The office grew louder day by day.
Phones rang out. Footsteps reverberated. Desks groaned with piles of contracts and reports. Laughter ebbed and flowed as waves at the periphery, the soft voice of polite words creating a low, rolling murmur. But Yoo Minjae's corner cubicle remained unmarked—neat, quiet, neat.
In a world where time expanded beyond deadlines and deliverables, he alone defined it differently.
Seven days since he'd landed at Seojin Capital Solutions. Seven days of onboarding emails, hello-you-too messages, spreadsheet templates, and begrudging weekend plans pleasantries. Every other second, a stone piled up on the trail he'd constructed behind an alias—each one a purpose, a scratch, a choice filed under anonymity.
"Minjae-ssi," a gentle voice called him out of his focus.
He shifted his head. Seori was just two steps behind him, her fingers sunk deep in the sleeves of her bulging chunky knit cardigan. Her warm brown eyes regarded him, alert but friendly.
"Want to go get lunch today?" she asked, tilting her head in a gentle smile.".
He looked over at the group near the office door. Joohyuk waved at him with a grin, holding two lunch boxes, clearly hoping to snag one of the window tables at the nearby café before they were taken.
"I'll be right there," Minjae said, offering that same soothing smile he wore like a tailored coat—comfortable, reliable, hiding far more than it revealed.
"Don't wear yourself out working," Seori added lightly, already heading out.
"I'll try."
She left with the others, chatting easily about some drama that had aired the night before.
Minjae turned back to his screen. He'd spent the morning reviewing vendor contracts—not because he was told to, but because three discrepancies in the figures had caught his eye. No felony. Just… sloppy. Unnecessary.
A company this size shouldn't do sloppy buying.
He silently made two lines for revision, indicated the third with a tiny note asking for revision. Nothing to make anyone raise an eyebrow. It would be discovered later, underlined by someone else. But not today.
The office door creaked.
A middle-aged man intervened, his presence altering the space. Loosened tie, rolled-up sleeves, and salt-and-pepper hair clothed him as a man too busy to worry about appearances—but smart enough to ensure the impression was deliberate.
Jang Wookhyun.
Division Director. Charming, astute, prudent. A man who had risen through his devotion to those above and those below in their ranks. In another life, he would have been a fine war general. Or a conservative land-owning aristocrat with money, influence, and patience to use both as a scalpel.
He strode across the office with working-class poise, spoke not a word, and vanished into a tiny private chamber in the rear. The door slammed shut behind him.
Minjae didn't need an introduction.
"Phew," Joohyuk breathed melodramatically upon his return from lunch, flopping down with a sigh. "You feel it? Every time Director Jang walks in, I swear the air conditioning goes down by two degrees."
Minjae looked at him. "Does it?"
"Okay, not literally," Joohyuk conceded, unrolling a sheet of kimbap, "but in spirit. Man's got war fighting spirit."
Minjae smiled thinly.
"I heard Wookhyun-nim's running for VP in the next quarter," Joohyuk went on softly, looking off to the side. "But there's some behind-the-scenes intrigue."
"Intrigue?" Minjae repeated softly.
Joohyuk chewed considerately, leaned forward. "Word is, some external individual's been picking up holding shares proxy-fashion via third parties. People are trying to guess who it is. Hush-hush kind of thing."
Minjae arched an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Don't know. No one knows who. But it's spooking people up there."
Minjae said nothing.
Because he knew.
But the moment wasn't right to rock the surface.
So he steered. "Would that affect internal promotions?"
Indeed, Joohyuk agreed, his eyes sparkling with the excitement of corporate gossip. "If the board believes ownership structures are changing, they will rearrange everything. Director Jang must be sweating bullets behind that poker face of his."
Minjae nodded contemplatively, refocusing his gaze on the spreadsheet in front of him.
Even in the absence of magic, he could shape systems. And unlike mythic dragons, who ruled through fire and claw, he did it now through influence—covert in plain paperwork, re-directed incentives, and timing.
"Minjae," Seori's voice came again, this time lower, more urgent.
He looked up. She approached, holding a clipboard.
"Director Jang's assistant just asked for a status update on the supplier comparison chart."
"I emailed the draft this morning," he replied, rising smoothly from his seat. "I'll bring a printed copy."
She blinked. "Already? That's fast."
"I like to double-check things."
Seori smiled faintly. "You're spoiling the curve for the rest of us."
He only nodded respectfully to that, then proceeded down the row of cubicles clutching a small binder tightly against his body. Heads turned silently. Team members looked up—some out of curiosity, some out of passive deference, and some out of friendly regard.
At Director Jang's door, Minjae knocked once.
"Enter."
Coffee and fresh paper scented the air. The office was lit well, spartan, and efficient to deliver power.
Director Jang stared up at a stack of folders.
"Yoo Minjae," he said briefly glancing at Minjae's badge for a second. "Finance Strategy, I take it?"
"Yes, Director."
"You're the person who redesigned the vendor comparison template?"
"I just improved it," Minjae stated flatly, setting the binder down in front of him.
Jang flipped through it, his face blank.
"Where are these notes from?"
Instruction: "Public filings and internal purchase histories," Minjae answered. "I applied a moving average filter to set aside anomalies in supplier prices. Some of the price spikes were consistent with market disruptions, but two weren't."
"You cross-referenced this against our internal invoicing systems?" Jang asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes. I benchmarked them against procurement timestamps and batch-level quantities. Two percent variance differences were captured. I've also added sourcing reliability measures."
A long silence followed.
Eventually, Director Jang looked up, tracing a finger along the rim of the report. "This is out of your mandate."
"I didn't want to make sure the numbers add up before you look at it."
A pause. The director looked down again, jaw clenched but not displeased.
"This layout—use it on all future reports from your team."
"I'll make sure of it," Minjae said, keeping his voice even.
Jang gave a short nod. "Dismissed."
Minjae bowed slightly, turned, and left.
He didn't smile.
He just breathed.
Outside, as he passed Seori's desk, she gave him a questioning look. "How'd it go?"
He handed her the empty folder. "Approved."
She raised her eyebrows. "Already?"
"I think he liked the reliability scores."
"Wow," she muttered. "He usually tears first reports apart."
"Maybe he was hungry," Minjae said lightly and returned to his desk.
Joohyuk leaned over again as soon as he sat down. "You went into the lion's den and came out without a scratch?"
"He approved it."
Joohyuk let out a low whistle. "Now I'm jealous. My last three reports came back looking like murder scenes."
"I'm sure yours were fine," Minjae offered diplomatically.
"Yeah, well," Joohyuk smiled, "not dragon-tier fine."
Minjae paused.
For a moment.
And then he exhaled.
Small steps. Pebble by pebble.
He wasn't attempting to reform the company.
Not yet.
He was building foundations—quietly, step by step—for something much, much greater. Something that took no fire, no wings, no bellow.
Only precision. Patience.
And a name that no one here knew he still possessed.
Valmyros.The Sovereign Flame.
But here?
Just Yoo Minjae.
And that was more than enough. For now.