Assistant Manager Im Taeseung

“What the… is that over a thousand?”
“Is that even possible?”
“I’ve sat through more than ten month-end evaluations and this… this is a number I’ve never seen before.”

— Murmur-murmur—

The voices of the crowd packed into the auditorium jabbed at my ears. 1,352.67%. An absurd figure. But I knew it was true. Of course I did; it matched the amount sitting in my staff account exactly.

I’d started with one million won and turned it into more than thirteen million. Even for Hero Gamble, with its high odds, the number made no sense. Not unless you staked close to everything you had every round and won every single bet.

“A week?”
“Bullshit. Seriously?”
“Did he go all in or something…?”
“Guy’s a lunatic.”
“Huh…”

— Murmur-murmur-murmur-murmur—

Kwon Hyeri’s remark set the auditorium buzzing louder still. Wariness, jealousy, envy, shock, all of it stirred into the stares turned my way. They were hard to take, but I kept my face blank and acted the part. As long as I didn’t get fired, this would be the view every month anyway.

“If that’s skill, he’ll be climbing up to another team in no time.”
“Huh? Wait, Im Taeseung — isn’t that the guy who was on the news the other day…”

“…”

Then the interest ricocheted off in another direction. Somebody must have remembered my name and my face from the news a while back. What reached my ears after that was a good deal less welcome. Mercifully, Kwon Hyeri tapped the microphone and quieted the room.

“…”

At the word that it was over, people drained out of the auditorium like an ebbing tide. Month-end evaluation or not, time flows the same. Before long the afternoon’s Villains would be swarming out in force. Even on their way out, though, they kept cutting sidelong looks at me.

Not exactly friendly looks…

Beyond Villain had built itself a suffocating system of competition. Inside that system, a capable new hire is ultimately a rival out to take the food off your own plate. So of course my being here galls them.

“Wow, Taeseung, no way! Wait, should I be calling you Assistant Manager Im now?”
“Assistant Manager, my foot…”

Yang Hayun, though, was no different from usual. Not jealous, not cowed, glad for me as though the good news were her own. All over again, I found myself respecting her mental strength.

“Are you okay with it? Me making Assistant Manager — isn’t it awkward, or…”
“It stings, sure. You and I are the same intake, after all… But I’m glad you’re doing well. Thanks to you, I didn’t get cut at the month-end evaluation either!”
“…Thanks for seeing it that way.”
“Hehe! Come on, let’s get to work.”

She smiled shyly and headed for the door. Maybe landing in the same intake as her had been an enormous piece of luck for me.

Just as I was thinking that, on the very point of walking out myself.

“Assistant Manager Im.”

“…?”

“Assistant Manager Im Taeseung. Do you have a moment? Come to the team leader’s office.”

Kwon Hyeri called me over just as Yang Hayun and I were stepping through the auditorium door. The title ‘Assistant Manager Im Taeseung’ sat so strangely that for a second I thought I’d misheard. Yang Hayun took the hint, gave me a small nod and left, and I followed the team leader into her office.

“Congratulations. A two-rank promotion, no less. In all my time as team leader, that’s the most dramatic promotion I’ve seen.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s a title you pinned on in a week, but an Assistant Manager is an Assistant Manager — you’re free of the odd jobs from now on.”

— Flick.

I picked up the document that had dropped to the floor. A sheet of some kind, carrying brief information on each of the Villains affiliated with Beyond Villain.

“Do you know how a Villain organization recruits its Villains?”
“…Recruits?”
“Yes, recruits. Villains don’t exactly spring up out of the ground, do they? Well… you may not know, so let me explain.”

Kwon Hyeri held up two fingers, making no secret of what a bother she found it.

“First: Villainization by a Villain.”
“Villainization… is it.”
“There are Gift awakened who can turn other people into Villains. Superior and Villain Corporation are the prime examples.”

I nodded along. Superior’s Villains were mostly beastmen, animal and human combined; Villain Corporation’s were mostly built out of machinery. If a Gift could turn other people into Villains, both were more than possible.

“The second is voluntary recruitment.”
“Voluntary recruitment… you mean gathering people who come of their own accord?”
“That’s right. Our organization uses both methods, but… normally we use the second.”

I looked down at the sheet again. It was crowded with Villains of every kind, no two of them alike in appearance or in Gift. Villainization could never have gathered a range of Gifts this wide.

“So each has its pros and cons.”
“That’s right. With Villainization, recruiting is easy and you can keep things consistent, but… the ceiling is low.”
“And voluntary recruitment is the opposite — hard to recruit for, no consistency, but a high ceiling.”
“That’s right. Which is exactly why our Strategic Analysis Office is needed.”

She said it while sipping at an energy drink.

