Flutter—
At first, Eun-Ho flipped through in disbelief, but every line was dripping with a fervent, passionate yearning. Briefly, he wondered if Cho Bok was a hopeless romantic instead of a Corrupt Ruler.
Why would he keep this?
Maybe there was a hidden cipher. With that thought, he leaned in and examined the book carefully.
[The special effect of the Third Eye has been activated!]
[You have escaped the influence of illusion.]
“What?!” he said under his breath.
Suddenly, the title, Sumr Night’s Diary, blurred. Letter by letter, it trembled and rearranged itself. Consonants and vowels split and spun like roulette wheels. At last, the true title settled into view, Internal Investigation Report. Cho Bok sure went to extre lengths to conceal the truth.
As the title suggested, the report detailed Cho Bok’s investigation of the company’s internal staff. More precisely, it was an exhaustive secret ledger docunting transactional relationships—who he’d used, who he’d bought off, and who owed what.
[(Sal)Bi-Ra]
- Embezzlent of commission through sales performance manipulation(Welfare Points over 1,000,000).
- Request for unlimited supply of charm-support items(in progress).
- Suspected affair with VIP client.
[(Adm)Ju Gwang]
- A direct-line subordinate to Division 1 Chief. Content focused on sensational material. Performance ranks high.
- Likely indulgent in money and carnal pleasures, mostly for entertaining clients.
- Supply of Elixir(300,000 points) completed.
...
Huh.
Eun-Ho had always joked about needing more information, but he never expected to learn the company’s underbelly before its official history.
Organizing the avalanche of revelations in his head, the pages fluttered again as he read faster. Then, a familiar na appeared.
[(Adm)Harona]
[(Inv)Cheong Jeong]
Even the ntor he’d put down was listed. The prefixes Sal, Adm, and Inv cleared up the earlier mystery. They denoted the Sales Bureau, the Administration Bureau, and the Investigation Bureau.
Eun-Ho sighed and thought, this is basically an X-file.
It was a personnel-grade X-file that compiled every official’s corruption. So entries were petty, but many were not. Almost every conceivable vice was docunted, including the requests for promotions, falsified results, embezzled settlent funds, affairs, murder, aiding and abetting, fraud, and theft.
Everyone’s obsessed with points, he thought.
Pages continued to turn until he’d read the hundred or so pages thoroughly. Then, the bitter conclusion hit him.
This company is a ss. So then, how can I use this to my advantage and make it worth it?
***
It was 8:30 PM.
After leaving the Investigation Bureau and navigating a maze-like forest path, Eun-Ho arrived at a towering structure. The cluster of four round towers stretched so high they seed to pierce the sky.
[You have entered the Eastern Rest.]
According to the map, his assigned dormitory was located here, on the seventh floor of the eastern tower.
[Your room is suite 702.]
[Please rest well for tomorrow’s schedule!]
He had worried he might have to climb seven flights of stairs every ti, but fortunately, the lobby held an old, creaking lift—the kind where he had to manually shut the door before it operated.
Clunk—klak—ding!
Although the lift seed about to give away any mont, it delivered him safely. He stepped into a dieval-style lounge, where a group of familiar faces sat huddled around a grand fireplace.
“Eun-Ho!”
“Uncle!”
“Oppa! Why are you so late?” Bo-Ra asked.
“Oh, I had sothing to take care of,” he replied.
“Seriously? On the first day? Here?” Swear-Master scoffed, shaking his head. “Of course it’d be you.”
Yeo-Jin squinted at Eun-Ho suspiciously. “Mister, you didn’t get lost, did you?”
Sol-Ah chid in with a scolding tone. “What kind of question is that? You think he’s you?”
“Uh, excuse ? You’re the weird one for finding the place so easily! Right, Mister?” Yeo-Jin gestured toward the windows connected to the lounge. “This place is huge, isn’t it? It’s basically a city!”
She was right. Eun-Ho had only fully explored the Investigation Bureau so far, but even that departnt alone had five separate buildings, A through E.
Hence why it had taken him a while to reach Cho Bok’s office. Still, he had gotten everything he needed and returned unhard, so he couldn’t complain.
“How’d your trials go? Did everyone succeed?” he asked.
Seeing them all gathered without anyone missing basically answered the question, but he asked anyway, just in case.
