The Invisible Hand of Entity Smith [Stealing My Own Paycheck]
I scrolled through the Bureau Gallery on my terminal, a bitter smile tugging at my lips. The latest hot post caught my eye immediately.
The post continued in that familiar sarcastic tone.
The comments flooded in right below it.
Anyway, these old-timers never miss a beat. Ghost1 hit the nail right on the head.
I knew it too. This situation where only the team leader was around—what it really meant.
No company in their right mind pays a full salary while letting employees slack off in the office. The Field Response Team must be so brutally demanding that they earned these perks.
It wouldn't be long before I got my own field dispatch order. And that would almost certainly lead straight to death.
God, I just want to keep staring at the team leader and browsing the gallery forever. I want to get paid just to scroll too.
Clunk.
While I was lost in thought, the office door opened and someone stepped inside. A woman with long black hair, a lollipop tucked in her mouth. Her sharp eyes left a strong impression.
“I'm back.”
“Welcome back~.”
She exchanged casual greetings with the team leader, then looked at me and spoke.
“Newbie?”
“Yes. I'm Park Seong-bin, the new recruit….”
“How long have you been here?”
“Including the mission period, about ten days.”
“Approved.”
Without another word, she walked straight over and wrapped me in a hug.
“Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!”
She squeezed so hard I felt like I was being crushed against a marshmallow wall, and I couldn't even breathe. It didn't feel bad, but I needed air! Air!
“Oh dear. Looks like the newbie caught Yuna's fancy.”
The team leader came over and pried the woman—Yuna—off me.
“Still, you shouldn't surprise the new guy like that. Easy there?”
“Mm.”
“Haaah!”
I gasped for breath, fresh oxygen flooding my lungs. The bastards who say they'd love to bury their faces there clearly had never actually experienced it. This wasn't like dying from pleasure. This was actual suffocation.
In my fading consciousness, I saw what I assumed were my deceased parents waving at me.
“N-nice to meet you.”
“Mm. I'm Choi Yu-na.”
Even though she'd nearly taken my life, a senior was still a senior. I stood up properly and bowed.
Choi Yu-na. I didn't know her exact title, so I wasn't sure what to call her.
“New recruits who survive more than a week are rare.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced at the team leader, who just shrugged with her usual expression.
“You said this batch was supposed to be easy.”
“It was the easiest for the recent Human Rights Waiver Admission recruits.”
“Human Rights Waiver Admission?”
Choi Yu-na tilted her head when the term came from the team leader's mouth.
“You entered through that track?”
“Yes.”
Choi Yu-na stared at me much more intently than before. It seemed this damn admission track got me discriminated against even within the department….
Squeeze.
“#&$$&!!!!!”
Choi Yu-na pressed my head into her chest again. The arm on the back of my head carried far more force than before.
I'm going to die. I'm seriously going to die!
“Yuna, you're actually going to kill the newbie at this rate.”
“Haaah!”
The team leader separated me from Choi Yu-na once more.
“Team leader.”
“Yes?”
“I'll take charge of his training.”
“Perfect~. I was worried I'd have to handle it myself.”
Somehow my official senior had been decided in the blink of an eye.
“Do I not get any say in this?”
“You don't like it?”
It wasn't bad to be looked upon favorably, but this felt way too sudden.
“I was thinking a male senior might be better.”
“What does gender have to do with being a senior?”
When she put it like that, I had nothing to say. After all, I was the only one being conscious of it. If I brought that up, I'd probably just come off as shallow.
“I'll be in your care.”
“Mm.”
In the end, Choi Yu-na became my senior.
“So what exactly do I need to learn from you?”
“Why did you enter through the Human Rights Waiver Admission?”
“Excuse me?”
“I'm asking why you chose that track.”
Choi Yu-na suddenly asked about my reason for joining. What the hell. What the actual hell.
“Is this something I need to explain to work in the Field Response Team?”
“Probably.”
It was clearly not a mandatory question. I looked to the team leader for help, but damn it.
She was watching me with sparkling, expectant eyes too.
“Can I use the bathroom first before I answer?”
“Sure.”
Not ready to talk about it yet, I fled to the restroom.
“What the hell is this about….”
I closed the toilet lid, sat down, and turned on my terminal.
[My senior is asking about my Human Rights Waiver reason. Should I tell her?]
[Posted by: GalleryJunkieIsEasy]
Got my official senior but instead of training she's suddenly asking how I joined the Bureau.
Can't tell if she's filtering for bad personalities or if she's genuinely curious. No clue.
