The Crazy Mercenary Commander Goes to Work in the Entertainment Industry

When a stone-faced Kang Jae-ha arrived at Team 4 for work, a warm-looking, good-natured man approached him. It was General Manager Kim Dae-yong.

”Jae-ha ssi, something good happen?”

Something good? There was. His funds had surged. But he hadn’t let it show, so how did the man know? Kang Jae-ha greeted General Manager Kim Dae-yong lightly and asked back.

”No, not really. Why do you ask?”

”Heh heh. You seem a little, how to put it... less stiff than usual?”

Less stiff? It had to be the most subtle of differences, and Jae-ha thought General Manager Kim Dae-yong was a more perceptive man than he looked. That perceptive General Manager Kim Dae-yong then delivered some news to Jae-ha.

”Jin-woo ssi is going to Team 1 for support today.”

He was talking about Ryu Jin-woo, the first-year Road Manager. Going to support the boy group under Team 1. Jae-ha nodded without much thought.

”Sure, I’ll handle the driving then.”

”Thanks. For Da-yeon ssi’s pickup today, you should be fine leaving the office around eleven.”

Jae-ha nodded and General Manager Kim Dae-yong headed back to his seat. Checking the time as he sat down, Jae-ha opened his laptop. He started with what had become a daily routine: searching the web. His first search term was ’Busan International Film Festival.’

Several articles immediately caught Kang Jae-ha’s eye.

《[MovieTalk] Busan International Film Festival Organizing Committee: ”This year’s Busan International Film Festival will begin June 26th”》

A faint smile crossed Jae-ha’s face as he murmured inwardly.

’There it is. Late June.’

There had been speculation floating around, but the Busan International Film Festival organizing committee had officially announced the opening date. It lined up with the existing speculation, so there was no need to change plans. While resting his chin on his hand and reading through the article, his phone buzzed briefly.

An incoming text. From Lee Chan-hoo.

The content said he’d be sending out the dispatch regarding the ’Condensation’ audition sometime today, and:

-Time is tight, so even if there aren’t many applicants, they’ll push through the audition within this week.

The ’Condensation’ audition would be handled this week. Exactly as Jae-ha had designed it. Well, he was the one who’d made it happen, so of course it was. Just then, another text arrived from Lee Chan-hoo.

-Also, the investigation on Director Hong Man-seop and ’House of the Daytime Moon’ is done.

Sharp as always. Jae-ha sent back a reply telling Chan-hoo to meet at ’MEG’, then.

-Swoosh.

He rose from his seat. Looked like he had things to do. Where he arrived was a small meeting room. When he opened the door, someone was already inside.

An Ji-hee, looking particularly fresh-faced today.

”Oh! Hello!”

She was already a classically beautiful woman, but it was even more striking today. To this girl who had greeted him like a new recruit, Kang Jae-ha gestured for her to sit.

”You said you’ve finished putting together your Free Acting piece.”

An Ji-hee, sitting bolt upright, nodded.

”Yes! I, I wanted to show it to you.”

”Sure, let’s see it.”

”Thank you.”

”No need for thanks. I said I’d look after you, so this much is nothing.”

A shy smile crossed Ji-hee’s face before she snapped to attention.

-Whoosh.

The moment she exhaled, her eyes changed. She launched into the Free Acting piece she’d put together. It began with a monologue. The emotion gradually deepened. Then she moved into exaggerated lines, using Kang Jae-ha as her scene partner.

Kang Jae-ha.

”......”

Assessed An Ji-hee with considerable gravity. The result was good.

’Her breathing seems to have improved. Since she’s committed herself wholeheartedly, there’s less tension too, and more than anything, her bearing as an actress is alive. She must have let go of the baggage.’

Nothing but a straight shot toward being an actress.

Having finished the Free Acting piece she’d prepared, An Ji-hee glanced at Kang Jae-ha. A nervous swallow. She seemed tense.

”...How was it?”

Kang Jae-ha’s answer came faster than expected. Casual, as a bonus.

”Good.”

”Ah! Really?”

To Ji-hee, whose eyes instantly lit up with a smile, Jae-ha added.

”But bring the tone down a bit. Don’t rush through the lines either. Make good use of the pauses between lines.”

”Yes, yes.”

An Ji-hee rapidly typed his advice into her phone as a memo. Her expression was like some dead-serious researcher. Once she finished writing, she set her eyes with determination.

”I’ll polish it up. The Free Acting piece.”

”Have you been going over the ’Condensation’ screenplay?”

”Yes, every single day. I’ve memorized almost all the lines. Want me to run through them?”

Jae-ha had to rein in the battle-ready An Ji-hee. In any case, after the meeting with Ji-hee ended and Jae-ha returned to Team 4, yet another woman was waiting for him there.

”Ugh, what took you so long?”

It was Yoon Da-yeon, brushing her long straight hair aside. She cleared her throat with a little cough, then sidled up to Jae-ha and murmured quietly.

