Episode 212: The Age of Self-PR (2)

"Master Jung Seoha."

The shoot was over. I was watching the gear come apart and get stacked, neat as bricks, into the trucks for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the ride back, when that strict auntie of a section chief came over with Team Leader Chae Hoon.

"Your ability sits at a level one can only call the gods playing favorites."

The moment the words left her, those fifteen days from my first cycle came rushing back, and I scowled where no one could see it. Even I had to admit the ability was a cheat, though, so I kept it off my face and only nodded.

"I'm sure your aides will manage well enough on their own. Even so, I came because I felt I had to say this."

"What is it?"

"I said it earlier, but set against your ability, your reputation is far too low."

Her tone was perfectly calm. The content was not something I could take calmly. Team Leader Chae Hoon nodded, expressionless, and spoke.

"Among ordinary people with no connection to the Phase World, the mood is that this boycott may end however it ends, and that is perfectly fine. They take the appearance of Grand Blue's Master for nothing more than a piece of politics — or a turf war between raid teams over who gets to eat."

"Team Leader Chae Hoon is correct. Anyone bound closely to the Phase World, and certainly the leadership of each nation, is very likely to see you as a powerful weapon. Convenient to keep in their own hand, and to swing as they please."

She nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose, as if to ask whether I understood, and looked at me.

With that, the strict auntie of a section chief turned on her heel as if she had said her piece, updo swaying, and was gone.

I looked back at Team Leader Chae Hoon. He dipped his head a fraction.

"When a High-Rank Variant is of a type with a known strategy, an ability user in the upper ranks of B-Class as it exists today could still bring it down. They could not put on the display you did, Master Jung Seoha, but they could kill it. An A-Class would show something far better than your verification footage."

"I thought A-Classes didn't step out front."

"They simply do not show their faces in the mass media. The ability users in question are treasured by their nations and committed to raids all the same. This is only my expectation, but I do not believe even this PR will be enough to show the world your worth for certain."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"That would be a problem for Master Jung Seoha's think tank to solve. The image known to the world is a clear underestimate of your actual ability. Now that you have reached B-Class, if you do not show them something unmistakable, there are any number of countries ready to try something underhanded. That is Section Chief Park Yoohee's judgment, and mine."

Aides. A think tank...

"Thank you for the advice. I'll give it some serious thought once I'm back."

"Everyone at our Korean branch sincerely hopes that Master Jung Seoha will stand at the very peak of ability users the world over."

Team Leader Chae Hoon held that blank expression to the last, inclined his upper body once, and turned away.

On the ride ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back, I turned over what I had heard from that strict auntie — Section Chief Park Yoohee — and Team Leader Chae Hoon. Franc had heard every word. She wore a look I couldn't read and simply held on to my arm, which was enough to put a question on my sister's face where she sat up front at the wheel. She kept sneaking glances at me in the rearview mirror.

Once we reached the Grand Blue building and started up toward my office, I asked her how the founding ceremony was coming along.

"Today's the twenty-fourth, so we've got a week left until the first of August. Team assignments and the last of the organizational trim are underway, so the ceremony will go off without a hitch on the first."

"Yeah. Got it."

"You were talking with Section Chief Park Yoohee and Team Leader Chae Hoon at the end. Did they tell you something bad?"

I looked at my curious sister, thought for a second about how to put it, and decided to just tell her straight.

"They said my ability isn't well known. That I'm rated too low for what I can do. That I look like a rice cake sitting there, easy to eat."

"The leadership of other countries thinks that?"

"Those two talked like that, so yeah. You didn't know?"

"I only suspected. Their side is tied up with political circles, so important information is hard to get."

She set both hands on her hips, tapped the elevator floor with the toe of her shoe for a moment, and spoke again.

"Should I put an advisory staff together for you too? Or a think tank, whatever you want to call it."

"If it's you, now, it is about time you had a brain trust. Yeah... Ah, I've got to run. I'll think about what we just said, too!"

The elevator hit the thirty-sixth floor, and my sister took off at a run. After that we reached the fortieth. I sat down at my desk and started turning over how to shift the way people saw me into something closer to touch that bastard and you're fucked.

Yeongeun had told me once that political monsters lived in the political world, and that the business world crawled with devils who would eat even their own families. To face monsters like that, I would need to be the sort of presence that made them shake just from meeting my eyes — but out in the real world, the best I could hope for was the occasional Mid-High Rank Variant turning up. Hard to put my strength on display.

So did I have to use Hiarid? I ought to ask Aunt Hyeryeong how things were coming along with her.

Brrrring.

"Hup—"

I had only been reaching for the intercom. The bell went off out of nowhere and I jumped. I sighed on the inside, picked the thing up, and through it came the voice of that secretary noona I had heard once before — the one who had called me a beast.

Suseong Group? That was the number-one conglomerate in the country. Judging by the words Phase Strategy Office, they had something to do with the Phase World — so why had those bastards suddenly come looking for me? They were the sort who already found me displeasing. What kind of bullshit were they planning to spout... If I went by what Section Chief Park Yoohee had said, maybe they had come because they thought I was a joke. I would have to meet them and see.

