Clocking Out

How am I supposed to explain this?

A million won swollen to 3,820,000 in a single morning. Nothing about that was normal, so of course Kwon Hyeri, the team leader, wanted answers.

When I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, Kwon Hyeri spoke.

“Well, fine. I didn’t expect to get an answer out of you anyway. This place is a strict meritocracy, and just as strictly individualist. Whether it was luck or ability, time will tell.”
“…”
“I called you in out of plain curiosity. I wanted a look at the face of someone who went all in with a million won on his first day. I’ve been at this company a few years now, and you’re the first.”

Kwon Hyeri waved a hand lightly.

“You can go.”
“Th-then… I’ll take my leave.”

— Creak— Thud.

The moment I was out of the team leader’s office, I wiped the cold sweat beading on my forehead. To think a person could be cut loose that easily, right in front of my eyes. If Flameman, the one I’d put a million won on, hadn’t won…

— Shiver!

Ugh, my skin crawls just imagining it.

If that had happened, the Strategic Analysis Office would have shown two people the door today. Kang Taejun, and me.

“Im Taeseung… Im Taeseung… Hmm.”

After Im Taeseung left, Kwon Hyeri went back over the documents. In her hand was his job application, and it ran on a completely different track from every other employee’s.

This is supposed to be a job application?

She looked at the application, full of blank fields, and screwed up her face. Highest level of education: not university, not even high school, but middle school. Extracurricular activities, the personal statement on top of that, and not one of those fields had been filled in either. That anyone had been hired on this at all was nothing short of a miracle.

And the thing that had made that miracle was none other than the ‘referrer’.

The referrer’s name is Belia…

Kwon Hyeri fiddled with Belia’s signature written in the referrer field.

Belia, Director of the Villain organization Beyond Villain. This was the first time she had ever personally recommended talent in. And into the Strategic Analysis Office, no less, a department famous even inside Beyond Villain for how few people it lets in.

What on earth is she thinking?

Beyond Villain runs on a thoroughgoing pure meritocracy, and that doesn’t change no matter how senior the title someone wears. In other words, if Im Taeseung, with no career to speak of, failed to produce results in the Strategic Analysis Office, Belia herself couldn’t escape the responsibility.

“There are two ways to read this.”

Either Belia had made a bad call… or she was certain of Im Taeseung’s ability. For now there was no telling which.

Only…

“Sinking the whole million won on his first day at the company.”

— Snrk.

A laugh slipped out of Kwon Hyeri before she knew it.

In all her time working at a Villain organization she had met every kind of person there was. But she had never seen a lunatic who threw in every won he owned inside a single day. And on top of that it was Flameman, the one everybody predicted would lose. Had he simply lost, it would have meant being thrown out of Beyond Villain overnight. Not even a heart of a beast could make a bet like that.

What in the world did he see in Flameman to bet like that?

— Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

Curiosity suddenly getting the better of her, Kwon Hyeri rattled at her keyboard. Search term: Flameman. Articles about the fight that had just ended were already springing up like mushrooms, but that wasn’t what she was after. What she wanted to know was what had left Im Taeseung no choice but to bet so boldly on him.

She wet her throat with an energy drink, the motion entirely automatic.

Flameman. E-rank Hero. Awakened with a fire-type Gift… Nothing out of the ordinary here.

— Scrrr. Scrrrrr.

She scrolled down and down with no end in sight, and still nothing struck her as strange. Had he really just gambled his career at the company on a whim?

Just as she was about to give it up in disappointment.

“…Huh?”

— Freeze.

Her finger stopped on one spot. Flameman had given an exclusive interview about two weeks earlier.

…Don’t tell me this is it?

Her hands moved faster. Beyond Villain’s internal company data logged the deployment record of every Hero and every Villain, and it was there that she pulled up Flameman’s.

Flameman hasn’t been deployed once in two weeks. Before that he went out twice a week, every week… Don’t tell me he knew about this in advance?

