Chapter 26
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
Ryu Seoram and I sat across from each other at a café near Wolfguard Tactical Solutions’ headquarters.
Since Ryu Seoram was paying, I immediately ordered one of the café’s long-named drinks.
Kim Yang always ordered it whenever someone offered to buy her coffee, and the smooth cream went surprisingly well with the sweet coffee.
‘Not my taste.’
“Are you dating someone?”
With her legs crossed, Ryu Seoram stared intently at me and my drink.
“What makes you say that?”
“They say when men start eating stuff like that, it means they’ve gotten a girlfriend. Since they get dragged around to cafés and all.”
“......I tried it this time because one of my employees drinks it often.”
It was embarrassing.
I felt like an adult who’d been caught buying a child’s toy.
“Anyway, getting to the point. You didn’t happen to buy Wolfguard stock, did you?”
“Why are you rubbing salt into a wound?”
“Heh.”
Ryu Seoram grinned and kept lightly tapping with the tip of her foot beneath the table.
“How much did you lose? They say the entire market is down because of the disaster this time. Is that true?”
“......I’m hurting, so stop rubbing salt into it.”
It would have been fortunate if only Wolfguard had fallen, but usually when a disaster like this happened, stocks fell across the board.
Thirty million won in total.
That was how much money I had invested in stocks.
How much of that had I put into Wolfguard Tactical Solutions?
A whopping ten million won.
It was currently down 78.6%.
The miracle of ten million won turning into 2.14 million won.
I thought my reason for investing in Wolfguard Tactical Solutions had been fairly reasonable.
“Ah, fuck...... This time, stocks related to beastfolk safety and security shot up because of the Baekdu Pharma incident.”
The Baekdu Pharma wild-man scandal.
I’d invested in advance as the person who uncovered it, hoping to make a little profit.
But that Azure Dragon bastard had turned the situation into this.
“Still, your losses outside of Wolfguard shouldn’t be that bad.”
“Well, that’s true. Stock prices usually recover quickly after a disaster.”
Wolfguard was a somewhat special case, so I wasn’t sure whether it would recover.
“But the problem is that I have to pay the employees’ salaries in a few days. Ah, it would be a loss if I pulled the money out now.”
“Ugh, idiot.”
“Ahem...... So, Seoram—”
Ryu Seoram immediately held up a middle finger.
“Uh, I’m not lending you any money.”
“Seriously? Do you think I don’t know that at least 500 million won gets deposited into your account every month?”
“Then work with me. I told you I’d hire you as an employee.”
“Ah, seriously......”
She kept tapping away with the tip of her foot beneath the table. For some reason, she seemed to be in a good mood today.
“Did your baseball team win?”
“How did you know? Our bunch of bastards finally managed to make a comeback for once.”
Ryu Seoram was a huge fan of Daehung Bear Force.
She was wearing a suit now because she’d come straight from work, but she usually wore a baseball jacket.
“So Bear Force even knows how to win, huh.”
“You want to die?”
Bwoooong! Bwoooong!
Ryu Seoram’s phone began ringing.
Her break must have been over, because she stood up.
“Whew, I should get going.”
“But guarding a singer doesn’t seem like your kind of job.”
“The Association asked me to. I’m only doing it because they pay well.”
I suspected that it wasn’t simply the Association’s request. Yoo Ye-na might have gotten involved.
Before leaving, Ryu Seoram looked at me and added one more thing.
“Hey, but I’m serious. When Meracle’s business is slow, come work for us part-time and make some pocket money. I’ll pay you a hefty sum.”
“......How much per hour?”
“How does 100,000 won sound?”
“Should I call you Boss?”
At 100,000 won, working ten hours would mean a million won?!
“Heh, you bastard. Talking big when you’re not actually going to come.”
* * *
“I’m back.”
By the time I finished protesting and returned to the office, it was already four in the afternoon.
I only had one hour left until I got off work.
- Amid the softly ringing bells~ May today be winter for just the two of us~
When I went inside, Kim Yang and Renea were dancing with a phone placed on a stand.
It was a Christmas carol, and by some twist of fate, it was Owl’s song—the one I’d gone to see earlier.
“What are you two doing?”
“T-the boss is here!”
“Eek! No, that’s not it! It’s not that I thought copying what young people do these days might make this maiden younger!”
“What the—.”
I stared at them in bewilderment before sitting down. A letter that practically screamed ‘5th Floor’ was lying on the desk.
“Haa, this came again?”
Since it was there, I decided to read it.
Maybe because this was the only thing Renea had learned from the Azure Dragon, her obsession seemed to be getting a little stronger—.
“Hm? It says a photo is enclosed, but there’s no photo.”
“Oh, there wasn’t one. It didn’t come.”
“Really? It must have fallen out somewhere along the way.”
The back of my head felt a little cold.
Well, it wasn’t particularly important, so I decided to let it go.
