Cancel the Contract
After wrapping up Amoregon, no new commissions came in.
Jisu had found a place to rent and hired Seyeon to take care of the housework, so she was spending her days in leisure. The circumstances, however, were nothing like those idle stretches of unemployment she'd endured in the past.
Back then, her bank account hadn't held a single penny. Now a comfortable sum sat in it, and more would keep landing on schedule. The relief that knowledge brought her was, quite literally, beyond anything she could have imagined.
Having money really is nice.
When she was little, before her father's business went under, she'd simply assumed everyone lived like this. Even after they went broke, it had been all right. Her mother was still alive, and Jisu herself was young and healthy. Being short on money, she'd thought, was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
But once she became an adult — once she reached the age where she could actually spend money, and once she'd started solving problem after problem with it — she understood with perfect clarity why people went around chanting money, money and drifted through life like cash's own restless dead.
She was beginning to get it. Just a little.
Still. You have to earn money in a way that means something if you want to spend it in a way that means something...
It was a rather preachy thought for someone her age. She was browsing the HODL room with that in mind when a message leaped straight out at her.
Huh?
Wildcat's signal room, huh.
Wildcat had been the one person among that swarm of amateur call-makers whose signals were actually worth following. Jisu slipped into the room without a second's hesitation.
In the time since she'd last crossed paths with him, had Wildcat's name recognition in this scene grown to this extent? The open chat was filling up at a terrifying speed. When Jisu entered, there hadn't even been twenty people in the room. In less than five minutes, the hundred-person cap was full.
Testimonials rose up from every corner. The way Wildcat unified the room and brought the atmosphere to heel was, without the slightest exaggeration, that of a cult leader.
What sharing "positive influence" had to do with opening a signal room, she honestly couldn't say. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that Wildcat would point at a coin, and that the coin would go up.
It had been a while since she'd last encountered him, but that magnetic way with words hadn't dulled in the slightest.
It was the same pitch she'd heard last time, and somehow it still sounded brand new. How many people in the world could pull every eye in the room with nothing but a chat window?
The chat window raced upward. Jisu snorted at the "WildcatDad" and the rest of it.
Think about it. If a stranger you'd met in an internet open chat told you to dump something as important as your life savings on their word — any ordinary person living an ordinary life would hear that and write them off as a scammer on the spot. That much was obvious.
The coin market, however, was different. That exact thing was happening, in real time. People pouring into signal rooms, trusting the word of someone whose face they'd never seen and whose name they didn't know, and throwing their precious assets at whatever they were told — they were so thick on the ground you couldn't take a step without tripping over one.
You didn't notice how bizarre it was when you were mixed up in it. Take a single step back and look at the whole circus from outside, though, and it was a farce unto itself.
I can't let myself get swallowed by this. Stay one step behind. The important thing is figuring out how Wildcat is squeezing the honey out of these people.
Jisu kept her judgment as cold as she could and settled in to watch Wildcat's signal room.
"Good morning!"
"Ah, good morning. First one here again today, I see!"
"Oh, no — the security guard got here first."
"Haha, well. That's the job, isn't it. Anyway, thank you for helping me out with that urgent business last time. Next time I see you, I'll have to get you something tasty..."
"Come on, no! It's fine. I didn't do it expecting anything."
"Well. Thank you, miss. You're a kind one, you are."
Morning at the Hunter Association. Seyeon exchanged greetings with the security guard and headed inside.
Ever since Hunters had appeared, the industries surrounding them had grown at an exponential rate. It wasn't only the people who awakened to a Hunter's talent and became Hunters themselves. There were those who supported such Hunters, the industries that utilized the Essence of Life — the very pinnacle of the Hunter economy — and even the press that specialized in reporting every move those Hunters made.
All of it had emerged naturally from the moment Hunters appeared in this world, and even after explosive growth, Hunter-related industry remained one of the most promising fields there was.
Seyeon hadn't been ignorant of that. If only she'd had Hunter talent herself — but the test she'd taken in high school had come back negative. She hadn't been heartbroken over it. Having Hunter aptitude meant, in itself, that you'd been chosen, and it was hardly a common thing.
