The Stage Is Set
Was it because this was a project Vice President Jin Se-hoon had decided to push with everything he had?
Despite the advance publicity, the exploration didn't kick off right away.
From the very look of it, this was nothing like the usual "routine explorations." Someone had clearly put real effort into the preparation—so much effort that I wondered if it was even allowed.
The prep period alone stretched on for quite a while, and the barrage of media play and marketing that poured out during it was, well... practically carpet bombing.
Public opinion was burning white-hot.
And the hottest place of all, as always, was where the money pooled—the stock market.
With news breaking that Vice President Jin Se-hoon himself had set the table, everyone from retail investors to institutions must have gone absolutely haywire.
Well, from the outside, it looked like reason enough.
Before the Crystal Cave raid began, I had casually listed a handful of other dungeons in my report as likely destinations for Corporate Slave Life—and they had flooded the Abandoned Mana Mine and the Warped Corridor with overwhelming money and manpower, then knocked it clean out of the park.
No one in their right mind films and broadcasts a dungeon raid on this scale, and the very fact that they were doing it was proof of their confidence in success.
Of course the stock was going to climb.
At the center of it all stood Kang Minho, a hunter they'd poached from outside for a fortune.
A fire-wielding ability that was flashy by its very nature, paired with a personal artifact made from his own mana-conductive body. That exhilarating combat style of his, swinging a colossal, roaring battleaxe.
His overwhelming visuals and raw destructive power were more than enough to grab the public's attention.
Apparently the [Arc] PR team had gotten their fingers in the pie, too—the articles were already running direct comparisons to Corporate Slave Life.
Sitting at my desk watching that train wreck unfold, I let out a hollow laugh.
...There's a limit to how far you go for show.
Did they genuinely think they could handle this?
The AI-operating data told the same story.
When you steamroll everything with overwhelming force, things look fine on the surface—of course they do—but the efficiency was a disaster and risk management was nonexistent.
Honestly, it would've been better for them if a small accident had happened during the Abandoned Mana Mine or the Warped Corridor raids, before the Crystal Cave push ever started.
On a winning streak like this, they were flooring the accelerator without even realizing the brakes were gone.
Situational awareness: that's enough.
Now that the exploration schedule for the Crystal Cave—my buried trap—had been locked in, it was time to finish my part.
I picked up my phone and opened the stock app, where Arc's red-hot candlestick chart was climbing higher and higher.
This first, then.
One of the perks of the black market VVIP membership: a dedicated manager I could use like a personal secretary.
When I called Manager Jang Hyunwoo, it took him only seconds to pick up.
"Yes, I'm here. The order you requested—go ahead and execute it now."
[Right now? Your conviction is rather frightening... You must be quite certain, then.]
"It's obviously going to fall, so there's no reason to hesitate. Everything I've set aside as liquid assets—and max out the leverage on top of it. Put it all in."
The 5.2 billion won I'd received from Managing Director Na Hee-ra, plus everything I'd picked up from various explorations—I'd guess it came to just over 5.5 billion.
It was the kind of moment where you couldn't help wondering how many times over that figure would multiply.
[Understood. Ah—one thing worth mentioning, however.]
Jang Hyunwoo added in a peculiar tone of voice.
[Besides yourself, there appears to be another party placing an astronomical short position on Arc.]
"Oh ho."
I had a fair idea who that was. Still, to think she trusted me this much.
Managing Director Na Hee-ra...
I'd thought it before, but her decisiveness was no joke. And she wasn't even from the financial world, yet she could mobilize a sum like that.
It occurred to me that she might be a far bigger player than I'd given her credit for.
Hanging up, I found myself staring at the envelope of "hazard pay" Han Tae-seok had handed me last time.
Stripping even this money bare and throwing it into a short against Arc...
Was there any better financial engineering in the world? A laugh slipped out of me.
Park Jin-chul's office had been stripped nearly bare, too—apparently the blow from the last exploration had hit him hard. And with my resignation date creeping closer by the day.
Before I left the company, I went to the Director's office to get final sign-off on my remaining paid leave—the last approval that would carry me through to my final day.
"Managing Director, thank you for your hard work. I saw the article about your performance in the Warped Corridor. Only the Crystal Cave left now—it seems the project has slipped out of my hands."
"Oh, Team Leader Kim! There you are."
Han Tae-seok's face split into a grin, like a man who'd just received an unexpected gift.
The stock was climbing, and Vice President Jin Se-hoon had probably patted him on the back for it.
For all he knew, the world was his. The real game hadn't even started yet.
"Right, good work out there. Everything's proceeding smoothly, just as you analyzed. That Kang Minho kid is quite the find."
"Glad to hear it. I'll burn through my remaining leave and come back to pack up my things on my official last day."
"Right, that's the way. Shame, though. Losing someone who works as well as you do."
Look at him talk. The man who gutted the entire Risk Management team and, after licking the plate clean, morphed the AI operator into his own pet project.
Han Tae-seok heaved a performative sigh and clicked his tongue.
"Decided what you'll do after you leave? With the non-compete clause, you'll be sucking your thumb for at least a year. Even if I wanted to waive it, company policy on operator management won't allow it."
"Well... I thought I'd rest a bit and figure things out."
"If it gets tight, call me. I can look into a spot with our security contractor or one of the subsidiary logistics warehouses."
An insult dressed up as charity.
For the record, I knew full well that the assistant manager from my team—the one who'd been cut before me—had actually called, and gotten shot down.
I barely resisted the urge to spit in his face and laughed it off instead.
