I'm Not That Kind of Person (1)
The Heavy Equipment Knights' mobile command post. Inside the cramped bunker. Exposed raw concrete jutted across the ceiling, and the floor thumped rhythmically. Even though the residential area was just 100 meters away, the monsters' movements vibrated through their bodies.
"Sorry I'm late. I'm Myeong Gi-sa from the Knights."
Myeong flashed a deliberately friendly smile as he opened. It was a negotiation tactic he'd honed as an industrial spy. Whether they ended up enemies or allies, you always started with a smile. It was his routine for seizing control of the talks.
"I'm Seo Han-gyeol, Chief Secretary of Nebula's Secretariat. I haven't been waiting long. And we're well aware that variables can always crop up on-site, so don't worry about it."
Should I have just said 'secretary'? What if this guy thinks a young punk like me is arrogant? ...Nah. Chief Secretary it is. Gotta make my rank sound as high as possible so they don't walk all over me.
Seo Han-gyeol wrapped up his introduction, agonizing internally. Truth be told, he didn't need to agonize. It was a top position. The problem was, he'd always viewed CEO Seol Hwi as the utterly ruthless head of an evil organization, so he had no real grasp of the authority and favor she'd granted him.
If Han-gyeol had asked for a headquarters director's business card, Seol Hwi would've handed it over without a word. Considering that becoming HQ director at a global megacorp like Nebula required an Ivy League-level PhD and twenty years of service, it was insane.
"...Ahaha, thanks for understanding."
Myeong chuckled, narrowing his eyes as he sized up the envoy from Nebula. Han-gyeol sat ramrod straight in his angular suit. Myeong swallowed a silent groan at the flawless shell.
This guy's no pushover.
Normal people got tense in unfamiliar settings. Even in a comfy hotel abroad, there was some nerves. But this one doesn't flinch an inch.
Not a speck of dust on his custom suit, eyes steady as steel. Han-gyeol's icy demeanor stood out even more next to the woman fidgeting beside him, eyes darting everywhere from her chair.
That's the normal reaction...
Of course. Han-gyeol, who'd never worn cashmere suiting in his life and didn't even know how to dry-clean one, was disappointed in Nebula for squeezing every last drop from the Heavy Equipment Knights' financial crisis—right down to the bone marrow. And from the vantage of a villainous corp, stepping into a negotiation room packed with macho men who could bench 100kg like it was nothing had utterly shattered his fragile mind.
Yes. His HP had dipped below zero into negative territory... Beating a corpse wouldn't change the fact it was still a corpse.
Where am I? Who am I?
Blank....
The cool composure Han-gyeol projected now wasn't some ironclad resilience that shrugged off blows—it was more like total sensory shutdown after taking every hit dead-on. Unaware of this, Myeong tensed up sharply.
Even so, staying this unflappable is weird. Like he has zero thoughts even looking at this place.
A lifetime's worth of heavy machinery lined up, low-rank hunters facing death the moment they crossed paths with massive beasts strung out like dried pollack. Who could stay calm amid this slaughterhouse?
Impossible, unless you'd witnessed humans and monsters rotting together.
Then, a lightning-flash image crossed Myeong's mind. Syria, where a missed abatement turned three million acres into Monsterland. On dispatch there, he'd met someone with that exact vibe.
Got it.
He's the real deal. Not some academy pampered kid who grew under instructors after the Cataclysm stabilized. He reeks of a survivor who's breathed in the Third World and society's shadows.
Myeong sat, signaling the real negotiation's start.
"Anyway, no beating around the bush—we're both busy. You know about the slashed payment on the Soyanggang Gate perimeter wall, right?"
Myeong grinned, baring teeth. A feral smile.
"......"
Han-gyeol just nodded silently. His hands under the table were slick with sweat.
Han-gyeol thought: Nebula, you...
Crazy hag bitches....
Gate perimeter walls. Even with thorough abatement, incidental beasts from nearby were hard to block entirely. Hence the walls: encircling a 1km radius around the gate. Building them demanded insane tech.
Monsters with mana-infused bodies defied pure biology—raw power and breakthrough force beyond explanation. Some even resisted HE rounds partially.
Pre-gate, fortifying 1km cost about 10 billion won, per Defense Ministry baseline. Factoring monster-stopping mana circuits and alloys? 100 billion. And Soyanggang's watery terrain meant aquatic beasts and erosion resistance, jacking the unit price with underwater/harsh-ground premiums to 120 billion.
And Nebula's slash...
"680 billion, right."
