The Closing Conspiracy
SSS-class hunter Jang Seung-Woo, newly installed as President of the PS Association, was sprawled across the sofa in his office, deep into a thoroughly satisfying midday nap.
It was not that the Association’s founding had kept him so busy he could not go home and was catching sleep at his desk. That morning he had made a full-body performance of not wanting to come to work, dragged himself in under protest, and without even sitting down at his desk had flopped onto the sofa and passed out.
If the Association President himself was behaving like this, one might wonder whether the PS Association, for all its fanfare at launch, simply did not have that much to do. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The noise and bustle outside his office still carried the frantic energy of an organization in its earliest days. In other words, President Jang Seung-Woo was simply not working.
“Now that you’ve shown up, how about actually doing some work?”
“……Hwaaah. What work is there for me to do, Director Kang Hwa-Rim?”
Kang Hwa-Rim shoved the office door open and spoke. Jang Seung-Woo, jolted awake by the razor-sharp senses that came with being SSS-class, only shook his head.
He had accepted the presidency at the Aurora Group’s request, yet in his own mind he was nothing more than a figurehead, a puppet chairman.
“Oh my, there’s so much for the President to do. And would you mind calling me secretary rather than director?”
“……You’re a secretary inside the Aurora Group. This is not the Aurora Group.”
Jang Seung-Woo stressed the point that Kang Hwa-Rim, dispatched to the PS Association as Aurora’s representative, held the title of director. Hwa-Rim only smiled.
“For someone so careful about drawing lines, why are you so negligent about your actual duties?”
“Because the Association runs just fine with me sitting in this chair, doesn’t it?”
It was not the sort of thing one ought to say about a brand-new organization, yet it was true enough that Hwa-Rim let out a short sigh.
For all the title of President, Jang Seung-Woo held no absolute power. Day-to-day operations were handled through meetings of people seconded from the corporations and guilds that had actually funded the place. The one authority the President did possess was simple: when something blew up, he alone decided whether it was a PS Association matter, then led the Awakened waiting on standby out into the field.
“In a setup like this, what am I supposed to be doing? Isn’t it better that I don’t work?”
“Hmm. That is, admittedly, a solid argument. But right now you do need to work.”
Lazy as he looked, he still had a hunter’s sense of responsibility. Hwa-Rim nodded and opened the office door. The person who had been waiting outside stepped in.
He had meant to enter with Hwa-Rim, but she had gone first rather than let anyone see the Association President napping on the sofa.
“……I felt a surprisingly strong presence outside the door and wondered who it was. So it was you, Vice Minister Go Yeong-Min.”
A high-ranking Awakened in his early forties who still wore the face of a young man. A civil servant who had Awakened when the world changed and continued as a government hunter. One of only two SSS-class hunters known to exist in Korea, alongside Jang Seung-Woo himself. Seeing Vice Minister Go Yeong-Min’s face, Jang Seung-Woo let out a short, dry laugh.
After the Ministry of Awakening Innovation was established, Go Yeong-Min—civil servant and hunter—had become its vice minister. His presence here meant the government wanted something from the PS Association.
“You’re looking well, President Jang Seung-Woo. Congratulations on your appointment as—”
“Skip the formalities between you and me. What does the government want with the PS Association?”
Both were SSS-class and widely regarded as the faces of Korea’s hunters, yet their chemistry was catastrophic—bad enough to make even Ko Yu-Yeon and Woo Do-Il, the worst pairing among the 12 Vassals, look like best friends.
One was a free hunter who belonged to no guild and answered to no one. The other was a civil servant who, regardless of which administration sat in power, followed the government’s will and climbed the ladder. Beyond rank and gender, the two men shared nothing.
There had been a decisive incident. Go Yeong-Min had tried to recruit Jang Seung-Woo into a state organ, failed, and the two had clashed with force. After that they had avoided even looking at each other.
“Fine. Since it’s you and me, we’ll drop the politeness. I want time to review how closely the PS Association’s rapid-response teams can coordinate with the military. You’re coming.”
“……I don’t care for the tone of command. I refuse. Hwaaah!”
Jang Seung-Woo made a point of yawning long and slow and waved a dismissive hand. A vein stood out on Go Yeong-Min’s forehead.
“This is not a matter of feelings.”
“It is exactly a matter of feelings. Outside of genuine emergencies, moving the rapid-response teams is solely my authority.”
Go Yeong-Min flared his mana; Jang Seung-Woo met it with his own, shook his head, and pointed at the door, waving him out. An eviction notice.
Go Yeong-Min was furious, but he had come as a messenger under a special presidential order. He could not simply overturn the table because he disliked the atmosphere.
“The world’s eyes are on the PS Association right now. Do you not understand that a joint exercise with the military would reassure the public?”
“Hmm…… So you need a political show. Still no. I’m not a politician.”
Having read the intent, Jang Seung-Woo yawned again and cut him off cleanly. Watching him, Go Yeong-Min only shook his head. Somehow he had to persuade Jang Seung-Woo and tie the Association’s response teams down.
