Hurry Up and Work! (2)
There was a story once about King Sejong and the Prime Minister Hwang Hui.
It was said that Hwang Hui begged to step down more than ten times, but Sejong never granted his request, so he wound up working right up until the edge of death.
If he asked to resign because of his health, they had him work from home. If he said he was too old and frail to move and pleaded to retire, they sent a palanquin and hauled him straight back to the palace.
They even sent officials to Hwang Hui’s house and ordered him to handle paperwork lying in bed, so in the end he really did work until he was nearly dead.
Shit….
I was in roughly the same situation.
I could tell Kim Hyunsung had made up his mind to grind me into dust for real.
If Kim Hyunsung’s kingdom grew large enough for his name to go down in history, mine would almost certainly be mentioned right next to it.
As the idiot who worked from morning till night and dropped dead from overwork.
Of course, it wasn’t as if I’d gotten nothing out of it.
Just like Hwang Hui, who enjoyed Sejong’s favor until the very end despite all his corruption, I too had been granted almost unchecked authority.
Power.
Needless to say, Lee Kiyoung’s position within the guild had completely flipped from what it used to be.
It hadn’t exactly been low before, but anyone could see that I was now in a position to wield Blue’s real power.
The problem is I don’t have time to actually wield it….
At the moment, Blue practically ran on my hands alone.
Granted, there was no guarantee it would stay that way, since a lot of the positions I was handling had the word “acting” attached to them, but for now, the fact that I had memorized Blue’s entire administrative system was enormously important.
The ability to see through every layer of the organization.
It was another reminder that Kim Hyunsung truly trusted me.
The others had decided I was the only one who could be trusted.
So of course the rest of the guild would flutter around me like frightened pigeons when I had the guild master’s complete confidence.
My already weighty title had simply sprouted wings.
The second thing was money.
As if Blue were a warm, benevolent guild that rewarded hard work instead of some black-hearted corporation, I had become the highest-paid person in the guild.
Even more than Kim Hyunsung, the guild master himself.
The annual salary I’d received when I first came here had been 10,000 gold, and before even a year had passed, it had climbed by roughly twelve times.
That was about 1.2 billion won a year, which meant I’d basically succeeded in the most glorious way possible by my old standards.
Of course, in reality, even that salary felt insufficient.
The problem was that Blue had become so badly broken I couldn’t even collect my pay properly.
My salary had gone up, but due to the guild’s circumstances, I couldn’t actually get paid.
In fact, it had reached the point where I wasn’t being paid by guild employees at all, but had to earn my own salary directly.
Blue was currently facing a crisis that was and wasn’t a crisis at the same time.
A financial crisis and a manpower crisis.
Let’s fix these first.
Whatever else happened, those two had to be dealt with first.
Just as I was reading through the report in front of me in a daze, a voice came from beside me.
“Lee Kiyoung-nim, this is the report submitted by the Damage Countermeasure Committee.”
“Put it on the desk. I’ll deal with what I’m working on now and check it right after. Also, if you don’t mind, could you call Jeongyeon for me?”
“Uh… Hwang Jeongyeon-nim is currently busy with something else….”
“What? She said she’d rest and come back….”
“She says something urgent came up.”
She ran away.
I shouldn’t have believed her when she said she’d just take a short break.
Still, she had already been here for a full day, so she’d put in quite a long shift.
At least she had sorted through all the paperwork that had piled up, which made things somewhat easier.
This was a world without computers.
Someone as talented as her was the sort of asset you brought out only when you needed her.
Even so, I never imagined she’d run off without a word.
I could understand it—she probably had plenty of work piling up on her side too—but that only made my own situation feel a little more miserable.
“As for the guild’s publicity….”
“Just as I told you, we’ll prioritize running the story that Blue’s administration has changed in the papers, and then release the Cursed Shrine raid log. I’d like the schedule moved up by three days. No, let me revise that. After releasing the free portion, we should sell part of it.”
“You mean sell the raid log?”
“Yes. We’ll sell it.”
“Ah. Then this should go to the business division….”
“No. Just leave it alone. The business division has other things to do.”
“Pardon?”
After all, the business division was under my jurisdiction too.
Realizing that, the guild employee looked at me with an expression of deep pity.
“We’ll need to do some editing, but it’ll sell well enough. The Cursed Shrine story is sensational.”
“I believe I understand what you mean.”
“I think it would also be a good idea to include Lee Seolho’s story before the expedition. It’ll need some polishing, but still. If there are people in the guild who say they’ve written before, gather them all and start revising. Let’s begin right away.”
“That’s a good idea, but… if you’re thinking of publishing and mass production, it might take longer, Vice Guild Master.”
“I’ll readjust all the schedules. Also, along with the raid log, we should put out an article listing the items recovered from the Cursed Shrine. I think it would be good to reveal information about Yuliena as well.”
“You mean the legendary item you possess as well?”
“Yes. But naturally, we won’t disclose what the item actually does. Focus the campaign on the fact that I possess a legendary item. That will be the fastest and most effective approach.”
“Then they’ll be even more curious about the raid log.”
“Yes.”
It only made sense that I’d want to catch the public’s attention by revealing where the legendary item had come from, and then use that interest to unveil the raid log.
For all I knew, it would sell like crazy.
The public loved curiosity.
Stories about where the item had been obtained and how I had been recognized as its master might well become the kind of gossip that spread from one mouth to another.
For a plan I’d come up with on the fly, it didn’t seem half bad.
They’d never had a chance to hear about a legendary-grade item before.
And then there was….
