The Shadow of the Manager
Puppet Summoner 054, Hong Jiu, was still such a simpleton. My monkeys were zombies. Anyone paying close attention would notice they were unfit to function as living beings. Yet he had called me a Monkey Summoner. The man still lived seeing only what he wanted to see. Well, that explains why he thought nothing of selling off company assets from his own father’s firm.
I gestured for the monkeys to attack.
“Uuuu!”
“Ook-ook!”
The result was absurd. I had expected Hong Jiu to reveal his own summons once I sent the monkeys. Instead, the former manager charged straight at them himself. He was beaten so badly he was now rolling across the dirt, getting pummeled by zombie monkeys.
What the hell…?
While I watched the pathetic sight, twenty medieval soldiers burst out from their hiding place in the Cornfield. They cut down the monkeys and rescued Hong Jiu. That told me exactly who was behind this little performance.
So you were here after all.
Those soldiers were Park Gibeom’s puppets. I didn’t need to guess; the emblem on their tunics and shields gave it away. Park Gibeom had always been a medieval fantasy fan, and whenever he indulged in that hobby he used the same crest: a red puppet hanging by its neck against a black background. He used to drone on about some deep meaning behind it, but I never bothered listening.
Now that the word “puppet” had entered my mind, Hong Jiu’s condition stood out. His jerky movements, the delayed reactions—he was already dead and turned into a puppet. So this whole scene was just roleplay…
Hong Jiu, freed from the monkeys, started screaming.
“You filthy vermin! I knew you had a hidden card! But in the end, trash is still trash!”
Hidden card… monkeys…?
That level of stupidity was beyond anything Park Gibeom could fake. Hong Jiu’s will was clearly still intact. It seemed he could command his puppets while retaining his living memories, much like my zombies.
I finished my calculations and ordered the remaining monkeys forward.
“All units, charge!”
Two hundred monkeys surged ahead. The soldiers formed a tight defensive formation and met them head-on. Even with a ten-to-one numerical advantage, the puppets’ disciplined lines refused to break.
Stronger than I expected.
They fought back-to-back against the swarm as if they had drilled the tactic for years. Each one looked at least Grade 7. Slowly, the picture Park Gibeom wanted to paint became clear. It was Earth all over again. Watching the hardworking subordinate get screwed over by the spoiled Hong Jiu had been entertaining for him once. He wanted to watch it happen again. After letting Hong Jiu show off his idiocy, he planned to have me die at the hands of that same fool. They say comedy is repetition. To him, my current situation was the joke.
Still the same shady, disgusting bastard.
If it was Park Gibeom, he was definitely observing this space somehow. I couldn’t afford to reveal my full strength. My real opponent wasn’t Hong Jiu—it was the man hiding behind him.
“Baengnae. Let’s make five mini-Baengnaes.”
“Aratta.”
Baengnae sliced off a finger and sent five clones into the fray among the monkeys. The tiny figures scurried across the battlefield and slipped through gaps in the formation, creating openings for the larger monkeys to pour inside.
“Wh-what are those things?”
“Kill the small ones first!”
“They’re special entities! Take them out!”
Once the formation began to collapse, the soldiers could no longer withstand the numbers. No matter how strong they were, being surrounded from all sides left them with no options. Broken puppets littered the ground.
Yeah. This is about the right amount.
We were in the heart of the Cornfield. Park Gibeom would know this was a restricted zone. It was better to crush his forces with raw power than to win by some fluke. If I pretended to be too weak, he might start suspecting I was hiding something.
In the end, roughly fifty monkeys died, but we wiped out every enemy. I walked over to Hong Jiu, who was crawling on the ground with all four limbs broken, only his head still raised. I looked down at him with satisfaction.
“Oh dear, Manager Hong. What happened to you?”
“Y-you vermin! You just got lucky!”
Classic Hong Jiu. Even in this state, he answered with full arrogance. I picked up the sword he had been using and swung it a few times through the air.
“My, what a generous gift. I was short on weapons, and now you’ve personally delivered twenty-one swords, shields, and even full sets of armor. How should I thank Deputy Manager Hong Jiu?”
That line wasn’t entirely for Park Gibeom’s benefit. Hong Jiu’s equipment really was high-grade. It meant Park Gibeom had already reached at least Stage 5.
Hong Jiu ground his teeth, then spat curses while denying reality.
“Fuck! This doesn’t make sense! You must’ve used some cheat! How the hell did I lose to a mere Stage 4? The puppets… right, the puppets were trash! If only I still had my owls… Ugh… worthless puppet trash!”
Hong Jiu kept spilling information on his own. I simply smiled at him like he was pathetic, encouraging him to keep talking.
“Pfft. Ah, yes.”
