The Severance Agreement

BANG!

The office door slammed open, and a wave of sour sweat-soaked air hit me in the face. I didn't even need to turn around to know who it was.

"Hey, Team Leader Kim! Having another cozy day, are we? Enjoy watching my skull crack open through your monitor, huh?"

It was Park Jinchul, Field Exploration Team 1's team leader, freshly back from a dungeon expedition. Blood was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still seeping through the sloppy bandage wrapped around his forehead.

...Maybe stop picking pointless pissing contests, and actually listen to orders while you're on the job.

"Must be nice. Some of us risk our lives down there in the dirt, while others sit on their asses, tossing advice through a screen, and rake in the money."

His barbed voice stabbed straight into the back of my skull.

Does he think I've never put my life on the line in the field?

I was young then, and it was barely long enough to count as a career, but after my father—a Hunter—died, I'd left field work for my mother's sake, because the mere word Hunter made her suffer. If it hadn't been for her, I would have stayed out there. Besides, I believed that with my ability, I could make sure nothing like what happened to my father ever happened again. So I gave my everything to operating. That was all.

But Park Jinchul, who knew none of this, apparently saw me as nothing more than a man earning easy money while enjoying his little power trips.

It was almost funny, in a way.

Risking his life, my ass. This is the guy who kept whining about clocking out early when I told him to fall back because it was dangerous—and got his skull cracked for it. At this point I genuinely can't tell whether he's picking fights on purpose or it just comes naturally...

Maybe some wounded pride was at work. Whatever the reason, his words had an unusually sharp edge today.

"...Did you file the injury report?"

"You little—!"

I had only done my job, but my flat, unbothered response seemed to grate on him even more.

He strode over and hurled the stack of reports onto my desk. Pages scattered everywhere in a chaotic spray of paper.

...

Even so, it was hard to fire back with any force.

Because the truth was, the risk management team I belonged to existed, first and foremost, to be the company's punching bag.

The official mission statement went something like this: Through the support and direction of personnel with special perception-type aptitudes, brief field exploration teams on hazards, analyze dungeon data, and present the safest, most efficient routes of conquest.

A tactician and remote command post for the Tower's dungeon raids. A control tower...

Bullshit.

The reality was that we were nothing but a latrine pit—someone to bury under the blame whenever things went wrong inside.

And if that was to be our lot, then the least they could do was actually listen to what we told them.

My ability, Crisis Perception, let me see virtually all hostile intent and trajectories. Attack paths appeared as red solid lines, and the spots not to step on, the forks in the road—the fatal ones—revealed themselves to me instinctively.

All I did was read out those crises, those red lines, that even a monitor could show me, and tell people to dodge. You'd think that wouldn't be so hard to follow, right?

On a good day, Park Jinchul followed my instructions half the time.

Today had been a perfect example. Deep in the cave, I'd sensed an unusually strong killing intent—or rather, a pressing, concentrated killing aura—so I told him plainly: halt, deploy a recon drone first, and pinpoint the enemy's position.

And what did he do? Apparently with some appointment waiting for him right at quitting time, he brushed me off, snapped that there was no time, and shoved the vanguard forward anyway.

The result? A monster hanging from the ceiling cracked his skull open, and the impact of his fall shattered his shoulder. He'd been standing exactly where I'd warned him—a monster was there—multiple times.

Well, as an Awakened, neither the pain nor the healing would take him long. Small mercies.

Tell him too early? Then it's "why are you spooking me with warnings way in advance, you're making everyone jumpy."

Tell him at the last moment? Then it's "how was I supposed to react in time to that?"

"This raid failure is on your head, all of it. I'm filing a report for inadequate field support."

Having said his piece, Park Jinchul stormed out, still breathing hard.

I quietly gathered up the scattered reports from my desk.

...

My name is Kim Doyoon. I turned thirty this year.

My affiliation: Arc Industry's Strategic Planning Division, Risk Management Team, where I hold the title of Team Leader—impressive-sounding enough on paper.

Not that there's a single subordinate left under me.

A one-man team's team leader, so the position only exists on paper, you say? Half right, half wrong. Either way, this damned company calls me Team Leader.

Which invites the next question. Team Leader of Risk Management at Arc Industry's Strategic Planning Division? So what exactly is it that I do?

Explaining that makes the story a little—just a little—clichéd.

Decades ago, Towers abruptly erupted across the globe. From these colossal structures, beyond all explanation by modern science, poured otherworldly monsters—and along with them, staggering quantities of resources.

