Clocking Out
When the workday finally ended, every part-timer, myself included, gathered in front of Team Leader Ji Jinhyeok.
"Hmm. Looks like about three people ran off today… and all of them men. Thanks to you, Hahwi, every last one of the women stuck it out?"
While Team Leader Ji muttered to himself, counting heads, the supervisors who'd gone to check the part-timers' haul returned.
"We've finished tallying the quantities."
"Ah. Good work."
Ji Jinhyeok took a sheet of paper from the supervisor. It looked like the form used to log how much each person had carried.
"Hmm."
He skimmed it quickly, then paused for a beat on one particular line. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked at Isabella.
"Isabella."
"Y-yes…!"
She answered with a face full of tension. Sweat soaked her skin until she was practically dripping.
"Honestly, I figured you hadn't carried much… but looking at the Magic Stone numbers, you hauled almost the same amount as everyone else. Because you worked straight through the break, maybe? Either way, you did well."
"Yes… But actually, there's something strange…"
"Something strange?"
"Ah—never mind!"
Isabella looked away from his gaze and pressed her lips shut. Her Magic Stone haul had gone up. She'd started to say something about it, then thought better of it. So she'd noticed after all. Well, unless someone was hopelessly dense, it would've been hard to miss.
Still, she'd made the right call. I'd been on edge, half-afraid she might confess the truth. What good would talking about it do? Keeping quiet didn't hurt anyone. Of course, if someone had come up short, the honest thing would've been to speak up and assume it was their own slip. But judging by Ji Jinhyeok's reaction, no one was short, so there was no need to spill it.
Glad all that effort didn't go to waste after I went out of my way to help.
This way, Isabella wouldn't get fired. She would never know I'd been the one who helped her, of course… but that didn't matter. I hadn't done it for thanks. It had only been a mix of sympathy and the fact that we shared a class.
If it came out that I helped her, that could get messy in its own way.
I didn't want to humiliate her. Isabella had a lot of pride. Finding out someone had helped her out of pity might only leave her feeling degraded.
Ji Jinhyeok gave her a curious look, then shifted his eyes to me.
"Hahwi, you showed up late and still carried an overwhelming amount compared to everyone else. Almost double, isn't it?"
If I hadn't offloaded some onto Isabella's pile, it might have been closer to triple. Not that it mattered—the pay was the same either way.
"At this rate, we ought to be doubling your hourly wage. Haha."
He said it like a joke, and I didn't take it seriously. No one was going to double my pay just because I'd done twice the work. Today had been a mistake. Even knowing the pay was flat, I'd pushed myself too hard on the first day.
From next time on, I'll take it easier.
Exactly one person's share. No—one and a half, counting Isabella's portion. That was the plan. Whether she'd even keep showing up was another question.
The way she tried to run earlier, she might quit on her own.
Maybe her spirit had already broken. She'd taken constant abuse from the other part-timers for being bad at the job. She was on the same weekend shift as me. Next weekend, I'd find out what she decided.
We moved over to Zone A to collect our day's pay. The hourly wage was 25,000 won. Everyone else had worked ten hours and taken home 250,000; I'd worked six and received 150,000.
Starting next week I'll work the full ten hours too… so that's about 500,000 won a week.
Both Saturday and Sunday, every weekend—that came out to two million won a month.
Eight days of work a month for two million? That's an absolute honey of a gig. Aside from how hard it is on the body.
A real golden-honey pot of a job. Without any special skills, you weren't going to make this kind of money anywhere else. And with my personality, I couldn't exactly go parade my face as a model or something. For those reasons, I decided to stick with this part-time job for a while.
Still, I'll keep the game Ssalmeok going alongside it.
Two million was a lot of money, but not enough to abandon game gold-farming. Starting with rent, then phone bills, food, Academy facility fees, and later tuition, clothes, leisure—there was no end to the places money needed to go. Quitting Ssalmeok was still premature.
I'll keep it up until I can actually enter real dungeons. By then I'll be making enough that I won't need a part-time job at all.
I sorted the thoughts in my head and headed with the Zone C part-timers toward where the pickup vans were parked. We were still on the way when a few of them cleared their throats and called out to Isabella, looking awkward. They were the ones who'd snapped at her during the work.
"I'm sorry about earlier. I thought you were slacking on purpose, and I got so irritated I went way too hard on you. Anyone who gives up their break to keep working definitely isn't slacking…"
"Same here. I honestly just thought you were a slow worker."
"I'll apologize too… When I'm exhausted, I pick fights over the smallest things…"
Apologies all around. Honestly, I understood how they felt. When your body is worn down, you get short-tempered. Spotting someone who looks like they're half-assing it in that state is enough to make anyone scowl. Of course, Isabella hadn't been half-assing anything. She'd been trying her hardest—even giving up her break. Effort mattered. But people didn't see effort. Most of them cared about results. Effort was invisible; results were right there for anyone to measure.