The puzzle in her head came together piece by piece. What if Im Taeseung had come across Flameman’s interview beforehand? What if he’d known in advance that a Hero who had been active without a break had gone into special training to hone a finishing move? Then Flameman beating a monster he could never beat on type matchup made sense too.

Thinking about the Hero Association’s system, it isn’t strange at all.

When a Villain appears, the Hero Association assigns an appropriate Hero. A fire-attribute Villain gets a water-attribute Hero, that sort of thing. This time, though, it was the exact opposite. Plenty of people curse the Association’s incompetence when that happens, but the fault lies more with the Hero than with the Association, because more often than not it was the Hero who had insisted on going out himself.

In other words, Flameman going into a fight against a Villain with the matchup against him… had to be because he trusted his finishing move.

“Am I reading too much into it?”

Kwon Hyeri shook her head with a snort of laughter. Only a tiny handful of people know about the Hero Association’s Hero-assignment system, and it wasn’t the sort of information a fresh hire just starting out in the working world would have. But if all of this had come out of thorough calculation…

— Click-clack.

She rose from her seat and eased the blinds down a crack. Out on Team 5’s floor of the Strategic Analysis Office, Im Taeseung was running back and forth, and her gaze settled on him.

This once could just be a coincidence.

He was fetching and carrying for the rest of Team 5. A man personally recommended by Belia, a Director of a Villain organization. That alone was no guarantee he was capable, though. He could just as easily be a gambling addict chasing dopamine. But if he could produce results like today’s a second time, and a third…

It won’t be too late to think about it then.

— Fwish!

She shut the blinds again and sat back down. As team leader she had far too much work of her own to spend time on a new hire. Cracking open a fresh can of energy drink, Kwon Hyeri turned back to her work.

“Good work today!”
“Good work today!”
“Yeah, good work, rookies.”

The round of goodbyes, for who knows how many times just today, was finally over. Current time: seven in the evening. It was time for the Strategic Analysis Office to clock out.

Only after every last person had gone did Yang Hayun and I finally get into the elevator.

“But if everyone clocks out now, what happens with the Villains who show up after seven…?”
“No need to worry about that! Most Villains don’t really operate at night. And even if one does, I hear the Team 5 leader usually handles the analysis and the data collection.”
“So that’s why the dark circles…”
“Sorry?”
“It’s nothing. Anyway, why don’t Villains operate at night?”

Yang Hayun’s explanations only kept raising more questions. Fine, say the Team 5 leader works late every night pulling together information on Villains. But why would a Villain operate in broad daylight instead of at night, when the streets are empty and Hero deployments are few?

Yang Hayun answered as if it were obvious.

“You need people to see it — that’s how a Villain organization raises its name recognition.”
“N-name recognition?”
“When it comes to raising funds for a Villain organization, nothing beats sponsorships. But honestly the biggest reason is work-life balance! Places that grind you hard or make you work late get bad reviews, so they have trouble attracting Villains.”
“…”
“Beyond Villain is a major corporation, inside the top ten Villain organizations. Its benefits can’t help but be better than everywhere else’s.”

I nodded along. Beyond Villain, a major corporation inside the top ten Villain organizations. …No wonder the benefits were good.

“Taeseung, what are you doing after this?”
“Huh? A-after this?”
“If you’ve got nothing on afterward, let’s eat dinner together! You barely got to eat at lunch because I kept talking at you. My treat!”
“S-sure…”

Yang Hayun’s offer to eat together was welcome, but a face I hated surfaced in my mind.

Why am I thinking about Cha Huigyeong.

When it came to sharing a meal with another person, Cha Huigyeong was the whole of my experience. Which was why that revolting face brushed briefly through my mind. …Was the memory really that much of a shock?

“Your face went funny all of a sudden, Taeseung — are you all right? If you’d rather not, feel free to just say so. You looked sick earlier, too…”
“Huh? It’s nothing. Is there anything you want to eat?”
“There’s a barbecue place nearby! It’s Songnang, so it could be dangerous, but we’ve got these, so it should be fine.”

