A New Department

So this is Strategic Analysis Office Team 2?

I’d been over to Teams 4 and 5 plenty of times, but Teams 2 and 3 were a first. A dry chill, quite unlike Team 5’s, wrapped itself around my whole body.

The office was about the same size overall as Teams 4 and 5, but… With only about half as many people in it, the space felt wide open. The staff each sat at an enormous desk fitted with triple monitors, and the desks themselves were generous, nearly two people’s worth of room apiece.

Only, there was no trace of life in any of their faces.

Put unkindly, every last one of them is like Team Leader Kwon Hyeri…

The working conditions here had to be far better than Teams 4 and 5, and yet, for whatever reason, the people looked less happy for it. The whole sight was almost like looking at the parts of some enormous machine.

Dry, expressionless eyes fixed on monitors from their chairs. Mechanical keystrokes running on without a finger ever resting. Thoroughgoing indifference that wouldn’t spare so much as a glance for a new rookie walking in.

Still, I ought to say hello.

Remembering my own days as a new hire, I called out a greeting to the people of Team 2.

“Good morning! I’m Im Taeseung, assigned to Team 2 as of today! I look forward to working with you all!”

I pitched my voice up on purpose and delivered it good and loud. Say what you like, I was new to Team 2. Surely someone would return a greeting, I’d thought…

What came back was the irregular clatter of keyboards and the click of somebody’s tongue. That was about it. They looked me over once out of the corners of their eyes, then turned back to their monitors.

The atmosphere here really is something else.

Feeling awkward for no good reason, I fiddled with the character keyring in my pocket. Everyone sitting in this room had come through the same Advancement Match Kwon Hyeri and I had fought. People who’d had their morals cut out of them and been reduced from human beings to parts of the company… Maybe it was only natural that their humanity had worn away.

Can I really hold out here?

Everyone in this place had thrown their humanity away. Old man Scorpion was the reason I’d been able to come to my senses; the people in this department would have had no such luck. Whether I could keep hold of mine while working in Strategic Analysis Office Team 2 was an open question.

“Well, who do we have here?”

Just then a grotesque, shambling footstep came from beyond the partition. A man still dragging an octopus leg along the floor. I knew that face well.

“Hong Jangwoo…?”
“It’s not ‘Hong Jangwoo.’ Staff Member Im Taeseung — strictly speaking, you’re my junior.”

Now that I thought about it, Hong Jangwoo was Senior Staff in Strategic Analysis Office Team 2. With the TF team dissolved, he’d have gone back to his original post, and because I’d landed in Team 2 rather than Team 3, I’d ended up in the same department as him.

“Hong Jangwoo. As of today, the senior showing you the ropes.” “So that makes me the junior…?” “Ah-ah. Polite speech, if you please.”

I had become his junior.

Hong Jangwoo came closer and whispered low against my ear.

“This isn’t the TF team, and that childish polite-speech game is over now. Learn to grovel without being told.”

“…”

“It’s not like Teams 4 and 5. One mistake here and you’re straight out the door. You following me?”

He gave my shoulder a tap and showed me a mean little smile. Hong Jangwoo all over, swaggering the instant the positions flipped. So this place really wasn’t as soft as Teams 4 and 5, then.

He must have taken my silence as proof he’d seized the upper hand, because he spoke up loudly, as though for the benefit of the staff around us.

“We crossed paths on the TF team and here we are again. I’m your senior, so let’s get along from here on.”
“Mm… Sure, let’s.”

Hong Jangwoo put on a businessman’s smile and offered a handshake. I put my hand out, and the moment he took it he clamped down hard. A blatant power play: crush the bones in the rookie’s hand, break his spirit.

…?

Strangely, though, all that pressure in his grip gave me no pain at all.

What’s this? Normally that would have hurt quite a bit.

The unbothered look on my face must have thrown him. He knitted his brow and gripped again, this time with everything he had. All my body felt was a mild tickle.

Don’t tell me this is because of Amos’s Gift?

I’d been told Amos had used her Gift to repair my body. She’d converted it into an animal’s and then put it back the way it was, and in that process the broken bones had been restored to their original state. Maybe something in all that had warped my body into something else along the way. I looked perfectly ordinary, but my physical abilities had grown stronger all the same, exactly as if I’d taken her Gift and been Villainized.

“Ugh— Gurk?!”

This time I put some force into his hand myself. With a skin-crawling crrrk, a scream escaped Hong Jangwoo’s mouth. Unable to hold out, he dropped clean to his knees and sank down onto the floor. In that instant every eye around us swung our way.

“Senior Staff Hong, are you all right? Why have you suddenly gone down on your knees…”

I widened my eyes in feigned alarm and carefully let go of his hand.

“Do you get anemia, by any chance?”
“Y-You… nnngh… you, you bast…”

Hong Jangwoo glared at me and ground his teeth, but by then he was already a spectacle. I patted his shoulder lightly and strolled off to my seat at my leisure. Thanks to him I’d learned just how much stronger I’d gotten; if anything, I was grateful.

Is this… my desk?

I left Hong Jangwoo on his knees and went to find my empty seat. Naturally, a triple-monitor setup and a desk had been neatly prepared, and I liked the nameplate that read ‘Im Taeseung, Staff, Strategic Analysis Office Team 2’. I sank deep into the chair and let my eyes travel over a personal space so much wider than Team 5’s there was no comparison.

