INV 40

“…Mhm. The afterlife operates under the slogan that everyone is equal. It means that while the living divide themselves into ranks, the dead shouldn’t do so. For that reason, in principle, the same rule is applied to employment…”

“I see. So even a demon can become an underworld Reaper…”

Kwon Yihyeon looked at Gwak Deukcheon with genuine wonder at Manager Kang’s explanation, and Gwak Deukcheon tried hard to calm himself by repeatedly slapping his palm against his face.

“The stress is going to be the death of me… I wasn’t talking about species or whatever just now, was I?”

“Ah, I am sorry. I ended up making a prejudiced judgment based only on your usual appearance… This must also be a species-discriminatory remark, right? Not all demons would be like that… I was truly rude. I apologize!”

“…”

Lim Muyoung, who had been silent, muttered as if in admiration.

“The, the object of the apology is wrong…”

“Pardon?”

Kwon Yihyeon looked up at Lim Muyoung with clear eyes, and Lim Muyoung waved his hand and avoided his gaze.

He didn’t have the courage to meet his eyes.

“Uh, no. It’s nothing.”

“Please speak comfortably, sunbae-nim.”

Kwon Yihyeon once again gave a bright smile like an innocent youth and bowed his head deeply, flustering Lim Muyoung. It was because he looked so pure, unlike someone who had just calmly babbled that nonsense.

Gwak Deukcheon, watching his team members fallen into confusion as if they were a pitiful flock of sheep being hunted by a single wolf, asked bluntly and with great agitation.

“You… did you decide to take my route altogether? Are you going to succeed the mad dog lineage?”

“Pardon? Why would you say such a thing?”

Kwon Yihyeon shook his head with a clean face as if he were troubled. Consequently, even the team members became agitated. They couldn’t tell if he was denying that his superior was a mad dog, or if he was drawing a line saying he himself was sane.

They couldn’t fathom how he could express emotions that were so difficult to judge so naturally.

Meanwhile, Gwak Deukcheon was feeling like his head was going to split because of this cunning brat who was making bold provocations, as if asking if Gwak Deukcheon thought he hadn’t noticed that he had incited ‘Myo Woon’.

It was a good thing the team members were spouting nonsense as usual; otherwise, they might have lost their minds…

Intern training or whatever, that wasn’t what was important right now.

The opponent is a novice who doesn’t even know Spirit, Ghost, Monster, Immortal, God (靈鬼妖仙神) anyway. That meant he didn’t even have basic background knowledge. Gwak Deukcheon was a man who personally took in even those rumored to be trash in the marketplace to squeeze out results, but he had never heard of or seen an intern this pure white. It was natural. If one participated in an Underworld Company internship, it meant they had a connection to the spiritual world in some sense, and for such a person to maintain a blank state where they didn’t even know the classification of spiritual beings was quite amazing in its own way. No, if he grew up on ‘that’ mountain, he should have heard something…

‘He had a face as if he were hearing it for the very first time. Probably.’

He even awakened his spiritual eyes and spiritual power right in front of Gwak Deukcheon. Like roasting beans over a lightning strike.

‘Seeing that, well, he does seem to have talent, but…’

Turning a total amateur into an expert at a level capable of field deployment was an unprecedented challenge even for Gwak Deukcheon, who had a knack for breaking various stodgy molds.

To make him a useful talent, should I set aside at least four months, no, a year and a half…

‘Sssip.’

In effect, it’s no different from a ‘burden’ that needs to be protected tagging along to the field. Although Gwak Deukcheon was the one who argued that they must monitor Jae Angshin’s movements even if it meant braving that, his motivation plummeted when Kwon Yihyeon revealed his true colors with a smile.

‘No, what kind of wealth and honor am I trying to enjoy at this age by taking on a young brat with such a harsh fate…’

A person who has gone through excessive adversity at a young age tends to show it in their eyes. Not everyone is given the freedom to age according to their years, and he could have just let it slide as his innate fate… but if he were the kind of person who could do that, he wouldn’t have started this kind of worrying in the first place.

To borrow Manager Kang Taerim’s expression, Gwak Deukcheon is a man who ‘could a sparrow pass by a grain mill?’.

A guy who, despite having a terrible temper, feels like thorns would grow in his mouth if he didn’t fire off a few words of advice in a hateful tone when he sees a twisted human. A person who doesn’t want someone to be ruined, even if the opponent is a bastard who produced thick rumors while chewing Gwak Deukcheon out every single day.

He was such an annoying and double-sided human that his colleague of several decades would shudder with goosebumps while saying seriously, ‘That guy was born with a fate for the life-saving business (活人業)’…

Anyway, the unfortunate team members who took someone with a personality like Gwak Deukcheon as their benefactor enjoyed having company dinners without him and giving him new nicknames to tease him. Rabid Nightingale. Not Healing Angel X, but Healing Warrior O. Is it a problem if a sociopath who knocks out a patient refusing treatment with a critical shot to start the cure is a party member? Etc…

Gwak Deukcheon had gained more nicknames without even knowing it.