She shook the employee badge hanging from her neck and grinned. In Songnang, the place they call Villain Special City, that badge doubled as an identification tag. Attacking someone who wore one… was the same as setting the whole of the giant Villain organization Beyond Villain against you.

And so Yang Hayun and I set off for a barbecue place near Beyond Villain.

“Wow! I found it by searching online, and it really must be a hot spot!”
“…Sure looks like it.”

Inside, I took a seat across from her. The place itself was ordinary enough, but it was swarming with mean-looking people. Some of them were enormous, some had four arms; Gift awakenings at work, presumably. Sights like that settled it. This really was a Villain city.

“You worked hard today. Shall we have some soju?”
“Works for me.”
“Yes! I’ll order soju too!”

Across the table from Yang Hayun in her suit, it slowly began to sink in.

The realization that I had a job…

…and the realization that I really had joined a Villain organization.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Huh? It’s nothing. I was just… curious.”
“About what?”
“What made you apply to Beyond Villain, Hayun?”

I’d brought it up to change the subject, but it also happened to be the thing I was most curious about where she was concerned.

“My reason for joining… Money, benefits, pure meritocracy — what else would it be?”
“That’s… fair enough.”
“…Hehe, honestly that was strictly my interview answer. There is another reason.”

— Gulp.

She knocked back her soju and spoke.

“My mom was a Villain.”
“…Your mother was a Villain?”
“Yes. I didn’t know at first either. I just thought she’d walked out on us. But then I saw her on TV. Even with her face covered, I could tell she was my mom.”
“…”

I turned the meat over without a word. What must Yang Hayun have felt, the day she learned one of her parents was a Villain? I didn’t dare imagine it.

“I couldn’t understand it. Why she suddenly became a Villain. Whether she liked being a Villain enough to throw away me and my dad both…”
“…”
“The funny part is, money’s come in every month like clockwork ever since — can you believe it? It’s still coming in now. A few million won a month.”

Yang Hayun turned her soju glass in her fingers as she spoke.

“It’s not money I want. I want a mom who’ll hold me…”
“…”

Her eyes, fixed on the soju glass, grew damp. Hearing her say it, I understood why Yang Hayun had come to Beyond Villain.

“So joining Beyond Villain was… because of your mother?”
“Yes, that’s right. If my mother’s a Villain too, then she’ll be in Songnang.”
“You haven’t gone looking for her yourself?”
“I’ve gone a few times, but every time we ended up fighting and she ran off.”

She tipped back her soju glass with a bitter look.

“And… lately she hasn’t been on TV at all, so I want to find out what happened to her. The Strategic Analysis Office handles all sorts of Villain combat records, so I should be able to find my mom!”

Yang Hayun’s eyes hardened. Walking into a Villain organization to find the mother who had become a Villain. …That took more than ordinary resolve. Nothing like me, who had given up before I even started and turned into a jobless bum.

“Okay, now it’s your turn, Taeseung!”
“Huh?”
“How did you end up in this line of work, Taeseung?”

She asked while pouring soju into her glass. Since I’d asked her, it was her turn now.

The reason I came here…

Can I really tell her?

It wasn’t a story that could be cut down to something simple. Cha Huigyeong, my father, and Belia on top of them. Unspooling all of it would take a solid hour, probably.

“…Pfft, if it’s awkward to talk about, you don’t have to.”
“Huh? R-really?”
“Everybody’s got a secret they want to keep. You didn’t spill, so at least clink glasses with me! Cheeeers!”
“Uh, sure…”

After that we traded trivial talk back and forth. Where we lived, how the day had gone, the business of Assistant Manager Kang Taejun getting fired in the team leader’s office, and so on. As we talked about this and that, the meat dwindled and the bottles multiplied.

And then…

“Hehehe… Taeseung, drink more! The soju’s emmpty!”
“No, stop drinking. You’re drunk. Let’s get you home.”
“Aww, come on! We’ve gotta go for a second round! We’ve got work again tomorrowww… hehe…”
“…”

I rubbed my forehead and sighed inwardly. Yang Hayun, face gone bright red, sagging where she sat. …How I was supposed to get this one home was already beyond me.