”Look at the Free Acting piece I put together.”

”Hmm.”

”I, if you don’t want to, then forget it.”

Jae-ha smirked inwardly.

’I was going to go pick her up, but she came on her own.’

Meanwhile, the New Business Team Director’s office.

A man sat gripping his head with both hands, tearing at his hair. It was Director Kim Chul-joong, the one with the long chin.

”Fuck......fuck!”

Curses streamed from him without end. Since yesterday, Director Kim Chul-joong couldn’t focus on a thing. And for good reason. Right now, he had a leash around his neck. The profile of the bastard who’d put that leash on him sat right in front of Director Kim Chul-joong.

Director Kim Chul-joong picked up the clear folder.

A meaningless profile. There wasn’t a damn thing to see. Kang Jae-ha’s four years of career history. Far below average. At this level, his presence would’ve been zero. He’d heard about the Ra Yoon incident too. Back then, he’d just brushed it off as someone snapping from built-up stress.

’What the hell is this bastard’s real identity?’

Just in case, Director Kim Chul-joong had asked around Management Teams 1 and 2 about Kang Jae-ha. Every single assessment was harsh. No presence, or weak, or scrawny, or useless, or a stuttering mess, and so on.

’No. That’s not what he was.’

But the Kang Jae-ha that Director Kim Chul-joong had seen was nothing short of a rabid dog.

’Starting with those eyes, he is just a straight-up motherfucker.’

He couldn’t begin to figure out what kind of man Jae-ha really was. Clawing at his hair again, he clenched his molars as he recalled Jae-ha.

’Messing with Team 4 is off the table.’

Because the leash fastened around his neck was far too tight.

Same day, night.

Past ten o’clock. Inside a large concert venue, a popular boy group’s rehearsal was in full swing. The parking lot was packed with vans. In one parked somewhere in the middle, a familiar-looking man sat in the driver’s seat.

”Ahhh, this is brutal.”

It was Ryu Jin-woo, the first-year Road Manager who usually took care of Yoon Da-yeon alongside Kang Jae-ha. He was normally high energy, but the team he’d been sent to support today must have run him ragged, because the fatigue was obvious.

”Yoon Da-yeon’s team is heaven. Heaven.”

Since the team he’d been loaned to was a top-tier boy group, he couldn’t clock out even this late at night. A common occurrence in the entertainment industry. Well, at least Leon Entertainment was on the better end. After an extreme late-night like this, they’d usually let you rest the next day.

There were places that’d just make you come right back in.

In any case, it must have been a break, because Ryu Jin-woo, sitting in the driver’s seat of the van, let out a long sigh, then.

-Swoosh.

Pulled out his phone.

He installed an app. A brokerage app. It wasn’t big money, but Ryu Jin-woo had some investments in the US stock market, and his routine was to delete and reinstall the app like this so he wouldn’t obsess over it. Part of it was also that he was too busy with work to check.

He opened the freshly installed brokerage app.

The moment he logged in, Ryu Jin-woo’s expression changed completely. His eyes went wide. Excitement steadily mounted across his face.

”Holy shit!!”

Excitement turned to frenzy. Because the stock he’d invested in was surging. On top of that.

”’BBMD’ stock price went through the fucking roof over two days!! Thank fuck I didn’t pull out and waited! I’m a goddamn genius!”

Soaring for two days.

Every trace of fatigue vanished from Ryu Jin-woo. And this was a scene Kang Jae-ha had already seen in advance through ’Deja Vu’.

Jae-ha himself was also smiling.

Location: the ’MEG’ office. Lee Chan-hoo was nowhere to be seen, probably in the bathroom. In the meantime, Kang Jae-ha was looking down at his phone. Just like Ryu Jin-woo, he was checking a brokerage app. Naturally, Jae-ha’s numbers were far from ordinary either.

The second surge.

-BBMD $238.22 (+33.18%)

-Investment Principal $618,058 (679,863,800 won)

-Current Value $1,112,964 (1,224,260,400 won)

-Profit/Loss +544,396,600 won (1,224,260,400 won)

The nearly 700 million won he’d invested had swelled to 1.2 billion. He’d made roughly 500 million in one go. His capital had nearly doubled, and the corner of Kang Jae-ha’s mouth curved upward.

”The dopamine hit is real.”

After savoring the feeling briefly, Kang Jae-ha moved his fingers. He began selling his ’BBMD’ shares without hesitation. There was no deliberation to be had. The surge he’d seen in ’Deja Vu’ lasted two days, ending today, and while money-making ’Deja Vu’ visions wouldn’t come frequently, they would come again.

On top of that.

’Stocks are only money once you sell.’

If he got drunk on the gains and held, it was just data, not actual money. His fingers moved busily for the next few minutes, and right around the time he’d finished selling, Lee Chan-hoo walked into the office.

Waving his hand as if to say it had been an ordeal.