“I’ll also move up the shipment date for the Illusion Potion. I’ll bring the timing forward a little more myself. It would be best to release it alongside the raid log sale.”
“Understood. I’ll adjust the schedule.”
That would give us plenty of publicity in another direction too.
The potion that had been the first star of the shrine raid would probably sell out in no time.
The plan itself wasn’t bad.
Things seemed to be going well, but for some reason I still felt like something was missing.
Hmm….
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
It felt like I was aiming in the wrong direction.
We didn’t just need to advertise the guild’s products—we needed to advertise the guild itself.
If things went on like this, no matter how neatly everything ended, the whole affair would finish with nothing but money in our pockets.
That alone would raise Blue’s value.
But that wasn’t the same as….
It doesn’t mean they’ll want to work with Blue….
We were missing that one decisive blow.
“Ah. By the way, what’s the going rate for those advertisement boards on carriages?”
“If you do it a little cheaply, I’ve heard it’s around 200 gold a day. Of course, for carriages going to areas with heavy foot traffic, the price….”
“Not bad. It’s cost-effective, and more than anything, I like that we can use it immediately.”
“Yes. As for the advertisement board, what exactly should go on it….”
“I think that’s something I need to think about a little more. More importantly, have you finished organizing the list of Heroic-grade items?”
“I’ve heard it’s nearly done.”
“There isn’t much time before the auction, so tell them to bring it quickly. We’ll sell off everything useless.”
“Understood.”
As much as I hated to admit it, the work wasn’t bad. Everything, from start to finish, was connected to my own hands, which meant I could adjust the schedule flexibly. That was the best part.
If this were a normal company, we’d probably have needed countless meetings just to juggle the calendar.
We’d have had to weigh every little thing and still hit a wall somewhere along the way.
Because I was adjusting everything myself, there was no tedious bureaucracy to trip me up.
Of course, that didn’t mean this work wasn’t hard.
The problem was my own limits.
Trying to do alone what had originally been handled by several people was naturally exhausting.
If I were one of those administrative monsters from a novel who could tick things off one by one with effortless precision, things might have been easier, but I still hadn’t fully memorized imperial law.
Routine matters were manageable, but sensitive tax issues or anything tied to imperial law inevitably took time.
I had to study while working.
And the lack of useful talent doesn’t exactly help….
Honestly, that was the biggest problem.
Blue was by no means a small guild.
At least, not in any practical sense. It was a lot like an entertainment agency run for the sake of seven parties, though the number of ordinary guild members and support staff backing them up was still considerable.
So it was obvious there weren’t many truly exceptional people among them.
The old bastards had either cut the throats of anyone with real talent before they could rise, or pressured them so hard they left the guild before they could make a name for themselves.
They probably hadn’t literally killed them, but one way or another they’d either driven them out or shut them down before they could climb.
Worthless bastards, even in death.
That told me everything I needed to know about how tightly they’d clung to their own positions.
With no one actually capable of doing the work, it was only natural that I’d wind up shouldering everything.
Cheap labor.
Cheap, competent labor.
What I needed was cheap, competent labor. The thing that drew that labor in was the guild’s image, and the thing that shaped the image was publicity and marketing.
Given Blue’s current state, it was possible for cheap people to apply, but not for capable people to want in.
I was still turning the idea over in my head, wondering how to scam Blue’s image into looking better, when I heard a knock at the door.
After I called out vaguely, Park Deokgu’s voice came from outside.
“Hyung-nim, it’s me.”
“Come in, Deokgu.”
“Hrrng… man, aren’t you getting way too busy?”
“Yeah. Busy. Really busy.”
“Our guild master told me to bring you something.”
“What is it?”
“Looks like some kind of recovery tonic….”
“Ah….”
That bastard Kim Hyunsung.
At this point, it felt like I must have been enemies with him in a past life.
The thought that I might end up like the story’s Hwang Hui made cold sweat trickle down my back.
“He’s so worried about your health… I don’t even know where he found this thing, but they say it works like crazy. One dose and you can stay up three days straight without a problem….”
The more Park Deokgu talked, the more frightening it became.
Don’t do this to me, you bastard….
If this kept up, it was only a matter of time before something truly disastrous happened.
I had no choice but to grasp at straws and ask him for help.
Maybe the simplest solution is the best one….
As I slowly opened my mouth, the bright, attentive gaze in the bastard’s eyes met mine.
“Deokgu, let’s talk for a second.”
“What?”
“How does our guild look to you?”
“Uh… isn’t it basically a ruined guild? We’re just barely getting back on our feet now… well, I guess things’ll get better from here, but it doesn’t look too bad, I guess… ahem.”
That was the perfect answer.
“Then what would you say our guild’s strengths are?”
“You ask me something out of nowhere like that….”
“I’m not asking seriously, so just answer however you want. What should I say to make talented people want to join our guild?”
“I’m not really sure about that… but if you asked me our strengths, I’d say it’s definitely youth, passion, and spirit? And the fact that you’re here, hyung-nim! Kuuh….”
“Uh….”
It felt like I’d just been handed an answer I’d never considered.
I was so flustered by how simple it was that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself.
As I looked at Park Deokgu and let the corners of my mouth rise, he seemed to realize he’d actually helped me and burst into a grin with all his might as well.
I turned immediately to Park Jungki, who was seated nearby.
“Park Jungki.”
“Yes, Vice Guild Master.”
“Contact the Lindel Transport Association right now and have flyers scattered everywhere.”
“Understood. I take it you’re planning to increase our personnel….”
“No. For now….”
“…….”
“I think we need to recruit interns.”
I wasn’t going to be the only one getting worked to death.