April Fools' Day (2)
To be honest, if I put my mind to it, I was good at lying.
I’d hated my father for breaking promises like they were meals he ate three times a day, but genetics were a truly terrifying thing. No one had ever taught me, and yet I’d somehow been born with the knack for speaking nonsense as calmly as if it were the truth.
In short, I had just unleashed my full high-grade bullshit artistry.
Instead of the usual roar of laughter, the factory had gone so quiet it felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over the whole place.
“You son of a bitch, Choi Yongki!”
The boss’s facial muscles twitched, and he shot to his feet. I’d just ruined a press machine worth tens of millions of won, so it made sense that he’d be furious enough to spit nails.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
I glanced at the numbers floating in the air.
One use to save Karki. Another to wreck the machine. The cost of using Judgment of the Superhuman twice had taken two million won out of my balance.
I’d used it twice on the way here by bus, too, which meant I’d spent four million won in a single day.
Money really is easy to spend.
“Where the hell are you looking!”
The boss grabbed me by the collar. It would’ve looked intimidating if he weren’t so small and skinny, hanging off me like that.
Still, even if he was acting tough, he clearly had some fear in him. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. I had just torn a steel press apart like it was paper. I’d basically announced to everyone that I was an Awakened with monstrous strength.
“Let go.”
I looked down at him quietly.
“A-and if I don’t? What’re you gonna do about it?”
He was trying to sound loud, but his legs were shaking badly enough to give him away.
I brushed both his hands off me with ease.
“Ugh!”
He looked insulted and refused to back down. His trembling hand pointed at the press as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“What are you going to do about this? Pay for it! Pay up!”
“And how are you going to compensate me for almost cutting off one of your worker’s hands?”
In my previous life, Karki had wanted to go straight back to Nepal after the accident. The mental shock of losing one hand had been that severe.
But the boss had dragged out the industrial accident compensation and treatment process and refused to let him leave.
For half a year.
The boss cleared his throat and looked away.
“Seriously. Things happen when people work. Don’t make such a fuss.”
“It wasn’t just one person.”
I looked around and continued.
“Anyone here ever been in danger because of that press, even once? Raise your hand.”
The workers exchanged glances and hesitated. One man slowly raised his right hand, and after that, one by one, the others began to do the same.
“Yeah, that happened to me before.”
“Same here.”
“We’ve been asking them to fix the sensor for ages. Tsk.”
Dozens of sharp eyes turned toward the boss.
Realizing he’d been cornered, he flushed red and barked out a scream.
“Choi Yongki, you punk! What, are you trying to stir everyone up? If that’s how you want to play it, then get the hell out! You’re fired!”
A place that could ignore labor law and fire employees with a single sentence.
That was Ilsan Hunter Industrial Complex.
I thought about it for a moment. My plan was to come back to the factory and get rich, not to become unemployed.
Then what?
Should I kneel in front of the boss right now and beg?
No.
Even if I left this place, there were plenty of other ways to make money.
So the thing I chose to do was simple.
I pulled my employee ID card from the inside pocket of my jumper and threw it onto the floor.
“That works out nicely. I’m quitting.”
As I turned away without a shred of regret, someone shouted behind me.
“You greedy boss bastard! I’m quitting too! You filthy son of a bitch!”
Karki raised his voice as if he were finally spewing out all the frustration he’d been holding in.
“Didn’t you just see it? I almost got fucked! And that’s the best thing you can say? Are you even human?”
A laugh slipped out of me.
The moment I said I was leaving, he quit right after me as if he’d been waiting for the cue. Even if he followed me out, it wasn’t like any job was waiting for him on the other side. That was exactly the sort of thing Karki would do—foolishly, stubbornly loyal only to me.
The boss clicked his tongue.
“Hah. You two are crazy in tandem. Fine. Good. Both of you, get out!”
Even if two screws came loose, the clock hands would still keep moving.
Without us, the factory wasn’t going to close. All they needed was to find two replacement parts.
But then someone else set down his safety helmet on the floor.
“Then I’ll quit too, I reckon.”
He was a man in his fifties, old enough that the lines on his face looked carved there by time itself. He was the team foreman at the factory, the most experienced man among us.
His son had also worked in a hunter equipment factory.
According to rumor, he had slipped while working at a height and lost his life.
I still remembered something the foreman had once muttered to me with a lonely expression.
“If my boy were still alive, he’d be about your age.”
After I ended up living in my grandmother’s house, I lost track of my father’s whereabouts. I didn’t want to know what he was doing or where he was living. It was easier to forget him the way people forget the dead.
Unlike my father, the foreman was a responsible man who fulfilled the duties assigned to him.
I had followed him the way a son would follow his father.
“Of all the kids working here, who’s as capable as Yongki? Are you going to cut him loose?”
The foreman’s voice boomed through the factory.
That was the spark that lit the fuse.
As if they had all made the decision together, the same thing began happening all over the floor. Someone took off a glove. Someone else set down the grinder they’d been holding.
“I’m out too.”
