The Temp Agency

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New blood had washed into the prison, and another week was already bearing down. Nearly a month had passed since every inmate had been converted to death-row status, and from here on, all of them would have to deploy into the Darkzone at least four times a month.

The sheer horror of that fact still sent the occasional prisoner over the edge, but most of them had already gone all-in on a one-way express ticket down life's steepest slope. They'd more or less made their peace with it.

The fact that the atmosphere inside the prison is slowly stabilizing is proof that the government and the administration's scheme is working.

You will never walk out of this prison alive. In exchange, we'll look the other way at just about anything you do inside — riots excepted.

That exquisite divide-and-conquer, the tacit approval of Cartel formation, and the bizarre culture of connections blooming among inmates, guards, and corporate players had left the prisoners feeling like they'd hit the jackpot. If they were going to die sooner or later anyway, they might as well wring every last scrap of enjoyment out of it before they went. That was the mindset they carried into the Darkzone.

Judging by all of that, most inmates besides me were living day to day, pinning their hopes on a tomorrow that had no future. I wasn't trying to claim I was better than them. But I was working to prove, at the very least, that I was different.

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Just like I was doing right now.

Ding-a-ling.

The clear chime of a doorbell filled my ears, and the interior that opened into view was a rather old-fashioned bar. A handful of other patrons were scattered through the place; counting them roughly, there were more than I'd expected.

They said this was a tiny office that hadn't even settled on a business yet. Yeah. That was a lie.

A snort escaped me at the joke from Jin Ja-gyeong, owner of this lowest-level casino and the woman who had a lock on a particular information pipeline. The truth was, this place had already been introduced in EFD. I'd swallowed her calculated bluff even with a fortune in credits sitting right in front of me.

"Will you be ordering?"

The bartender wiping a glass behind the counter asked with a look of complete indifference. Instead of placing an order, I drew a black card from inside my coat and held it up. That was enough. He understood I wasn't some bum who'd wandered in for a drink, and he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slipped smoothly into proper hospitality.

"My apologies, sir. Might I ask the purpose of your visit to our establishment today?"

"What's on the menu?"

"Bounty postings and confirmations, and information brokering. Those are our standard offerings."

The bartender kindly provided a pair of glasses that could pierce a special holographic display, since I wasn't wearing a Smart Link. The moment I put them on, the ordinary cocktail menu behind him transformed into something else entirely. Just as he'd said, bounty and information listings glittered across it.

Their independent system is fully in place. Even this early in the story, they already had everything ready.

What more was there to say? This was the lowest-level district's information brokerage, the operation Jin ran as her real business behind the casino's camouflage. That was only the official name, though. EFD players called this place the Temp Agency.

In practice, only inmates whose skills had been recognized could enter with Jin's permission. Here you could be brokered into any job that paid — or commission one yourself.

Didn't PrisonNet already exist as a community for inmates? Why bother coming here at all?

Not quite.

PrisonNet was a closed community where only inmates traded among themselves. A brokerage run by a Special Merchant NPC, on the other hand, was open to almost everyone. Government officials. Prison staff. Corporate agents. Even mysterious outside factions that didn't seem to belong to any of those camps. Which made this place an indispensable hub of communication and trade that any veteran EFD player had to pass through, whether they liked it or not.

Both options look tempting.

Checking the bounty list and hunting down public enemies — playing Stalker — wouldn't be a bad time. Neither would buying and selling expensive information nobody else knew about, running the intel-build route. But I hadn't come here today for short-term gains sitting right in front of me. I was here for the long game.

"I'd like to see the commission listings."

"Unexpected. Most first-time visitors check the bounty board or buy and sell information."

"The bounty side is too obvious to be worth anything, and there won't be any information worth buying right now. Skipping both is the obvious call, isn't it?"

The bartender looked at me with genuine surprise, then quickly mixed a cocktail. A moment later, a martini sat in front of me — the so-called king of cocktails. The famous shaken, not stirred version, no less.

"I can see why the director handed you a Black Card without hesitation. You're the first guest since this office opened who grasped our system and the current state of the board at a glance."

"It's not that impressive. Don't inflate it. A lot of inmates died last week, and even more of the old factions collapsed before that. There's no way any real bounty targets or worthwhile intel have hit the market yet."

Anyone who thought about it for a second would know that. It also happened to be one of the few advantages I had — remembering EFD's rough story timeline. And even if I did check the bounty list just to scrape together some pocket change, there wouldn't be anyone particularly impressive on it.

The highest bounty is probably on me.

That wasn't narcissism. That was reality. Right now, in the lowest district of Seoul Southern Prison, nobody was more famous than I was. Nobody posted higher yield rates. And nobody had more enemies. I had every single ingredient for drawing aggro. At this point, my PrisonNet chaos campaign was a roaring success.

