that the Portal Business Department was preparing.”

“Wait, isn’t that the one the Chairman…”

“I just ask that you review it. I’ll be going now. Thanks for the coffee.”

“Huh? Oh, okay.”

I handed him the single page of documents I had brought and got up from my seat.

I didn’t expect much from Team Leader Kang.

Just getting him to review it was enough to accomplish my goal.

After Jinseong left, Sales Team 2 went down to the archive and retrieved materials related to the project in question, then brought them to the meeting room.

Since it was a discontinued project, there were already two whole boxes of organized documents.

『2018 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Development Project』

“Team Leader, are you really thinking of doing this?”

“I just want to take a look. That’s all. Still, Manager Kim went out of his way to bring it up. Who knows, there might be something. Besides, it’s about time we started a new project anyway.”

“That’s true, but the budget and scale for this are too large. Even if we start in the second half, we don’t have the personnel, and there’s no telling when it would be finished.”

“Hmm.”

Team Leader Kang’s thoughts were no different from the team members.

The project required astronomical costs. Moreover, if it failed, all the efforts would go to waste—it was an incredibly risky endeavor.

If something went wrong, it wouldn’t just be a matter of someone taking responsibility and resigning—the whole company could be shaken.

“More than that, it wasn’t just anyone, but the Chairman himself who dropped it. I’m not sure the Senior Managing Director will approve it.”

“Team Leader, should we just stop here?”

“Wait a moment.”

Team Leader Kang felt a sense of déjà vu.

It reminded him of that moment three years ago when he had entered the main conference room and given a presentation unexpectedly.

Only, back then, it had been him who was desperate. Now, it was someone else.

Jinseong was once again sprinting full force just to push someone else forward without asking for anything in return.

‘He’s still an unpredictable guy.’

“Let’s just find out for now. Ask the personnel who were in charge of this project seven years ago. We can decide whether it’s viable after that.”

“Yes, understood.”

There was nothing to lose.

Even if they went around digging up information about a dropped project, it wouldn’t bring harm to himself or Sales Team 2.

However, the responses from the employees who had finished interviewing the personnel within just half a day were completely different.

‘Wow, they’re doing that again? It was such a shame we had to stop! Back then we were short on manpower, but the core framework was already mostly laid out by the working-level staff.’

‘The AI project? Ah! These days there are so many open-source tools, so it’ll be much easier. Back then, we had no information, and the revenue model was unclear. But now? Every company’s using it, haha.’

‘We were so sure it would go through that we meticulously managed every output. There’s not a single fake document, so we could analyze it and get started right away.’

These were the findings Sales Team 2 had gathered.

Given that the responses came from developers—people known for being more conservative than anyone when it came to work—the rumors were highly likely to be true.

“Team Leader, this might actually work out.”

“The staff who had moved from the Portal side to the General Development Team also responded positively.”

“Really? So it just needs to be built, right? Even if we don’t monetize it, we can apply it across the platforms run by our internal affiliates. Wait, but if we’re going to link it to the platform all at once, we can’t manage it with just internal manpower, can we?”

The next morning.

As soon as I turned on the computer, the Team Leader asked about the follow-up on my visit to Sales Team 2.

(So, is Sales Team 2 going to do it?)

“I don’t know. I wasn’t the one who proposed it.”

(Huh? What do you mean?)

“I just said there was a project from seven years ago that was regrettably stopped. That’s as much as someone from another department can say.”

(Well, that’s true. But Sales Team 2 needs to start the project for us to subcontract to SL소프트웨어 or something.)

“That would be ideal, but it’s not necessary. What matters is the outcome that comes after Sales Team 2 starts poking around.”

It was a project that would cost hundreds of billions once started. Even if it did begin, it would require thorough verification by both management and the working-level staff.

But there was a type of verification that wasn’t needed.

“It’s up.”

I scraped a news article from the internet and posted it in the chatroom.

[Exclusive] Daecheon Group to resume development of AI project ‘Project ORCA’ halted seven years ago.

‘May 22, 2025 / Seoul — Digital Economy News

Daecheon Group is resuming development of its artificial intelligence project ‘Project ORCA’, which had been halted seven years ago.

In the IT industry, this decision is being interpreted as a signal of a shift in the group’s future strategy.

A Daecheon Group representative told us on the 22nd, “We are preparing to resume the ‘ORCA Project’ centered around our in-house AI research lab,” and added, “We believe the technological foundation has matured sufficiently and the market environment has changed enough to make it worth the challenge again.”’

(It’s already out? That was fast.)

There are no secrets in the world.

The rumor that Daecheon Group might be starting a major project must have spread quickly, beginning with Sales Team 2.

And it didn’t take long for it to reach the ears of reporters.

(But this article, isn’t it a little too blatant? It’s not incorrect, but still…)

(So what? This means Development Team 2 now has the upper hand. The right vendor for the job is obvious.)

SL소프트웨어. There might be alternatives, but they were just that—substitutes.

No fool would use unproven alternatives for a project worth hundreds of billions or more.

And if no one wanted to do the same work twice, the other projects they were already involved in would naturally come back to SL소프트웨어.

Unless someone had taken a serious bribe, that is.

In an office at the Guro Digital Complex, loud yelling rang out from early morning.

The voice belonged to a middle-aged man who had been speaking confidentially with Division Head Jeong Ji-won.

“Team Leader Park, we had an agreement—why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

(Sorry about this. I’ll buy you a drink sometime.)

“Team Leader Park! Team Leader Park!”

With that one-sided notice and apology, the call ended.

And then the phone rang again.

“Yes, this is Taewon-seok from HaeulSoft.”

(CEO, regarding this deal… an issue suddenly came up at the head office. We’ll have to postpone the project we agreed to outsource. Maybe next time. Take care.)

“Hello? Hello!”

-Bang.

CEO Taewon-seok could no longer suppress his fury at the bad news.

“Shit! Jeong Ji-won, you bastard! What? Give him 30 percent?!”

Two projects that were about to be finalized with just a stamp were now gone.

Each of them was a massive contract worth several billions.

For CEO Taewon-seok’s company, whose average annual revenue barely reached 5 billion won, those two calls had just cost him more than half his annual income.

-Brrrrrring.

And then, another call rang without hesitation.

“Hoo… Yes, this is Taewon-seok from HaeulSoft.”

(Hyung, it’s Jeong Ji-won. About the money you were supposed to deposit today—could you hurry up? I’m at a law firm and the cost is more than I expected…)

“You son of a bitch! You’re not getting a single damn won! Rot in prison!”

After that furious hang-up, his phone started ringing again.

-Brrrrrring.

“Shit!”

CEO Taewon-seok, unable to control his anger, threw his phone against the wall.

But he shouldn’t have done that. The next call was from the Daecheon Group Audit Team.

And so, the Daecheon Group Audit Team, unable to reach him by phone, had no choice but to head to HaeulSoft without prior notice.