Chapter 12
[Stealing My Own Paycheck]
Author: Galljil Is Easy
[A selfie with the slouching team leader in the background]
Is it really okay that I don't even have to come to the office unless there's a field deployment? lol
Came to work and got told to do nothing for two hours.
A few Intelligence Team people came and went in between, but isn't this way too cushy? wwwwwwww
They said the seniors are coming later. I wonder what they look like.
[Comments]
White Hacker: Enjoy it while you can lol
MomIsAWuxiaMaster: Someone explain why that's allowed ㄱ-
Eua-deulidae: What's the team leader's name? Why is she so pretty? Give me her number
ㄴ EntityFetish: This bastard's horny again
GettingPaidToForum: Are you stupid? Why don't you think about why only the team leader is in the office?
WanderingGhostNo.1: I'm in the Field Response Team, and I can tell you that's just escapism. He knows better than anyone that if work comes in, he's screwed.
Figures. Old-timers never change.
WanderingGhostNo.1 hit the nail right on the head.
I know. I know what it means that only the team leader is here.
What company would pay salaries and then just let employees loaf around in the office?
This Field Response Team must be working hard enough to deserve perks like that.
Soon enough, I'll be getting deployment orders too.
And with a high probability, that would mean death.
Ah, I just want to keep staring at the team leader and forum-posting.
I wish I could get paid just to forum-post too.
Thud.
While I was lost in thought, the office door opened and someone came in.
A woman with long black hair and a candy in her mouth.
Her sharp eyes were striking.
"I'm back."
"Welcome back~."
After exchanging greetings naturally with the team leader, she looked at me and spoke.
"New hire?"
"Yes. Park Seong-bin, newly assigned this time...."
"How many days since you got here?"
"Including the mission period, maybe about ten days?"
"Approved."
After saying that, she came right over and hugged me while I was still sitting there.
"Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!"
She hugged me so hard I was pressed against the marshmallow-soft wall and couldn't breathe.
It didn't feel bad, but I couldn't breathe!
"My, my. Seems the new hire took a liking to Ms. Yuna."
The team leader came over and pried the woman called Yuna off me.
"Still, don't do that so suddenly or the newbie will get flustered, okay?"
"Mm."
"Haaah!"
As I gasped for air, fresh oxygen soaked into my whole body.
The bastards who say they want to bury their face in someone's chest have definitely never experienced it for real.
This isn't the same as dying from a sex-induced heart attack.
In my fading consciousness, what I assumed were my deceased parents were waving at me.
"P-please take care of me."
"Mm. I'm Choi Yuna."
Even if she had tried to take my life, a senior is still a senior.
I stood up and greeted her properly.
Choi Yuna. I don't know her position, so I don't know what to add after her name.
"A newbie who survives more than a week is rare."
"Is that so?"
"Mm."
When I looked at the team leader, they shrugged with their usual expression.
"Didn't you say this batch was supposed to be easy?"
"For the recent human-rights-waiver hires, it was the easiest."
"Human-rights-waiver hires?"
Choi Yuna tilted her head when that hiring track came out of the team leader's mouth.
"You got hired through that track?"
"Yes."
Choi Yuna stared at me much more intently than before.
Seems this damned hiring track gets discriminated against even within the department...
Squeeze.
"#&$$&!!!!!"
Choi Yuna once again pressed my head against her chest.
The arm pressing down on the back of my head had much more force than before.
I'm going to die, I really am!
"Yuna, at that rate you'll really kill the newbie."
"Haaah!"
The team leader once again separated me from Choi Yuna.
"Team leader."
"Yes?"
"I'll handle this one's training."
"That's great~. I was worried I'd have to take him on."
Somehow, my direct senior was decided in an instant.
"Is my opinion not being considered at all?"
"Don't you like it?"
It's not bad to have someone view me favorably, but it's a little too sudden.
"If possible, I thought a male senior might be better."
"What does gender have to do with being a senior?"
If you put it like that, I don't have a rebuttal.
To be blunt, I'm the only one who's conscious of it, but if I say that, won't I just get treated like a snob?
"Please take care of me."
"Mm."
In the end, Choi Yuna was decided as my senior.
"So what am I supposed to learn?"
"Why did you get in through the human-rights-waiver track?"
"Huh?"
"I asked why you came in through the human-rights-waiver track."
Choi Yuna, asking outright about my reason for joining.
What the hell. Seriously, what the hell.
"Is that something I need to explain in order to work in the Field Response Team?"
"Probably."
It was clearly not an essential question.
When I looked at the team leader for help, oh no.
The other side was looking back at me with eager eyes too.
"May I go to the restroom and tell you after that?"
"Sure."
Not prepared to say it right away, I fled to the restroom first.
"What the hell is it, anyway...."
I lowered the toilet lid, sat down, and turned on my terminal.
[My senior says to tell her why I got hired through the human-rights-waiver track. Can I tell her?]
[Author: Galljil Is Easy]
I got a senior assigned to me, but instead of training me she immediately asked how I got into the Bureau
I can't tell if she's asking to filter out assholes or because she's genuinely curious
She seems to like me, but how much should I tell her?
[Comments]
Hunting Dog: Come to think of it, what did you get in for?