"...Tell them I'm busy, so they'll have to wait."

Suseong was one of the groups pulling the strings behind Cheonggung and Muhwaryeong. Hwayeon had gone to the Ability User Federation with Aunt Hyeryeong. Yeongeun wasn't answering texts, so she was probably busy. And Franc...

Franc was standing beside me. I looked up; she looked down, and tilted her head.

"They came because of the boycott, didn't they?"

"Nine times out of ten, I should think so. And it is not the president who has come, nor even a vice president, but a deputy director. They must hold you in rather low regard, Seoha."

Hearing Franc say it, I got angry all at once. First I sent a text to Hwayeon, Yeongeun, and Aunt Hyeryeong — a deputy director from Suseong Group's Phase Strategy Office had come looking for me — and then I called my sister.

"There's someone from Suseong Group on the thirty-fifth floor right now. As Director of Integrated Management, what do you think?"

I hung up. Her voice had gone hard, and no sooner had the call ended than several messages arrived at once, the Certifier jabbing into my skin — tok, tok, tok. I checked. Hwayeon and Aunt Hyeryeong both said to call my sister in and meet them together. Not a single message had come from Yeongeun. She hadn't even read the text I'd sent.

A short while later, my sister stepped into my office with Department Head Kim Pyochung. I called the secretaries on the thirty-fifth floor and told them to send the visitors up, then took the seat of honor on the reception sofa and waited.

At last the elevator opened, and three men and one woman in suits came through. The man in his forties at the front looked, honestly, like a greasy weasel, and my mood soured the instant I saw him.

I rose as they entered. Baek Jitae came toward me with a smile spread across his whole face and held out his hand.

"A pleasure to meet you. Master Jung Seoha of Grand Blue. I am Baek Jitae, Deputy Director of Suseong Group's Phase Strategy Office."

He had his hair slicked straight back, and the sheen of it under the lights was unpleasant to look at. The two men in their early-to-mid thirties and the woman in her late twenties behind him were probably just aides. More than that — he had offered his hand first. Did he think his station sat above mine?

Young or not, I knew that much. You offer the handshake when you consider your own social standing higher than the other person's. My sister and Department Head Kim Pyochung hardened their faces at the sight of it too.

I glanced at the hand he had extended and looked at his face with no expression at all. He smiled a thin, sour smile and drew it back. Department Head Kim Pyochung, beside me, spoke in a stiff voice.

"This is Master Jung Seoha, who will lead our Grand Blue. The woman before you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is Director Jung Siha, holding the post of Director of Integrated Management. I am Kim Pyochung, Department Head of Business Support Team 1."

I had decided to leave the response to my sister and Department Head Kim Pyochung, and only watch from the side. Baek Jitae looked us over in order — me, then my sister, then Kim — nodded, and opened his mouth.

"I see. So you are the boss of Grand Blue. Confidence befitting an ability user who has the Phase World in an uproar."

I couldn't tell what part of that was supposed to be confidence befitting an ability user, but one look at his face told me he was thinking the same thing Section Chief Park Yoohee — that strict auntie — had thought the first time she saw me.

Department Head Kim Pyochung cautioned him.

"We run on a system of one Master and two Bosses. Please be careful with the titles."

"Hoh."

Baek Jitae turned an oily smile on me, and all at once I wondered what he was so sure of, to wear a face like that.

"Please, sit."

I didn't feel like standing there staring at him any longer, so I sat. My sister and Department Head Kim Pyochung sat with stiff faces, and Baek Jitae followed, letting out a little snort of a laugh as he took his seat. The three behind him might as well have been a folding screen. If I kept finding them this obnoxious, maybe I could already see what they were after, and the prejudice was writing itself.

"If this is Suseong Group's Phase Strategy Office, supporting Cheonggung alone ought to keep you busy. I find myself curious what business brings you all the way here."

Department Head Kim Pyochung had loosened his stiff expression to say it. Baek Jitae didn't so much as glance his way. He snorted and addressed me.

"My, my. Young as you are, you don't even know how to open a conversation. To put a child like this forward as the boss — the real power must be someone else, mustn't it?"

At the sneer, Department Head Kim Pyochung's face went blank with disbelief. A moment later he smiled, thin and cutting, and spoke.

"Master? It would seem the Deputy. Director. Sir. of Suseong Group's Phase Strategy Office has come with nothing better to do."

"Is that so? Then send them back."

I stood as I said it, and my sister and Department Head Kim Pyochung rose with me to look down at Baek Jitae. The reaction must have been outside anything he had expected. He stared up at us, blank, then spoke with an incredulous face.

"Haha. I'm not certain you're in a position to react like this. We are—"

I closed my eyes on that incredulous twist of his mouth and spoke as flatly as I could manage.

"Whatever you are and whatever you aren't, you came here as guests and showed us a face like that, and I have nothing to say to it. Leave."

"...The second and the fifth merged, and you've stood the government up behind you. How far do you think you'll get, ignoring us?"

The continued slight seemed to be getting under his skin. Baek Jitae hardened his face, lurched up out of his seat, and started glaring at me.

