When Good People Leave
It was a truly shitty company — but with An Sora as my senior, I managed to adapt.
Our company paid garbage wages.
Especially in the early days. The moment training ended, you were shoved into dungeons that might kill you for barely minimum wage.
Hazard pay? Life insurance stipends? None of that existed.
The one silver lining was making team leader in six months — not that I could have seen that coming when I first joined. And even as a team leader, the pay was still garbage.
On top of that, the Awoken were nightmares in their own right. As the youngest, every errand fell on me. I must have seriously considered quitting dozens of times.
If I hadn't gone on that second F-rank dungeon expedition with Senior An Sora, I wouldn't still be at this company.
Back then, even though I was the junior, she took over the cooking and dishwashing herself, and personally shielded me from the Awoken's bullying.
She was a completely different species from Kim Chan-il, the senior I'd been with on my first dungeon.
Sure, part of it was that An Sora had joined the company more than a year before Kim — but mostly, she was just a genuinely good person.
That was why I'd looked up to her.
Not as a woman. As a workplace senior.
Of course she was an attractive woman, but at the time I had a live-in girlfriend.
And now that same senior was suddenly quitting?
Granted, this incident was no joke.
A lot of people had died.
Even so, compared to other companies, our losses were light.
Three Awoken and one transport company employee.
I had no intention of belittling the dead — but relative to the others, we'd gotten off easy.
So why was she suddenly trying to leave?
The company had told her to spend a few days in the hospital recovering her mental and physical health. Instead she'd refused, and come all the way into the office on a Sunday.
Department Head Im spoke to her.
"Team Leader An, what's going on? This kind of thing isn't new. Why all of a sudden…? If anything, our damage was lighter than the other companies. That's all thanks to how well you handled things…"
"I'm sorry."
Her leaving was a serious loss for the company, too.
Raising Awoken was hard enough — but training someone who could actually do this job properly also cost time and money.
Senior An, in particular, had a track record of successfully developing F-rank Awoken and sending them up to D-rank dungeons more than once.
Ah. Wait. Is that it?
Thinking about it from her perspective, that "praise" wouldn't have sounded like praise at all.
Normally, when an Awoken grew, their manager moved up with them to D-rank dungeon duty.
But she'd been stuck on F-rank for two full years.
Looked at that way, the company really had screwed her over.
You only started seeing real incentives once you hit D-rank dungeons. That was when life as a support manager actually became livable.
But was that really why?
If it were me, I'd have quit on the spot.
"What's the reason? Let's hear that first, at least."
"I decided that resigning after this accident was the right thing to do. I no longer have the confidence to keep doing this work…"
Everyone in the office — myself included — was listening with their ears pricked.
The partitions meant Department Head Im wouldn't catch us, so we were eavesdropping completely openly.
The total disappearance of keyboard clacking made it obvious.
"Hmm… Come with me for a moment. It'll be hard to speak honestly here."
Department Head Im walked out of the office, and Senior An followed him.
Heading to a café in the next building, maybe?
Honestly — couldn't we just move somewhere with a proper conference room for situations like this?
It wasn't like the company was that broke…
Monday. Tomorrow's meeting with the rookie Awoken was also being held in a rented space.
We'd grease a few palms and borrow the large conference room of another company on the floor below for a day.
In the morning I had to brief in front of Department Head Im, Deputy Head Park, and the senior team leaders. In the afternoon, we'd haul in Kim Isol and the other greenhorn Awoken for a full company meeting.
I still hadn't finished editing the combat footage, and because the only available rental day was tomorrow, I was currently losing my mind with work.
"Haa…"
Come to think of it, our company was about to take a massive hit from this accident.
The office would stay exactly like this for a good while yet.
Was sticking with a company like this really the right call…? I wasn't sure there was any hope left.
A long time later, both of them came back — but whatever decision had been made, it hadn't been reversed. Senior An went to her desk and started packing her things.
Her expression and complexion had been terrible the entire time.
Just like that? Immediately?
What about the handoff?
Ah — her Awoken all died, so maybe there's nothing left to hand over?
Even so, why this sudden?
Wanting to ask her the reason, I immediately messaged her.
I suggested we grab dinner tonight.
Given the state of her body, offering drinks seemed like a bad idea, so I dropped that.
Honestly, I probably shouldn't have made dinner plans either and just let her rest — but I was too curious about why she was quitting, and I sent the message before I could stop myself.
A long while after she'd disappeared with her meager belongings, her reply finally came.
Not tonight. She'd buy me a drink next time.
All I could do was wait for that day to come sooner.
Even after Senior An walked out with her things, the work didn't stop. I barely managed to clock out at seven.
Everything about the Sand Garden where the accident happened was classified, so for now there was no way to find out what had actually gone on inside.
When I messaged An Sora or Kim Miyeon — who was still hospitalized — both of them only replied that they couldn't tell me yet.
The government had clearly already made contact.
In cases like this, the odds were high that an Awoken had caused a major screw-up.
I vaguely remembered hearing that certain companies or Awoken communities would pressure the government to bury it.
Of course, there were other possibilities.
An E-rank dungeon that everyone already knew about had suddenly spawned higher-tier monsters, after all.
My head was stuffed full of the Hwaseong Gate incident, stress maxed out. I needed something to burn it off.
I wondered what Yoo Dajeong was up to.
We hadn't exchanged a single message since.
It wasn't that I wanted to play some pride game — but I wasn't about to confess and ask her out, either, so reaching out first felt a little off.
Texting her just to say hey, want to meet up and have sex… I'd be grateful if she made the first move on that front.
Honestly, if she'd just come out and proposed we be exclusive sex partners, how great would that be.