“Now that you’re an Assistant Manager, you’ll be handling Villain management from here on too.”
“What does Villain management involve, exactly?”
“It’s not that difficult. When to deploy which Villain. What strategy to market a Villain with… It’s all window dressing, really. Nobody works that hard at it.”
“Sorry? But it ties into your results, so why…”
“Because there are far too many variables.”

She laid a finger on the document in my hands.

“Take this icicle awakened here, for example. Say we consult with him and set his direction as honing his edge.”
“Yes.”
“But what if his opponent is Speedgirl?”

“!”

The name Speedgirl pulled my face tight for an instant, but Kwon Hyeri didn’t bat an eye. She must have caught my story on the news too… And still she went on with her explanation as though my reaction had never happened.

“However finely you sharpen his attacks, it means nothing. Spreading an icicle field across the ground to cut her speed — now that might be another matter.”
“Ah…”
“Too many variables means you don’t know which Hero he’ll be up against, or on what battlefield. And it’s not as though we can plug an earpiece into a Villain and give him orders.”

Only then did I understand what she meant by ‘window dressing’. A Villain is dispatched, nothing more; he cannot decide which Hero he’ll be matched against. That call belongs to the Hero Association, not to the Villain organization. You can meet a Villain, consult with him, draw up a whole strategy, and still have nothing to offer but generalities. And even those mean nothing the moment the Villain in your charge decides not to cooperate…

A new duty had been added, but in the end the main event was still Hero Gamble.

“Well, I’ll put Assistant Manager Ko Hyeonsik on you as a senior to show you the ropes, so ask him for the details. You won’t be put on the work until next week, so don’t get too nervous.”
“Understood.”
“And since you’ve pinned on Assistant Manager, your Hero Gamble money starts at three million won instead of one million. Your annual salary should have gone up about thirty percent too, so check it.”
“…Sorry?”
“The revised salary applies from next month, just so you know. Your paycheck and your performance bonus will be paid out tomorrow.”

Kwon Hyeri waved a hand, as though she’d said everything she had to say. New hire or not, I was a permanent employee, so my annual salary came to about thirty million won, and thirty percent had just gone on top of that. The performance bonus alone came to more than ten million.

“Thank you!”
“Yes, yes.”

I bowed deeply and left the team leader’s office. Over ten million won in less than a week. Before I knew it, a smile had worked its way onto my lips.

“Yo, Squirt. Got your money good and ready?”
“I’ve moved it all into the burner account.”
“‘Burner,’ he says. Just call it an account that took some doing to get. Gwahaha!”

Saturday morning, early, Scorpion and I set out from the dormitory. I’d moved only about a hundred million won of my Hero Gamble money into the account he’d procured for me. A hundred million would be plenty to land a decent item.

Carry too much money on you and there was no telling when even someone as easygoing as Scorpion might change. Well-disposed toward me only because he, too, had taken a hundred million won from Belia. He was one of the Villains who lived in the Villain Special City, after all.

“Don’t be so tense. Outer Zone or Middle Zone, they’re both places where people live.”
“Now you say that?”
“I’m saying it because if you stay frozen up like that, things that would go your way won’t. If I were a black-market trader, one look at you and the first thing on my mind would be how to fleece you.”

“…”

At that, I ran a hand over my face. Did I really look that much like an easy mark?

We traded idle talk, and little by little the cars on the road thinned out. A shanty town greeted us, its lanes too narrow for a car to push any further in.

“We’ll park around here and walk.”
“Doesn’t the car get stolen or anything?”
“That’s what the parking lot’s for. Get caught stealing a car from a lot around here and you’re losing a hand for it.”

“…”

“It costs, mind you. A hundred thousand won a day.”

Scorpion paid cash to a mean-looking parking attendant. A hundred thousand won a day to park. Which had to mean that if you didn’t pay it, your car got stolen. I walked on, careful not to fall too far behind him.

“Don’t look around so much. You’ll set people off for nothing.”
“…Yes.”

All sorts of people filled those lanes, too cramped for a single car to get through. Beggars sitting on the roadway with a tin can set out in front of them. Drug addicts watching us with bleak eyes. Children in threadbare clothes running about, too.

So this… is the Middle Zone.

For the first time, it felt as if I’d come somewhere that deserved the name Villain Special City. A shanty town packed in tight between high-rises so tall you couldn’t even see their roofs. A place where crime and poverty, drugs and pain all ran together. I walked on, careful not to meet anyone’s eyes.

“Scared stiff, are you.”
“When do we get there?”
“We’re almost there, so quit rushing me. Hm, there it is.”
“Ah…”

I don’t know how long we walked through the shanty town before something like a huge park opened up in front of us. It must have been laid out as a neighborhood park once; nothing of that was left in it now. Only a black market, crammed with street stalls beyond counting and the racket of a crowd.

“Welcome to the Middle Zone’s black market, Squirt.”

Scorpion clapped a hand on my shoulder and laughed.