The Perfect Candidate
I brought home a fairly substantial stack of documents, meticulously sifted through them, and placed the final thirty resumes in front of the raid party leader.
“I’ll go ahead and contact the ones who passed the document screening. Is that okay?”
“Of course! Wow, it looks like you worked through the night. I’m sorry we couldn’t help. I’ll make sure to pay you extra for this!”
I hadn’t brought it up expecting compensation. I’d simply felt bad for dumping work on her first thing in the morning, but the real goal had been to get the document review done quickly for faster progress…
“Ah, well. If you’re offering, I’ll gratefully accept.”
There was no reason to turn down free money.
“You’re not going to review them yourself?”
“Nope! I’m sure Mr. Junho handled it perfectly!”
Since we’d reviewed documents together yesterday, I figured she wouldn’t have any major objections. Still, I hadn’t expected her to just accept them without even looking. What if I’d tampered with the files? Was she really okay with this?
It was nice that she trusted me, but after what happened in the past, it left me feeling a bit burdened and uneasy.
“It’s not that I hate looking at documents or anything…”
…Hmm. Apparently I was the only one taking this seriously. She was just sick of staring at that mountain of paperwork from yesterday and didn’t want to read any more. Fair enough.
Anyway, things were different now. At least this time I was getting properly paid for my work and being told I did a good job.
“Since you seem busy, I’ll make the calls myself. Oh, I was thinking of holding the interviews tomorrow. Would that work?”
“Yes! We don’t have any gates scheduled for tomorrow, so around eleven in the morning should be fine!”
“Got it. I’ll let them know.”
As I gathered up the thirty resumes, I noticed how her eyes sparkled. She really must have been sick of looking at documents.
“Would it be all right to use the office phone?”
“That’s the only phone we have, so feel free to use it right here.”
She pointed at the phone on her desk, then suddenly sprang up from her seat.
“Make yourself comfortable! I’ll step out!”
“Ah, you really don’t have to…”
It wasn’t like sitting there would cause any problems while I made calls, but she darted out anyway. I suppose she was trying to be considerate and give me space. But now it felt like I’d chased a busy person out of her own office, which kind of defeated the purpose of me offering to make the calls in the first place…
“Whatever.”
I decided to stop overthinking it. She could handle her own work just fine.
I sat down at the raid party leader’s desk and was just about to start dialing the candidates when—
“Is our pretty raid party leader~ here…”
Kim Pilseok walked in, voice dripping with that greasy tone of his.
“What the—why are you sitting there?”
The sleazy smile on his face crumpled in an instant. It was actually pretty satisfying to watch.
“The leader told me to use it, so I’m sitting here. Is there a problem?”
My response—that I had her permission—seemed to irritate him even more. His already wrinkled face twisted further.
“The leader’s desk is sacred! A guy like you has no right to sit there!”
From what I’d checked before, Kim Pilseok was thirty-five this year. Yet ever since the beginning, he’d been completely spineless around the leader. Add in that greasy voice and all the “sacred” nonsense… Putting it all together, it seemed like he either had a crush on her or was trying to make a move. One or the other.
“Isn’t the leader twenty-three this year?”
“Yeah, so what?”
A thirty-five-year-old man harboring those kinds of feelings toward a twenty-three-year-old woman. What a guy.
“Never mind. Anyway, the leader stepped out, so if you need her, go look outside.”
It was pathetic, but none of my business. All I wanted was to finish my tasks quickly and give her desk back.
“Where the hell did this worthless piece of trash crawl in from?”
He grumbled and deliberately picked out every insulting thing he could say, but the way he slammed the door on his way out told me he didn’t actually want to fight. Of course he didn’t. He knew he’d lose.
With Kim Pilseok’s interruption out of the way, there was nothing stopping me. I dialed the numbers listed on the resumes, informed them they’d passed the document screening, and gave them the interview date and location.
“Twenty-five out of thirty.”
It was normal for some people not to pick up after submitting resumes. They might have gotten offers elsewhere. There were all kinds of reasons. In the end, twenty-five people confirmed they’d attend the interviews. I hoped at least some of them would be decent.
“You can’t judge someone completely from documents alone.”
With those thoughts about the upcoming interviews in mind, I left the leader’s office.
The interviews went incredibly smoothly. We started with standard questions, then moved on to ones designed to reveal a person’s true nature without them realizing it. We talked for quite a while, and the atmosphere stayed pleasant. I didn’t like pressure interviews, so I deliberately kept things relaxed and friendly.
“…That’s what I believe.”
After the last candidate finished answering the final question—
“Thank you. I’ve heard everything. That’ll be all for now.”
“Ah, yes…!”
“We’ll let you know the results sometime today. Thank you for your time.”
And with that, the interviews were officially over.
“Mr. Junho, you’re seriously amazing…”
“The way you controlled the mood so effortlessly was just…”
The raid party leader and members, who had stayed completely silent during the interviews like they’d swallowed their tongues, finally spoke up.
“The back-and-forth was insane.”
“It felt less like an interview and more like you were catching up with an old friend…”
Each of them expressed their surprise in their own way. I simply smiled. After doing this countless times, it wasn’t exactly difficult.
“You all worked hard too.”
“We didn’t really do anything, though.”
I smiled awkwardly at them, then showed them the notes I’d taken during the interviews. I pulled out eight resumes and handed them over.
