100 Gym

“Kk, hmm.”

CEO Oh Sang-min’s hand lost its way. His feeble attempt to grab something only awkwardly sliced through the air once.

It was only a small gesture, but it could also be seen as the cut signal that signaled the end of the situation.

“…….”

Ryu Seo-ram stared blankly at the arm draped over her shoulder, wearing an expression that said she didn’t quite know how to respond.

She seemed to be debating whether to touch the area around my arm, as if she’d get burned if she did.

“Ahem, we’ll be going now.”

If we stay too long for no reason, all our wounded pride will be exposed.

He came in as a guest cautiously reading the room, but left like a king.

Ryu Seo-ram, who had just come in, ended up going back outside with me.

The moment Ryu Seo-ram, Kim Yang, and I got into the elevator, the air shattered.

“Huaaah! I thought we’d been caught!”

“I-I-I was scared.”

“…….”

While Kim Yang and I let out sighs of relief, Ryu Seo-ram, arms crossed, was still looking up at me from my embrace.

“So?”

“…….”

“…….”

Even though she’d only said one word, a chilling silence fell.

Feeling like I’d been thrown into a cramped cage with a lion, I quietly lowered my arm and backed away.

“B-b-boss.”

Kim Yang darted behind me.

Actually, I’d tried to hide behind Kim Yang first, but after our little scuffle I lost.

I wondered why the elevator was descending to the first floor so slowly, and then realized I’d forgotten to press the button.

Once I tentatively reached out and pressed the first-floor button, the elevator finally moved.

With that lion watching every move I made, even breathing felt rude.

“Ahem, hmm.”

No wonder she’s a Seven Extreme Hunter.

She really looked like she was about to eat someone alive.

I’m human, so shouldn’t she start with the lamb first?

“…If we’re talking meat, it’s lamb.”

“B-boss!”

Kim Yang started whacking me from right behind. What could I do? I had to survive first.

Ding!

The elevator arrived at the first floor.

I waited for Ryu Seo-ram to get off, then followed behind her.

Finally, we were outside the building.

The moment the soft spring air finally filled my lungs, the suffocation eased.

Even the moderately cloudy sky—not clear, not hazy—looked strangely beautiful.

“So, Kim Ju-seon.”

Of course, that freedom lasted only a moment.

Ryu Seo-ram was still standing there with her arms crossed, glaring at me with a slanted look.

“Now then, tell me where I’m supposed to work out.”

“B-boss. I-I’ll take a half day.”

I grabbed Kim Yang’s wrist as she tried to run.

“I will never let you go.”

“Let go, let go! L-lettt go!”

“Don’t say that! We’re in this together!”

“B-baa! Baaah!”

Even if you suddenly try to act pitiful and imitate a sheep’s bleat, I won’t let it slide. We’re going down together.

That’s the Meracle spirit.

In the end, Kim Yang stood before Ryu Seo-ram with me.

Still fidgeting, she lowered her head and raised a hand as she answered Ryu Seo-ram’s earlier question.

“Blackline Risk has a gym too. We can just work out there.”

Actually, the facilities there couldn’t be bad. Blackline Risk is one of the country’s leading conglomerates in the hunter industry.

If anything, since exercise there was actually tied to their livelihoods, I’d rather it be better than Royal Matching’s gym, not worse.

But like a cunning lion who’d set a trap, Ryu Seo-ram answered as if she’d been waiting for this.

“Do you know how many people cling to me asking for help if I work out there? Exercise advice, fighting advice, future advice, mindset advice...... Hah, I’m not some fortune teller. Why do they come ask me about their saju?”

Behind the shining title of a Seven Extreme Hunter, there are bound to be all kinds of hardships.

Because of that, I’d just taken away yet another gym from a girl who couldn’t even use the one at her company.

“Ahem, ahem.”

“Baa.”

Kim Yang had now turned into a sheep rather than a person. She’d reduced her intelligence just to completely block herself from joining this conversation.

“Don’t worry, Seo-ram.”

“…….”

“You can use the Meracle gym.”

“Meracle... gym?”

Ryu Seo-ram blinked and stared at me. She seemed more interested than I’d expected, and for a moment I wondered if I’d just been spouting nonsense.

A man should dream big.

I nodded without backing down.

