INV 19

Kwon Yihyeon does not know what Reaper Gwak was thinking when he offered that advice at that moment. However, in the next instant, as incomprehensible language flowed from between the lips of Reaper Gwak—who held his horse-gate pass upright in the air—all the mental images he had previously formed scattered like grains of sand.

Rumble! A moment later, a palace gate, the kind that might have been used during the era of dynasties, sprang out of thin air. The gate opened on its own with a long creeeak, revealing a pitch-black passage inside, and Kwon Yihyeon felt as if his heart might explode.

Even so, Reaper Gwak merely looked back at Kwon Yihyeon with a face that didn’t show the slightest bit of surprise.

Seeing Reaper Gwak’s sly, ulterior-motive-filled face, Kwon Yihyeon congratulated himself for biting his tongue and suppressing a scream, despite the palace gate appearing so violently and noisily that it sent a gust of wind rushing past. He felt a premonition that if he had made even a tiny mistake, he would have left behind an embarrassing history that would last a lifetime.

Sure enough, true to his god-awful personality, Reaper Gwak twisted his face into a grimace.

“Sheesh, what a newcomer who can’t act his age. I’ve lost my entertainment.”

“…Haha. Should I go in?”

Kwon Yihyeon let Reaper Gwak’s personality-disorder-driven antics slide with a bright smile. Saying he “can’t act his age” probably meant he was as devious as an adult rather than being like a bratty kid. I’ve heard that so much I’m sick of it now. Not only am I immune, but I can even smile breezily right in his face.

Though he intended to walk in on his own, for a brief second when Reaper Gwak didn’t stop him, Kwon Yihyeon took exactly one step and then stuck his feet back firmly to the ground. Reaper Gwak said:

“What are you doing? Get in there already.”

Kwon Yihyeon smiled genially once more.

“Mister Reaper, among humans, there is a saying: ‘Do not even step on a senior’s shadow.'”

“What about it?”

“There is also this saying: ‘Walk behind your elders.'”

At this point, even Reaper Gwak let out a hollow laugh. If Kwon Yihyeon had walked ahead without knowing anything, he would have fainted at the sight of the Haetae statue in front of the palace gate yawning, but does this youngster have a crafty old snake living inside him? He’s completely ruined my ‘three-piece set for hazing the newbie’.

However, his caution wasn’t bad. The Underworld operates on a structure entirely different from the human world. It meant that a perverted, unpleasant set of eyes that obsessively doubts every object before them is much better as a subordinate than a bastard who recklessly runs around fearing nothing. Though where else would there be a person generous enough to recognize that besides me?

Reaper Gwak walked ahead with his hands behind his back, brazenly committing acts that would have made Kwon Yihyeon collapse from a neck-seizing fit of rage had he heard the atrocious nonsense the Reaper was thinking. Matching his passing movement, the Haetae statue opened its mouth wide and yawned, and Kwon Yihyeon belatedly let out a shallow scream, satisfying Reaper Gwak’s filthy personality.

“That fellow. Did you think everything would be solved if you put me in the lead? Fat chance! The Underworld originally runs on rules completely different from the human world, so newbies only snap to their senses after being toyed with at least three times…”

Reaper Gwak, cackling, crossed the palace gate and entered the pitch-black passage. Kwon Yihyeon was about to step on the threshold but, feeling inexplicably bothered by it, intentionally widened his stride.

Since he was hearing the unrealistic talk that shamanism wasn’t just a superstition but real, he wondered if the elders’ words about good luck leaving if you step on a threshold were also true.

However, after successfully crossing the threshold, the next barrier remained. To be precise, it wasn’t a barrier.

That is to say, the landscape that caught his sight the moment he crossed the palace gate and entered the passage was…

Hell.

Kwon Yihyeon had studied. Surprisingly diligent, he had searched for information about the Afterlife as soon as he passed the interview. He had looked it up under the name Underworld as well. Thus, he understood the Eight Hot Hells on a conceptual level.

But concepts were concepts, and was reality reality?

From the first, the Hell of Reviviscence, Kwon Yihyeon felt like retching. The place where people were killed with intense heat, revived with a cold wind, and then killed again was literally hell. When his gaze moved to the second, the Hell of Black Cords, he almost fainted. Tying the whole body with hot iron chains and cutting it with a large saw? He couldn’t even look at the third, the Hell of Crushing, where various conditions of pain rushed in at once to torment the body; and the wailing echoing from the fourth, the Hell of Screaming, invaded his eardrums even when he covered his ears. He did not dare to feel anything beyond that, so Kwon Yihyeon forcibly suppressed his senses.