If there was one relief, was it that the nicknames that would make him have a seizure just by hearing them hadn’t spread to the world because of the position the Haetae Department held within the company?

Because Gwak Deukcheon didn’t know what was in his team members’ heads, he was agitated in a different direction.

‘I feel like the Underworld should step up and provide relief for my life, which has to have a private meeting with that bastard…’

Gwak Deukcheon, who stared at Kwon Yihyeon with a complex gaze for a moment, said with an expression as if he were craving a cigarette.

“Hey. Cigarette time.”

I understood that he was telling me to go outside and talk privately. Kwon Yihyeon followed behind, beating around the bush by intentionally throwing out a witless remark.

“I’m a non-smoker. I do have a lighter, though.”

“…I’m not enough of a kkonde to ask a kid who doesn’t even know the taste of a cigarette for a light, okay?”

“Wow… You are amazing!”

“…You are dead later.”

The two went out while glaring at each other with smiling faces, and the remaining team members decided to multiply the time-bomb stickers to be attached to the ‘intern’s’ danger rating by a hundred.

“I’m betting one cubic from my left pedicure that he should either be an actor or a cult leader…! His career choice was wrong…!”

“Seeing how he handles his usual styling so well on his own, he seems to have good sense too. He would have been a huge hit in the entertainment industry. Unlike our kids…”

“Pardon? Does that mean we’re ugly?”

“How should I put it. If he went to the entertainment industry, he would have been a comet, but he came to us and became a meteor.”

“Ah, that’s a nice analogy.”

Just like that, Kwon Yihyeon’s impression was finalized. They say the most likely theory for the end of the earth is a meteor collision.

It was the moment when the first impression, which had looked quite decent, flew away.

⋆˙⟡

But quite strangely, the two who went out for a cigarette time did not return for a long time.

As if fate would have it, a dispatch call didn’t ring that day, so the team members were all in the office together, and the two who went outside blew the entire morning period set aside for intern training.

And that was something very unlike Gwak Deukcheon.

By the time the lunch hour had passed, the team members’ faces had all turned pale.

“…Why aren’t they coming back?”

“Even though it’s natural for him to skip class when he’s the teacher! It’s unlike the Team Leader, who requested the higher-ups to make a flying bed instead of a flying carpet because it’s dangerous outside the office…!”

“Could they have been dragged into a back alley?!”

“To, to Jae Angshin…?”

Others would call it an exaggeration if they heard it, but this was a worry stemming from the history of ‘cigarette times’ or ‘coffee times’ they had shared with Gwak Deukcheon.

There was one tradition in the Haetae Department.

‘If you’ve got a problem, you, come out.’

─Take off your rank insignia and let’s settle this.

Unfortunately, it’s a tradition that has almost become extinct because Gwak Deukcheon is too strong, but during the early days of the Haetae Department’s founding when ‘You, come out’ was rampant, ‘cigarette time’ was literally a metaphor for ‘You, come out’.

So the team members were scared that Gwak Deukcheon might have been beaten to death by Jae Angshin…!

‘If our benefactor dies now, how are we supposed to repay the favor…!’

‘No! I can’t let you go, not even if you die!’

The team members, who began biting their nails in worry, urged Gwak Deukcheon for a reply, but Gwak Deukcheon, deeply immersed in the conversation with Kwon Yihyeon, only answered with initials slowly and carelessly as he always did.

…That was the problem.

[Muyoung] : Are you okay? I could not contain my worried heart and have reached out to you, for which I am sorry. Smoking a lot is not good for your body, so please be careful, and I would be grateful if you could reply as quickly as possible. The team members are feeling very anxious right now…(See more) – 21 mins ago

[Yujin] : Are you alive? Not alive? If not alive, give us an answer – 18 mins ago

[Man Juhae] : Don’t talk rot – 17 mins ago

[Yujin] : Seems like he’s alive? – 13 mins ago

[Myo Woon] : Where are you? Please answer before I track your location – 2 mins ago

[Man Juhae] : Have you been enshrined in a sunny spot? If it’s a shady spot, I’ll carry out a blood vengeance for you – 2 mins ago

[Me] : f u – 1 min ago

[Yujin] : There are three initials – Just now

[Muyoung] : Are you hurting somewhere? – Just now

[Man Juhae] : Sh*t was he kidnapped or has he gone mad? There’s no way that person’s fingers are relaxed enough to use three initials, seriously crazy – Just now

[Myo Woon] : Tracking finished – Just now

[Myo Woon] : I will come to fetch you – Just now

[Me] : ? – Just now

[Me] : nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononono – Just now

[Me] : Don’t come p l e a s e [Would you like to send?]

But it was too late. The giant robot, which had only been programmed with ‘repaying the favor’, had already malfunctioned.

If you want to know what that means…

Boom, boom, crash!

It means the idiots appeared while half-destroying the building—as if they had used explosives—shouting simultaneously.

“Team Leader─! We’ve come to save you─!”

…Kwon Yihyeon began to feel pity for the lowlife named Gwak Deukcheon for the first time.

No lie, with 100% sincerity…