“Yeah, that’s right. Meracle Gym. It’s slated to open soon.”

“Really? Ye-na did say your company changed a lot after the remodel, but—.”

“Ah, so you haven’t been yet. Meracle even expanded all the way up to the third floor. Come by sometime!”

“Hmm—.”

She’s taking the bait.

To keep the momentum going, I snapped my fingers and signaled Kim Yang.

“What do you mean, ‘we’ again? Huh? Kim Yang, tell her.”

“……A shitty little company?”

This little shit.

Should I make her into lamb skewers?

“Meracle, the hunter-specialized matchmaking agency. There probably isn’t another matchmaking agency as well-versed in hunters as we are.”

I could be proud of that.

Starting with me, the boss, who’s a Hunter Training Center graduate, I’ve got friends among the Seven Extreme Hunters, and one of them is even Hunter Association vice president Yoo Ye-na.

“Of course, we can’t take only hunters, but that just means we’re that much more hunter-friendly. In fact, if you look at the reviews, a lot of them say our hunter rating system is the most systematic.”

“Why are you going off on a tangent? You’re awfully long-winded, Ju-seon?”

Sharp, huh.

“Ahem, anyway. Since we’re that kind of company, it means that if we build a gym, hunters can use it too.”

You might think a gym is done once you bring in equipment and hire staff to manage it.

But surprisingly, a hunter gym was harder to find than you’d think.

The usual 20kg plates used by ordinary adult men.

But a hunter gym needed 100kg plates as a basic requirement for even a single plate.

It also had to be equipped with the bizarre machines made for hunters or other races.

They were hard to find, and expensive too.

This is also why hunters want to get into big corporations so desperately.

Because the environment for training is so well set up.

“What’s more, we even have specialists. A scion of an old Murim noble family could help out in a structured way, and elves are perfect for cardio.”

Why was that?

Even if the gym actually got built, I felt like Renea would still be working out there.

Which meant she still probably wouldn’t be married by then.

At my words, Ryu Seo-ram, now genuinely interested, nodded with an “Oh?” and asked.

“When’s it going to be built?”

“…In about three years?”

“Clench your teeth. I’ll make sure you wake up exactly three years from now.”

Kim Yang’s already making a run for it.

* * *

Honestly, I knew it too.

That I’d gone a little too far today.

But opportunities to beat Royal Matching didn’t come around often.

No, I could say there were none.

Because I’d experienced the difference in scale between our companies in real time.

And after being looked down on like that, I had to land at least one hit to show that our company had some backbone, didn’t I?

Sizzle!

The price was beef.

And an expensive place at that.

It was also my first time seeing six different kinds of salt come out.

“What is this, Eland Forest? Salt from where the elves live?”

But how do you get salt from a forest?

While I tilted my head, Ryu Seo-ram was still resting her chin on her hand, her brow furrowed.

“Hey, Seo-ram. Fine, I get it. I said I’m sorry, okay? You know I never open my wallet, just let this one slide.”

“Hm? Ah—.”

Ryu Seo-ram, as if regaining her senses, suddenly looked at me, and a calm smile curved at her lips.

“No, actually I wasn’t angry. I just liked watching you get scared and scamper around.”

“……Since I’m paying, you grill the meat.”

Even so, I grilled it myself with the tongs and asked Ryu Seo-ram.

“Then why were you making that face? Was something wrong?”

“No, it’s not that. You know what you said earlier?”

“What I said? The gym?”

I accepted the beer the staff brought over.

Seeing me grill the meat, she reached out to do it instead, but I refused.

This place normally grills it for you, but Ryu Seo-ram is such a celebrity that she feels awkward if anyone other than me is here.

“…Are you really planning to open a gym?”

“Why? You want to invest?”

I asked with a smirk—

“Yeah.”

“……?!”

When I looked at Ryu Seo-ram in surprise, her face was more serious than I’d expected.

Ryu Seo-ram explained in detail while eating a piece of the kimchi that came as a side dish.

“At my level, it’s actually natural to have a private training room. But since I have a company, I never bothered to make one.”

“Yeah, of course.”

If all the equipment is already set up at the company, there’d be no need to make a private training room.

“But after hearing you talk earlier, I’m a little tempted. You’ve got three years in mind, but I have the wealth to pull that forward by three years.”

