The Last Day

I packed up my things.

After ten whole years, the personal effects left at my desk could barely fill a single cardboard box. It was hard to believe that all those dungeons had been analyzed from this small desk, that hundreds of lives had rested on my shoulders here.

Well, all the analysis materials and reports—everything I'd done over the years—effectively belonged to the company, so maybe it's only natural I don't have much to take.

Besides, I'd already taken most of it earlier. And frankly, I could have carted off whatever remained anytime. The real reason I'd come in was to tie up loose ends and say my goodbyes to the coworkers I'd worked with all this time.

Better to leave light.

Box tucked under my arm, I took one final lap around the office. Setting aside the likes of Han Tae-seok, Park Jin-chul, and Lee Seok-hyun, there were plenty of colleagues with whom I'd shared genuinely good memories.

"Team Leader... you're really leaving?"

Assistant Manager Lee Seo-yeon greeted me with a bittersweet expression. Knowing how sharp her instincts were, she'd clearly caught on that my departure meant more than just getting fired.

Then again, would it have been stranger not to know? The risk management team had been whittled down one person at a time, and now I was gone.

"Looks that way. Thanks for all your hard work—you've got a tough stretch ahead. You'll be heading into the field without operating support from now on, so don't put too much faith in the AI. Trust your own instincts. You've got the best gut instinct of anyone I've ever worked with, Seo-yeon."

"Really? Do you mean that?"

A bright smile bloomed across her face at what was hardly a remarkable compliment, though on the surface she deflected.

"Ah, jeez... who's going to nag me when you're gone? Anyway, thank you for everything, Team Leader."

She offered her hand, then gripped mine tight and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"When you land somewhere good, please contact me. You know what I mean, right? I'm asking because wherever you go is bound to be the right answer. Let me escape this sinking ship too."

"...You're serious? A place like this still pays pretty well. And honestly, I won't have an easy time finding work as an operator elsewhere for a while."

"As if that's a real concern?"

Seo-yeon grinned.

"Haha... I'll give it some thought."

Whether it was a comfort or the honest truth, sometimes I couldn't tell. But either way, I couldn't find it in me to dislike her for it. We'd built a real rapport in that office over the years, and there was no reason not to like someone competent with such good instincts.

Who knows—maybe our paths will cross again someday.

In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the field as Corporate Slave Life, or... if fate allowed, somewhere new—on the same team, not just the same company. As teammates. That would be something.

"Oh, right—what about Min-woo?"

"Ah, Assistant Manager Min-woo?"

Seo-yeon leaned in close and lowered her voice.

"...He beat you to it. Packed everything up and bolted already. On a day you were out on leave, the moment Team Leader Park walked in, he dragged him straight into the conference room, threw his resignation letter right in his face, raised hell, and walked out."

Choi Min-woo did that?

"That quiet little thing had murder in his eyes... apparently he turned the whole place upside down? Went out with a bang, like something out of a movie. Honestly, I almost didn't recognize him."

I'd assumed he'd hem and haw before quietly submitting a resignation. It occurred to me that I might have badly underestimated Min-woo's self-preservation instincts.

Good for him.

If I ever ran into him again, I decided, I'd have to get the full story of how that day went down. It sounded entertaining.

Nodding, I offered a light farewell to the rest of Field Exploration Team 1 as well. Section Chief Jung Tae-soo, who'd always pretended to go along with my recommendations even when we occasionally clashed. Assistant Manager Kim Mi-young, who was standoffish and we barely spoke, but who always brought me back a drink whenever she went out.

And it wasn't just Team 1.

The team leader of Field Exploration Team 2, a Mr. Choi, came over and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Man, I still can't believe this. However much the higher-ups sing the AI's praises, you don't throw away people like this. An operator like you, Kim? You couldn't hire one with all the money in the world. Han Tae-seok is making a huge mistake."

"...You're too kind. Take care of yourself out there, Team Leader Choi. Don't overdo it."