"Haha, I appreciate the thought, at least. You're one of a kind, Managing Director."
"That's right, kid. Everything I say, I say because I'm looking out for you."
Han Tae-seok signed the paperwork, then suddenly asked in a low, conspiratorial voice.
"But you know... there's one thing that's been nagging at me."
"What would that be?"
"That Corporate Slave Life. Surely he hasn't been scared off?"
"...?"
"It's just—well, look at it. The Abandoned Mana Mine, the Warped Corridor—he pulled off both so spectacularly. People are saying he got spooked. I mean, obviously some talentless nobody scraped together his whole soul for one flashy artifact, pulled a attention-seeking stunt, and now he's hiding because he doesn't want to be buried under our [Arc]'s real star, Kang Minho. That's the only explanation, right?"
Contempt glittered in his eyes.
And yet, at the same time, he'd set the whole stage and realized it would be a problem if the headlining act that made his star shine brighter went missing.
Scared off? Has Han Tae-seok finally lost his mind?
I barely swallowed the words crawling up my throat.
Then, in a voice full of reassurance and conviction, I answered.
"You have nothing to worry about. That intel was fully vetted through 'The Archive' on the black market. It was information the company purchased at the corporate level, and they went so far as to guarantee—emphatically—that it would hold true for the Crystal Cave above all."
"Really? You're certain?"
"Yes. Since it's my last job, I made sure to be thorough."
"Good. Then I'll trust you, Team Leader Kim. Your intelligence work really is unbeatable. Don't let that talent go to waste out there... anyway, good work."
"Thank you for everything."
I bowed my head in farewell and stepped out of the Director's office.
Behind me, I could hear Han Tae-seok humming a little tune. It was hard not to burst out laughing.
Laugh it up while you still can.
Part of me was so desperately curious about what would become of Managing Director Han Tae-seok after I left the company—beyond the Crystal Cave that was about to unfold—that I actually felt a flicker of regret.
Regret that I wouldn't get to watch it up close.
And so time passed, and the momentous D-Day arrived.
The entrance to the Crystal Cave was a veritable sea of humanity.
It sat on the 4th floor—no easy trip to make—but there were the reporters who had somehow clawed their way up that far under [Arc]'s active escort.
Midas's hunters and broadcast staff, Arc's massive expedition force, and even onlooker hunters who'd decided this was a spectacle not to be missed.
It wasn't a dungeon entrance anymore. It was a full-blown concert venue.
"Excuse me, one moment! Please clear the way!"
"Hunter Kang Minho! Are you confident of success this time as well? As far as we know, live dungeon raids are almost never done—the risks are simply too high, Midas's broadcasts aside...!"
And into the barrage of camera flashes strode the leading man, preening for all he was worth.
Kang Minho.
A flamboyant scarlet cape billowing behind him, gleaming full plate armor, and a hairdo styled to absolute perfection.
Looking a little closer, I could see his face had a full broadcast-ready makeup job as well.
Strapped across his back was his trademark colossal battleaxe, and the whole ensemble looked like it had stepped straight out of a fantasy movie poster.
...A clown. A total clown.
At this point, it seemed like it might just be his nature.
Was he here to film a broadcast, or to explore a dungeon? Honestly, the two were indistinguishable at this point... though flashy, I'd give him that.
But through the eyes of a man who'd spent years in the operator's seat, this raid looked like barely disguised suicide.
Considering the dungeon's traits: a needlessly long, cumbersome cape. Ornamental gear blocking his field of vision. And above all...
"Hey, stylist! Didn't I tell you not to leave fingerprints on my axe? It's hard enough to polish as it is... *sigh*. How many times do I have to say it before it sticks?"
Kang Minho, checking over his equipment, was snapping at the staff.
And then there he was, striking poses at the entrance.
"And the lighting! Get the reflector angle right, will you? That angle doesn't photograph well on me! It puts my whole face in shadow!"
More concerned with how he'd look on camera than with actually preparing for the raid.
His abilities looked decent enough, and suddenly I understood why no one in the hunter industry had ever heard of him.
This was the ceiling of a hunter hastily assembled with Jin Se-hoon's money.
However flashy his power or fighting style, with that little real combat experience, this was exactly as far as he'd go.
But to my eyes, there was an even bigger problem.
Fire attribute?
The flame ability and battleaxe Kang Minho supposedly specialized in.
The destructive power would be real enough... and the spectacle beyond question.
They wouldn't have dragged in someone truly incompetent, after all.
But this is the Crystal Cave... if I were the operator, I'd have talked him out of it one way or another.
A place blanketed in special crystals that reflected light like mirrors on every wall.
And he was going to set fire in there?
Who knew how delicately he could control his ability, but at best he'd be lucky if he merely didn't blind his own allies' vision.
Han Tae-seok couldn't possibly have overlooked something that basic—he probably had some other plan in place...
Is he putting his faith in the AI-operating system?
I couldn't tell. They'd probably prepared something else as well.
Whatever I thought about it, the hours slipped by, and departure came in a blink.
"Alright, let's move! Time to make history in the hunter industry!"
Waving at the cameras, Kang Minho strode grandly into the dungeon.
Behind him trailed dozens of [Arc] hunters and personnel, and the whole procession carried an air so breezy it might as well have been a school picnic.
Apparently, whatever they'd already poured into this, the two previous expeditions had gone well enough to keep spirits high.
Meanwhile, I watched their backs as they disappeared inside, then set off after them toward the exploration zone.
"Oh, they'll be making history, all right."
Just not the kind of history you'd write down—more like the kind that gets filmed for a disaster movie.
Until resignation