Naturally, the world's governments and corporations threw themselves into conquering the Towers with dollar signs in their eyes, and Arc Industry stood among the foremost Tower-conquest specialists. As for the Risk Management Team's role—well, you've seen it.

To master dungeon intel in advance and, with my so-called Crisis Perception, issue orders so that bastards like Park Jinchul don't get hurt, raid properly, and haul back resources efficiently.

"Ha..."

As you can plainly see, it never exactly goes smoothly.

Honestly, if a pioneering company like ours runs like this, it's a wonder this punch-drunk world hasn't collapsed already.

That thought crossed my mind, too.

No matter how much money needed making—no matter how much they offered to pay me—how long was I supposed to keep playing the scapegoat in this pathetic excuse of a team?

"Team Leader Kim! Your buddy from the other team storming around raising hell again? Good grief... that's just upsetting."

"It's nothing. Well—when I keep rejecting every direction Park Jinchul wants to take, I suppose it looks like I'm antagonizing him. Information reaching live operations late, timing slightly off—easy enough for a misunderstanding to take root."

"You deserve nowhere near this kind of treatment, Team Leader Kim..."

Choi Minwoo, the youngest member of Field Exploration Team 1, was glistening with tears as if the abuse had been directed at him.

That said, most of the field team members certainly did show Minwoo's kind of goodwill and gratitude.

At the same time, the team itself was now down to just me—and it showed in the way the company treated me.

Maybe, I found myself thinking, the day I walked out of this company wasn't so far off after all.

Park Jinchul trashing the office on his way out was routine.

Ordinarily, I'd have picked up the scattered papers, heaved a single sigh, and gone back to staring at my monitor.

But that day was different.

A short, bone-dry message stamped into the company messenger. Even stranger, ordinarily the man would have summoned me himself—sending his secretary instead sat badly with me.

Then again, there was no way this was good news.

Han Taeseok, Managing Director and head of the Strategic Planning Division. A career office man who had clawed his way up out of the field teams—a textbook master of corporate politics.

A cold premonition slid down my spine.

Sure enough, the moment I pushed open the heavy doors of the Director's office, Han Taeseok was glaring at me from across the desk with a face like stone.

Beside him, Park Jinchul already stood leaning at an angle, arms crossed, wearing the smug expression of a man whose scheme had gone off without a hitch.

"Team Leader Kim. Sit."

The instant I took my seat, the reprimands came down like artillery.

"I've read the report on this dungeon raid. And it's not just this raid—your performance figures for the entire year are an absolute disgrace. So I had a talk with Jinchul here, and... anything you'd like to say for yourself?"

"Well, that—"

Before I could even open my mouth, Han Taeseok barreled on.

"No need. I don't need to hear it. Refusing to cooperate with the field teams, picking pathetic little pissing contests—is that really what you're paid to do?"

Pissing contests.

I was dumbfounded. From start to finish, everything I'd said had been strictly professional, grounded entirely in my Crisis Perception ability and hard data. It's dangerous—detour. A trap is suspected—scout first. Every word of it correct procedure. The man standing over there had simply ignored all of it, out of wounded pride and sheer stubbornness. Knowing him, he might well have taken the injuries and the poor numbers into account from the start, deliberately setting up a situation like this.

He'd been that way from our very first meeting. Desk jockey. Professional parasite. Declaring he had no need of a schoolteacher's lectures, he'd come at me sideways and opposed every single briefing I delivered, like a born rebel.

While I was swallowing those thoughts, Han Taeseok's interrogation rolled on.

"Reports keep coming in about problems with your briefing style. Don't go this way, it's dangerous. Don't go that way, it's dangerous."

"Director. That's—!"

"Of course it's dangerous! It's a dungeon, it's a battlefield, you idiot! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Then how exactly do you propose to produce results without accepting any risk?"

"There's a matter of proportion, Director. Rushing ahead for the sake of speed means weeks of recovery from injury. The numbers simply don't justify it."

The protest leapt out of me before I could stop it.

I couldn't help it. Setting aside how he was dredging up months-old incidents instead of today's—by my Crisis Perception, that longer route was the fastest way home. But Han Taeseok only sneered.

"That route you proposed back then was easily twice as long as the other teams took! Team Leader Park even says it looked like you were making them run laps on purpose. Not for safety's sake—like you were putting their dog through obedience training for your own amusement. Do you have some personal grudge, Team Leader Kim?"

...I regretted opening my mouth.