Han-gyeol winced as the number popped from Myeong's mouth.
680 billion!!
What unreal sum was this? Han-gyeol, literature major grad with decent college cred, fired up his long-dormant mental calculator.
Not the cheap frozen chicken I usually eat—a big box of fresh-fried is 20,000 won.
68,000,000,000 won ÷ 20,000.
20,000 wasn't chump change. Half a chicken plus canned beer. Or a hot soak at the baths, twenty ramen packs.
But in fresh-fried boxes? Roughly...
3,400,000 boxes...
Han-gyeol, KO.
His mind rocketed to Andromeda, calculator spinning at speeds study sessions never hit.
One box every evening? 9,315 years. Even two laps from Dangun founding Gojoseon to now, and I'd still have leftovers.
As Han-gyeol went silent, Kang A-ram bit her lip. She couldn't stay protected forever.
Chief Seo. You've held back so far to test my prep, right?
Her little sister Kang Sol—frail since birth, worsening yearly, needing major surgery. Bonus gone, despair loomed, but the Chief gave even a screw-up like her a shot.
Sol's surgery stayed on track; now recovering smoothly at a Nebula-partnered hospital. And thanks to welfare tweaks Han-gyeol arranged, bills fit her paycheck.
But that wasn't all.
You believed in me.
7th-rank at her age, but vague ability and weak strength meant constant neglect—even from herself. The first outsider to believe.
Here, she took proactive action for once. Despite motion sickness from the ride, she pulled rebuttal docs from Nebula's archives.
"Mr. Myeong, there's a slight error in what you just said."
"Hm?"
As the wallflower Kang spoke up, Myeong turned to her.
What kind of glare...
A-ram flinched. Hostility like a blade behind the smile. But she held firm, feeling like a dwarf amid giants' stare-down.
"I'm Kang A-ram, secretary in the Secretariat. The equipment rental fees Nebula paid for the perimeter work exceeded market rate by 15%. The contract from day one explicitly states delay penalties, agreed by the Heavy Equipment Knights with full legal force. And the 'sabotage suspicion' you mentioned? Official probe closed it as equipment wear-and-tear fault."
A-ram steeled herself inwardly.
Chief, I'll fend off this villain trying to steal Nebula's assets!
Honestly, she had no clue what Chief Seo thought. But he'd seen her worth; she'd been saved by him. Sol's surgery, the happiness she was just starting to grasp—no giving that up.
She wasn't perfect yet, but she studied and internalized the values Chief Seo chased. First step: repelling the scoundrel (Nebula slashed the pay) trying to filch (??) their cash!!
If Han-gyeol heard her thoughts, he'd bang his head in regret.
But...
-Thud.
"Hmph."
Things veered off-script. Myeong flicked away her boldly proffered tablet like it was laughable.
As A-ram froze at the unexpected, Myeong growled savagely.
"Kang Secretary, was it? Nice effort, but don't overstep. Even Chief Seo here is staying quiet 'cause he has nothing to say."
Han-gyeol, who'd been listening, blinked in confusion.
?
Me?
Myeong eyed him with firm belief. Han-gyeol, clueless, just nodded faintly to shut it down.
Seeing that, Myeong puffed up.
"Rookie mistake. Thinking numbers on paper rule the world. The price you cited excludes the budget for special mana coolant Nebula mandated as essential mid-project. Real intake? In the red."
"Th-that..."
To the visibly rattled A-ram, Myeong drove the nail home.
"Absurd enough? Official probe? Where'd the investigators get cash for Signiel Busan stays, private lounge hole-in-ones? While your sales rep sipped wine and cocktails at luxury hotels, we ripped comm-jamming chips from the pneumatic drills ourselves. Which Korean firm makes practical micro-mana circuits, huh?"
"Urk!"
Myeong advised her.
"Chief Seo probably clocked this basic ploy ages ago. Anticipated my rebuttal, too. So he's been quietly gathering intel, waiting for the optimal moment. Right?"
"......"
Oh, is that what happened?
Whoa....
Han-gyeol sensed no one would buy him yelling I had no idea either! Resigned, he deadpanned.
"Of course. The Heavy Equipment Knights launched in the early Cataclysm and endured with ironclad force. Tricks like this won't fool you. Unlike some clueless predecessor."
"Heh. Knew it."
"S-sorry, Chief..."
"......"
Suddenly, it hit Han-gyeol.
What the hell do these people think I am?
At this rate, they'd peg him as a real hotshot and he'd never escape resignation.
-Chill!
A cold shiver ran down his spine.