B-Rank Villain

“Come in.”
“Yes, ma’am.”

The next day. I stepped into the Team 5 leader’s office at the Strategic Analysis Office.

Even with the Wake-Up Call Villains all caught and hauled in, and things having lapsed into a brief lull. Team 5 leader Kwon Hyeri was still buried in work. She rubbed at the dark circles under her eyes and threw out a question.

“It’s been three days since you joined, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You’re the first person I’ve seen bet their entire balance inside a day, and the first to turn one million won into ten million in three days, too.”

— Flick.

A single sheet of paper dropped at my feet. For a while I’d taken it for a document she’d let slip by mistake. Only recently had I realized that this was simply how Kwon Hyeri handed things over. I bent at the waist and picked the paper up.

An account balance with ten million won stamped proudly across it. A single bet today had done that. Without Future Observation, of course, it would have been impossible.

“I thought it was luck… I’ll correct that. It wasn’t luck, it was skill. I’ll correct that.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“There’s no need to be so stiff about it. With ability like this, you’ll be skipping straight past a shithole like Team 5 soon enough.”

“…Skipping past it?”

For a moment I couldn’t work out what skipping past Team 5 was supposed to mean. Was there some higher department above the Strategic Analysis Office?

“Do you not know much about the Strategic Analysis Office? We definitely sent a guide by email once you passed the interview… Ah.”

Kwon Hyeri broke off mid-sentence and stole a glance at my face. Those hollow eyes sweeping over me were somehow unnerving. She pulled a thick binder of materials out of her desk drawer. The cover read ‘Strategic Analysis Office New-Hire Training Materials’.

“You do know the Strategic Analysis Office has Teams 1 through 5?”
“Yes, I’m aware.”

The Strategic Analysis Office has five teams in all. Team 4, where Yang Hayun works, and Team 5, where I do, sit right at the very front; further in come Team 3, then Team 2, then Team 1. Team 1 was even partitioned off so that you couldn’t see inside at all, and I didn’t so much as know who was in there.

“Anyone who stands out on Team 4 or Team 5 gets promoted. Staff, Senior Staff, Assistant Manager, Manager, Deputy General Manager¹… and once you’ve made Deputy General Manager, you can sit an ‘Advancement Review’.”
“And what happens if you take the Advancement Review?”
“The details are confidential, so I can’t tell you, but pass the review and you can advance to the team above as a ‘Staff’ member.”

“…!”

At Kwon Hyeri’s words, I swallowed hard.

Make Deputy General Manager, and then become a staff member on the next team up…

No ordinary company ran a rank system like this. Walls thrown up between the teams like some caste society, with advancement the only way to climb… exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a Villain organization to come up with.

“Then if you fail the advancement…”
“…You’ll find that out later. That’s as far as the questions go — off you go, now. The lunch break is nearly over.”

Instead of answering, Kwon Hyeri waved a hand to shoo me out. I was curious about that, and about why the Advancement Review came at the Deputy General Manager stage rather than at Manager, but I set the curiosity aside and stepped out of the team leader’s office.

Thanks to what I’d learned about the Advancement Review, I could set myself a new goal going forward.

To get to Belia… advancement has to be the target for now.

Belia, a Director of Beyond Villain, had said it herself. If I wanted to hear the secret tangled up in my father’s death, I was to join the organization and produce results. Exactly what those results were supposed to be, she never told me. But a promotion is unmistakably a result.

When I got back to my desk, Yang Hayun sent a worried look my way.

“T-Taeseung! Are you all right? Don’t tell me you went all-in and got wiped out or something…?”
“What exactly do you take me for?”
“Someone who almost got himself fired one day into the job…?”
“…”

She was right, so I had nothing to say.

I shouldn’t have shown her my betting history.

Ever since Yang Hayun found out I’d gone all-in on Flameman on my first day, she’d been sending me worried looks nonstop. From where she was standing, I must have looked like a complete lunatic. If Flameman had lost, my life would have ended right there.

A person who could stake his life on going all-in on an underdog bet. …If someone like that were around me, I imagine I’d find it frightening too.

“I’m joking. Isn’t your face a bit too serious, Taeseung?”
“Ah… it’s nothing.”
“To me you’re practically a lifesaver, Taeseung. Thanks to you it looks like I’ll hit my target amount soon too!”

Yang Hayun happily showed me her tablet.

About 330,000 won left to the target amount. Counting what she’d lost yesterday and the day before, she’d made it all back and another seventeen percent on top. She had my advice to thank for that.

