1. Kill People
Friday morning.
The day every office worker dragged their exhausted body through one final push, clinging to the hope that once today was over, the weekend would begin.
I'd practically pulled an all-nighter and felt like I was dying, so I was desperate for the weekend to arrive.
I couldn't wait to get off work.
No, not even getting off work. I just wanted lunchtime to hurry up and arrive.
Today, forget eating or anything else—I was just going to sleep. I had to sleep at least an hour at lunch to survive the afternoon.
I was staring at my monitor with those thoughts when I suddenly heard someone shouting.
"Hey! Assistant Manager Lee! What the hell is this!"
Manager Kim, yelling at me. What's that fucker on about now? I got up quietly to look and answered.
"Yes?"
"Hey! You little shit! What is this! What kind of work is this! I clearly said in the meeting we were going with Option 1, so why did you prepare Option 2!"
"Excuse me? What do you mean? You called me last night and said it had changed to Option 2, and told me to rewrite the proposal! So I stayed up all night redoing it."
At my words, Manager Kim hesitated for a second. Then he shouted again with a vicious expression.
"What are you talking about!? What kind of nonsense are you spouting!? When did I!"
Fuck. That bastard.... Is he seriously not remembering? He sounded drunk on the phone, so I asked him several times to confirm.
This isn't the first or second time. Everyone knows he does this. He's the only one who doesn't.
And that man rides me especially hard. I eventually heard the reason from the deputy manager.
The manager graduated from a regional campus of my university. So he rides people from the main campus like crazy.
I wasn't the only one who'd been through it.
"I have a recording of the call, Manager Kim."
I responded calmly. It wasn't that I'd expected this, but I'd set up a minimum safety net. I can't bleed every single time.
"What!?"
His eyes rolled again for a second. He apparently hadn't thought about call recording. Stupid bastard.
"Don't make me laugh! There's no way I said that! Oh! Right! It's AI! You faked it with that AI thing or whatever!? Huh!? You screwed up and now you're making excuses! Huh!?"
I was dumbfounded.
The one small relief was that the other employees' expressions, when I glanced around, were at least closer to sympathy.
Nobody seemed to think I was in the wrong. They'd all been victims of this once or twice themselves.
"Listen! Huh!? If you made a mistake, you should keep your head down, apologize, and then think about fixing it! Huh!? You're framing someone with nonsense? Huh!? Where'd you learn to act like that!? Huh!? If you're going to act like that, quit the damn company!"
Then Manager Kim walked up to me. He jabbed his finger into my forehead over and over, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"You're an assistant manager! Huh!? You should be doing your job properly! How long do I have to clean up after you on every little thing! Huh!? The proposal's due at 11 today! There's only about an hour and a half left! What are you going to do!? Huh!? Are you joking!?"
"Hey now. Sir. That's enough. Assistant Manager Lee's got the message. The proposal's urgent. Instead of this, let's just tell him to fix the proposal fast. Okay!?"
Deputy Manager Park cut in from the side and talked Manager Kim down with calm words.
Manager Kim, still fuming, backed off as if he'd decided Deputy Manager Park had handled it well enough—and didn't forget to get one more word in at me.
"Get it done now! If you'd apologized and fixed it instead of making excuses, you could've written a few more lines by now!"
I was pissed. Genuinely pissed.
A flood of thoughts hit me at once. Should I keep working at this company while being treated like this?
A mid-sized company I'd worked hard to get into. The pay's good. Work-life balance is decent. The people are good. Except for exactly one.
That bastard Manager Kim. If it weren't for him, I'd stay at this company for the rest of my career.
But I can't. Manager Kim has connections. He picked the right faction. That's why a piece of shit like him is still around.
So it was a serious dilemma.
Should I just go after him? However good the company was, I couldn't keep letting him treat me like a punching bag forever.
No matter how good everything else is, if my mental health goes to shit, what's the point.
So I didn't hold back. Something burst out from inside me.
I'd never done anything like this before. But right now, I wanted to.
"Fuck!"
I shouted and kicked my chair over.
The chair slammed into the partition with a bang, and in an instant the expressions changed on Manager Kim's face and on everyone else's in the office.
Manager Kim's turned to disbelief. The others' turned to shock and eager interest.
"What!? Fuck!? Hey! Did you just swear at me!?"
"Oh boy. Assistant Manager Lee. Don't do this. Okay? Let's cool our heads first. Okay?"
Deputy Manager Park held me back and led me outside the office. Then Manager Kim, as if embarrassed that he'd flinched for a second, shouted again.