"More importantly, how about you show me those commission listings already."

"I'll bring up the files now."

At my pointed nudge, the bartender gestured a few times at empty air, and a cascade of new holographic image files and text unfurled. Just as I'd expected, the prison administration and a few corporations that had caught wind of this Temp Agency had already posted several commissions in secret.

The prison's commission was, surprisingly, eliminate high-risk inmates.

"High-risk" here didn't mean someone flashy like me. It meant budding reactionaries who stood in direct opposition to the prison's control system — inmates caught preparing an escape, inmates constantly agitating those around them and poisoning the atmosphere, inmates deliberately stirring conflict between prisoners and guards to incite a riot.

The administration now had to consider the inmates' mood, so they couldn't just drag someone out and execute them in the open. Instead they quietly farmed out these unofficial hits, killing with a borrowed knife. A public bounty would be easy for anyone to check, which meant the target would learn they were being hunted. A private commission, on the other hand, was visible only to whoever accepted it. No evidence left behind.

Nobody's taken it yet, so I guess that's on me.

It wasn't that I liked the prison administration enough to hunt their problem inmates for them. If I didn't keep building these connections, my position inside the prison would only get more dangerous. Sooner or later I'd need to start building a real faction of my own. Until then, I had to manage my standing well enough to stay under the administration's protection.

"What's the maximum number of commissions one person can take?"

"One private commission, one public commission, and one Assigned Commission — three at most. You can't stack commissions of the same type."

A private commission meant I personally browsed the secret listings and picked one I liked. A public commission was visible to everyone and went first-come, first-served. An Assigned Commission meant a specific party had designated me and posted the job in my name. You had to complete at least one commission before you could take another, and failing even one incurred a separate penalty. So most people either grabbed three they could handle without trouble, or took a single high-value job and focused everything on it.

I wanted both the rewards and the NPC favorability, so I planned to take all three here as well.

"I'll take the prison administration's posting as my private commission, and AAA's public commission as well. And... do I have any Assigned Commissions that came in personally?"

"Sharp instincts. The moment your inmate number was registered in our database, Assigned Commissions poured in."

"Is there one from Ted Chan among them?"

"...There is. But wouldn't you rather review the other listings as well?"

"The rest of the Assigned Commissions will mostly be from corporations. Even if I turn them down today, the love calls will keep coming on a regular basis."

"Remarkable confidence. It's almost awe-inspiring."

Hmm. That much? Now that the name Super Rookie was widely known, there were more than enough people who wanted me dead and more than enough people sending love calls. It didn't particularly move me. What actually mattered was whether, amid all that attention, I could cherry-pick only what I needed most. In that sense, Ted Chan's Assigned Commission was a timely opportunity. I'd been feeling the need to start working on his favorability.

The prison's rabble-rouser cleanup job doesn't pay all that well, but the deadline is generous. AAA's public commission is data collection on killing Native Species in the Darkzone with thermal weapons — pretty low difficulty, mediocre pay, but I can knock it out on the side, so it's convenient.

The Assigned Commission I'd just accepted from Ted Chan was, true to his personality, extremely blunt and concise.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Just looking at it made my mouth water. The man was an insufferable nitpicker, but his skill and his wealth were the real deal. Turning down one of his Assigned Commissions would be genuinely stupid. Among the people who posted Assigned Commissions, his jobs ranked in the top three for difficulty — but the rewards were equally generous, which was why I liked them.

"I'll take the commissions as discussed. Do you charge a separate fee?"

"We normally charge regular clients a brokerage fee, but Black Card holders are exempt. Instead, whenever a Black Card holder accepts a commission, the client who posted it is obligated to pay this office a separate brokerage fee."

"Now that's a proper system."

Back in 2020s Korea, there had been a monstrously predatory delivery platform that gouged fees from consumers and suppliers alike and pocketed the cut. This place might be a rotting society, but at least they understood the bare minimum of commercial ethics.

I'd accepted all the commissions and gotten a feel for the atmosphere. I downed the martini in one shot and stood up. It wasn't that I felt pressured by the laser-like stares of the ordinary folks who didn't have Black Cards, the ones who'd been watching me for a while now. If anything, I was deliberately clearing out so they'd have an easier time making their move.

The more information about me gets out there, the more false information multiplies with it. And the more false information there is, the harder I am to touch.

I had no intention of stopping the rumors about myself from spreading through the entire inmate community. In the end, this was a survival-of-the-fittest zone where only strength and ability ruled. If I just stayed alive, every last piece of false information would convert cheaply into reputation.

Buying Super Rookie at the bottom. Let's gooo.

Are you watching, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Warren Buffett, sir?

I have finally grasped the truth of value investing.