First Mission (3)
"……."
A few days later. In the conference room at Nebula HQ.
I stood in front of the massive conference room door, confirmed no one was around, and let out a deep, heavy sigh. Not even allowed to express emotions freely... What kind of brutal work environment is this? If I get the chance, I really need to bail right away.
Making my 101st resignation vow, I pictured the two people waiting for me behind that door. Gwak Du-chil. And Kang A-ram. An 8th-rank and a 7th-rank hunter, respectively. Human weapons who could kill me on a whim and bolt without a second thought. And I had to serve them their dismissal notices.
Damn it.
I glared at the innocent door as if I could bore holes through it. A passing employee caught sight of me and detoured down another hallway, but my heart was pounding so hard I couldn't even hear what they said.
"Looks like those rumors are true... They say he treats worthless people like objects."
"Like boss, like secretary. A monster's hired himself a monster."
What're they on about? Can't hear a thing.
One last mental review of Kang A-ram's profile before going in.
Poor girl.
Gwak Du-chil had no excuses. During an operation, a beast slipped out of his sector due to his screw-up. That beast invaded a civilian area, and Gwak Du-chil attacked an eyewitness civilian. He claimed it was just a threat, but the guy ended up dead. The fault was so obvious he didn't even go to trial.
Kang A-ram, though... she had a tragic side. Gwak Du-chil was a so-called dead-weight squad leader who covered his incompetence with seniority. Kang A-ram was under him. Gwak blew his salary on gambling debts and dipped into her bonus pay. She desperately needed that bonus for her little sister's surgery costs, and in the end... she embezzled company funds too.
How can people be like this?
In every sense of the word. I pitied Kang A-ram so much, and Gwak... well.
Even to a soft-hearted Chungcheong-do cotton candy like Seo Han-gyeol, he's irredeemable trash with no path to salvation.
And that trash is in there with a 100W chainsaw?
Waah!
I wanted to stuff my fist in my mouth and sob silently. But I took a deep breath, and—creeeak—opened the door.
The 7th-rank hunter Kang A-ram, who had just turned 21 this year, wanted nothing more than to burst into tears right there on the spot.
Her promised bonus hadn't come through for some inexplicable reason. She could get a straight answer from HR, but...
Sol-ah...
Her little sister Kang Sol wouldn't make her surgery window. They'd delayed it this long because of money, planning to cover it all at once with the post-hunt bonus and two years' savings from her piggy bank.
She was already drowning in debt—maxed out every loan from banks and secondary lenders. Orphaned young and abandoned by her parents, she hadn't had proper schooling, but that didn't mean she'd touch loan sharks.
How many uncles in the slums ended up ruined after one bad loan?
Her childhood slum was full of cautionary tales.
In the end, a connectionless orphan like her had no other way to scrape up emergency cash.
Ugh... It's all over.
Kang A-ram sniffled back the flood of tears threatening to burst like a broken dam. Seated beside her, the scruffy-bearded Gwak Du-chil found even that annoying and gnawed at his nails, but he didn't dare stop her.
Fuck! How was I supposed to know that guy would die?!
His hunter license was suspended for civilian murder, and now even Nebula—where he'd barely scraped through hiring—was canning him. If he caused another violent scene here...
The PEB might actually show up...
A single warning, followed by an immediate kill order if ignored. The PEB—each agent a hunter's natural predator, the sharpest blade of public authority! Gwak knew an 8th-rank nobody like him would vanish like roadside dust.
Then—creeeak—the door opened.
Thud.
"Time is short, so we'll skip the pleasantries. I'm Seo Han-gyeol, in charge of your post-dismissal processing. Until your official termination, you may address me as Secretary Seo or Chief Seo."
"……."
"……."
The cold-eyed reaper entered.
Both Kang A-ram and Gwak Du-chil were overwhelmed by Seo Han-gyeol's desperately mustered psycho act. Topped off with the unnatural dissonance of his instinctively deployed [Organization] permeating the room.
Eek, waaah! It's over! Sol-ah, sis is going first!
Damn! The secretary office?! I heard they all got fired a few days ago—does that mean this guy's...?
Low-rank hunters like them couldn't even dream of resisting; they shrank back.
But as they both exercised their right to silence in perfect sync, Seo Han-gyeol—who was internally shitting bricks—half-lost his grip too.
His mouth blurted words that bypassed his brain.
"No response? No matter. You're Kang A-ram and Gwak Du-chil, correct?"
"Y-Yes, sir."
"Y-Yes!"
Hm?
Seo Han-gyeol's brow furrowed at their stiff, jerky movements and stammering speech. It looked familiar.
It's me, isn't it?
Come to think of it, that was his reaction when scared.
Seo Han-gyeol realized, by the grace of heaven and earth, that somehow these two saw him as a hunter of utterly terrifying caliber.
Stunned, but his mind raced. Luck had dropped a golden opportunity in his lap.