Isabella seemed to know that too. Flustered, she apologized right back.
"N-no, I'm the one who should be sorry… If I hadn't been so clumsy, none of you would've gotten so frustrated…"
Watching her, I had to admit it. First impressions aside, Isabella's character was actually pretty decent. The only problem was that she hated me.
Isabella slumped into her seat in the pickup van and stared blankly ahead, then, without thinking, glanced at the seat beside her. Kang Hahwi was pressed as far toward the window as he could go, dozing off with his head bobbing.
Is he doing that because he doesn't want to sit next to a girl like me?
She was sure of it. When their legs had brushed by accident earlier, he'd flinched and frowned.
……
On any other day, that reaction would have rubbed her the wrong way. Right now, though, she couldn't bring herself to mind.
…He really crushed it today.
She couldn't deny it anymore. Kang Hahwi wasn't just a pretty face—he was gifted in all sorts of ways, a true all-rounder. His personality might be rotten, but his ability was the real deal. In a way, that kind of arrogance almost made sense.
And looking at him doing this kind of work, he doesn't seem like he grew up spoiled either.
A guy who didn't shy away from hard, dirty labor. More diligent and hardworking than anyone else on the site.
If you just take the personality out of it, he's basically perfect. I get why the Academy girls lose their minds over him.
She turned fully toward him and watched him for a long moment. All of a sudden she felt ashamed of having tried to run from the job. Not because Hahwi had caught her—because no matter how hard it had been, she'd almost thrown away work that a man with no Mana could handle using pure physical strength alone. That version of herself felt pathetic and small.
Was I really this lacking in grit…?
Looking at Kang Hahwi, she felt the gap between them widen. She'd sworn she would beat him no matter what, but now she wasn't so sure it was even possible.
Why did someone like him even enroll at the 17th Academy? No matter how I look at it, we're not on the same level.
She could feel an invisible wall. He seemed to stand somewhere she simply wasn't. But she didn't lose confidence or fall into despair. If anything, it spurred her on. She told herself not to give up so easily—to keep grinding, keep improving, until the day she could beat Kang Hahwi. That was the moment her goal locked onto him.
Ten minutes later, Isabella was still watching the sleeping Kang Hahwi.
…Come to think of it, he seems to treat Seo I-eung pretty well.
The thought rose out of nowhere. Was Kang Hahwi the type who was only rude to strangers, but quietly kind to the people close to him? Once the question formed, she found herself growing a little more curious about him.
As for why he keeps women at a distance… it's probably because they don't measure up to his standards…
Even among women, maybe he hated the ones who approached him as romantic interests, but was fine with the ones who just wanted to be friends.
That could be it—but he wouldn't make friends with just anyone either. He doesn't seem like the type who'd hang around someone miles below him.
And if, someday, she actually won against him…
What if he asked me to be friends first? Once you're close to him, that rotten personality seems to mellow out a bit, so I should figure out how I'd respond in advance…
Isabella snapped back to herself and shook her head.
…No. Enough of the daydreams. Cross that bridge when I get there.
Back when she'd been overflowing with confidence that she would become the greatest Hunter, back when she'd been too young and clueless to know her place—those days were over. Now that she was an adult, Isabella was slowly learning what reality looked like.
Cut the useless thoughts and just focus on steady effort.
She had already accepted that she wasn't some exceptional person—just an ordinary one. But she refused to collapse under that. She would pile effort on top of effort until she became exceptional too.
I'll take the Academy seriously, and I won't quit this brutal part-time job either. Until I can carry as much as everyone else… no, until I can carry more.
In the middle of that quiet vow, a detail she'd almost forgotten came back to her.
But who put those Magic Stones on my stack?
She still had no idea. Who had done it, and why? A simple mistake? Impossible. If it had been, they would have spoken up at the tally. No one could fail to know how much they'd moved themselves.
I'm really curious. Who helped me?
She was grateful—to a person whose name and face she didn't even know. That someone that kind existed at all. An angel, maybe? For a moment, Isabella felt like the world might still be worth living in. She was thanking that mysterious angel in her heart when another thought hit her.
Wait. What if it was Kang Hahwi…?
She looked at him again. Truthfully, he was the most likely candidate. They already knew each other. And even setting that aside, his haul had been overwhelming. Handing a little off to someone else wouldn't have shown at all.
Come on. No way. I've been so blatantly cold to him this whole time—what would he even like about me enough to help?
No. It couldn't be. Kang Hahwi was capable, sure, but he wasn't a good person. He didn't seem like the type to feel pity either. And even if he were, there was zero reason to help someone who hated him—not unless he were impossibly saintly.
Still, just in case…
…Maybe I'll watch him carefully next week.
Isabella decided that at the next shift, she would keep a close eye on Kang Hahwi's every move. She wanted to unmask the mysterious angel—and say thank you to their face.