The finished report was a thing of terrible beauty. It was only ten pages long, but each page was a masterpiece of condensed, undeniable fact, co-signed by the company's most feared internal strategist and its most respected external auditor. The title was a quiet declaration of war: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Q3 Strategic Reorganization.
They did not email it.
On Friday morning, Leo made a single call to Arthur Harrison's office. "Ms. Reed and I have completed a joint preliminary audit of the reorganization's financial impact," he stated to the GM's executive assistant. "We require thirty minutes of the board's time this afternoon to present our findings."
It was an audacious move, a procedural checkmate. To refuse a meeting with the external auditor would be a massive red flag to the board. Harrison was forced to accept. A meeting was set for 2:00 p.m. The other Senior Managers, Eleanor Vance and Mark Jennings, were also summoned, ostensibly to present their own progress. They were walking into an ambush.
The executive boardroom was cold and silent. Harrison sat at the head of the table, his face an unreadable mask of stone. The other board members were patched in via a massive video screen, their disembodied faces watching with keen interest. Eleanor and Mark sat on one side of the table, clutching their respective progress reports, looking tense but confident.
Leo and Evelyn sat opposite them. They had no reports. They had a single data stick.
"Eleanor, you may begin," Harrison said, his voice a low rumble.
Eleanor launched into a detailed, exhaustive presentation of her department's output. She spoke of volume, of accuracy, of the sheer man-hours her team had dedicated to the competition. It was a solid, if unimaginative, defense of her performance.
Mark Jennings followed, presenting a web of new relationships and strategic partnerships he had forged. He spoke of synergy, of influence, of the political capital he had accrued for the company.
Finally, Harrison's gaze fell on Leo. "Mr. Zhang. Your turn."
"Ms. Reed and I will be presenting a single, unified report," Leo said, his voice calm and clear. He nodded to Evelyn.
Evelyn stood, her presence immediately commanding the room's full attention. "We did not audit a department," she began, her voice crisp and clinical. "We audited the competition itself."
What followed was a systematic, brutal dismantling of the entire KPI Death Match. They presented a single, devastating chart showing that since the reorganization was announced, collaborative projects between the three departments had dropped by 91%. They showed server logs that proved over 600 man-hours had been spent on redundant, overlapping research as the teams jealously guarded their data from one another.
Finally, they displayed the single, killer slide. It was a financial calculation, audited and verified by Evelyn herself, of the total net cost of the internal conflict over the past two months. The number was stark, brutal, and displayed in a blood-red font.
-$7.8 Million.
"This is the cost of your experiment, Mr. Harrison," Evelyn stated, her gaze locking onto the General Manager. "This is the amount of shareholder value that has been incinerated not by market forces, but by a deliberately inefficient internal structure."
The room was utterly silent. Eleanor Vance was pale, her mountain of reports suddenly looking like a monument to wasted effort. Mark Jennings's political alliances seemed laughably trivial in the face of an eight-million-dollar loss. They had been playing for points in a game that, it turned out, was bankrupting the casino.
Arthur Harrison stared at the screen, his face impassive. He had been publicly, surgically, and respectfully checkmated in front of his entire board. He had created a test to find the most ruthless predator, and two of them had turned around and decided to hunt the zookeeper instead.
He could fight it, defend his decision, and look weak. Or he could adapt, acknowledge the superior logic, and reclaim control. He was a survivor. The choice was obvious.
"The KPI Death Match is terminated. Effective immediately," Harrison declared, his voice a low growl that silenced all debate. "The experiment has served its purpose. It has revealed who is capable of true, high-level strategic thinking."
He looked past the two failed managers, his eyes landing squarely on Leo. "It has become clear who possesses the necessary vision to lead the new, unified division. Mr. Zhang, the position of General Manager is yours."
It was over.
That evening, Leo stood in his new, even larger office on the 45th floor. The promotion was official. His rivals were gone, quietly "reassigned" to corporate oblivion. He looked at the notifications that had been waiting for him.
[SSS-Rank Main Quest Complete: The KPI Death Match] [You have won not by playing the game, but by breaking it. Your alliance and strategic audacity have been recognized.] [Reward: Promotion to General Manager.] [Item Acquired: Executive Keycard] [Description: Grants Level 1 access to the TitanCorp executive suites, restricted servers, and the private elevator. Knowledge is power.] [Stat Acquired: Charisma +20 (Passive Aura: Leadership)] [Description: Your presence now commands a baseline level of respect and attention from subordinates and peers.]
He felt the subtle shift as the charisma stat settled in, a new weight and presence to his posture. He looked out the window at the sprawling city below. He had won. He had climbed another, higher rung of the ladder. But as he looked at his reflection in the glass, he felt a new, unfamiliar sensation. It wasn't the cold thrill of victory. It was the heavy, crushing weight of responsibility. Ben and Anna had bet their careers on him. Evelyn had lent him her reputation. He was no longer just a player. He was a king, with a small, burgeoning kingdom to protect.