A New Beginning and a Familiar Face
The office had a cozy, lived-in atmosphere that felt more like a small business than a professional raid party headquarters. It came complete with a shared common area, a meeting room, the party leader’s private office, and even a break room. Though calling the common space an “office” might have been generous — it felt more like a clubroom.
A large table sat in the center, surrounded by plush, inviting sofas. Portable game consoles and snack wrappers were scattered across every surface. Only two computers stood in the corner for shared use. A warm-colored rug covered the floor, adding to the comfortable vibe. The crumbs scattered across that rug completed the picture.
“Please take off your shoes and put them in the rack, then come this way!”
I slipped off my shoes, placed them neatly in the rack, and followed her into the party leader’s office.
“It gets a little messy since everyone uses the space together. Sorry about that.”
“It feels warm and welcoming. I like it.”
It was an honest impression. The place lacked the pristine polish of a typical company or guild office, but I could clearly see the direction they were going for.
The party leader’s office, on the other hand, was surprisingly formal — more like a guild master’s executive suite. In simpler terms, it felt like a CEO’s office. A black sofa and table that matched her hair color caught my eye. The walls were done in white tones, creating a modern black-and-white interior that felt cool yet trustworthy.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Coffee would be great, thank you.”
“Alright, just a moment.”
She invited me to sit comfortably on the sofa before heading to the break room to make the coffee herself. She could have asked one of her party members to do it, but the fact that the leader was handling it personally told me she was genuinely a good person. Much better than the backstabbing I’d experienced before, that was for sure.
“We just got a new coffee machine recently. Feel free to use it anytime, Junho.”
She set the coffee down in front of me, then placed the contract — today’s main purpose — on the table as well.
“It’s a modified version of the one we used for field staff. If anything seems off, please tell me right away.”
I carefully read through every clause of the contract she handed me. Since it was based on the field staff version, it followed the standard employment contract format.
“The contract period is one year?”
“Yes. I thought it would be good if it automatically renews each year unless either side has a serious issue.”
Hunters usually signed three- or five-year contracts with guilds. But since I was coming in as a miner team leader, the difference between entering gates or not was minimal. A one-year term for a field position like this wouldn’t cause any problems.
The contract meticulously covered overtime pay for weekend work, night shift allowances, and everything else. The salary listed was exactly double the average miner’s wage I had researched beforehand.
“I don’t see anything that needs changing.”
Since I was being classified as a regular employee, I checked the sections on annual leave and vacation days before preparing to sign. Then one thing occurred to me.
“Is industrial accident insurance properly covered?”
“Of course! And if any problems or injuries occur, the party will cover all hospital bills and living expenses separately from the insurance payout, so please don’t worry about that.”
It wasn’t uncommon for small raid parties’ miner teams to get attacked by monsters that hadn’t been fully cleared. In those cases, hunter industrial accident insurance usually provided compensation. But offering to cover living expenses on top of that was quite generous.
“Then I’ll be in your care.”
I filled in my name on the blank line, signed it, and handed her one of the two copies.
“I’ll be counting on you too. I’m really happy to be working with you, Junho!”
“Ah, yes. I’m glad as well.”
I offered a polite, professional smile and gave the expected formal reply.
“I’m not very good at judging people, so I worried a lot about this.”
Still, now that I was officially part of her team, she continued talking openly like she would with her other party members.
Wait… she says she’s bad at reading people, yet she scouted me? Is she subtly insulting me…?
“When you’re going to work together as a team, you need people who get along well, right?”
“That’s true.”
“But I couldn’t find anyone good, and then I met you! Don’t you think this might be fate?”
Okay, maybe she wasn’t insulting me. She just seemed genuinely excited about finally finding someone decent.
“It was just good timing.”
“You’re right. Timing is important in fate too.”
Her eyes were sparkling so brightly it was almost overwhelming.
“I see. Ah, there’s something I’d like to discuss.”
Time to change the subject. I pretended to agree and smoothly steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Sure, go ahead!”
Thankfully, she followed along without issue.
“I think we should form a dedicated miner team.”
From the way she talked about the team, it was clear she didn’t plan to keep relying on day laborers. If I was going to work as team leader, I’d be interacting with people constantly and managing overall formations. Trying to coordinate that with new temps every time would be exhausting.
“Ah, I’ve been thinking about that too… but like I said, I’m really bad at judging people.”
She pouted, looking slightly dejected. She looked exactly like a sad little hamster.
“Then I’ll handle the recruiting.”
“You will?”
“Yes. Since you’ve already made me the leader, why don’t you trust me with this?”
I had met countless people while working at the guild and hired even more. Out of all those cases, not a single hire had been a failure. I wasn’t bragging, but I was confident in my ability to read people. The reason I had joined this team in the first place was because I could see its potential.
Wait… actually, there had been one failure.
Yu Hyejeong.
…But I hadn’t been the one who recruited her, and that situation had been completely unavoidable. Let’s just exclude that one.
“I’ll build a team with zero failures.”
