Surface and Reverse
When Jeong-Hoon opened his eyes that morning, the exhaustion finally won. He collapsed sprawled across the sofa.
He had only made a brief appearance as Association President at the Hunter Association, yet the unfamiliar role—and the complete lack of real rest—had drained him dry.
“Haaah… I’m dying.”
“You were magnificent, nothing less.”
Butler Ju, still glowing with pride after they had thoroughly toyed with the Hunter Association, held out the remote to the Jeong-Hoon who had melted into the cushions.
“Will you not watch the news today?”
“Ah, right. Put it on for me, Butler Ju.”
At the butler’s suggestion Jeong-Hoon recalled the morning’s schedule and waved a hand. A faint sense of wrongness pricked at him, but he blamed the fatigue and focused on the broadcast that began to play.
“……What?!”
The news had just started, so Jeong-Hoon had been staring blankly. The completely unexpected report launched him upright; he fixed the screen with a piercing stare.
The man had made his displeasure clear yesterday, yet Jeong-Hoon had never imagined he would resign over it.
“Why did the Association President resign?”
Jeong-Hoon turned toward Butler Ju. The butler opened his mouth with measured composure.
“He is said to have stepped down to take responsibility for mismanagement of the Association.”
“……Was he really that responsible a man?”
A person in charge resigning to accept blame was not wrong in itself. Yet the Hunter Association President had never struck Jeong-Hoon as such a figure, and the sense of unease only deepened as he took a sip of the morning tea Jeong I-Yeong had prepared.
The Association-related reports came one after another. Jeong-Hoon set his teacup down. Keeping the tea in his mouth felt like a sure way to either spit it out or choke.
He had almost spat it out. He congratulated himself for having the foresight to put the cup down first.
“I suspected there would be Nova members hidden inside the Association, but I never thought it would be someone at team-leader level.”
“Park Yong-tae, age fifty. A B-class Awakened hired as staff after the Association transferred from the family to government control.”
Butler Ju recited the details as though he had already known them, carefully phrasing the statement so that none of the blame fell on the family. That subtle deflection made Jeong-Hoon freeze with his hand halfway to the cup again.
“Uh, Butler Ju? That man really committed suicide, right? He wasn’t suicided, was he?”
Jeong-Hoon finally understood the wrongness he had felt when the butler switched on the television. He fixed the man with a suspicious glare. Suggesting they watch the news—something they did every morning—had clearly been so Jeong-Hoon would see this.
At the mention of Photon, Jeong-Hoon shook his head. During the rescue operation it had been Photon equipment deployed around the hotel that safely caught hostages leaping from the windows.
“Butler Ju, Photon is definitely one of the family’s businesses—one of the companies whose test I still haven’t passed, isn’t it?”
Jeong-Hoon switched off the television and rose from his seat. There was nothing left worth watching. He had seen everything Butler Ju had wanted him to see.
And Arizona… that was the region where Nova had first been founded. Staging a demonstration of anti-monster weaponry there was, to anyone with eyes, a warning aimed straight at Nova. Even without knowing about the family, no one could miss the meaning of a Korean defense contractor negotiating with the U.S. government to flex military muscle in Nova’s own backyard the moment Korea had been attacked.
“I distinctly told you to report to me whenever something like this happened.”
“Until Gaju passes the tests for Photon, Diana, and Flamma, the use of those businesses’ power and any coordination with other companies remains the exclusive authority of the Twelve Vassals who oversee them.”
Photon was the defense contractor that developed weapons using the family’s technology. Diana ran theme parks—amusement parks. Flamma was a sprawling food-and-beverage franchise. The moment those three names appeared, Jeong-Hoon realized the vassals of those businesses were the ones behind everything.
He had ordered them to report, yet an incomplete Gaju’s authority only reached so far. Even if they acted without orders, he could not reprimand them. Jeong-Hoon shook his head at that fact—then noticed something odd.
“Wait. Photon I can understand, but why Diana and Flamma?”
He could not easily picture an amusement park and a restaurant chain tangled up in the affairs of a defense contractor. Pressuring an Association President and assassinating a Nova member felt far too grim for the two of them.
“Gaju, as you may have guessed from the tests you have already passed, every business has both a surface and a reverse side.”
“I know that. But the reverse sides of an amusement park and a restaurant chain sound a little too blood-soaked, don’t they?”
Lumen was a hotel chain on the surface—the public face that oversaw the family’s businesses. Its reverse side was the family’s stronghold where the Gaju resided. Shine Mall was an online marketplace selling countless goods; its reverse was the warehouse that managed the family’s artifacts. Myeongil Hospital held and safeguarded the family’s secret techniques on its reverse side. Apollon presented itself as a security firm while its reverse was the family’s private armed force.
“Photon, being a defense contractor, can be said to have matching surface and reverse. It simply possesses many weapons that have never been revealed to the outside.”
“Then what about Diana and Flamma?”
“Diana, the theme park, is an intelligence organization. Its role is to gather information from every corner of the world. And Flamma’s reverse side is assassination.”
“Wow… so the darkest one of all just came out. And a restaurant chain is the assassination unit, of all things.”
The meals Jeong-Hoon ate were prepared in the hotel, yet the chefs who cooked them were dispatched from Flamma. They prepared any cuisine, any style, with flawless skill, and he had thoroughly enjoyed it. Learning the truth—that they were an assassination unit—suddenly made every future meal feel terrifying.