Warm words were exchanged all around. The organization called a company could be a miserable cesspit, and the suits at the top could be utter garbage—but at the end of the day, it was the people down in the trenches who made it bearable.

Last of all, I headed toward Park Jin-chul's desk. He had his nose buried in his monitor, pointedly ignoring my approach even though he could plainly see me coming. His aftereffects from the last dungeon should have fully healed by now, yet there he was, clicking his mouse as if he hadn't noticed—a performance of busyness so transparent it was almost impressive.

Really going to keep this up until the very end?

...No. That's exactly why I'd rather not look at him a second longer than I have to.

Still, I refused to become the same kind of person he was.

"Team Leader Park. I'm off."

"······"

No reply. But I figured this much was enough.

Whatever. His problem, not mine.

I turned away without a shred of regret. I had no more business with that man, after all. And if business ever did come up? It would be when Park Jin-chul was groveling at rock bottom—the moment he felt, with every fiber of his body, just how much he needed an operator to back him up and hold him together.

One last look at my emptied desk. It was wiped clean; I'd already moved out nearly everything, so there was almost nothing left to carry.

And yet...

There were unfamiliar objects sitting on it that weren't mine.

This is...

Convenience store drinks that looked hastily prepared, vitamins, little chocolates. And a scattering of Post-it notes covered in scrawled handwriting.

Exploration teams, all right. A lot of terrible handwriting, though...

Rough, unpolished notes, each one carrying real sincerity. Looking at them, something tightened in my chest.

So my time at this company wasn't a complete waste after all.

There had been people who understood. They weren't the ones holding the decision-making power, but the people in the field who'd relied on my voice knew. No—how could they not? The operators I directed, working alongside them, had been watching their backs the whole time.

I picked up one of the convenience store drinks someone had left on my desk. It was still warm.

...Thank you, everyone.

Murmuring the words quietly to myself, I picked up the box and walked out of the office.

As I crossed the lobby to leave, there was a commotion coming from the glass-walled conference room across the way. The group of foreigners I'd glimpsed on my way in that morning—the people from Cheka International.

And in front of them, Managing Director Han Tae-seok was delivering a presentation in person. What was displayed on the screen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was... a familiar graphic I couldn't possibly have failed to recognize.

The AI Operating System... of course.

I stopped in my tracks and watched the scene for a moment. Beyond the glass, Han Tae-seok appeared to be explaining the system with more passion than he'd ever shown, extolling its superiority with everything he had.

...So that was it.

I'd had a vague idea, but I never imagined he was actually building a business around the thing.

The real reason Han Tae-seok had pushed me out. The reason he'd strained so hard to cover up Park Jin-chul's disasters. The scheme to sell off a system he hadn't even built—a hollow shell of a can, now—to Cheka, some giant of capital, and skim a fortune off the top.

I was speechless. No—honestly, it was absurd enough to make me laugh.

Bold move, Han Tae-seok. Selling that.

Watching him cut every last operator from the risk management team, then finally me too, I'd thought him a fool—but I never imagined he'd go as far as this. Maybe you need shamelessness on that level to make it as an executive.

But still...

I thought back to the data I'd reviewed one final time before surrendering my administrator access. The system logs synced in real time. The most recent entry had been the operating log from Kang Minho's run through the Crystal Cave.

Nothing worth looking at, that's for sure.

It had fallen apart faster than anyone expected and produced horrifying results, so it was seared into my memory. Sure, the Crystal Cave had its camouflage mechanics to contend with, but the system had confused the Crystal Scorpions with the crystal pillars.

It had also been far too slow to react to environmental changes during combat—the dangers and variables those changes could bring.

And for the dangers that followed, it hadn't proposed a single response.

It was true that the Crystal Cave was difficult to read for danger and demanded a high level of operating skill, but...