He had zero intention of squandering it.
Go cold. Low voice, maybe strut a bit?
Seo Han-gyeol amped up his angry psycho act. His concept: a demon lord from some anime who lived by "incompetence is a sin."
"I dislike preambles. Straight to the point: as of today, both of you are expelled from Nebula Group's field team and as field hunters."
"Kuh!"
Gwak Du-chil grimaced and groaned, even though he'd half-expected it. He'd racked up debts everywhere using Nebula's name. If those sharks learned he was fired...
Human trafficking or mine slavery!
Gates had brought mazonite and elevated society, but deepened its shadows too. Myths persisted that consuming hunter organs or fluids boosted awakening odds. The state cracked down hard on hunter crimes. Even the "healthiest" fate for blacklisted hunters—mine slaves inhaling mazonite dust that shaved five minutes off their life per breath—spoke volumes.
Pre-gate Korea would have recoiled in horror at such barbarity. Post-gate, Koreans—indoctrinated in hunter ethics—shrugged it off as "eh, fair enough."
Desperation and the skill's eerie dissonance sparked a bizarre reaction.
Whoa, whoa?! Gwak Du-chil's eyes are glazing over!
"Ugh, uwaaaah! A desk-jockey like you dares mock me?!"
[Organization]
Shaking off the skill's dissonance through sheer force of rage, Gwak Du-chil lost his reason and charged Seo Han-gyeol.
Frail Chungcheong cotton candy Seo Han-gyeol froze stiff at the incoming violence.
I-I'm dead!
Dead for real! Is this what it's like to teeter on the edge of life and death?!
Sensing mortal peril, Seo Han-gyeol squeezed his eyes shut on reflex. His heart hammered wildly, his psycho facade cracking bit by bit.
But... it cracked ambiguously. Half instinct, half act, blending into something grotesque.
Kang A-ram—who'd been breathlessly fixated on him since he entered—spotted the change instantly. His lips twisted upward weirdly, eyes trembling with excitement. A sadistic grin, thrilled by bloodshed!
A real monster!
As Kang A-ram covered her eyes against his cruel smile, a guttural growl-like warning reached charging Gwak Du-chil's ears.
"Ah. How lamentable. You can speak human words, yet you won't listen? Inefficient, low-comprehension idiots. You're barely worthy of being called human. Stop. Now."
"Ugh, uwaaaah!"
"I already warned you."
And—
-Crunch!
"Gaaahhh! My arm, my arm!!"
Gwak Du-chil's arm, hurtling at blinding speed, halted abruptly—like pausing a video mid-frame. His survival-instinct punch, limits released, froze solid. The backlash shattered his arm beyond recognition, dangling limp. Yet the halted section remained pristine.
"……!"
Kang A-ram, intuiting it all, clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her rising horror.
Seo Han-gyeol eyed the screaming, arm-pinned Gwak and aghast Kang with cold indifference.
Fuck! Nailed it! Done!
Inside, it was pandemonium.
He hadn't even gotten their signatures on the dismissal papers, and now he'd injured one. Lawsuit envelopes were already piling up in his pretty new mailbox.
He hadn't known his sole skill, instinctively triggered [Organization], could do that.
But dopamine from sheer survival pickled his brain in excitement; thoughts of hidden features or effects flew off to Andromeda.
Cover it up!
Or else...
I'm fired! No way the Chairwoman lets a secretary fail her first assignment!
He hadn't seen her much, but Seol Hwi was no ordinary woman. Her mind was... unique. A lunatic. Ruthless overlord of an evil org, and his boss.
A deranged evil overlord boss wouldn't spare a disappointing secretary out of mercy.
Dead!
But how to cover this? Brain spinning, Seo Han-gyeol found a way.
If my IQ's low, smash theirs equally! He resolved to soul-crush this scumbag uncle with his psycho act.
Might as well dance the knife's edge properly now that the plate was smashed.
Ditching composure, he ripped his grin wider. Blood pooled from Gwak's arm on the floor; he stepped in it with his shoe, smirking curiously.
Kang A-ram's pupils quivered.
"...Ahh."
Hell. It's hell!
At her limit, Kang A-ram slumped forward, forearm to brow.
In the ensuing madhouse carnival, Seo Han-gyeol shoved his face toward screaming Gwak Du-chil.
"Shut up."
"Ugh, guk! Eugh, eu...!"
"Good. From now on, I'll treat you not as a person, but an object. If you object, file a formal correction request."
"B-But—"
"Does an object speak?"
"……."
"Just listen. Sign this document now, keep quiet about what happened here, and you might walk out of Nebula alive."
Do it right! Get the signature and boot 'em! They did wrong, but that's not on me—call the cops.
Even in this mess, thinking police over vigilante justice. Model citizen Strong Han-gyeol.
Not that it'd solve everything, but still.