Relief washed over Lee Ye-Ji’s face as she answered, “Oh, I was so worried, but it was super easy! Maybe because it’s the first day?”
“What was your trial?” Eun-Ho asked.
“Making copies, refilling the water in the dispenser, and stuff like that.”
Those weren’t too different from his own first assignnt.
“You used an actual copy machine though, right? You didn’t have to write everything by hand?”
“Yeah, of course. Why would I copy by hand?”
Except, she hadn’t been saddled with any bizarre special condition like he had. Judging by the way she frowned, her trial had been perfectly normal.
“I hauled boxes, Hyungnim!” Jae-Hyuk chid in. “I figured stacks of reports are super heavy!”
“Bah, they made do dishes and every random chore in the office! What do these girls even do with all those cups?” the cleaning lady complained.
The others told similar stories.
“What about you, Yul?”
“They asked to sing a song! Yul sang and passed!"
“They made you sing?” Eun-Ho blinked.
“Yeah!”
The difference in difficulty was drastic. Still, it was a relief, except for one person.
“What about you, Ji-Eun?”
“Ah...” Ji-Eun alone didn’t look all that cheerful. She replied stiffly, as if forcing herself to co up with an answer, “I also wrote reports. Anyway! Eun-Ho, have you seen the rooms yet? It’s two people per room and it’s pretty nice inside.”
Eun-Ho couldn’t shake the feeling that she was trying to change the subject, which bothered him a little.
“Oh! That’s right, Hyungnim! We’re roommates,” Jae-Hyuk said cheerfully.
“Ah, are we? Where is it?”
“Do you want to go there now?”
Eun-Ho stood, brushing off his clothes. “Yeah.”
“What? You’re going in already?”
“It’s not even nine yet!”
“Huh? Are you a kindergarten kid or what, Mister?”
A few of them threw half-playful complaints his way, but this couldn’t be helped.
“I’ve got an appointnt in the morning,” Eun-Ho said casually.
“What?!”
“Are you serious?”
He really did have to wake up early because there was a lot to do.
***
It was 7:30 AM.
The Division Nine Manager of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis had been busy since dawn.
“You seriously call this handling a crisis?!”
“My apologies, Division Chief.”
He had to juggle cleaning up a ss while being chewed out through the screen by an enraged superior.
“Ugh! Damn it! Why did that bastard Cheong Jeong have to die holding that thing?! Look at the ss he’s caused!”
“We’ll recover it, sir. You have my word.”
The division chief’s voice ca through, sharp and skeptical. “Do you at least have a suspect?”
The manager exhaled quietly, then decided to put the conclusion he’d reached after an entire night of digging and thinking into test. “That rookie seems suspicious.”
“The rookie? You an Lee Eun-Ho? I thought he was cleared?”
“Technically, yes. But sothing doesn’t feel right. You know my instincts are good.”
The division chief let out a low hum. It wasn’t that the manager's intuition had ever been poor, but this situation wasn’t the kind one could solve by gut feeling alone.
“Didn’t the Bureau of Audit conclude it was the monster’s doing?”
“Well actually... That’s the strangest part, sir.”
“Strange? What do you an?”
“That Plague Hydra tore through like I was paper. Yet sohow, the rookie walked away without a scratch. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
The division chief shook his head. “You were the strongest of the three. It makes sense that the Plague Hydra would’ve targeted you first as a host, absorbing the alpha’s essence before dealing with the lesser prey. That’s its attack pattern.”
It was a textbook answer, the kind one’d give when they hadn’t experienced the situation firsthand.
“He’s still just a fledgling. Let’s not overthink this.”
The manager laughed dryly. “A fledgling...”
As if a re fledgling could produce a sword strike so clean, sharp, and almost divine in its precision! Anyone who had witnessed that blade’s radiant blue aura wouldn’t have called him a rookie.
He rembered his own offhand comnt at the ti, masking the unease clawing at his gut.
“Well, well! Mr. Lee Eun-Ho, you’ve got so skill there!”
In truth, that single slash had completely shattered the manager’s focus. He’d been so distracted by it that he’d failed to evade the Plague Hydra’s attack in ti.
“Unlock the Sword Force skill!”