Yu Hyejeong, the Guild Master of Onhwa Guild, had been feeling a bit troubled lately. The thing that had managed to worry someone like her was simple.
“There’s just too much work at the guild these days.”
She hadn’t realized it herself, but the root cause was the absence of the Vice Guild Master who had quit a month earlier. It was all because of Han Junho’s departure.
“Really? Now that you mention it, there have been more of those trashy articles popping up lately, huh?”
The man lying beside her as she complained sat up and responded.
“The underlings can’t handle their jobs properly, so I’m the one suffering.”
Lee Seonghun watched her quietly for a moment, then reached out and grabbed one of her full, perky breasts.
“Mmm? What are you doing, my little puppy?”
Yu Hyejeong flashed a seductive smile and let out a practiced, breathy moan. Pure sex appeal dripped from every inch of her. It was quite different from the image Lee Seonghun had originally imagined, but her sly side wasn’t bad either.
“Just dump all the annoying stuff that bothers our queen onto the underlings.”
“Hmmm, that does sound right, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly. After that, all our queen has to do is lie under me and make those sexy little sounds.”
“Alright then, puppy. Why don’t you make your queen feel good?”
Just as they were about to lose themselves in that happy moment—
Vrrrr— Vrrrr—
A loud vibrating noise rudely intruded into their sweet, dreamlike time.
Lee Seonghun’s mood was instantly ruined. His face hardened as he searched for the source of the sound, quickly realizing it was coming from Yu Hyejeong’s phone.
“Looks like a guild call. You should answer it.”
Clearly annoyed that the mood had been shattered, he stood up and handed her the phone with a dry expression. The way his face and actions changed caused Yu Hyejeong’s expression to stiffen dramatically. That was only natural.
“These bastards must be crazy.”
Her voice dripped with venom as she took the phone, threw on the hotel bathrobe, and walked out to the terrace table in the separate living room area.
[M-Master…!]
“Hey, you crazy bastards. Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me? Or did I not? Are my words a joke to you now?”
[I’m sorry…! It’s an urgent matter, so we had no choice but to call…]
“Urgent or not, how dare you call your superior whenever you feel like it! Handle it yourself, you crazy bastard!”
Yu Hyejeong screamed furiously and hung up the phone. She had no idea.
She had no clue that certain rumors about Onhwa Guild — and about her — were beginning to spread.
The raid party office, which had felt so peaceful during my first visit, was now overflowing with unprecedented tension.
“…I don’t know.”
“Pass…”
“What about this person?”
“His face looks shady.”
The reason for the heavy atmosphere was the mountain of documents piled in front of us — applications from people hoping to join the miner team.
“How can you look at documents for so long without getting tired, Junho?”
I was beginning to understand exactly why this party had never had a professional miner team before. Even after just one day together, it was painfully obvious.
“I’m used to it. This kind of work.”
The first reason was that the party members, who showed incredible focus during raids, had the attention spans of goldfish when it came to paperwork.
“You look like a nerd, so of course you only do nerd stuff. Heh heh.”
“How can you call someone as cool as Junho a nerd!”
“That’s not a compliment, Jiyu. It’s not a nice thing to say.”
“Huh? So I just insulted Junho?”
“Ahem. No, Party Leader. I would never do that~”
The second reason was that whenever one of the members — usually Kim Pilseok — started picking a fight, everyone would get distracted and completely lose track of the original topic.
“I think this person looks good, Junho.”
“Ooh, not bad!”
“…That person won’t work. Never mind the lack of experience — just looking at how half-hearted the resume is, it’s clear they applied with the attitude of ‘maybe I’ll get lucky.’”
And the third, most important reason was exactly what the party leader had said earlier: she had absolutely no ability to judge people.
I had only asked her to help filter through the massive pile of applications with me. If I had known it would turn out like this, I would have just done it alone from the beginning. It would have been faster.
“Ugh, I really can’t do this anymore!”
“Why is making one team so hard!”
In conclusion, the situation was a total disaster. They didn’t have a single qualification needed to properly recruit people. No wonder a party this large had been relying on day laborer miners all this time. They clearly knew their own limits.
“…Thank you for your hard work. Let’s call it a day here.”
I realized there was no point in continuing like this and called for a stop.
“Who does he think he is, acting like the boss? Hmph, I don’t like it one bit.”
“Should we keep going then?”
“N-no, that’s not what I meant…”
Starting a fight you couldn’t win was just stupid. I wasn’t particularly afraid of brainless idiots who picked fights just because they didn’t like someone. Physically, though… that was a little scary.
“In the miner team, Junho is the boss, so he is the leader! Mr. Pilseok, you should speak to him politely too!”
“What? Why should I…”
“You said it yourself before, Mr. Pilseok! You only speak politely to the real leader!”
I wondered if the party leader would step in and cover for me before things turned into a physical confrontation. You really shouldn’t trust people this easily…
“So everyone, let’s start speaking politely to Leader Junho from now on!”
This person… how should I put it? She really did seem like a good person on a human level. And no, that wasn’t just because she was taking my side.