“Pay my severance properly, or I’m reporting this to the Labor Office.”
“Yongki’s right! Last month’s overtime pay still hasn’t come through.”
Before I turned twenty, I’d bounced from one part-time job to another. After that, I got hired here at the factory.
By work history, I was in my third year here.
I’d gone through the thick and thin of life with these ten or so people.
I didn’t have much memory of treating them especially well. I was a miser through and through. I’d never even bought them something as simple as a drink.
But I had worked my ass off.
Whenever heavy raw materials came in, I was the first one to jump in and move twice as much as anyone else. At every spare moment, I picked up trash and cleaned so the site would stay neat. I left the restroom cleaning to Karki, the youngest, but whenever he needed a break, I rolled up my sleeves and took over. During breaks, I didn’t lie down and waste time—I made instant coffee and handed it around to the workers.
“Boss.”
The foreman spoke for the others.
“If Yongki quits, we’re out too.”
That felt a little embarrassing.
At the same time, one corner of my chest grew hot.
I’d judged myself to be the worst kind of person.
Apparently, other people didn’t think I was the worst of the worst.
The flustered boss stammered.
“Wh-why are you all doing this?”
A subcontractor of a subcontractor. A third-tier factory was a slave to a giant corporation like Seosan.
If too many screws fell out at once, the clock would stop for good.
In the end, the boss tucked his tail between his legs and waved the white flag.
“Haha! It’s April Fools’ Day, isn’t it? I was kidding! Kidding! Yongki, you did great! We can just buy a new press, no problem! I’m heading out to meet a client!”
He fled the scene like a man running for his life.
The foreman watched his back for a long while before speaking.
“...Let’s get back to work. Yongki, you should change your clothes too.”
“Yes, sir.”
At his instruction, the workers went back to moving as if nothing had happened.
Then I met Karki’s eyes beside me.
The dark-skinned guy flashed his white teeth in a grin.
“Boss, you seem a little different today. Why’s that?”
“How so?”
“I dunno. You just look... full of life.”
He was right.
The factory was the cross I had to bear for my family, an obligation I could not avoid, and a square of atonement where I paid my dues.
Whenever I arrived here, the smile on my face would vanish without me even noticing.
“Your hand.”
I held out my right hand.
Karki tilted his head, then took it.
With his rough but warm hand clasped in mine, a strange sense of relief spread through me.
I had just set right a part of my life that had nearly gone badly off course.
“Don’t get hurt. You’ve got to work with me for a long, long time.”
Karki snapped to attention and saluted.
“Yes, boss! Thank you for saving my life! Salute!”
The factory lights settled on Karki’s raised hand.
Meanwhile, Dio Guild arrived at the scene a little too late.
“After that, Dionysus was dispatched. They attempted to subdue Big Lava, but...”
“Wait.”
Lee Yu-seol, the leader of the combat team, swept back her short hair and fixed him with a cold look. The moment the briefing was interrupted, the reporting agent swallowed hard.
“Where is Big Lava’s body? I heard they failed to subdue it, but I also heard it was killed.”
“Ah... yes, about that.”
The agent’s eyes drifted somewhere else.
Seo Gwang-pal was being treated by the medical team over there. A shard of helmet had lodged itself in his scalp, and they had to pull it out with tweezers.
“Aagh! It hurts, so do it gently!”
Seo Gwang-pal snapped at the medics.
“According to Hunter Seo, some attacker showed up and killed Big Lava.”
Lee Yu-seol’s brows drew together.
“An attacker? What guild was he from?”
She was quickly sorting through the hierarchy in her head.
Like corporations, guilds were profit-driven organizations. In a capitalist society, the bigger the body, the larger the share of the pie. Dio was one of the top three guilds in South Korea. If it was a force weaker than them, it should have been a simple problem to deal with.
“We haven’t identified him yet.”
“What?”
“S-sorry.”
Lee Yu-seol had the distinct feeling the conversation was going sideways. In the discomfort of sensing that something important was slipping through her fingers, she jerked her chin toward Seo Gwang-pal.
“Bring that bastard here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The rookie agent ran over to Seo Gwang-pal and whispered in his ear. Seo glanced toward Lee Yu-seol and let out a long sigh.
To a C-rank hunter like him, an A-rank like Lee Yu-seol was the same as an infuriating boss at work.
He trudged toward her at the pace of a cow being led to slaughter.
“Team Leader, as you can see, I’m a patient right now. If you’ve got something to say, could we do this at the hospital la—”
Lee Yu-seol drove a fist straight into his stomach without the slightest mercy.
It was a hit powerful enough to lift the body of a man over a hundred kilos off the ground.
“Ghk...!”
Seo Gwang-pal clutched his abdomen, crawled across the floor, and spat curses.
“You fucking bitch! Just because you’re a team leader, you think you can beat up guild members? I’m suing yo—”
Lee Yu-seol crouched down, grabbed his chin with one hand, and lifted his face as she spoke in a flat voice.
“Listen here, you bastard.”
