Chapter 0—2. We Show You Everything (1)
“Hmm…”
The broad strokes of how I'd make a living were settled.
Which meant what I needed now was a plan.
Except… I'd never actually drawn up this kind of plan before.
A business plan, of all things.
“Haah. I was always the ideas guy.”
Back in the day, I'd toss out concepts and everyone else handled the execution without me lifting a finger.
Now I had to solve everything, from start to finish, all by myself.
Living alone really is hard, isn't it.
“But for now… the important thing is…”
Grrrooowl—
A thoroughly undignified sound rumbled out of Lee Jun's stomach.
Come to think of it, it had been nearly thirty hours since I announced my retirement, and I hadn't eaten a thing in all that time.
Granted, I'd done nothing but rack my brain—but burning calories is burning calories, no?
“This is all in service of making a living. What good is starving myself?”
With that thought, Lee Jun cheerfully opened the refrigerator.
“…Oh, right.”
The fridge was completely empty.
Which was only natural, really.
When you're being ground down by Association work, there's no spare moment to cook at home.
“Delivery is… obviously out of the question.”
Who on earth would I let through my front door in this situation?
If not for the 'Lee Jun Residence Anti-Intruder Barrier MK.43 Really-Really-Final ver' currently ringing the property, the Association, the guilds, their managers, and a swarm of reporters would have already come crashing in.
It occurred to me, briefly, how sad a life with zero privacy was.
Grrrooowl—
“…….”
Fine, then.
It would draw a little attention, sure, but I wasn't so washed up that I'd get mobbed the moment I stepped outside.
Right. Whatever the endeavor, it all starts with a full stomach.
A quick trip to the neighborhood market, then—
KWA
CRACK
CRACK
KA-BOOM
―!!
“……?”
So, um… the ceiling just opened up.
Lee Jun stared at the newly hollowed-out ceiling above him.
“Uh…”
And upon checking what exactly had just dropped in—
―☆ Ingredient Kit for Some Hungry Someone ☆ >▽<
―p.s. Drop whatever you're doing and come visit when you have time.
Hm. Guess I did keep some good friends around.
How many people do you know who'd read your needs this well and airdrop supplies straight to you?
Granted, the problem was that thanks to this absurdly overpowered barrier, delivering anything required an orbital-bombardment-level strike…
And already, beyond the gaping hole in my ceiling, the barrier had begun self-repairing.
What kind of technology even is that?
With a faint snort of laughter, Lee Jun pulled out the ingredients and started cooking.
As he put together a few simple dishes, he sketched out the road ahead in his mind.
First, if I want to establish a business… I'll have to pay a visit to the Association.
Anyone hoping to start a hunter-related business needed the Association's approval.
Individuals, corporations—even national-level projects.
That was precisely why the Hunter Association had ended up as a government institution.
A government body, and yet one completely independent of all political power.
That, too, had been Lee Jun's idea—a safeguard against power pooling in the hands of the guilds.
At the end of the day, it was force and the guilds that held the real weight; the Association's authority sat above all of it on paper.
However strong the guilds were, they couldn't defy the state itself.
If the government consolidated hunter-related authority and handed it to them, well—they'd have to listen.
And because Lee Jun had preemptively severed the Association from political power struggles, it had become a deformed structure: all authority, no muscle.
Even so, while the institution itself carried little voice, the executives—including Lee Jun—held real standing in hunter society.
And because only people far removed from political power had been seated in those positions, ironically, all of that standing concentrated onto the Association as an institution itself.
Of course, how long that would last was anyone's guess.
But up until now, it had worked beautifully.
Up until now… that is.
“Haah…”
Still, where political power ended up didn't matter right now.
The problem was simply how to get to the Association.
This wasn't an issue that would cool down with time, and Lee Jun had no intention of holing up in his apartment for days on end, either.
“Might as well break straight through the front, then.”
Click—
Lee Jun switched off the mana-stone range, polished off the food, and rose from his seat to lay the first stone of his plan.
There's an old saying:
If you can't avoid it, enjoy it.
But what are you supposed to do when you can't even enjoy it?
“Phew…”
What do I do? What else—
You grit your teeth and swallow the mustard, that's what.
“Thank you all for attending this press conference, called on such short notice.”
Click—
Click— click—
Murmur murmur—
Click—
The sound of reporters murmuring and camera shutters chattering filled the room from every corner.
Lee Jun stood before the press, looking impeccably put together.
His outfit, of course, was on the casual side.
The trick was to withhold the image they wanted while still drawing every eye in the room.
Not too heavy, not too light.
It had only been three years, but he'd played this kind of power game until he was sick of it.
“Let me start with what I'm prepared to say. First: I have my own thoughts on everything. Second: I'll work hard. And finally: please cheer me on. The usual boilerplate, in other words. But that's not what any of you are here for, is it?”
“…….”
“So let's move quickly. Questions first.”
The press room fell instantly silent.
The people who showed up to these conferences were always the same crowd.
Faces he saw nearly every week—and when it came to his temperament, those reporters and handlers knew him better than he'd like.
The message was clear: rather than burning time on ceremonial platitudes, let's get to the point.
Of course, he'd thrown out the boilerplate anyway, because even platitudes have their place.
There's such a thing as formality and courtesy.
People in this line of work tend to care about those things a great deal.
Plenty of them turn sour the moment you disregard it.
Which was exactly why Lee Jun had always made a point of respecting it.