She seems to like me though. How much should I actually tell her?
The replies came in quickly.
I thought the ceiling was ten thousand and it'd drop soon after. Turns out twelve thousand really was the peak.
There were even videos from the Global Economic Research Institute saying it was going to crash….
A few more comments followed, but the general consensus was 'it's fine to tell her.' As long as there wasn't a personality defect, it shouldn't matter much.
They apparently screen out anyone with serious issues during the Human Rights Waiver Admission since they're still hiring Bureau employees. In other words, even if I told them, the Field Response Team wouldn't treat me like human garbage.
“That's a relief, at least.”
Getting wiped out by stocks and losing my entire fortune was something they could probably overlook. I pulled myself together and returned to the office.
“You're back?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me now. Why did you join?”
The moment I stepped inside, Choi Yu-na pressed me for an answer.
“Before that.”
“Hm?”
“How should I address you, Senior Choi Yu-na?”
“Senior.”
“Just… senior?”
“Yeah. Senior. That's enough.”
“There aren't any other titles in this department anyway~.”
What the hell did that mean?
“This is the department with the highest turnover rate, so giving out titles just creates more paperwork for HR. They decided to just use survival time to determine seniority, except for the team leader.”
I really wish I hadn't asked. I regretted falling into the curse of knowledge, but the water had already been spilled.
There was no point digging deeper. I explained my reason for joining to Choi Yu-na.
“I lost big on stocks outside. I was in a situation where I couldn't even file for rehabilitation, and the Bureau contacted me.”
“Stocks?”
“Yes. I bet against the KOSPI when it was falling, but then it rose and I was ruined. Terrible luck.”
“That wasn't luck.”
“Excuse me?”
How could the rise and fall of stocks not be considered luck? Unless we were talking about the National Pension Service making profits through moves that no human could possibly predict.
“Here.”
Choi Yu-na pulled a file from the bookshelf, flipped through the pages, and handed it to me.
“What is this?”
“Entity report.”
“No way.”
“It is.”
With a sinking feeling, I took the file and read the contents.
Stock Market Manipulator
Rank - Level 4 → Level 3 (Respondable)
Type - Concept
[Photo of KOSPI breaking 20,000]
The Stock Market Manipulator is a concept-type entity that primarily intervenes in national securities markets. From the moment the entity intervenes, corporate stock prices begin rising beyond common sense, and investors flood the market, triggering catastrophic upward momentum.
The following phenomena occur in markets where the Stock Market Manipulator has intervened:
Explosive increase in corporate market capitalization
Collective religious fervor toward specific companies
Complete loss of realistic judgment by economic experts
Spread of social fear that 'if you don't get in now, the opportunity is gone'
Once it reaches an absurd ceiling, the entity's intervention ends and prices crash back to pre-intervention levels.
This leads to national economic collapse and a sharp rise in suicide rates, which appears to be the entity's intended outcome.
First confirmed during Japan's bubble economy in the 1980s.
The 2005 Australian ■■■■■ incident was particularly severe and irreparable, requiring a worldwide ■■■ grade memory erasure procedure.
Since then, the Bureau intervenes at the first signs to prevent escalation.
Recently, the entity's stage-based price ceilings have been identified. The Bureau is currently using Levels 1-2 to increase funds before neutralizing it, resulting in the rank being downgraded from Level 4 to Level 3.
There have been calls within the Bureau for early suppression to prevent civilian casualties, but after concluding that suppression before Level 3 only increases the entity's appearance frequency, the discussion has quieted.
[Response Guidelines by Level]
(Information Team access only.)
Fuck. So the reason the market went crazy and the reason I lost everything was all because of this entity?
“The Human Rights Waiver Admission excludes people not related to entities.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. HR called it a rotten lifeline.”
So they give people whose normal lives were destroyed by entities the opportunity to work for the Bureau.
“That's supposed to be comforting? They could at least give compensation.”
“They say that's impossible because of other entities~.”
“Good grief.”
I couldn't help but feel bitter. Most of the people who entered with me had probably been screwed over the same way. Realizing that only a tiny fraction were likely still alive made the future look even darker.
The world was cruel. Life was already hard enough without having to deal with this kind of absurdity.
“By the way, it looks like you can read the full report. The company must have recognized you as a full employee, Seong-bin.”
“How touching. I'm so moved I could cry.”
After receiving the team leader's half-hearted congratulations and fending off Choi Yu-na's barrage of questions, I wrapped up my workday. It had been quite the experience.
If only that message hadn't arrived right as I was leaving.
A field dispatch mission has arrived~.