“Y-you! Just because you won once, you’re acting all smug! You lost a quarter of your forces to a single puppet squad and you still strut around like an idiot! Haha! Take the weapons and shields, I don’t care! Soon the Chairman will bring ten thousand troops to punish you!”
At that moment, Hong Jiu’s eyes suddenly went blank, as if a fuse had blown. Park Gibeom must have been watching after all. The idiot had leaked too much, so he simply cut the power.
Ten thousand troops, huh…
Even if those Grade 7 soldiers made up the army, ten thousand was no small threat. Hong Jiu might have been bluffing, but it still meant Park Gibeom had gathered considerable military strength.
Also, what’s with “Chairman”?
Even Hong Jiu used to call him Manager Park. Maybe Park Gibeom had forced everyone to use the new title. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Park Gibeom was here. The boss I had desperately wanted to separate from his head was conveniently in the same place. My motivation to work hard in this world just kept growing.
***
“Pfft… Puhahahaha!”
Park Gibeom burst into roaring laughter as he watched the battle through Hong Jiu’s eyes from his own quarters. Turning Hong Jiu into a puppet and sending him to Baek Suhan had been pure entertainment.
The subordinate who suffered injustice because of Hong Jiu’s actions meets him again in another world and takes revenge! What a perfectly dramatic scene. Park Gibeom had only made the fool into a puppet because he wanted to witness that moment. Of course, the opposite outcome would have been amusing too—an unfortunate documentary proving that some people are simply failures no matter what. That kind of production was also to his taste.
The fun had been slightly dampened when Hong Jiu started spouting nonsense at the end, but overall it wasn’t bad. More importantly, he had achieved his original goal: confirming the state of the last Stage 4 user before conquering Stage 6. The conclusion was exactly as expected—far too weak.
Going there myself would be a hassle…
The passages opened by the mid-sized company “Yeon” couldn’t be used infinitely. Each trip to steal Baek Suhan’s Stage 4 would delay the Stage 6 conquest by that much time. Sending forces while he was still preparing was the best option. But to use the passage through Hong Yeon, he needed someone connected to Baek Suhan.
Ah, that’s it!
An idea flashed through his mind. In five days, his next target for plunder was Cha Uyoon, the accountant. She had been Hong Jiu’s girlfriend—the one who had just died. Park Gibeom grinned.
Well, well. This is shaping up nicely.
He immediately began writing the scenario: turn Cha Uyoon into a puppet and have her, as Hong Jiu’s former lover, take revenge on his behalf. What a touching cycle of fate. Park Gibeom clapped in delight at the comedy he had created.
“Kyahaha! Such a perfect production! I really should have become a playwright.”
Of course, Cha Uyoon hadn’t dated Hong Jiu because she liked him—she had only approached him to climb the ladder through his father. But did that matter? For the sake of the story, unnecessary details simply didn’t need to appear on screen. That was the power of editing and lighting. Park Gibeom hummed a little tune as he prepared to hunt down his next character, Cha Uyoon. He was a man who truly enjoyed puppet theater.
***
I built a kiln and drilled a hole through it, then inserted the Energy Storage Type-X into the opening. This was for automation. Until now, I had used zombies to process native creatures while I wandered around harvesting Fruits of Good and Evil. It was inefficient. Division of labor had worked, but because I still needed sleep, the supply of fruits stopped whenever I rested. The kiln I had just made solved that problem.
The storage device only worked in a user’s hands. That meant if I held it while sleeping, the zombies could drag the kiln around and collect fruits on their own. During the day the zombies and I would clear high-risk zones; at night the night-shift workers would harvest. That was the plan.
The next destination was also decided. The nearest restricted area from our current location was the Relic Temple. On the way there, I intended to test this new automated harvesting method.
Good. Now I can finally get some sleep.
I called the zombies who were sprawled across the Cornfield stuffing themselves with corn.
“Stop eating and let’s get moving!”
While the zombies gathered to be stored, Baengnae answered with both cheeks bulging with corn.
“Yom-yom. Baengnae will go later.”
Upon closer inspection, she had created ten mini-Baengnaes, making a total of eleven Baengnaes all eating corn at once. The mini versions were too busy stuffing their faces to even look at me.
Eleven greedy gluttons?
I folded my arms.
“Then stay here and live, Baengnae. I’m leaving.”
Baengnae’s face crumpled.
“A-aratta. Aratta.”
She hurriedly absorbed the clones, gathered an armful of corn, and climbed onto the kiln while insisting she was definitely coming along. She flopped flat on top of it. I sighed once, picked up more corn, and stuffed it into the remaining space. She could curl up and sleep if she had to.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
“Hehe, aratta.”
We set off for the Relic Temple.