”Phew, I went in for a quick one and then the big one suddenly hit, so I absolutely destroyed that bathroom.”

Having apparently finished his business, Kang Jae-ha set his phone down.

”Sit down, you shit-goblin.”

The swollen funds would be deposited into Kang Jae-ha’s account within a few days. Lee Chan-hoo, oblivious to the billions that had just been flying back and forth before his eyes, cackled.

”Shit-goblin, that’s harsh. You have no idea how much a good dump improves your quality of life?”

To Lee Chan-hoo, who’d taken the seat across from him, Jae-ha gave an order.

”I’ll wire the investment funds for ’Condensation’ within this week, so pass them along.”

His gaze dropped to the clear folder in front of him. It was the results of Lee Chan-hoo’s investigation on Director Hong Man-seop and ’House of the Daytime Moon’. Kang Jae-ha tapped the clear folder with his index finger.

”Let’s get moving on this one starting tomorrow.”

Lee Chan-hoo, with his narrow eyes, looked mildly surprised.

”Sir? Right away? Huh...”

He slowly scratched his chin.

”This one won’t wrap up in tens of millions like ’Condensation’. Even a rough estimate puts the investment funds in the hundreds of millions range. Could be even more than that.”

Kang Jae-ha was well aware. It might even require thinking as high as a billion won. But Jae-ha was unfazed.

”I’ll earn that much back.”

Because this was an investment where making money was a certainty, not speculation.

Next morning. A conference room in a film production company.

Around six people sat facing each other across a ㅁ-shaped table. By the window, three people in suits. Across from them, three others in comparatively casual attire.

Among them sat Director Hong Man-seop, the man with the thick eyebrows.

”......”

They were currently in the middle of discussing additional investment for Director Hong Man-seop’s project, ’House of the Daytime Moon’. Leon Entertainment’s investment had ultimately fallen through, and ’House of the Daytime Moon’, now in the mid-to-late stages of production, desperately needed to secure additional funding.

Because otherwise, the project couldn’t be completed.

Fortunately, the current discussion was leaning positively toward investment. Yet Director Hong Man-seop’s expression was far from bright.

’Damn it.’

The reason was simple. First, the investor on the other side was Chinese capital, exactly what he’d wanted to avoid at all costs. ’Huayuan Partners’. On top of that, the Huayuan Partners side was currently making rather unreasonable, infuriating demands.

”Director-nim, we don’t think our conditions are all that difficult. Just insert a Chinese character with a meaningful role into the second half of ’House of the Daytime Moon’. It’d be even better if they had some decent screen time.”

Insert a Chinese character. Just stick a Chinese character in there out of nowhere? Easy to say. Director Hong Man-seop, discreetly stroking his thick eyebrows, clicked his tongue.

’Money talks. Money’s the bully here.’

’House of the Daytime Moon’ was already past the midpoint of production. Shoehorning in a character that didn’t exist at this stage meant reworking the entire flow of the project, and in the worst case, even revising the story.

And was that all?

’The production schedule gets extended too.’

The planned timeline would be thrown off. The look of the work itself could change. Among countless other things that would need fixing. No matter how you looked at it, it was an unreasonable demand.

More than anything, the reason Director Hong Man-seop was wary of Chinese capital was:

’Then it stops being a purely Korean animated film.’

Because ’House of the Daytime Moon’ was the first domestically produced animated feature film in ages. Set in the Joseon dynasty, no less. So of course he was reluctant. The animation market was the very definition of niche. Getting this far had been anything but smooth.

Yet somehow he’d made it to this point, only to hit a reef. In the end, it came down to money.

The one place that was at least willing to talk, the positive prospect, was the Chinese capital of ’Huayuan Partners’. If he took the Chinese money, it might still look like a Korean animated film on the surface, but dig a little deeper and it wouldn’t be. It would become something ambiguous.

What he wanted was to tell the Chinese capital to go to hell and storm out of his chair.

But he couldn’t.

’If I lose them, ’House of the Daytime Moon’ is dead.’

In every industry, reality comes before heart. ’House of the Daytime Moon’ was on the edge of a cliff, and without funding, it would clearly be shelved. Director Hong Man-seop squeezed his eyes shut in the end. A Chinese character. Fine, if he could just somehow insert a Chinese character, he could keep making ’House of the Daytime Moon.’

Just as he was about to let out a resigned breath, the Huayuan Partners side asked.

”What will you do, Director-nim?”

It was the very instant Director Hong Man-seop was about to nod.

-Swoosh.

A female staffer from the production company suddenly entered the conference room, bowing apologetically. It must have been something extremely urgent. In one hand she held a Post-it note, which she carefully set down in front of Director Hong Man-seop.

The moment he read the neatly written words on the Post-it.

-A company called ’MEG’ just reached out saying they’re interested in investing in ’House of the Daytime Moon’.

Director Hong Man-seop’s eyes blazed to life.