My Prime Is Right Now

"Ahem. It's a fine idea, I'll give you that. Doing it alone just makes me a little nervous. And like you said yourself a minute ago—I've got a family, don't I?"

Dohyeon's cursing seemed to have embarrassed the team leader too. He cleared his throat and pressed on.

"From the sound of it, you don't have any particular plan after you quit either. Better ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if we do it together, no?"

"Titles and all, we'd both go in as co-presidents."

"...Byeongsu-hyung. Are you in your right mind?"

The longer Team Leader Byeongsu talked, the more shameless he became, and Dohyeon was too dumbfounded to get his mouth shut.

"Hey! You've been an enchanter for five years! Five! You're right at the point where all that experience should be driving your price up, and you're going to throw the whole career away to open a fried chicken shop?!"

"If I did anything, I'd change jobs! Why would I go learn some other trade!"

"Frying chicken is a trade too, you punk! And don't act like you weren't tempted by the plan I put together!"

"That was your plan! I was never the one who was going to do it!"

"You little bastard...!!"

Somewhere in the middle of it, both of them had shot up off the sofa and were glaring at each other like they meant to take a bite.

"Haa— I'll be thirty before I know it, and I'm out here grappling like a kid. Pathetic. Just pathetic."

"I'm asking you for a favor, Dohyeon. Your sister-in-law is on a warpath. She wants me to shut up and change jobs like a sensible person."

Dohyeon let out a long sigh and gave a step of ground, and Byeongsu—who had been waiting for exactly that—dropped into a pleading register and started working on him.

"The same man who swore he'd be perfectly happy living on a paycheck for the rest of his life is suddenly hell-bent on starting a business. Hell-bent..."

"I'm about to be forty! I've earned the right to hear somebody call me boss at least once! You can do this with me!"

"Maybe instead of pulling this on me, you ought to be on your knees in front of your wife?"

"...I already told her you were the one taking the course first."

"What?"

Like a man letting out a secret he had buried, Byeongsu went on in a voice that crawled.

"Look. The wife asked what you were doing after you quit, so I talked around it. Said you were resigning ahead of me, taking the training, getting a business ready. And then she says I should watch how you do in the course—see how good you actually get, see whether a government program is any use at all—and only then start a business."

"...Why does she just assume I'm going into business with you?"

Whether he had missed Dohyeon's grumbling or simply didn't care, Byeongsu was busy saying what he wanted to say.

"Heh heh heh. See, the wife thinks you're just some ordinary enchanter who clocks in at an office."

"I am, though."

"She doesn't know you're C-Rank and still went toe-to-toe with the B-Ranks on nothing but your hands. Hands like yours—equipment crafting wouldn't take you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any time, would it?"

"Wow. You are a scary hyung."

The sheer irresponsibility of it pulled the exclamation out of Dohyeon on its own.

"Just think it over. My connections, your hands—fleecing rookie hunters wouldn't even count as work."

By then Byeongsu had gotten up and come over, and he gave Dohyeon's shoulder a couple of light pats.

"In any industry, a newbie is a walking wallet."

"Wow..."

Dohyeon decided it was the single trashiest thing he had heard in his entire working life.

Home from work, Dohyeon didn't even change. He dropped onto the sofa as if he meant to sink straight through it.

"Ahh. My head hurts."

After the fight with Team Leader Byeongsu, the rest of the afternoon's work had slid past without him noticing. Every nerve was pulled toward whatever came after he quit.

"Right when all this experience should be pushing my price up..."

By any ordinary measure, Byeongsu hadn't been wrong. Five years at a major corporation. The youngest assistant manager in the company. With a record like that, nobody who resigned would be frying chicken. They'd be shopping for an experienced hire at another big firm, or aiming at manager—maybe senior manager—at a mid-sized company.

"...Status window."

"My prime is right now..."

He'd been lucky enough to join Cheongeun Workshop back when it was still a mid-sized company, and he had contributed more than a little as it grew into a major corporation. They had even treated him, in their way, like one of the old hands who had helped build the place from nothing—but for a C-Rank enchanter, assistant manager was the end of the line.

"The older I get, the less a big-company name will be worth. Maybe living as someone people call boss wouldn't be so bad."

C-Rank enchanters who left their companies young were hardly rare. Dohyeon could already see, faintly, what his future looked like if he stayed an enchanter.

"Should I actually try it? Byeongsu-hyung said there'd be startup grants, too."

He powered on the laptop sprawled beside him on the sofa and opened a browser.

"Hm. They looked like they were putting real care into the launch. There ought to be some noise about it by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now."

His fingers moved through a familiar search, and a site came up in front of him.

The name was Hunternet, but it was a community where anyone at all—any age, any job—came to talk about hunter work. Dohyeon stopped by whenever he was bored.

"Hm... if I search government-funded training, hunter equipment, will anything even come up?"

He hit enter.

"What's that one? Why does it have that many comments?"

Of everything on the page, the post sitting at the very top pulled his eye the hardest.

"Man... the Twin Blades Incident was already five years ago."

The government-funded course that had started as a six-month program and run four cohorts over two years—the Next-Generation Close-Combat Specialist Training Project: Practical Twin Blade Expert Course—had been controversial from the day it opened.

"After a fiasco like that, you'd think the Association would have changed, if they had any sense at all."

The craze had begun when a hunter in China reached S-Rank with twin blades. Chasing that trend, the Association had slapped a government-funded course together in a hurry, and people still joked that the substandard hunter training had set the industry back three years.

"I should look at another post."

"There's a training stipend? And people aren't as negative as I thought."

If anything, they seemed more fired up about cursing something from five years back.

"A six-month course—even if it goes nowhere, I could still put it to some use when I change jobs."

Looking over the subjects, he figured it might even add a little something to his record.

"Should I just try it?"

Dohyeon backed out of Hunternet, which was loud even to look at, and opened the Hunter Association's official site.

"If the road up as an enchanter is blocked, I should at least try stepping sideways."

He had landed on the application page while they were still recruiting hard, and he stared blankly at the apply button as the thoughts piled up. Six months of training. Set against the five years he had already built, it was short.

"If it all goes under, I'll just shake Byeongsu-hyung down for the chicken shop interior costs."

He clicked.

"...I actually did it."

He stared at the completion screen a moment longer, then picked up his phone.

Three seconds after the message went out, his phone chimed.

"...He's the one who told me to."