— Ka-chak.

“Good morning to you all, troops.”

The door of the team leader’s office opened and a slender middle-aged man stepped out. Gray threaded here and there through hair combed neatly straight back, and most distinctive of all, he had a thick cigar clamped in his mouth.

What? Are you allowed to smoke in here?

The cigar puzzled me at first, but a closer look showed it wasn’t lit. …Then why was he keeping it in his mouth? Just as the question was starting to nag at me, he looked around the room and spoke.

“Good to see you. Let’s get results again today, everyone, at your own posts.”

His voice was low and dry.

“Now then. I hear there’s a new rookie on our team today. Who is it?”

Team Leader Ma’s gaze wandered over empty air. Looking for me, the rookie, presumably. I stood up from my seat and quietly raised a hand.

“I’m Im Taeseung. As of today I’ve advanced out of Strategic Analysis Office Team 5 and been assigned to Team 2.”
“Oh, it’s you. I’ve heard the rumors. A monster rookie over on Team 5, they said. Team 2 in under a year… Impressive. Very impressive!”

Team Leader Ma guffawed with the cigar still in his mouth. Come to think of it, I’d won an advancement in under a year? It struck me afresh that the pace of my promotions made no sense.

“I’m Ma Sangjin, in charge of Team 2 as team leader. I’ll assign you work shortly, so take it easy for now. Right, then — let’s all work hard again today.”

— Swish.

As though he’d said everything he had to say, he ducked straight back into the team leader’s office without a backward glance.

“…Sorry?”

A dazed noise leaked out of me before I knew it. I’d assumed we’d at least exchange proper introductions, or that he’d explain the work. Take it easy for now… was that even allowed? On Teams 4 and 5, a new hire was run off his feet from the moment he walked in.

This is awkward…

I sat back down and switched on the monitors, but I had no idea what I was actually supposed to do. The big TV in the office was off, and the staff, as if by agreement, did nothing but hammer at their keyboards in silence. Far off beyond the partition, in the Team 4 and 5 zone, voices were being raised over an analysis of the ‘Wake-Up Call Villains’ and how the fighting stood.

This was unmistakably the same Strategic Analysis Office. How could it be this different?

— Pap.

“Don’t just sit there like an idiot. Team 2’s new to you, is it? Can’t settle in?”

Hong Jangwoo tapped my shoulder, a coffee cup in one hand. It was unpleasant, sure, but it was also funny. Was it the octopus leg, and the ugly way he’d gone down on his knees earlier? Holding back a laugh, I asked him what I’d been wondering.

“Senior Staff Hong, why is it so quiet in here? They can’t all be goofing off.”
“This team manages nothing but top-grade Villains, B-rank at minimum. How many times a day do you suppose that bunch get called out?”
“B-rank and up? Then…”

Hong Jangwoo took a mouthful of coffee and gave a nasty smile.

“One or two a day at most. There are more days with none at all.”

He was right. B-rank Villains… Villains with combat power roughly on a level with a B-rank Hero are rare even at Beyond Villain. Even counting every Villain B-rank and above, there probably aren’t a hundred of them. And most of them rake in millions of won per deployment, tens of millions at the top end… So there’s no reason for them to go out often and court the risk.

“Then what does everyone do the rest of the time? Just play salary thief?”

Hong Jangwoo clicked his tongue, as though the question were pathetic.

“Why do you think I was the one seconded to the TF team? The real work of Teams 2 and 3 is ‘collaboration’ with other departments.”

He carried on explaining, still with that look of contempt. The people of the Strategic Analysis Office are high-caliber personnel who understand Villain ecology and Hero patterns better than anyone. In practice most of them are well-credentialed talent, so when outside help is needed they’re the first choice for secondment.

“In IT terms, we’re the planners and the other departments are the developers and the designers.”

When another department plans a project, the ones called out are precisely Teams 2 and 3. Getting summoned in as ‘specialist consultants’ is how this place runs. Only then did I understand why an elite like Hong Jangwoo had come to clean up after Amos. And had I been assigned to the TF team to clean up after Hong Jangwoo in turn?

“Then where am I going to be called out to now…”
“What’s this? Already doing the handover?”

Before I could finish, somebody seized Hong Jangwoo’s shoulder.

“Well now, looks like Senior Staff Hong and Staff Member Im have already gotten close.”

I looked to see who it was, and there was Team Leader Ma Sangjin, guffawing away.

“From what I hear, the two of you were in perfect step on that TF team as well? Very good to see.”
“Ah, yes… That’s right, sir.”

Hong Jangwoo answered, the corners of his mouth hooking up in an awkward smile. The memory of kneeling to me must have surfaced; his eyes wavered, faintly.

“Good timing, then. As it happens, a request for Strategic Analysis Office support has just come in from the Media PR Office.”

Team Leader Ma set a bundle of documents down on my desk, half throwing it.

“The two of you go over and help out. Director Narci named you personally.”
“Director… Narci?”
“That’s right.”

For an instant Hong Jangwoo lost control of his expression and his face twisted.

The Media PR Office… and Director Narci? And a Director personally named me and Hong Jangwoo?

…Maybe I was about to meet a Director harder to handle than Amos or Belia.