The Best Damage Control
The path out of the battlefield stretched behind me.
Hoo... hoo...
Honestly, it had been far too long since I'd thrown my whole body into a fight. Every muscle was aching like it was screaming at me.
But at the same time... the exhilaration pulsing through my overheated body didn't feel bad at all.
It was like clogged veins being blasted wide open.
And besides...
The look on his face when I stepped on him. Pure art.
That final moment, when I planted my foot on Park Jin-chul — sprawled face-down on the ground, half a step from death — and launched myself upward.
The strange, satisfying impact that traveled up through the sole of my foot. The sheer, decadent thrill of it.
Anyone listening might call me a psychopath, but what could I do? I felt fantastic. Like I could fly.
Years of my life wasted on that miserable bastard. Thinking back on it all — draining myself dry bending his ridiculous stubbornness, having my achievements dismissed as "lacking field experience," enduring insult after insult without pause...
I could call this the end of my long era of humiliation and persecution.
Well, though it was still nowhere near enough, to be honest.
Actually, wasn't it almost too kind of me to end things with a single step-and-leap? Frankly, anyone else might have punted him down the field like a soccer ball.
Yes. All things considered, compared to what I'd suffered, I definitely still had a human heart left in me.
A ridiculous laugh escaped me on its own.
Of course, my good mood wasn't just because of that.
Even inside my fully packed bag, I could feel the heavy presence of the spoils. I pulled out the Core — the thing that had sat at the center of the metal giant, its very heart.
A special sensation radiated from it, similar to the aura given off by the [Keen Edge] magic stone I'd picked up in the Blade Wind Graveyard, and it dominated the air around us.
...No doubt about it.
When I focused my eyes, the swirl of blue light within the Core stood out in vivid clarity against the gray world.
It felt similar to that magic stone — the one wrapped so tightly in the [Keen Edge] that it had been hard to touch — and yet different all the same.
This was the core of the Irregular that had manifested in the dungeon. The thing that had driven an elite corporate hunter party — armed with artifacts, no less — to the brink of annihilation.
So of course it was no ordinary magic stone.
Unlike the [Keen Edge], I'll have to bring it to Dr. Lee to find out exactly what Concept it holds, but...
Honestly, I had a rough idea already.
I suspected it had something to do with metal itself — or with transformation, or reinforcement.
Back in the Blade Wind Graveyard, magic stones with that kind of peculiarity had tended to manifest in ways tied to the dungeon's own nature.
Considering the traits of The Stilled World, it probably carried some special property like metallization.
If that's the case, we might be in for something interesting.
I had no idea what it could do or how far it would go, but a magic stone containing an abstract [Concept] carried exactly that much value and rarity.
Who knew? It might even dramatically shore up the one weakness of the cutter knife I currently carried — its durability.
That was pure speculation for now, of course.
In any case, my honest plan for today's exploration had been to laugh at Park Jin-chul flailing around and collect metal scraps like a guy gathering recycling. Instead, I'd walked out with a haul far bigger than expected.
Meanwhile, as I made my way toward the dungeon exit, a roar of engines kicked up a cloud of dust.
Hunters wearing the shoulder patches of the [Midas Resource Recovery Team] filed past me in a line from the dungeon entrance.
"Over there! Secure it!"
I could see the recovery team rushing toward the crowd gathered in the distance — around the byproducts I'd told them earlier to "go ahead and grab."
...They really aren't bad materials, to be fair.
Nothing compared to the Core I'd obtained, of course. But given their size and rarity, they were worth a decent chunk of change.
Then again, they hadn't come prepared to face an Irregular, so aside from the [Midas] recovery team I'd called in, what they could carry off would amount to a handful at most.
I wonder how much will get deposited.
But I quickened my pace toward the exit without a second glance.
It would surely be a staggering sum, but there was no need to collect it myself, and next to the "Core" it was pocket change anyway — so I just gave a light shrug.
It was a weight I'd have to get used to, from now on.
More than that, Dr. Lee's reaction was already flickering before my eyes.
How hard would his eyes bug out this time? And what would he manage to build from this?
Lost in pleasant imagination, I strolled out of the Tower.
And the sky outside greeted me once more.
Clear to the point of being blue.
I really liked that color.
Meanwhile, at the Ark Industry headquarters — the Managing Director's office.
SLAM!
Han Tae-seok slammed the phone receiver down on his desk.