A place like this is the Afterlife? It makes no sense. People can work in a place like this? No, that’s impossible. There’s no way there’s a person who could do that—at least, that person isn’t me! Even if we assume a senior’s mind has gone rotten enough to adapt to a place like this, isn’t this an environment where it’s strange if the newbies don’t desert? Kwon Yihyeon, filled with spite, tried to close his eyes, block his ears, and feel nothing, but then he suddenly realized the truth and his energy instantly drained away.

Ah, Reaper Gwak. His personality really is filthy. He loves to toy with people.

‘And yet, for all that, he gives hints well.’

…newbies only snap to their senses after being toyed with at least three times…

The palace gate, the Haetae statue—if we count those as one time each.

Didn’t that leave one last time?

Recalling the malicious face of Reaper Gwak, who had given a hint while pretending not to, with eyes that seemed to ask if a lowly thing like him could even understand, Kwon Yihyeon actually let out a puff of air, took his hands off his ears, and opened his eyes.

At that moment, his eyes began to take in not a bright red hell, but a sky so blue it was painfully cold and a building of such vast height that the end could not be seen. Inside a massive glass dome through which the firmament was clearly visible, there was even a park and a four-lane road; a building made of full-length glass windows was soaring above the clouds, and the company name was written in small letters at the building’s entrance.

Afterlife Company Co., Ltd.

He said it was a company… but isn’t this a site that can be considered an urban center designed intentionally around the headquarters building? To Kwon Yihyeon, who had merely imagined a floor or two of a building, everything was excessively vast; even the crowds were so dense they threatened to snatch his gaze and make him lose his mind, but since he was a new employee, Kwon Yihyeon decided to fix his gaze near the headquarters entrance and smile brightly.

“Hello. I am the new employee, Kwon Yihyeon.”

When you don’t know what’s what, it’s best to be faithful to your duty. He bowed politely in greeting, but no one answered. Everyone merely looked down at Kwon Yihyeon with cold eyes. Just as those heavy gazes were about to press down on him—to the point that Kwon Yihyeon recalled the sensations of the first day he underwent spiritual awakening…

The air changed.

“Deputy, there’s word from the Celestial Realm…”

“Submitting a report, Manager. A request for manning reinforcement has come in from the Haetae Department.”

“You’re listening to that kind of nonsense? Tell them to go eat a bag of dicks.”

“I will help you confirm your order. Three Americanos and eight Ssanghwa-chas, is that correct? Yes, customer, you want to add sand lance fish sauce to a Strawberry Cheese Frappuccino…? Ah, you’re speaking sincerely…?”

Like a tightly pulled rubber band snapping and flying away, the crowd was suddenly covered by the busy footsteps of office workers.

Kwon Yihyeon recognized it instantly. He had no choice but to know.

This must be the true appearance of the ‘Afterlife Company’.

Office workers passing one another before his eyes moved busily to find their own paths. No one accepted Kwon Yihyeon’s greeting, but Kwon Yihyeon straightened his waist with a nonchalant face, not even feeling embarrassed. He heard that in the Major Leagues, when a rookie hits his first home run, his teammates perform a group silent treatment ceremony—maybe this is a place like that, too? The quick-witted Kwon Yihyeon adapted to the ‘Company’ quite fast. He didn’t know if the reaction of being ignored was because he was a newbie or because he was the Contractor of the Jae Angshin, but he wasn’t angry in the slightest; strangely, his irritation rose much faster in front of Reaper Gwak, who was lamenting that it was “no damn fun.”

“In other departments, they get to watch the peach fuzz trembling on the fresh faces of fledglings, so why did I end up with a crafty snake like this…”

And what crime did I commit to end up with such a fickle boss?

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized the bride’s side was fickle first, and there was nothing that could even be called a crime on Kwon Yihyeon’s part. Kwon Yihyeon decided to act with a minimal rebellious spirit and stick to the attitude Reaper Gwak hated.

“Mister Reaper. If I may make a humble request, could I ask for your guidance and instruction on which location I, a new employee, should move to? As someone who does not know the rules of the Underworld, I am cautious even to take a single step…”

“It’s disgusting, so turn off the local broadcast. Tsk.”

Only then did Reaper Gwak stop leaving Kwon Yihyeon standing aimlessly in front of the crowd, and as he walked away sloppily, he gestured with his hand, flicking it backward. As the green light of a silhouette wearing a hanbok turned on brightly, the worn-out and tired-looking Reaper Gwak in a suit slowly blended in among the sophisticated, briskly walking office workers, swallowing his curses.