“Taking advice from a man who nearly got wiped out.”
“Succeed and it’s a heart of a beast, fail and it’s getting wiped out — isn’t that how it goes? Besides, I’ve put money in on your advice plenty of times and it’s worked out.”
“Don’t go blaming me if it goes wrong, all right?”
“I’m not going to blame you for being wrong! Investing is your own choice to begin with.”
“That’s… true enough.”

Hearing a sound argument out of Yang Hayun of all people felt strange.

“Why the face?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Anyway, thank you. I’ve made pretty good money thanks to you, so… if you don’t mind, dinner’s on me tonight!”
“Then I won’t say no.”

She broke into a bashful grin. The time I spent with her wasn’t bad for me either, in truth. Different teams or not, having someone from the same intake was propping us both up.

And then, right in the middle of that warm little conversation.

The TV screens, each tuned to a different channel, all cut to the same picture at once. A joint breaking-news bulletin across every channel, the kind they don’t run for your average Villain activity. The slack mood of the Strategic Analysis Office pulled taut, and every eye turned to the TV.

“…!!!”

The TV put up two pictures at once. On one side, my ID photo; on the other, footage from the day I learned Cha Huigyeong’s true face. Shot on some passing citizen’s phone, perhaps; the footage shook badly. Even so, it caught my face and Belia’s exactly.

This time Cha Huigyeong appeared on the screen, in a hospital gown, in her hospital room. Pale-faced, she gave her interview wearing that loathsome expression.

Fucking hell…

— Grrk!

My teeth ground together of their own accord at the brazen performance.

That interview told me exactly what the Association was after. Putting my father’s name, the one they’d been so desperate to bury, out on the news… a scheme to rehabilitate her image and squeeze me at the same time.

Designated a B-rank Villain, and a bounty on top… what a shitshow.

Hand a B-rank Villain over to the Hero Association, and you collect ten million won as a bounty. And among Villains there are ‘vigilantes’ who make their living turning fellow Villains over to the Association for that money… No doubt the intent behind this news was to stir them up and get me caught one way or another.

“That’s… the Team 5 rookie, isn’t it?”
“It is. Wow, he’s on a breaking news bulletin?”
“Landing one on the Hero Association and walking away from it…”
“Impressive in all sorts of ways. Really impressive.”

The stares from every side stung. The ID photo dated from back when I was working part-time jobs and job-hunting, so it looked quite different from me now, but nobody was going to have trouble recognizing me. I covered my face, sat down at my desk and chewed at my lip.

“T-Taeseung…”
“…”
“That person on there, that’s you, isn’t it?”

Beside me, I could feel Yang Hayun staring. That bewildered look of hers, pricking at me like thorns. I hid the tangle of feelings and forced myself to nod.

“…It is.”

The tremor in her eyes grew worse. Maybe this was where even Yang Hayun turned her back on me. With a bounty on my head, being near me put her in serious danger too…

“No way!! That’s the first wanted man I’ve seen in my whole life!”
“What?”
“It’s incredible…! To think you actually attacked Heroes affiliated with the Hero Association! I didn’t see you that way at all — you’re seriously bold. But how did you do it? What kind of Gift do you have?”
“…No.”

Yang Hayun, asking about my Gift as though nothing at all had happened. Her reaction left me the one at a loss.

“Aren’t you even scared? They’re saying the bounty on my head is fifty million won.”
“Huh? Why would that be scary? Isn’t it amazing?”
“Amazing…?”
“Yes! Everyone in the Strategic Analysis Office came out of an elite university, and they’ve only been hired by a Villain organization — they aren’t real Villains. But you…”

— Fwip!

“You’re a B-rank Villain certified by the Hero Association, so you’re a real Villain! That’s so cool!”

She gave me a thumbs-up and grinned.

…Her logic was such a mess I wouldn’t have known where to start picking at it, and yet, seeing that guileless smile, a snort of laughter escaped me before anything else. My head, boiling only a moment ago, cooled a little thanks to her.

Right. Nothing much has changed.

B-rank Villain or not, what I have to do doesn’t change. Work in the Strategic Analysis Office, produce results one way or another, and get the secret tangled up in my father’s death out of Belia. That was the task left to me now.

“Thanks. I’ve calmed down a bit, thanks to you.”
“Huh? But I didn’t do anything…”
“That’s what helping is. Let’s get back to work.”
“Huh? Yes… of course!”

The TVs went back to their original channels as though nothing had happened, and I got myself ready to work again.