Well, if you’re a Seven Extreme Hunter, what?

Money must just pour in.

Especially since Seo-ram isn’t the type to splurge, it’d all be sitting in her bank account.

But as someone who’d started Meracle from scratch, I knew painfully well that starting a business wasn’t easy.

“Hey, it’s still just a blueprint. It’s basically starting from scratch.”

“I know. That’s why I’m saying if you’re really thinking of doing it, you should think it over. Then I’ll commit properly and invest.”

Well, look at that.

You’re serious.

“Any conditions?”

“Hmm, if possible, stocking the equipment with the brand I want?”

“That’d be easy.”

“Ah, and going to watch baseball with me?”

“…That’s a pretty personal desire, isn’t it?”

Ever since our Hunter Training Center days, she’d always been pestering Ye-na and me to go watch the Daehung Bear Force baseball games.

So now she’s planning to use investment to turn me into a baseball fan.

“Because it’s my personal money?”

What had started as a meal where I was buying my friend beef had suddenly turned into a business meeting.

We exchanged absurdly detailed yet somewhat ridiculous ideas, like layabouts talking about what they’d do if they won the lottery.

The one difference was that there was actually capital available to make it happen.

“Investor, it’s burning. Eat up.”

“Look at that. Your form of address changed.”

The meat was definitely tender and delicious. The reason it was worth the high price was not just the taste, but the payoff.

“Oh, right, Seo-ram. Do you know Ms. Maramdesh?”

“Ha-jin’s PT trainer? The orc?”

She hesitated, then immediately remembered and went back to eating the meat.

“Right. Actually, Ms. Maramdesh became one of our members, so I thought you might know something about her.”

“What? That woman? Hah, seriously.”

Seriously?

That’s a strange reaction.

“Why?”

Ryu Seo-ram set down her chopsticks.

Apparently she had a lot bottled up, because she suddenly started pouring it all out.

“Do you know how crazily in love she was with her boyfriend? She just kept saying her boyfriend was perfect—”

‘We’re soulmates. From morning till night, there’s nothing we don’t match on—’

“She bragged about it so much. Especially about how fantastic he was at night—bleh! Why would she brag about that to Ha-jin?”

Looks like she’d been put through quite a lot more than I’d thought.

Especially from what I gathered listening to Seo-ram, it seemed they really did match well at night, just as Maramdesh had valued.

“I mean, I’d heard orcs have a strong sex drive, but I never thought the two of them would match that well. Seriously.”

“Hm? The two of them? Why? Wasn’t the guy an orc too?”

I figured he must’ve been an orc too, since he could handle that sex drive.

Ryu Seo-ram frowned and shook her head.

“What orc? Her boyfriend was—”

* * *

A few days later.

A text message on my phone.

- Maramdesh: No need to match me.

- Maramdesh: I’ve gotten back together with my ex-boyfriend.

- Maramdesh: Sorry.

- Maramdesh: But I don’t think there was anyone better than my boyfriend.

Seeing that, I replied immediately.

- Kim Ju-seon: Not at all.

- Kim Ju-seon: Congratulations.

- Kim Ju-seon: For reference, you know the contract was time-based, not usage-based, so refunds aren’t possible, right?

- Maramdesh: lol

- Maramdesh: Do whatever you want.

She seems happy about getting back together.

As for me, it’s nice to make some easy money.

“Kim Yang, look at this.”

When I showed my phone to Kim Yang, who was sitting beside me, she looked at me wide-eyed in surprise.

“Huh, how did you know? Th-they’d get back together?”

Yeah.

I knew they’d get back together.

So I intentionally didn’t even think about Maramdesh’s match candidate.

“I knew she wasn’t actually chasing pleasure.”

“……?”

Kim Yang tilted her head at my vague answer, but I said nothing more and turned my gaze back to the monitor.

Maramdesh’s ex-boyfriend.

No, rather, her current boyfriend was...

‘A dwarf, huh.’

A female orc and a male dwarf.

That was a truly bizarre combination.

What matters is the dwarf’s physical trait.

They’re... known to be small down there.

“Ahem.”

That’s enough about that.

To put it simply—

“Ms. Maramdesh was someone for whom the heart mattered more than anything else.”

This is why emotional connection matters.