Would a logical explanation ever work on a man like this? It would only fan the flames. I shut my mouth and lowered my head.

But Han Taeseok, as if he'd been waiting for exactly that, drove in the finishing blow.

He swiveled the monitor on his desk toward me. On the screen glowed a graph titled Risk Management Team — Performance Comparison.

The bar beside my name was in sorry shape. High party injury rate, low dungeon progress, low resource acquisition—every metric, dismal.

Obvious, when you thought about it. Avoid the dangers properly, and you avoid injury. Perform at a high level while uninjured, and the raids go well, and the resource yield goes well. One followed from the other.

But my exasperation didn't get to live long.

Han Taeseok set beside it another bar graph, soaring brazenly into the sky.

The AI Operator System.

"Should a man calling himself head of the Risk Management Team really be posting numbers worse than an AI? Does that make any sense to you, Team Leader Kim?"

The moment I saw it, a hollow laugh burst out of me.

Of course it did—because that AI system had been designed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and built from the ground up on base algorithms written by me. Not that Han Taeseok, then a mere manager, had let any of that credit reach me. He'd stolen the whole achievement as his stepping stone to Managing Director.

And riding that high, he'd gutted the Risk Management Team's staff entirely.

Now here he was, telling the story with the part where he'd pilfered my work conspicuously left out.

No—more to the point:

If the team I supervised had simply listened to me, we'd have posted results that crushed that AI by an overwhelming margin. That graph was the direct product of that bastard Park Jinchul picking fights at every turn and cherry-picking which of my orders to obey.

But those words never made it out of my throat.

Watching me sit in silence, Han Taeseok twisted the corner of his mouth, as if deciding the time had finally come for the real business.

Then he drew a white envelope from his drawer and slid it, ever so smoothly, across the desk to me.

His manner was the brisk administrative indifference of a man disposing of surplus office furniture.

"As part of our restructuring for operational efficiency, the Risk Management Team is being dissolved. Its duties will be consolidated under the Strategic Planning Office's AI Operator System. Its numbers are far better than yours, so I trust there's no problem."

Ha... so this was it, in the end?

Everything that had been happening snapped into focus, one piece after another. The relentless pressure over performance numbers. Team Leader Park's bizarrely escalating insubordination—worse than ever before, trolling for trolling's sake.

It had all been in service of this.

Install the AI Operator, dissolve the dead-weight Risk Management Team to cut costs, and scoop up all the credit. Then the achievement—including the AI Operator System itself—would belong to him alone, and he'd have delivered "operational efficiency" as his grand accomplishment to boot. Convenient.

Just as Han Taeseok's sheer audacity left me speechless—

"The AI isn't perfect."

The words slipped out of me on their own.

It was the one thing the man who had planned and built that system had any right to say.

"Without regular data input, maintenance, and real-time adjustment for variables, that system becomes a lump of scrap metal—worse than nothing."

And then it would drive party after party to their deaths in the Tower's dungeons with its faulty crisis readings and orders.

Which was only natural. The only reason that system had held up this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long at all was that its foundations rested on my Crisis Perception.

...Not that Han Taeseok seemed to have any idea.

"Ha! Team Leader Kim!"

Han Taeseok sank deep into his chair and looked down at me, his tone that of a man lecturing a naive child.

"Do you know who I am? Han Taeseok, old bones in this industry. You think this company can't run without you?"

He paused for effect, then softened his voice.

"Doyoon, there's no need to feel wronged. Frankly... the only reason we've carried an employee like you this long is that it's us. Anywhere else, you'd have been packing your boxes ages ago. Look how long I've covered for you."

A revolting look, as if he were bestowing a favor upon me.

I'd heard rumors that Park Jinchul and Han Taeseok were distant relatives. Whether or not that was true, I didn't need to check to know Park Jinchul had been badmouthing me behind my back from day one.

Though more than that—my very existence made me an inconvenient witness who knew exactly whose achievement that AI really was. Of course they wanted me gone.

Han Taeseok now wore the contented face of a man finally having a rotten tooth pulled.

"Well, regardless—don't take it too personally. It's about the numbers, nothing more, and we do have history, you and I. Wrap up any handover you need to, and you'll want time to clear out your personal things, so... I'll give you a month's grace."

He rose from his seat and gazed out the window, speaking as if I no longer merited a scrap of his attention.

"Now then. See yourself out."

I picked up the white envelope labeled Mutual Termination Agreement.

And I thought:

......

Maybe it was finally time to walk out of this godforsaken place—for good.