He had his orders from the President. This had to succeed. If full-scale war broke out between the Aurora Group and Nova, the plan was to stay as neutral as possible and protect civilians. So Go Yeong-Min set aside as much of the old grudge as he could and began persuading Jang Seung-Woo while concealing the real stakes.
Watching that desperation, Kang Hwa-Rim felt, with sudden certainty, that something was moving behind the scenes.
When the report reached him of Go Yeong-Min’s suspiciously desperate efforts to persuade Jang Seung-Woo, Jeong-Hoon leaned back against the sofa and shook his head.
“So the President is nursing some other agenda, then?”
“At minimum, I believe he has been threatened.”
Over a shared meal, Kim Sang-Myeong had revealed that the Organization intended to force a decisive battle with the family within a month. Working from that information, Go Yeong-Min’s current movements suggested the President had made contact with Yong-Ha and was now trying to minimize state intervention—including the PS Association’s—in the coming clash between the family and the Organization.
“I created the PS Association precisely so I wouldn’t have to bother with excuses. This is inconvenient.”
“Shall I have Hwa-Rim lodge a formal protest with the Blue House in the Aurora Group’s name?”
The Blue House’s public justification was joint training between the PS Association and the military as a precaution against emergencies. But the PS Association was an organization separate from the government; it had no obligation to obey every government request. The new balance of power ran Ministry of Awakening Innovation for the state, Hunter Association for the guilds, and PS Association for the corporations. In that light, the government’s proposal could look like gamesmanship from the start.
“No. Tell her to persuade the President to cooperate as much as possible.”
“……May I ask the reason?”
“Cleaning up the Organization is our problem anyway. And the reason they’re trying to pull one foot out is that they don’t know which of us is stronger—us or the Organization.”
If the family were known to be overwhelmingly stronger, the President would never have made this call. Kim Sang-Myeong, who did know the family was far stronger than the Organization, had already laid everything out within the bounds of protecting his own interests and taken a cooperative stance.
“So we demonstrate our strength by wiping out the Organization ourselves.”
“Exactly. We’ll let this one slide, but we need to make it clear that next time won’t be nearly so amusing.”
If they were choosing neutrality because they didn’t know who was stronger, then the answer was simply to show them. Jeong-Hoon nodded.
Kim Gi-Yeong, grandson of SB Group Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol, was throwing a lively party with his friends. The liveliness, however, was only surface. Underneath, Gi-Yeong’s mood was thoroughly foul—and so were the moods of every friend gathered there.
It was a gathering of the sort of people commonly called chaebol family wastrels. Some had already been written out of succession for their excesses; others were sole heirs and therefore still officially next in line. Even so, amid the usual cheering and noise, none of them could hide the anxiety chewing at them.
“Aigoo, why the funeral faces? Did somebody die? Let’s see—one, two, three, four…… everyone’s here?”
“……!”
Into the heavy atmosphere of the club’s VIP room, a white-haired boy shoved the door open and walked in. Every eye snapped to him. Yong-Ha, who had been missing for some time, had appeared without warning, smiling brightly.
“……You’re alive?”
“Gi-Yeong hyung, what kind of bloodthirsty question is that? Were you hoping I was dead?”
“No—Grandfather told me you were dead.”
Gi-Yeong, still startled, repeated what Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol had said. Yong-Ha only shook his head.
“Hahaha. Grandfather beat me half to death, sure, but I didn’t actually die.”
In truth he had died once, but Kim Gi-Yeong was nothing more than a simple liaison between SB Group and the Organization; he knew nothing of the Organization itself. The same went for every wastrel in the room. There was no need to drop the truth and sow chaos.
“Anyway, hyung, aren’t you busy these days? Not long ago you were saying Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol was teaching you the business himself and you were run off your feet.”
“Ah, that……””
At Yong-Ha’s casual inquiry into recent events, the faces of everyone present—not only Gi-Yeong—darkened.
They had all made names for themselves as wastrels, yet they had still lived lives of relative privilege. Then the Korean leadership of the Organization had been annihilated, and with it the wastrels’ usefulness. Except for those who were sole heirs and therefore still technically successors, they had been discarded. Even the heirs who had not been discarded found their treatment markedly worse. Tonight’s gathering was a place to vent that resentment.
Yong-Ha knew all of this perfectly well. He had come only because these people still had some use left in them; he had no desire to waste time on such incompetent fools otherwise.
“Grandfather told me to rest for a while, so I’m resting.”
Even after being half-exiled for incompetence, Gi-Yeong offered a polite excuse and an awkward smile. His pride would not allow him to admit he had simply been scolded. Everyone in the room felt the same. Watching them, Yong-Ha smiled and thought, still the same idiots.
If they had faced reality even a little and admitted their mistakes, they would never have been reduced to this the moment their usefulness ran out.
“Chairman Kim Seong-Cheol’s temper really is something. To cast you out over a small mistake.”
“Right?! See, you get it!”
Yong-Ha nodded as if he understood the whole situation, eyes gleaming. Yes—exactly because they were this kind of fool, they still had some use left.