Honestly, I'd assumed the only failure was with the dungeon's special gimmick—correcting the vision distortion caused by the refraction and reflection of light. Apparently not.

Then again, if I'd been the one operating...

Even if Kang Minho had charged into the Resonating Room, he never would have been swarmed by the crystal monsters. He never would have suffered from the runaway temperature. The crystals never would have shattered and scattered everywhere. And that full-power attack he threw at the end never would have missed.

I was certain of it. I would have distinguished monster from mineral at a glance by reading the subtle differences and vibrations in the crystals. The temperature I'd have caught not through sensors but simply by watching the flow of convection. And the light distortion I'd have corrected without breaking stride.

Meanwhile, Han Tae-seok was hiding the latest logs—riddled with problems as they were—and projecting only the beautiful success data from my active years onto the presentation screen. Presumably he'd excised them entirely under the excuse of the inherent imperfection of operating—fluctuations within the margin of error.

"Behold! 95% predictive accuracy! Flawless control with zero variables! Yes, there are occasional deviations—but human operators have them too, and our accident rate is far lower!"

That was probably the kind of patter Han Tae-seok was spouting, playing showman with all the subtlety of a carnival barker.

But...

Inside the conference room, I could see an elderly man with sharp, hawkish features—presumably Cheka's technical advisor—tilting his head. He glanced back and forth between the screen Han Tae-seok was presenting and the tablet in his own hands, his brow furrowing.

He's suspicious.

Of course he was. The figures Han Tae-seok was touting implied accuracy and error margins far beyond what any human operator could achieve—and even I, a man who'd lived as an operator for ten years, would have called it nonsense had I been sitting in that seat.

And then there was the matter of what kind of company Cheka was. Hyenas of the hunter industry. They bought up washed-out hunters and hunter teams, took them under management, polished them up, and resold them. These were people with an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to tell who in this business was the real deal and who was a fraud. There was no chance men like that would be seduced by a single flashy presentation.

I could practically see the cold sweat running down Han Tae-seok's back from here.

If it's Cheka, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they may run their own verification on all the data. For now, he can probably paper over it with pretty words—temporary error, the results were skewed by a hunter's insubordination that ignored the operating guidance, that sort of thing.

But before the contract was signed, those men would inevitably demand one thing.

A live demonstration.

Not old data—a real-time showcase of the system actually working, right before their eyes. And I had a very good idea where that demonstration would take place.

The A-Rank dungeon that various guilds had been eyeing recently.

This should be fun.

I might even get to watch Han Tae-seok's plunge into the abyss unfold in real time. Dokkaebi had its eye on that dungeon too, after all—and I'd be lending them a hand with operating at Park Sangwoo's request.

That said, the fact that Han Tae-seok could press ahead with a contract like this in his right mind... it seemed the AI Operating System's malfunctions still fell within his claimed margin of error, because he apparently hadn't noticed a thing.

Well. He'd sown this himself.

There was no need for me to step forward and expose anything. Han Tae-seok was the one who'd grabbed the rotten rope. That karma was his alone to bear. Poetic justice, plain and simple.

Knock yourself out.

I looked one last time at the wall emblazoned with the Arc Industry logo. No regrets. If anything, my chest was full to bursting with relief.

Shifting my grip on the box, I cracked open the drink I'd taken from my desk.

Fss—

A crisp, cheerful hiss. I took a swig, and the sweet, tart liquid slid down my throat.

I pushed through the revolving door and stepped outside, where the wind cutting between the towers ruffled my hair. Sharp, clean air—a different universe from the stuffy, recycled dryness inside the building.

Tossing the empty can into a bin, I murmured to myself.

There had been a time I thought I'd been cast out alone, beyond the fences of the company. When Han Tae-seok slid the recommended-resignation agreement across the table, the future had looked pitch black.

But now that I'd actually stepped out of the place I'd given ten years of my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠life to...

"Feels good."

Now, the real beginning. For my life—and for Arc's downfall, alike.