Come to think of it, the ones who had subdued Nova’s command staff inside the hotel had also been Flamma.
“Would the family’s own blade ever dare to turn against its Gaju? Moreover, every chef of Flamma is an outstanding cook. They take immense pride in their craft and would never tamper with the food itself.”
“That sounds a lot like you’re saying they can still play tricks in the place where the food is eaten.”
“……”
For a fleeting moment Jeong-Hoon thought of a certain Spring-and-Autumn period blade nicknamed “Fish Intestines,” and he deliberately snagged the butler’s words. Butler Ju offered no reply. The silence felt like tacit agreement: they would never toy with the food, yet a dining table remained the perfect stage for assassination—hence the assassination unit.
The fact that the vassals of businesses whose tests he had not yet passed had acted on their own was unavoidable. Honestly, Jeong-Hoon had announced he would retaliate, yet he still had no clear idea how. With the Hunter Association already pitting him against the government, no clean method presented itself. In that situation the responsible vassals had handled everything without even reporting—so, truth be told, it felt rather satisfying.
“But that is that, and this is this.”
The headquarters of the food-and-beverage company Flamma. Given its nationwide chain of restaurants, one might have expected a glittering dining palace. Instead it was an ordinary high-rise, the sort of clean, modern building that looked more like an IT firm than a restaurant company. This was Flamma’s head office. The headquarters itself conducted no restaurant business; it only developed recipes, managed franchisees, and trained staff. There was no need for it to look like a restaurant at all.
“And Flamma has the fewest vassals of any of the businesses.”
“I thought Lumen was the elite few?”
“I never said Lumen had the fewest.”
Jeong-Hoon lightly challenged Butler Ju’s explanation, only to lose the exchange completely as they entered the building. Security at the entrance moved to stop them, yet the moment the words “from Lumen” left their mouths the guards stepped aside. Advance notice that they would visit Flamma had already been given.
“The reason Flamma’s vassals form such a small elite is the reverse side they oversee.”
“Because only those with exceptional skill can join Flamma?”
“That is part of it, yet more fundamentally their nature does not lend itself to large-scale operation.”
Certainly, maintaining a large force of assassins would feel strange. Jeong-Hoon nodded and continued listening. Every chef belonging to Flamma was a vassal, and the executive-level directors were vassals as well.
“The numbers really are tiny. Fewer than fifty, I’d guess.”
“Roughly that.”
Inside the elevator Jeong-Hoon clicked his tongue at how few they were. By vassal count alone it was closer to a team led by one of the other Twelve Vassals than a full business. Yet when one considered the overwhelming importance of an assassination unit, it more than justified its status as a business. Some of the family’s companies had been created because the family judged them necessary; others existed because the teams led by the Twelve Vassals carried that much weight. Given both the importance of an assassination unit and the mask required to hide it, Flamma deserved to stand as a business regardless of scale. That same importance was precisely why Jeong-Hoon had set the other two businesses aside and come racing to solve Flamma’s test first.
“I have been expecting you, Gaju.”
A slender, handsome man with a sharp-eyed, strong-featured face—his permed hair cut into a textured shaggy style—bowed his head. The greeting emerged so naturally, timed exactly with the opening of the elevator doors, that Jeong-Hoon felt a flicker of admiration.
“Wow, Butler Ju. That’s a first.”
“What is?”
“Someone among the Twelve Vassals, besides you, who actually feels like a butler.”
The man wore the white chef’s coat unique to his profession, yet he radiated such butler-like poise that Jeong-Hoon praised him without thinking. Butler Ju smiled awkwardly; the praise struck a little too close to home. Officially, every one of the Twelve Vassals except the sole woman, Jeong I-Yeong, held the title of butler. In practice most of them simply acted according to their own natures.
“Uh, so then…”
“Baek Si-Hwan, Gaju.”
“Right. I’ll call you Chef Baek, then. Chef Baek—were you the one who forced the Association President to resign?”
Jeong-Hoon settled the form of address without hesitation and asked the question that interested him most.
“I merely executed the information passed to me by Diana.”
Si-Hwan openly admitted that he had been the one who had worn a suit the previous day and pressed the Association President with that overbearing tone. He bowed again. There was nothing servile in the gesture; it was crisp and disciplined.
“……You did well, but once I pass the test, please obtain my permission before you move from now on.”
“Of course. This time we judged it necessary to demonstrate the family’s iron fist, and we acted hastily. I offer my apologies.”
“Well, there were things that would have been awkward for me to handle myself, so it couldn’t be helped.”
Accepting the apology, Jeong-Hoon walked past Si-Hwan into Flamma’s presidential office. He had not come to reprimand the man; he had come to receive the test.
“So—can I take the test right away?”
“Whenever you wish. However, there is something I must tell you first.”
Si-Hwan, who had followed quietly, lifted the sealed envelope that lay on the desk—the one containing the test.
“Among all the businesses, Flamma’s surface and reverse differ the most. Therefore there are two tests. Are you truly prepared?”
“……Oh. I didn’t see that coming. But even if I’m not okay with it, I still have to do them, right?”
Two tests. Jeong-Hoon did not particularly mind. Just before this, Apollon had officially been “one” test yet had required three stages—three full rounds of combat. Hearing the truth before he opened the envelope already felt like a kindness.