What was more, Eun-Ho had just unlocked the skill, yet every swing afterward had grown sharper, faster and stronger. It was as though the rookie watched the technique unfold and absorbed it on the spot like a sponge.
There was no other explanation because within a few minutes, the man went from struggling to control the force to wielding it as if he’d trained for years.
He’s a monster, the manager thought grimly. A natural born weapon.
They’d wanted a competent new recruit, not a predator. He knew well enough that if he raised a tiger, he would get eaten by it. However, he didn’t voice that thought aloud. So truths were better left buried.
“... Well, he didn’t have the deanor of soone who’d just been restructured. Anyway, I’ll question him again once he arrives.”
“You think questioning will be enough? Make it clear.”
Forcing the image of that gleaming sword from his mind, the manager recalled the vial he’d secured from the Future Research Center. “It’ll be enough. Besides, I got the Lyase ready.”
Lyase was a chemical so potent that it broke flesh down to the cellular level on contact. Even the bravest would confess everything once they saw their own limbs disintegrating before their eyes.
The division chief’s voice turned cold. “Good. So if it turns out he killed Cheong Jeong and took the item, then we’ll handle it quietly.”
“Yes, for sure, sir.” That was the only answer the manager could give.
“Good. Keep updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
Click.
He ended the call and opened the door to his private office. Imdiately, he froze and stumbled back in shock. “W-what the hell?! Since when were you standing there?!”
Right in front of him stood the very rookie the manager’d been talking about.
Lee Eun-Ho stared calmly with his unreadable eyes, tilting his head slightly. “Are you looking for sothing, sir?”
“W-what did you just—” the manager stamred, caught completely off guard, then forced a cough to regain composure. With that, he ordered Eun-Ho to follow him, “Lee Eun-Ho. We need to talk. Right now.”
How great.I can take care of this before anyone else shows up for work.
That was the best thing about Lyase. The flesh disintegrated completely on contact, leaving no trace behind. He didn’t have to worry about the corpse or leaving any evidence, not that he’d even need to go that far. A few dissolved fingers were usually enough to make anyone fess up.
Satisfied with the thought, the manager was about to move when Eun-Ho interjected, “Ah, is this sothing urgent, sir?”
Not to ntion that oddly provoking tone, Lee Eun-Ho simply stood there instead of following him.
The manager narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to an? Are you saying that you’ll only co if it’s an urgent matter?”
His unease and irritation from yesterday’s encounter hadn’t faded, and Eun-Ho’s insolent tone only stoked the fire.
“If it’s not urgent, we can do it later,” said Eun-Ho.
There was no mistaking that the bastard was mocking him!
The manager’s temper flared, his voice booming across the hall. “What did you just say?! I didn’t take you for the cocky type, but maybe I was wrong!”
However, instead of backing down, Lee Eun-Ho just shrugged casually, his expression unreadable. “They seed to have more pressing business.”
“They? Who the hell are you talking abo—”
The manager didn’t get to finish his sentence, because dozens of employees poured into the corridor, moving with purpose. Each one carried a large blue box, and the familiar insignia printed on its side made the manager’s blood run cold.
“T-the Audit Bureau?!”
A chill crept down his spine. A surprise visit from the Audit Bureau was never a good sign. In fact, it usually ant soone’s career or life was about to end.
“What’s going on? Why are you people here—”
Amid the manager’s confusion, the damn rookie helped the auditors as if he’d been waiting for them. “Oh, this way. The records room’s over here. You’ll find all the regular observation reports and such there.”
“What do you think you’re doing?! Stop right there!”
“Ah.”
The realization struck the manager like lightning.
Had he reported this? Had this rookie sohow found out everything?
“Y-you didn’t report , did you? That’s impossible, right?”
It couldn’t be true. There was no way a brand-new recruit, only two days into OJT, had the gall to summon the Audit Bureau. The manager had to be mistaken. This had to be so kind of coincidence, so he moved to block the intruders.
However, Lee Eun-Ho blocked his path with a calm smile. “You really should’ve kept your hands clean, sir. If you had, I wouldn’t have needed to report you.”
Report ? Wait, did he really report ?
“Y-you... You actually reported ?!”
“You understand what I an, right?”
The manager clutched his own neck at the realization, panic hit all at once. “Y-you crazy bastard!”
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