The air in the office had frozen colder than ever. The content of the call, ended mere moments ago, still echoed in his ears like tinnitus, chased by a splitting headache.
He hadn't been under this much stress in years.
[No, Director Han. What on earth is going on here?]
The sharp voice of Lee Myung-seok, Managing Director of Business Support, had come through the receiver with painful clarity.
[You were the one who boasted about it. You said streamlining the Risk Management Team and cutting headcount would guarantee cost savings. I staked my neck on that at the board meeting and backed you. So what is this? The results, the — everything?]
"......"
[Cheka International is showing interest in licensing that AI Operating System you built, and this could not come at a worse time. You know the mood is good, right? And now, of all times, your own main exploration team's results get trashed and splashed across the media — what do you think people will say?!]
Damn it all.
It felt like blood was boiling up from his gut.
Director Lee Myung-seok. You agreed to this too. You agreed we'd rake in the results together.
They'd talked it through — cut labor costs through organizational slimming, pioneer a new B2B business by licensing the AI operator, which made no mistakes and delivered astronomical efficiency per won spent.
And now that he'd jumped in, promising to share the credit, he was throwing a tantrum the moment things got a little inconvenient?
I'm the one who shared the credit. And I have to listen to this punk Lee Myung-seok whine?
But he had smothered the emotion and answered in the most groveling voice he could muster. He couldn't afford to demolish a project years in the making, its completion finally within arm's reach.
"I understand, Director Lee. I'm utterly ashamed. But... this isn't a problem with the system. Ha... you see, I handed an artifact to Park Jin-chul of the exploration team and told him to do well, and the man is not a child, but he got carried away and just..."
[Then that's exactly why you rein your people in! You went so far as to send an artifact, and you bring in someone who flails around like that... Does Director Han really have no talent beneath him?]
"......"
[Results are everything, Director Han. You understand? There's so little left until our project is complete... The CEO has been on edge lately. Executive Director Song over in R&D is raising hell too — screaming about how you turned that obscenely expensive 'Gigantic Arm' into scrap metal, asking if this is a junkyard. Wrap this up. Cleanly.]
The call cut off unilaterally.
"Ugh... AAAAARGH!"
Han Tae-seok hurled the phone across the room, the dammed-up fury finally bursting.
CRASH!
Something he would never have done under normal circumstances — but what choice did he have? If he didn't let it out somehow, he felt like he would genuinely lose his mind.
Was that really so unreasonable?
"A task a stray dog off the street could have handled, and you fumble it into a disaster like this?"
It should have been impossible.
A honey-pot dungeon where all they had to do was mine resources. A place where the work was nothing but mechanical repetition, like gluing doll's eyes into their sockets.
On top of that, the company had sent the best support it could offer — an A-rank artifact — so they could do the job even better.
This wasn't even being spoon-fed. It was a mother bird chewing the food and stuffing it straight into their mouths.
"And even after all that, you couldn't swallow it?"
The arrow of his rage pointed, naturally, at Park Jin-chul.
"Park Jin-chul... you useless bastard. Get in here. NOW."
A short while later.
The office door opened, and Park Jin-chul shuffled into view.
Pathetic bastard. He looked like a wreck.
A cast on one leg, a cast on the opposite arm. The sight of him hunched unsteadily on crutches was almost comical.
Last time it was his skull. This time his arm and leg got pulverized.
What does this idiot even do for a living?
"Hey! You crippled piece of garbage!!"
He hurled an ashtray at him without warning.
Hunter or not, he'd be fine — probably.
THWACK.
Park Jin-chul couldn't even manage an excuse. He just hunched his shoulders.
"What did I give you, huh? I gave you everything you asked for! I gave you an artifact! I told you to take it, smash everything like breaking rocks, and pick up the scraps like collecting recycling! Is that hard? IS THAT SO HARD?!"
"I'm... I'm ashamed, sir..."
"Ashamed? You have a mouth that works — so talk! Executive Director Song shoved an invoice across my desk. Do you know how much the repairs cost? Your severance pay wouldn't cover it, you bastard!"
Park Jin-chul kept his head bowed deep and said nothing.
The Irregular's appearance. Assistant Manager Lee Seok-hyun's blunder. Choi Min-woo's sudden leave. There was no shortage of excuses...
But none of them would fly.
No matter what misfortune struck — even if his own grandmother had been sitting in his seat — a competent explorer would have finished the job with his skin intact.