Glaring, like you've done something. I ought to just—

"Cheonggung, Muhwaryeong, and dozens of small and mid-sized raid teams have already joined hands and built a coalition to resist your high-handedness. Suseong, too, has established a cooperative relationship with NG Group, and we have finished every preparation to support that coalition."

"And?"

My sister said it short, staring straight at Baek Jitae with a blank face. He smoothed his hardened expression and opened his mouth.

"...You are nothing but an alliance of second and fifth. You don't even have connections in the business world. How much do you think you can grow while crossing us? I won't draw this out. If you keep pushing this merger, Suseong will absolutely not stand by and watch, and by every means available, the lot of you will—"

Department Head Kim Pyochung wore a face that asked whether this was a speech or a fart, and he only laughed a dry heh heh before cutting the man off.

"And those means would be the boycott, and a letter of protest to the Ability User Federation demanding they cancel the special privileges granted to our Master?"

"...Even if you put ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forward a B-Class ability user of outstanding talent in his late teens as your Master, how far do you think that will carry you? If you wish to keep even the name of a raid team alive—"

"You do prattle on, and filthily. So Grand Blue sticks in your throat like a fishbone — uncomfortable, a threat — and you're scrambling however you can to block the merger. Is that it? A deputy director without even the authority to decide a thing, showing up like this, is a joke all by itself. Just thinking about how little you must think of our Master, to react like that, is enough to split my guts, and then you pile a threat on top of it that doesn't even make sense. It's past absurd. I'm surprised I can still breathe through my nose."

Hands shoved in his pockets, talking like he was lounging — even I found Department Head Kim Pyochung obnoxious. How furious must Baek Jitae be? As expected, the man's face flushed, and he bellowed.

"You really mean to be this uncooperative?!"

"We'll see whether you can say that again in a few days. Your rank is deputy director, so do be careful the people above you don't cut you loose. Heh heh."

Oh, he really knew how to scratch a nerve. Baek Jitae's face went crimson, and he ground his teeth, unable to choke the rage down.

"You will regret this!"

Deputy Director Baek Jitae shouted it and stormed out, footsteps pounding. Watching him grind his teeth without pause inside the elevator, I couldn't quite make sense of it. He hadn't even seen what had burst open in the sky that morning... Ah. Even if he had, he wouldn't have connected it to me. Still, the man was incredibly stupid.

"A man who looks that stupid is a deputy director, and what he came here to do was threaten us. Is that sort of thing normal in the business world?"

"That's what a deputy director's seat at a major corporation looks like these days. A post you climb by rubbing palms and lining up behind the right people, not by skill or ability. Petty men who work the people under them to the bone for results, package those results as their own and send them up, dump their own mistakes on their subordinates, and strut about as if the group's power were theirs."

Department Head Kim Pyochung laid it out without a hitch, smiling bitterly, and he seemed to know it a little too well. I asked.

"So he came looking for me thinking I'd know my place. But how do you know all that so well, Department Head Kim?"

"There was a man who carried such pride in his company that he poured decades of passion into it without a glance back at his own household, then took the fall alone for a mistake by the higher-ups, lost everything, and was driven out. That man is my father."

...Whoa.

"And that company is Suseong Group."

Whoaaa.

"I went and bet everything, trusting only the Master and our lovely Director of Integrated Management. You will take responsibility for what comes after, yes?"

Department Head Kim Pyochung grinned, all mischief, and rubbed his palms together like some scheming courtier. My sister covered her mouth with a hand and laughed softly.

"Before you go, tell them I sent you, and stop by the external PR team to look at a sample of the PR video. If you're still worried, I suppose you can go home, pull the blankets over your head, and hide."

"Aigoo. I'll go confirm whether I really ought to! Loyalty!!"

Department Head Kim Pyochung looked oddly refreshed. He threw an exaggerated salute, boarded the elevator humming a careless little tune, and was gone.

My sister watched his back for a moment, then turned to me.

"I have a feeling that so-called deputy director may have come alone, carried away by his own bravado."

"You mean he came by himself, out of some excess of loyalty, trying to look good for the people above him? Then what about the three who were with him?"

"Scapegoats, if Department Head Kim Pyochung has the right of it."

If that was really true, the man was genuine human garbage. Just then a call came in through the Certifier. The caller was Yeongeun.

"Yes, ma'am."

The moment the hologram window flared open she had been about to shout, face flushed red — then she caught sight of my sister beside me, forced her breathing level, set a smile on her face, and turned that smile on me. It was not a gentle one.

A creature. She wasn't even granting him the status of a human being.

"If you mean Deputy Director Baek Jitae of the Phase Strategy Office, Department Head Kim Pyochung gave him a scolding and sent him packing."

I gave her a rough summary of the exchange, and a dreadful grinding of teeth came back through the line.

"...You'll hurt your teeth."

Uh... I hadn't. But my sister, beside me, nodded.

"Yeah. I know."

Yeongeun ended the call on a shout of pure rage. It looked as if some piled-up stress had finally blown.

All at once I felt sorry for those bastards. When Yeongeun got angry, there was no telling what vicious measures she would take.

When she came back, I would have to hold her good and tight so she didn't earn any wrinkles, and let her work that stress out.