She rubbed the smooth top of his head with her palm.
“A lawsuit? You seem to be under some misunderstanding. If it hadn’t been for the representative, you’d already be dead by my hand.”
The voice was so cold it sent shivers down his spine. Seo Gwang-pal broke into a cold sweat and obediently shut his mouth.
If he got kicked out of this place, his hunter career would be over. There wouldn’t be any guild willing to take in a thug like him.
He switched tactics instantly and dropped to his knees.
“...Please forgive me, Team Leader. I lost my mind for a second. Did you need something from me?”
“Report the scene.”
Seo Gwang-pal quickly explained what had just happened.
Of course, he didn’t tell it exactly as it had happened. He added a little exaggeration, a little distortion, and a little fabrication.
“So right at the crucial moment, the prey got snatched away. And then that son of a bitch attacked me. Of course, I’d let my guard down, so he only got me once, but as you can see, I’m fine.”
Lee Yu-seol wasn’t really looking at Seo Gwang-pal.
She didn’t trust his words enough to take them at face value anyway.
“Is that your helmet?”
“Yes. Hah. It’s totally wrecked. Do you know how much that thing cost?”
Lee Yu-seol stared at the helmet shattered into pieces.
Seosan manufactured hunter equipment. Backed by enormous capital, the company released cutting-edge products every year. For Dio Guild, Seosan had specially supplied this year’s biggest hit helmet. Lee Yu-seol didn’t use it because she found it oppressive, but in terms of durability alone, it was the best work of the year.
He did that with one hit?
She bit her lip.
Could she have done it herself?
If she concentrated all her mana and brought it down, maybe, but not while the other side was still wearing the helmet. She wasn’t confident she could smash it to that extent.
Maybe CEO Go could.
She thought of the man who led Dio Guild, an S-rank hunter.
If he could turn Big Lava into minced meat to begin with, then he definitely wasn’t an ordinary bastard.
Lee Yu-seol looked at the agent and asked,
“What about the CCTV?”
“It broke from interference coming out of the Gate. We do have dashcam footage, but the quality is awful—maybe the bus overturned and got damaged.”
“Secure it anyway.”
“Yes, Team Leader.”
She turned back to Seo Gwang-pal.
“Which guild was it?”
They hadn’t secured the magic stone, the deployed hunters had been injured, and even the equipment had been damaged. Not a single thing had gone their way.
At times like this, the best backup plan was blame-shifting.
If someone had caused damage to the guild, that person had to be held accountable.
“You saw his face, didn’t you?”
“...Well, he was wearing a mask.”
“A mask?”
“Yes. He had his face covered.”
Seo Gwang-pal stumbled over his words.
“He didn’t even look like a hunter. And his clothes were all dirty and ragged.”
As his voice grew smaller, Lee Yu-seol sank into thought.
He wasn’t a hunter?
There were people like that sometimes—Awakened individuals who didn’t register officially and worked freely.
But most of them were insignificant. Either they’d lost their hunter license after causing trouble, or they were so low-rank that registration wasn’t even worth the hassle.
People whispered about hidden masters living in seclusion, but that sounded like an urban legend.
I’ve only ever seen one like that in real life, and even that was just once.
Seo Gwang-pal put on an exaggerated pained expression.
“Uh, Team Leader. Can I go to the hospital now?”
“Pathetic bastard. Get lost.”
Seo Gwang-pal let his shoulders sag and turned away.
After a long, heavy silence, he spoke again.
“Um... Team Leader. I don’t know if this helps, but that guy called himself a hero.”
“What?”
“Ah, no. Never mind. Please excuse me.”
Lee Yu-seol had heard him clearly.
He was a bastard who liked to inflate his own achievements, but this time it sounded like he might actually be telling the truth.
A hero?
Was he trying to play the part of some kind of vigilante?
For reasons ranging from legal red tape to complex procedures, hunters rarely fought one another openly. Among the people on this land, excluding monsters, the only ones likely to do something like that were villains.
Lee Yu-seol folded her arms and thought it over.
Hmm.
Was this an impulsive crime committed by some lunatic drowning in anti-hunter ideology?
Or was this a calculated declaration of war?
“Hey. Octopus head.”
Lee Yu-seol called Seo Gwang-pal back.
“You’re responsible for finding him.”
“...Understood. Should I find him and beat him to a pulp?”
Seo Gwang-pal waited for her answer with burning eyes.
One of the things people misunderstood about Dio Guild was this: they said the guild hired people without caring about personality, but in reality, CEO Go believed in ability above all else.
The curiosity curled up inside Lee Yu-seol began to stir.
“Recruit him into Dio Guild.”
“What?”
A subordinate had just been beaten up, and instead of talking about revenge, she wanted to hire the guy?
Seo Gwang-pal was furious enough to go bald from it, but whenever he stood in front of Lee Yu-seol, his rage automatically got throttled down.
“And if he refuses?”
Lee Yu-seol lifted the corners of her red lips and smiled a little too coldly.
“Then kill him.”