Right then, my phone rang.
The subway was packed, so I got off to call back — and saw it was from Kim Isol.
I'm exhausted enough to die. Do I even answer this?
While I was still debating, it rang again.
I let out a sigh deep enough to sink into the ground and hit accept.
She immediately started yelling about why I hadn't picked up the first time and why I'd been ignoring her texts. When I asked why she was calling, she declared she was coming to my place right now.
Not asking if she could come. Declaring it.
Looking at Kim Isol still acting this entitled even after losing her mana, I let out a hollow laugh.
"I'm sorry, but not today."
"Why not?"
"I'm a bit busy today. I have plans."
"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?!"
"The next expedition hasn't been scheduled yet. Let's both take it easy until then."
"Don't you dare talk like this has nothing to do with you! What would a nobody like you know about how an Awoken feels after suddenly losing their power?"
This bitch still hasn't learned.
Irritation surged up all at once.
In that flash of anger, I snapped back hard.
"You're the one who has no idea how it feels to want to become an Awoken and never be able to. Yeah. You're right. I've never been an Awoken, so I have absolutely no clue how Kim Isol, claiming she 'lost her power,' is supposed to feel. So consider any cooperation off the table. Goodbye."
"W-wait, just a sec—"
I hung up without waiting for an answer.
It felt weirdly satisfying.
I'd gotten a little heated, sure — but I hadn't said everything purely out of emotion.
First reason: I was too drained to deal with Kim Isol today. Second: I wanted her to understand the world wasn't nearly as accommodating as she seemed to think.
I held the keys.
Kim Isol was the one who needed to ask me for favors.
I couldn't overhaul her attitude overnight, of course — but I felt the need to draw a clear line about who was above and who was below.
If she came at me with the same attitude next time, recovering her mana would remain impossible for as long as she liked.
Kim Isol called back immediately.
I didn't answer. I powered the phone off entirely.
We'd see each other at the meeting tomorrow anyway. Until then, she could cool her head and stew on it all she wanted.
For the first time in a while, I felt the lightness of being free from work.
Tonight I'd read some of the web novels I'd been too busy for lately, then sleep like the dead.
Tomorrow was Monday.
Which meant another hellish subway commute.
I stopped by a convenience store, grabbed something random to eat, got home, threw together a quick meal, and collapsed onto the bed.
"You're the one for tonight!"
I read a novel on my phone until I passed out mid-scroll.
For the first time in ages, I didn't even use my lower half — just pure, dog-level blissful rest.
A full week had already passed since the Hwaseong Gate incident.
Our company had been nonstop busy the entire time.
Still, the matter of the deceased was settled by paying out compensation at industry average, and the damage claims from the transport company were handled cleanly through insurance.
The company's losses were significant — but thankfully not fatal.
That, at least, was some comfort.
The F-team, on the other hand, had no choice but to restructure.
An Sora's already-departed team was naturally being dissolved, and both Kim Chan-il's team and mine saw changes as well.
Because of the rookie Awoken deaths, our company — and most others — decided to approach future dungeon raids more conservatively.
In particular, a lot of people were saying that fresh Academy graduates shouldn't be sent into E-rank dungeons so soon.
Diamond Guild, one of the companies hit hardest this time, had been skipping F-rank entirely and throwing their rookies straight into E-rank.
That made sense for them — they recruited Academy elites — but word was they were completely rethinking the policy after this accident.
Once that talk hit the internet, some people sneered that if other countries ran things the way Korea did, every gate would reverse-flow, calling Korean Awoken a bunch of cowards.
As for what happened to my team…
At last Monday's meeting, I talked up my little brats' abilities as hard as I could.
I boldly claimed their potential was high enough to head straight into E-rank.
After everything that had happened, I had no idea whether upper management would keep the currently unprofitable F-team as-is, put them on long-term standby, or dissolve them entirely. I didn't have many other options.
Well — confidence in my own ability was also part of why I said it.
I wanted to start making money as soon as possible.
Even so, the company didn't budge from its conservative stance.
On top of that, the kids' pathetic combat footage was impossible to dress up no matter how I edited it.
So the method the company chose:
Run the F-team primarily through dungeons they could commute to, and bring back visible results.
If the Awoken showed clear, eye-catching improvement, then — and only then — they'd be sent on higher-rank expeditions.
"Damn it…"
"Commuting" to a dungeon meant running expeditions without any help from a transport company.
Enter the dungeon in the morning. Lunch from a packed meal. Come out in the evening and sleep at a nearby motel.
In other words, from the company's perspective, it was one of the hardcore methods of raising Awoken while completely saving the astronomical fees paid to equipment transport firms.
This approach had plenty of downsides. One of them was the bathroom problem.
Awoken wearing full-body C-rank suits, in particular, were bound to push back hard.
And when the team was mixed-gender, it got even worse.
The equipment companies would complain loudly, too.
Renting out only suits and weapons didn't bring in real money.
Sure, they got to earn safely without ever entering a dungeon — but because it was rental rather than sales, the profit margins were thin.
It wasn't like Korea had millions of Awoken.
That was why most decent companies never adopted this method.
It was something unaffiliated Awoken used when heading into dungeons alone or in tiny groups — not something a properly established company should be doing.
And they were making us do it?
That was as good as saying the company currently had neither the capacity nor the will to properly invest in its rookies.
Maybe they were hoping the F-rank Awoken would just walk out on their own.
Well — after seeing that combat footage…
"Fuck it. Should I just quit while I'm at it?"
"Quit what?"
Lee Donggeul, lying naked beside me, rounded her already large eyes even wider and spoke up.
Apparently she'd heard me talking to myself.