“I think these people are good. Does anyone have any objections?”
“None at all!”
“I’m completely in favor.”
“I’m good with it too.”
I’d been prepared to reconsider if anyone had doubts, but fortunately everyone was in complete agreement.
“Then we’ll go with these eight.”
“Agreed!”
“Yes!”
“Let’s do that.”
It might have seemed like we rushed through both the interviews and the final decisions, but we already knew their basic information from the documents. After talking with them in person, it was only natural that certain people stood out. And with no objections, reaching a quick decision wasn’t strange at all.
“Anyway, I can finally breathe a little easier.”
The leader let out a sigh of relief now that the hardest part—recruiting people—was over. Seeing that, I decided it would be fine to take the rest of the tasks a bit slower.
‘He said he wants to grow together with the raid party as a miner… How much experience do you have with mining work?’
Watching Junho conduct the interview with such a gentle tone, Jiyu couldn’t help but think he was incredible. Even words that would normally sound offensive came across as pleasant when he said them. He controlled the entire interview room with a perfect balance of warmth and charisma.
‘Seriously, how can Mr. Junho be this amazing?’
She had been in awe of him ever since hearing about his performance in the field. His ability to persuade stubborn people without offending them and bring them to his side, his talent for placing people in exactly the right positions, and his skill at maximizing efficiency. On top of that, the humility to never boast about his own accomplishments—it all made her wonder if he was some kind of cheat code in human form.
‘How can one person be like this? He has everything I want…!’
Jiyu, who had led the raid party for quite a long time and was even considering forming a guild, couldn’t help but see in Junho everything she needed: the ability to read people and control situations with natural charisma. And she had never been very good at hiding her emotions.
“Starting today, Mr. Junho is my role model.”
He had already noticed her intense gaze for a while now, but her sudden bold declaration caught even Junho off guard.
“Out of nowhere?”
“Yes! You’re seriously so cool!”
“…I don’t think I did anything particularly cool, though.”
Even that humble response was perfect. To Jiyu, Junho was the ideal in every way.
“Just breathing looks cool on you!”
“Uh… well, okay. Do whatever you want, Leader.”
Now that she had his permission, Jiyu no longer had any reason to hold back.
‘Perfect. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to observe Mr. Junho thoroughly and grow!’
Junho had no idea what kind of future that permission would bring.
She really was a peculiar raid party leader. How should I put it… she was so bright and bouncy that it kept catching my eye. Was it because she was young? There was only a two-year age gap, but she had that special energy unique to people in their early twenties. It was kind of cute, actually…
…Wait. What the hell am I thinking?
No matter what, evaluating my superior like this was completely out of line.
“I need to be careful.”
It seemed like my body finally getting some rest lately had loosened my mind too much. Once I started mining again, I’d probably snap out of it.
“This is seriously fucking annoying.”
And then there was one other person who kept catching my eye, though for entirely different reasons than Shin Jiyu.
“Hey, who do you think you are?”
I hadn’t gone around acting like I was anyone special, yet he kept sending me these jealous glares and picking fights to make things exhausting. I turned my gaze toward Kim Pilseok.
“I don’t remember doing anything in particular.”
“That cocky way you talk back is what’s annoying. A damn E-rank acting all high and mighty.”
Dealing with someone who kept starting trouble like this made all sorts of useless thoughts bubble up.
‘Ugh, seriously. Since when did an E-rank become a vice guild master?’
‘What can he even do?’
‘Ugh, he reeks of E-rank!’
In the three years I’d worked, I’d handpicked countless good people, but there were definitely some who slipped through my fingers.
‘Is his bedroom game that good? How the hell did he seduce Hyejeong?’
‘His face isn’t bad. Maybe that’s how he got her.’
I shook my head to shake off those extremely unpleasant memories. Just looking at this guy made those disgusting thoughts crawl back up.
“Anyway, what’s the point of ranks for a miner…”
“I told you not to talk back, you son of a bitch. I’ll seriously kill—”
“Mr. Junho, what are you doing?”
“Ah! L-Leader…!”
His face had been completely twisted with anger, but the moment the leader approached, it melted away like snow. It somehow made me even more irritated.
“Oh, Pilseok, you’re here too?”
By the way, she really didn’t seem to have even the slightest interest in him. She showed more interest in me, the newcomer who only joined two days ago… It was almost pitiful.
“Y-Yes, haha… The new guy doesn’t seem to know anything, so I was just giving him a little education.”
“You don’t know much either, Pilseok. Why suddenly?”
“…Ahahaha! Saying I don’t know anything, how harsh. I’m actually quite well-known for being sharp, you know.”
“Oh really? I didn’t know, but you must be very smart then!”
To Kim Pilseok, Shin Jiyu was clearly his natural enemy. The way he lost his words and went completely quiet whenever she hit him with that innocent expression proved it.
“H-Haha… Well, you might not have noticed.”
“Then how about you take charge of strategy from now on, Pilseok?”
“Huh? What…?”
“Smart people usually handle that kind of thing, right?”
“Uh, um… But I’m not really, uh, good with strategy…”
His tiny brain would probably explode if he tried to come up with strategies. Plus, the slightest mistake could get him killed.
“Aww, then you’re not actually smart at all.”
“Th-That’s… Haha… I guess so.”
In the end, Kim Pilseok couldn’t say a single proper word before slinking off into the corner. It felt pretty satisfying.