Someone out there would win the lottery, but that didn't mean you felt robbed for buying a ticket and not winning, did it? Just like that, Seyeon had accepted her lack of aptitude as a matter of course.
But there was plenty you could do without the talent. Around the time she was graduating high school, when she was agonizing over her future the way everyone did, a particular pitch kept catching her eye. A "rising major" with a promising future. "The department matters more than the university's name brand." "100% employment!" Things of that nature.
And so she'd enrolled. A newly emerging program at a two-year technical college. Colloquially: the Operator department.
With the Hunter industry booming, and with Operators working closest of all to those Hunters, it had seemed like she'd never have to worry about finding a job. The media said so. The school said so. Everyone said so.
But by the time Seyeon graduated and, through one thing and another, joined the Hunter Association, Operators were already a declining industry. Hunters had been around long enough that they could look up most information themselves online. And when it came to combat, Hunters had accumulated their own know-how; more and more of them could fight without an Operator's help, and the profession was steadily losing its place.
After graduating, she'd spent a year job-hunting within the Association. She was affiliated, yes, but all she did was provide information for Hunter matching — there was no particular salary attached — so Seyeon and the other Operators had been desperately searching for a Hunter to take on.
Even as the majority of Operators inside the Association left to find a new way to survive, Seyeon refused to give up, throwing herself into the search.
And then, at last, she'd landed a contract. With an SS-rank Hunter, no less.
They said that even a stable contract with an A-rank Hunter would mean never worrying about your paycheck — and she'd contracted with one of the handful of SS-rank Hunters in Korea. For the time being, she wouldn't have to think about her family's financial problems at all. On top of that, she was now receiving extra pay for taking on additional work. Could things get any better?
Jisu really is a good person!
Seyeon returned to her desk, beaming. It felt like only yesterday that she'd sat in that same seat, making call after call, sinking into gloom. Now she actually had materials to organize. She felt, for once, like she was doing real work.
Granted, the contents were things like managing Jisu's mother's health and meal plans — not exactly Operator work — but having something to do was something.
Seyeon returned to her assigned seat inside the Association. It was a cheap desk with a single computer on it, but at least she no longer had to sit there zoning out, waiting for replies from Hunters who never called back.
She was in the middle of wondering what to cook when she got home that evening when—
"Huh?"
A few people she didn't recognize were standing around her desk. No — that wasn't quite right. They didn't seem entirely unfamiliar. For some reason, they looked a little familiar.
Wait...... is that...?
"So you're the girl called Yoo Seyeon?"
The woman addressing her. Seyeon had definitely seen that face before. No — there was no way she couldn't have. Anyone who was a Hunter in Korea would know who this was.
"A-are you perhaps Hunter Jeong Siyun?"
"That's right. You're a lot cuter than I expected. Heh."
Jeong Siyun. Leader of Seongwolhoe, currently the strongest guild in Korea and the one that held the most S-rank and above Hunters. Why on earth was someone like that here for her?
Seyeon had reached out to a fair number of Hunters in her time, but she'd never even dreamed of contacting Jeong Siyun. How could she have? The woman already had a guild. Even if she used an Operator, it would be a guild-affiliated one, not someone from the Association. There had been no reason to get in touch.
"Ah, hello! Um, but did you need me for something?"
"No, no. I just wanted to ask you something. You signed a contract recently, didn't you?"
She dropped into informal speech on a first meeting as if it were the most natural thing in the world, talking down to her — but Seyeon needed to stay calm. The woman was Association-affiliated too, after all. Treat her like a superior and it would be fine.
Seyeon had always been reasonably confident in her ability to navigate the workplace. She swallowed the displeasure, put on a smiling face, and opened her mouth.
"Yes! Thank you. But I don't think that's why you would have come."
"What do you mean that's not why I came? You contracted with Jisu, didn't you?"
"......If you mean Jisu, then yes, that's correct."
Seyeon's voice had sharpened a little, but the woman didn't so much as register it. She simply looked Seyeon over, slow and thorough, as if inspecting a piece of merchandise.
"Hmm. Your face is cute enough, I'll give you that, but you're a bit too... unremarkable."
"?"
To Seyeon, who hadn't the faintest idea what any of this was about, she said it as if she were commenting on the weather.