And now the man who'd always done so was running a conference with no formality or courtesy whatsoever.
That single deviation was enough to seize control of the room.
That's what a press conference fundamentally is, after all.
Them versus me.
Two sides split cleanly down the middle, locked in a contest of momentum.
Good.
And with that silence just now, it was obvious which side had seized it.
The reporters murmuring among themselves were, in truth, applying pressure too.
It wasn't as if they genuinely had that much to say to each other mid-conference.
All of it was strategy—and that strategy had just been cut off cold.
The atmosphere Lee Jun carried.
That one difference from his usual self had bent the entire room to his will.
“No questions?”
Lee Jun said it with an easy grin.
In every conference until now, he'd bent over backward to accommodate their side. Today, with no title left to protect, he intended to play it his own way.
They'd probably figured that out already.
“…I have a question.”
“Oh, we have one.”
A brave reporter raised a hand.
A familiar face, famous for throwing nothing but hard-hitting questions.
“Is this press conference for making an announcement—or for declaring that we should stop bothering you?”
Wow, this absolute lunatic.
There's actually someone who'll ask that to my face.
“Yes, honestly, it's the latter.”
“I see.”
“But it's also the former. You've all received the documents I circulated in advance, haven't you?”
Truthfully, if you split it by ratio, the declaration edged it out at roughly six to four—but it was also genuinely a venue for announcing his future business plans.
Unwilling to waste anyone's time, Lee Jun had sent a position statement and a brief business outline to every media outlet and guild expected to attend.
Extremely brief, mind you.
He'd thrown this conference together in a matter of hours; there was nothing to pad it out with anyway.
“I'll soon be starting a private business. Developing promising young hunters, and brokering contracts for the hunters under that development. It looks simple, but these are the most pressing problems in the industry right now.”
“You're saying you intend to stop the guilds from poaching talent?”
“You could put it that way.”
Another reporter cut in with blunt directness.
This one was from an outlet friendlier to the Association than to the guilds.
The intent behind the question was written all over it, yet Lee Jun answered with genuine care.
Their interests aligned, after all.
Watching discomfort creep across the guild representatives' faces was deeply satisfying.
“Of course, I understand. Naturally, hunters would rather join a guild than the Association. Who wants to be a government hunter—working harder than anyone and paid less for it?”
“Surely you can't call hunters underpaid?”
“Counting the hazard allowances, yes, government hunters are underpaid. That's a comparison made against hunters in other guilds, after all.”
And yet even so, there were those who wanted to join the Association.
Some driven by a sense of justice, some by the example of a role model.
Either way, applicants for government hunter positions existed in a steady trickle.
And it was precisely that stream of talent that the guilds siphoned off.
“Most guilds are founded by corporations. Corporations, naturally, have far deeper pockets than the Association, and they leverage every one of those advantages to insert themselves into contracts between the Association and hunters.”
“What kind of interference, exactly?”
“That's an internal matter, so I can't speak to specifics. But at the largest scale, it comes down to money. Narrowly, that means salaries; broadly, it means facility support, equipment, and the like.”
“But can you really call that poaching? A contract is, in the end, the hunter's own choice.”
The guild representative's objection here was only natural.
If this momentum weren't cut off, who knew what kind of unflattering coverage the guilds might wake up to.
But of course—the obvious questions had obvious answers waiting.
“Which is exactly why I'm building a management company. So that no pressure from either side ever reaches a hunter directly.”
“…….”
“Any terms offered by a guild or the Association will go to the management first. The management then relays those terms to the hunter. And beyond that, I intend to personally handle contracts with the hunters as well.”
“You're saying… you intend to become a guild yourself?”
“No. I won't be taking on gates directly. I'm considering a model where I'm paid a fee and deploy hunters to participate in gate clears.”
Right.
The mercenary-ization of hunters.
That was how the work would get done.
“Then in the end, you'd be able to prevent power from concentrating in the guilds through the clustering of hunters. Regular corporations would be able to hire hunters too, after all.”
“B-but surely you can't clear gates that way!”
“Gate clears aren't the problem. The goal is making sure that when an emergency erupts, people aren't forced to rely solely on the Association and the guilds.”
If the problem was the power balance between the Association and the guilds… then the answer was simply to distribute that power, wasn't it?
It would be enough to handle, roughly, the many problems waiting in the future.
If I—someone without even a scrap of mana—wanted to survive what's coming… then no matter what it took, the country had to run properly.
“Then, we'll conclude the press conference here.”
“Hold on just a moment! How do you plan to resolve the friction with the guilds?!”
“What about the Association?! Was there a separate agreement with the Association?!”
“What is your position on the recent controversy over the Vice-Chairman's inflated reputation?! Answer the question!”
“I will not answer questions beyond the allotted time. My thanks to everyone who participated today. With that, we're finished.”
With those words, Lee Jun slipped out of the conference room in a flash.
And exactly one hour later.
Articles came pouring out of every media outlet like a dam had burst.
Glowing pieces about Lee Jun, pieces friendly to the various guilds, and even pieces questioning Lee Jun's personal abilities.
In that moment, one thing was certain.
Lee Jun was now a superstar driving both his fans and his haters completely insane.
Thirty-seven hours after announcing his retirement.
The world was, more or less, turning exactly the way Lee Jun wanted it to.
And right at the height of the media frenzy—
“Well then, shall we get back to the business at hand, Chairman?”
“You… insane….”
On the top floor of the Association building, another delightful reunion was underway.