The bulletin board was covered in flyers. Samsung, Hyundai, SK, LG. The "Big 4." Students swarmed around them like moths to a flame, desperate for a slot in the summer internship programs that served as the golden ticket to full-time employment.
Kang Min-jun stood in front of a poster that was slightly larger and glossier than the rest.
[DAEGWANG SECURITIES - GLOBAL FRONTIER INTERNSHIP] Track: FinTech & Algo-Trading. Target: SNU/KAIST/Yonsei Juniors.
"You're joking," Hong Ye-eun whispered, standing beside him with a cup of iced americano. "Tell me you're joking."
"I'm serious," Min-jun said, adjusting his glasses.
"Min-jun, you are the Managing Director of a VC firm with 2 billion won in assets. You own 10% of Toss. You have 350 million won in cash in your personal account. Why in the world would you want to fetch coffee for middle managers at Daegwang?"
"Because," Min-jun turned to her. "I need to see the source code."
"Source code?"
"DG Pay. It's clumsy, it's expensive, but it has one advantage: Daegwang's massive user base. If they ever figure out how to optimize it, they could crush Toss simply by force-installing it on every Samsung phone they distribute. I need to know their roadmap. I need to know their weaknesses."
"So you're going in as a corporate spy?"
"I prefer the term 'Field Researcher'," Min-jun smiled thinly. "Besides, I need the stamp on my resume. If I want to destroy the system, I have to look like a product of the system. An SNU graduate who didn't intern at a major Chaebol looks suspicious."
Ye-eun shook her head. "Hyuk-jae runs that division personally. If he recognizes you..."
"He remembers a beggar in a bookstore. He remembers a rude student at a bar. Seeing me apply for an internship will confirm his bias: that in the end, everyone bows to the money. It will make him arrogant. And arrogance makes him blind."
June 20, 2014. Yeouido. Daegwang Securities HQ - 30th Floor.
The waiting room was silent. Ten candidates sat in a row, all wearing identical dark suits, stiff white shirts, and expressions of sheer terror. They were the cream of the crop. 4.3 GPA. CPA certifications. Fluent English and Mandarin.
Min-jun sat at the end of the row, relaxed. He checked his phone. Toss Daily Active Users: 650,000. Hermes Profit Margin: +3%.
"Candidate 10. Kang Min-jun."
Min-jun stood up. He walked through the heavy oak doors.
The interview room was vast, overlooking the Han River. Three interviewers sat behind a long table. In the center sat the HR Director. To his left, a Technical Lead. And to his right, spinning a pen with bored disinterest, was Jin Hyuk-jae.
Min-jun bowed perfectly. 45 degrees. "Good afternoon. I am Kang Min-jun."
Hyuk-jae stopped spinning the pen. He looked up. A flicker of recognition passed through his eyes. He squinted. "Kang Min-jun..." Hyuk-jae muttered. "The coin flipper."
"It is an honor to meet you again, Executive Director Jin," Min-jun said smoothly.
Hyuk-jae smirked. A slow, satisfied curl of the lip. "So. The genius investor who lectured me about gold prices is now begging for an internship? What happened? Did your 'investing' fail?"
"The market is volatile, sir," Min-jun lied without blinking. "I realized that individual brilliance is limited. To truly impact the financial world, one needs the infrastructure of a giant like Daegwang."
It was the answer Hyuk-jae wanted. Submission. Validation. The rebel returning to kiss the ring.
"infrastructure," Hyuk-jae chuckled. "Well, at least you learned your place. Alright. Impress me. Why should I hire you over the guy with the CPA license outside?"
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Min-jun looked Hyuk-jae in the eye. "Because the CPA knows how to count money. I know how to move it."
"Explain."
"I analyzed the DG Pay beta app. The transaction latency is 3.5 seconds. That's acceptable for e-commerce, but fatal for Point-of-Sale (POS). You are routing through the VAN (Value Added Network) terminals. It costs you 2.5% per swipe."
The Technical Lead sat up straight. "That's internal confidential architecture. How do you know that?"
"I timed it," Min-jun said. "3.5 seconds is the exact handshake time of a KIS-Information VAN request. If you want to beat Toss or KakaoPay, you need to bypass the VAN. You need direct-to-bank API integration. It cuts costs to 0.5% and latency to 0.8 seconds."
The room went silent. Hyuk-jae looked at the Technical Lead. "Is he right?"
The Lead looked embarrassed. "Uh... theoretically, yes. But the banks are resistant to direct integration."
"Then you aren't pressing them hard enough," Min-jun said, channeling his future self—the Director who managed billions. "Daegwang owns 15% of Daegwang Bank. Use the board seats. Force the API open. Why are you paying fees to a middleman you could crush?"
Hyuk-jae stared at Min-jun. He didn't see a beggar anymore. He saw a weapon. A sharp, dangerous tool that could cut through the incompetence of his current team.