"See! That! That's exactly how a bastard who was never taught any manners at home acts!? What? Fuck!? You're cursing!? You little shit! You're getting disciplined! I'm not letting this go!"
Hearing that, something in my head nearly snapped.
That bastard knows I'm an orphan. He knows I lost my parents early.
"Hold it in. Hold it in. Assistant Manager Lee. Hold it in. Please."
But Deputy Manager Park dragged me away by force.
I could have shaken him off if I'd wanted to.... But I didn't. There was nothing more I could do here.
If I had nothing to lose, I'd go right back and plant a fist in Manager Kim's face.
But I have too much tied up in this.
Credit card bills, my job, student loans, rent, food.... All of it.
So in the end, I got dragged up to the rooftop by Deputy Manager Park.
And Deputy Manager Park, who'd brought me up there, offered me a cigarette and tried to soothe me.
"Assistant Manager Lee. I get that you're pissed. And I know you probably didn't do anything wrong. You know he's always been like this, right? So let's calm down first. When blood rushes to your head, you don't make good judgments. Let's clear your head first."
I squatted with my back against the wall and took the cigarette Deputy Manager Park offered.
Deputy Manager Park lit it for me, and I inhaled the smoke deeply, then blew it out with a long breath.
The cigarette smoke carried away a little of the anger, but it wasn't enough.
So I took another drag, but it was the same.
The anger wouldn't cool. I don't think I've ever been this furious in my life.
I thought I'd lived decently, without causing trouble for anyone.
Is that why? Because I'm a pushover, does he see me as easy prey and keep riding me like this?
"Assistant Manager Lee. We'll all fix the proposal together and submit it, so cool off up here and come down. Don't do anything stupid. Got it?"
I didn't answer. I was grateful to Deputy Manager Park for looking out for me, but if I opened my mouth now, I felt like I'd say something harsh to him too.
"This is just how companies work. So let's be sensible. Once it blows over, it'll be like it never happened. Anyway, I'm heading down, so cool off and come down. And.... No matter how shitty it gets, don't just charge in like that. You've got to be more calculated. I'm going."
With that, Deputy Manager Park went back down. I stayed on the rooftop and looked up at the clear blue sky.
I stubbed out the cigarette I'd been smoking and pulled out my own from my pocket.
It wasn't a conscious decision. I just wanted another one. Right now, I couldn't see any solution besides this.
Guess this is why I can't quit smoking. Damn it.
I tried to cool my anger, but my insides were still boiling.
My head kept filling with thoughts of how to screw over that bastard Manager Kim.
Be more calculated? Should I have?
Manager Kim would have dirt if you dug into him. Should I have grabbed that as leverage and gone at him like I was choking him by the throat?
I sat there for a long time. The cigarette kept shrinking, and a new one went into my mouth.
Pathetic. No matter how much I fantasized in my head, there was only one thing I could do right now.
Go back to that awful office. Go back and face that shithead Manager Kim again.
And then, in front of me, something unknown suddenly appeared with a ding.
[Kill 'humans' to obtain 'Coins.' Use 'Coins' to obtain enormous rewards.]
A screen had appeared before my eyes, floating there in a way I couldn't explain. A single line of text was written on it.
I was dumbfounded. I touched it with my hand, but there was nothing to grab. Yet I could clearly see it.
A hologram? Or something like AR?
But I was looking with my bare eyes. There was no projector anywhere around.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the rooftop railing, and looked down.
I could see people below all staring in front of themselves, looking baffled.
In other words, I wasn't the only one seeing this. All those people had the same thing pop up in front of them.
Then I heard a bang and saw that a car had crashed into a parked car. But no one got out.
Even after crashing, they're probably too distracted staring at the message in front of them. Just like me.
I was dumbfounded, but I felt the corners of my mouth rising.
What? Am I smiling right now? At this?
Honestly, yes. It was absurd, ridiculous, and baffling.... But I was that happy.
A sudden rupture in everyday life.
A surreal phenomenon beyond human comprehension.
The message disappeared. But only then did I really understand it.
Kill people. Get Coins.
I don't know what this is. I can't kill someone over something like this.
But my inner voice pushed back against that thought.
Why? Why shouldn't I kill people?
That thought was so sweet. It even gave me a kind of thrill.
What if this really is a quest from some transcendent being? What if countless other people besides me see this and kill people?
Would murder still be condemned by everyone then?
So I looked around. And I spotted a fist-sized chunk of brick on the ground.
I could just try it. Then I'd find out what Coins are, and what those enormous rewards are.
So I grabbed the brick chunk and went back down to the office. To find Manager Kim.