After a long while of hurling near-curses and office supplies at Park Jin-chul, Han Tae-seok finally ran out of breath and loosened his tie.
He looked spent now.
"Haa... haa..."
The office had gone cold and still.
"Water."
Han Tae-seok downed a glass of cold water and sank deep into his chair. Then his expression flipped entirely.
"Jin-chul."
"...Yes, sir, Director."
"You're good at your job. You know that. The reason I get this angry is because I know you're capable of better. It's because I'm disappointed. Bad luck played its part too. An Irregular showed up — what could even the Special Response Team have done about that?"
Slipping the carrot in behind the whip, Han Tae-seok murmured to him slowly.
"But still, this incident is... big. If it ends as nothing but a failure, I might not be able to protect your position — or mine. Even my cover has its limits. That said..."
Han Tae-seok tossed a tablet PC onto the desk.
"I stopped you from dying."
On the screen, a Nuttube video shot by [Midas]'s Kim Pildu was playing.
Within the shaky footage was the desperate figure of Park Jin-chul holding back the fist of the enormous metal giant.
And further back in frame, a man in a rumpled suit leaping into the air and disassembling the giant.
"You saw this?"
"...Yes."
"Video shot by those Midas people... and it's exquisite, really. They weren't filming someone dying, after all. So they cut out the part where you were getting your teeth kicked in, and since they were zooming in from a distance, the sense of the scene got a little... distorted."
Han Tae-seok's eyes gleamed.
Right. In the video, there was no footage of Park Jin-chul being beaten like a dog on butchering day in the early moments.
The footage began only after the battle had already erupted — with that one glorious shot of him holding back the giant's fist with the last of his strength.
"And on top of that, our media response team and the Yu-sung Group PR office did a little... touching up."
"Yes... sir?"
Beneath the video, a tidied-up press release appeared in summary form.
"You didn't charge in incompetent and stupid. You got injured making a sacrifice for your fellow hunters. You follow me? You draw aggro up front and tank. While you hold the line, the outside hunter deals the damage."
"...Ah. Thank... thank you, sir."
At the sight of him, Han Tae-seok rose and patted Park Jin-chul on the back.
The truth didn't matter. What mattered was crafting the story the public wanted to believe — and the story Yu-sung Group wanted. The story the directors wanted. That was Han Tae-seok's way.
In the end, that freak in the suit walked off with the entire spotlight... but either way, the image of Ark holding the line for nothing in return will stick around.
Thinking of the 'Gigantic Arm' and his own personal performance, it stung a little — but this was unquestionably the best possible damage control.
"I pulled some strings for you this time. Remember that, you punk. It only slides this once. Patch yourself up, and next exploration, no mistakes. You do it right. Understood?"
"Yes, sir! I'll see it done even if it breaks my bones!"
Pathetic worm.
Watching Park Jin-chul's retreating back — his face glowing with emotion — Han Tae-seok sighed behind his smile.
It couldn't be helped... it couldn't be helped.
Explorations never went the way you wanted them to. That was simply how it was.
He had to believe that.
Right. I just need to hold on... just a little longer.
Labor costs were already down through the efficiency drive, and the crisis had been smothered with media play. What remained was the B2B contract with [Cheka].
If he closed the deal and established the AI Operating System — built from fusing the company's operators with Yu-sung Group's AI — as the global industry standard, reaching beyond Korea itself...
Then he might secure a seat not in [Ark], but in a key post at the parent company — [Yu-sung Group] itself.
He smiled faintly at his computer screen.
Of course, the tech team had whined that the operators would still need to manage and supervise the system around the clock — but that was nonsense. Let the machines handle mechanical server maintenance; the operator whose job was judgment was now obsolete.
This system's AI training is already finished, off the accumulated data.
Why would anyone pay an exorbitant salary for a human to stare at monitors when the machine was already spitting out answers?
After all, even Team Leader Kim — the last remaining operator — did nothing more these days than stamp his seal on whatever values the AI spat out. The last time he'd actually made a correction was years ago.
And above all, if he wanted to sell it to [Cheka], the surest play was to show them directly: a 'fully automated system' that ran at the push of a single button, no operators required.
Once they see this, there's no way [Cheka] turns it down.
The thought that this contract would turn his life one hundred and eighty degrees made a small smile bloom across Han Tae-seok's face.
The operators were already locked down with non-compete clauses barring them from joining rival firms, unable to build anything similar. Market domination to follow.
From start to finish, it had been a flawless plan.
Until Resignation