ㄴ GaySpookyGayya: Come to think of it, we don't know either
ㄴ(Author) Galljil Is Easy: KOSPI was at 12,000 so I dumped everything into inverse leveraged ETFs, then it hit 13,000 and now I can't pay back my loans
ㄴ Orphan Crusher: Shit lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴConfigFetishCustomizer: Damn, this is pure beast-mode bravery
They said 10,000 was the limit, so I figured it would drop soon.
I told you 12,000 was the peak.
There was even a video from the Pan-Human Economic Research Institute saying it would fall....
Auto-Save Is Mandatory: So how much debt are you in?
ㄴ(Author) Galljil Is Easy: 3 billion won?
ㄴAuto-Save Is Mandatory: You weren't even human before getting hired lolㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴOrphan Crusher: So there wasn't even any human rights to give up, shit lol
StuckAtHome: At that point it's fine to tell her, but your teammates probably won't lend you money anymore
A few more comments came in, but the conclusion was, 'It's fine to tell her.'
As long as there isn't a problem with your character, it doesn't seem to matter much.
Even in the human-rights-waiver track, they still hire Bureau employees, so apparently they screen out the defective ones from the start.
In other words, even if I told them, the Field Response Team people wouldn't treat me like human trash.
"That's at least a relief."
If all I'd done was blow my entire fortune because I was obsessed with stocks, that was something they could probably accept.
I steeled myself and went back to the office.
"You're back?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me now. Why did you get in?"
Choi Yuna pressed for an answer the moment I stepped back into the office.
"Before that."
"Mm?"
"How should I address you, Choi Yuna... senior?"
"Senior."
"Senior?"
"Yeah. Senior. That's enough."
"It's not like there's any other title for me anyway~."
What the hell does that mean now?
"This is the department where people get chewed up the most, so giving everyone titles would just create more paperwork for HR. Apparently, aside from the team leader, they decided to divide seniors and juniors by survival days instead?"
Ah, I should've never asked.
I regretted falling under the curse of knowledge, but the water had already been spilled.
There was no point digging deeper, so I explained to Choi Yuna why I joined.
"I lost big in stocks outside. I was in no position to file for bankruptcy proceedings, and then the Bureau contacted me."
"Stocks?"
"Yes. I bet on KOSPI going down, but it went up and ruined me. Terrible luck."
"That's not luck."
"Huh?"
How could stocks going up and down not be luck?
Unless you're the National Pension Service, whose investment returns are beyond human comprehension...
"Here."
Choi Yuna pulled a file from the bookshelf, flipped through it, and handed it to me.
"What's this?"
"An entity report."
"No way."
"That's right."
With a bad feeling, I took the file and checked its contents.
++++
[Entity Report]
Stock Manipulator
Rating - Level 4 → Level 3 (containable)
Classification - Conceptual
[Photo of KOSPI breaking through 20,000]
The Stock Manipulator is a conceptual entity, a phenomenon and existence that primarily interferes with nation-scale securities markets.
The moment the entity's interference begins, corporate stock prices start rising beyond all reason, and as investors rush into the market, a devastating upward spiral begins.
In markets where the Stock Manipulator intervenes, the following phenomena occur.
Corporate market cap skyrockets
Mass fanaticism over specific companies
Economic experts lose touch with reality
Social panic spreads: 'If you don't get in now, you'll miss your chance'
After it reaches an absurdly impossible ceiling, the Stock Manipulator's interference ends and stock prices rapidly fall back to their pre-interference levels.
As a result, the nation's economy collapses and suicide rates begin to soar, which appears to be the entity's intent.
The Stock Manipulator was first confirmed to have intervened when the bubble economy hit Japan in the 1980s.
In particular, the 2005 ■■■■■ incident in Australia was beyond recovery, leading to worldwide implementation of an ■■■-class memory erasure procedure.
Since then, whenever signs appear, the Bureau intervenes and stops it before it becomes serious.
Recently, the entity's stage-by-stage ceiling has been identified, and it is being used at stages 1 to 2 to increase the Bureau's funds before being dealt with.
Accordingly, its rating has been downgraded from Level 4 to Level 3.
There are calls within the Bureau for early suppression to prevent civilian damage, but
since the conclusion that suppressing it before stage 3 would only increase the entity's appearance frequency, those calls have quieted down.
[Response Guidelines by Level]
(Viewable by the Intelligence Team only.)
++++
What the fuck.
So the reason the market went crazy and the reason I blew my money were all because of that entity's meddling?
"People unrelated to the entity are excluded from the human-rights-waiver track."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. HR says it's a rotten lifeline."
So for people whose normal lives were ruined by an entity, they offer the chance to work at the Bureau?
"Well, that's incredibly comforting. They should at least give compensation."
"Apparently they can't because of another entity~."
"Oh, for heaven's sake."
I couldn't help feeling bitter.
Most of the people who came in with me must have been hit like this too.
Thinking that only a tiny handful among them would still be alive made everything before my eyes even darker.
The world was cruel.
It's hard enough just living, and now I have to go through this absurdity too.
"But it looks like the report can be fully read? Seems the Bureau recognizes Seong-bin as a regular employee too."
"How tearfully wonderful."
After receiving the team leader's not-quite-congratulations and fending off senior Choi Yuna's barrage of questions, I wrapped up today's shift.
That was a lot of fun.
[A field deployment mission has come in~.]
If only it hadn't been a message that arrived after I got off work.