"You have a big mouth," Hyuk-jae said softly. "But you're right. My team is too soft."
Hyuk-jae scribbled something on the evaluation sheet. "You're hired. FinTech Strategy Team. You report directly to Manager Kim. But if you're late even once, or if that 3.5 seconds doesn't drop to 1 second by August... I'll fire you myself."
"Understood, sir."
July 1, 2014. The First Day.
Min-jun walked into the Daegwang Securities trading floor. The noise was familiar—shouting, phones ringing, the clatter of keyboards. But he wasn't here to trade. He walked past the chaos to the glass-enclosed "Future Strategy Division."
"Intern Kang!" A harried-looking manager waved him over. "Here's your badge. Here's your laptop. We are behind schedule on the Q3 rollout. I need you to clean up this dataset for the user retention analysis."
Min-jun took the laptop. He logged in. Access Level: Intern (Restricted).
He couldn't see the source code yet. He could only see Excel sheets. Patience, Min-jun thought.
He spent the first week being the perfect intern. He arrived at 6:30 AM. He made the coffee exactly how the Manager liked it. He automated the team's Excel reporting using VBA macros, saving them 20 hours of work a week.
By Week 2, he was indispensable. By Week 3, the Manager gave him the password to the staging server.
July 25, 2014. Late Night.
The office was empty. It was 11:00 PM. Min-jun sat at his desk, the glow of the monitor reflecting in his glasses.
He logged into the DG Pay Staging Server. He scanned the architecture. It was a mess. Spaghetti code. Legacy patches on top of patches. But deep in the database schema, he found something interesting.
Table: [User_Data_Sharing_Consent] Field: [Auto_Opt_In] = TRUE.
Min-jun frowned. He pulled up the terms of service. User data from DG Pay (spending habits, location) will be shared with Daegwang Insurance and Daegwang Construction for marketing purposes.
But the "Auto Opt-In" flag meant users weren't checking a box. The app was checking it for them, hidden in the backend. This was illegal. It was a violation of the Personal Information Protection Act.
Min-jun remembered the man who had visited his father's taxi. The "Friendship Insurance" offer. They are harvesting data illegally to cross-sell insurance to vulnerable people.
He took out a USB drive. He didn't download the data (that would trigger a DLP alarm). Instead, he took a screenshot of the code snippet. And a screenshot of the database configuration showing 2 million users affected.
He saved the images to a hidden partition on the USB.
"Working late, Intern Kang?"
Min-jun jumped. He Alt-Tabbed instantly to an Excel spreadsheet. Jin Hyuk-jae was standing behind him, holding a suit jacket over his shoulder. He smelled of alcohol.
"Just finishing the cohort analysis, Director," Min-jun said, keeping his voice steady.
Hyuk-jae leaned over, looking at the screen. The Excel sheet was full of complex pivot tables. "You're good," Hyuk-jae slurred slightly. "My team... they're idiots. Ivy League degrees, but they don't have hunger. You... you have hunger. I saw it in your eyes at the bar."
Hyuk-jae sat on the edge of the desk. "Tell me, Kang. Why did you really come here? You made money on AhnLab. I checked. You aren't desperate for a salary."
"I want to be on the winning side," Min-jun said. "Startups like Toss... they are fun. But Daegwang is the Empire. The Empire always wins in the end."
Hyuk-jae laughed. He patted Min-jun's shoulder. "That's right. The Empire wins. Toss is a bug. We're going to squash it in the fall. We have a regulation coming. A new security audit requirement that only banks can pass."
Min-jun's heart skipped a beat. A new regulation? Hyuk-jae was lobbying for a law change to kill Toss.
"That sounds... effective, sir," Min-jun said.
"It will be. Go home, Kang. Get some sleep. Tomorrow, I want you to present that cohort analysis to the Board. Don't embarrass me."
Hyuk-jae walked away, whistling.
Min-jun watched him leave. He looked at the USB drive in his pocket. He had found the illegal data harvesting. But more importantly, he had just received a warning of the incoming airstrike on Toss.
He needed to warn Lee Seung-gun. And he needed to weaponize this "Auto Opt-In" scandal. But not yet. He needed to wait until DG Pay launched its massive marketing campaign, then detonate the bomb when maximum eyes were on it.
The Trojan Horse is inside the walls, Min-jun thought, packing his bag. And the city is asleep.
[TRANSACTION LOG]
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Date: July 2014
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Action: Corporate Espionage (Daegwang Securities).
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Asset Acquired: Evidence of Illegal Data Harvesting (DG Pay).
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Intel Acquired: Upcoming Regulatory Attack on FinTech Startups (The "Security Audit" Trap).
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Status: Intern / Spy.
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Risk: Extreme. If caught, prison time is guaranteed.