Renea was staring intently at Kim Yang.
But why was that old lady here?
“But Ms. Renea, why are you here? Aren’t you going home?”
“I-I get bored if I stay at home!”
“You think this is Tapgol Park? Go to a senior center and play baduk or something.”
“I am a customer. A premium one at that.”
“-I’ll make a two-line acrostic poem using Tower.”
“Go ahead, Tower.”
I cleared my throat awkwardly, then immediately rummaged through the file binders and pulled one out.
“Oh, right. I found a man to match you with this time.”
“Tower.”
“Would you like to see him? He is C-rank, but—”
“Tower.”
“He is a little old. But considering it’s a little funny for you to care about age—”
“Tower.”
“......”
Just as you’d expect from an old lady, once she latched onto something, she held on and absolutely refused to let go.
“B-boss. Here.”
Just then, Kim Yang came over and blocked Renea from my view. This was why you paid employees.
What Kim Yang handed me was a Post-it note.
A phone number was written on it.
“What’s this? A customer’s contact information?”
“I-it’s this person.”
She held out the customer list binder as well.
Name: Seo Jin-mi.
Age: 41.
Origin: 3rd Floor.
Occupation: Insurance agent.
.
.
.
Overall: E-rank.
“Why her?”
“S-she called and asked to speak to the b-boss.”
“......In cases like that, it’s usually a complaint, so just handle it yourself.”
She still didn’t understand how things worked around here—.
“Ah, I know.”
“......”
“I-I just don’t want to.”
“Hey.”
“That a-auntie is so, s-so loud.”
“Haa, she did seem a little difficult.”
I couldn’t exactly avoid calling her.
When I pressed the call button, Renea peeked her head out from beside the armrest.
“A two-line acrostic. Tower.”
Ah, seriously. That old lady was ridiculously persistent.
She answered almost immediately.
“Yes, hello, customer. This is Kim Jooseon, CEO of Meracle. I heard you asked for me.”
- Ah, you finally called. No, is this any way for a boss to run a business?
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Tower.”
I gestured to Kim Yang, and she quickly brought over the binder containing the profile of the man we’d matched with Seo Jin-mi.
Name: Bakelende.
Age: 43.
Origin: 4th Floor (Viking tribe warrior).
Occupation: Construction worker.
.
.
.
Overall: E-rank.
- What kind of man is that to introduce me to? What? Do you know what kind of values he has? Honestly! He sees women as his own property!
“Ah, yes. Since he is of Viking origin—”
“Tower.”
- He’s completely steeped in patriarchal thinking! He has a thick beard, and he’s older than me. What is this? I thought Meracle would be different!
The hardest thing about running a matchmaking agency was that people lacked self-awareness.
I tapped the special-notes section of Bakelende’s profile with my finger and asked,
“But, customer, when I spoke with Mr. Bakelende, he seemed rather gentle for someone from a Viking background. He was considerate in his own way, too. He’s lived on the 3rd Floor for a long time.”
- That’s a problem too! Why are you introducing a manual laborer to me? Didn’t you properly write down how much I make? I earn seven million won a month!
“Yes, customer. That’s what you’ve ‘earned before.’ When you calculate your average monthly salary, it comes to around two million won.”
If that was her average, it meant she often earned very little.
“Mr. Bakelende has been working on construction sites for about seven years, so he makes five million won, and when things are busy, he often makes as much as six million.”
- Haa...... Anyone can make money doing physical labor.
“Tower.”
- Argh! And who’s been going ‘tower, tower’ this whole time? Are you really the boss?
“Is she saying that to me right now?”
Ah, fuck.
The Elf Queen had remarkably sharp ears, and her movements were far too quick for someone who was 1,901 years old.
She immediately leaned toward me and shouted into the phone.
“Are you saying that to me right now?! I’m a premium customer here! You’re the one interfering, idiot!”
- What? I-idiot? You bitch! How old are you?!
“I’m 1,901 years old! What, do you have a problem?!”
- 1,901 years old? I can tell from your voice that you’re just a child. How dare you make fun of an adult!
Customer Seo Jin-mi shrieked hysterically.
And then.
“Hehehe, d-do I look a little young?”
“......”
Fuck, at this point, was she demented?
Did being 1,901 years old make dementia strike every second?
Look at her giggling, having completely forgotten the fight she’d been in just moments ago.
- Ah, forget it! I’m done now, so just cancel my membership.
“Then, customer, could you pay this month’s membership fee and the additional matchmaking fee?”
- ……Did I not pay that?
Kim Yang immediately brought over the ledger.
“You haven’t paid any of it.”
- Um, b-boss. I actually have money coming in the day after tomorrow, so if I pay then—
“That won’t do. If your payment is late, we can’t pay our employees’ salaries either.”
Bwoong! Bwoong!
Kim Yang immediately started pretending to headbutt the air.
“S-salary! B-beef! P-passe! H-headbutt!”