Chapter 491. Financial Difficulties (3) |
Chapter 491. Financial Difficulties (3)
Alright. First, let's think about this for a moment. How on earth did things end up like this? I stood there, pondering for a while.
"This leaves a bitter taste in my mouth."
In a way, it was a classic case of mending the barn after the cow was already stolen. But just because an annoying problem had come up didn't mean anything would be solved by simply giving up. I believed that understanding the situation always came first.
"It's not like ignoring something that's already happened out of irritation is going to help."
So first, this was something that needed to be addressed. It was true, just as Jeong Haseong had said, that there was a reason I'd deliberately hired elderly mammals. But it absolutely was not—
"Damn it."
—for the purpose of contributing to society. After all, I was an Alphauri-born soul.
Moreover, when it came specifically to the matter of the [Kim Giryeo Guild], I was—if only temporarily—a business owner as well. How could I afford to indulge in compassion so carelessly?
So the reason someone ended up creating jobs for the elderly had far more personal motives behind it.
O In South Korea, once a company hires someone, it isn't easy to fire them.
First, I recognized the fact that a certain country lacks flexibility in employment.
O Then, since I was setting up a guild anyway, I should select and hire the best possible talent as employees.
No—honestly. Isn't that just the most basic mindset anyone running a business would have? In any case, there was a time when I personally reviewed the list of job applicants. And the work histories they had written on their résumés were, shockingly, all more or less like this
Three years. Five years. And eight years……
"What am I even supposed to do with such short spans of time?
That thought probably isn't something Earth natives would easily relate to. But true to my Alphauri nature, when you peel back my inner self, I'm quite old, and I come from a planet where days are much longer—my very unit of perceiving time is different. As a result, I tended to regard spans of just a few years as trivial.
Really, what significance could the ages of various Earthlings in their fifties to seventies possibly have?
[Personal Statement]
[Hello. I worked in a large corporation, XX Planning, for 19 years, handling related duties...]
Nineteen years. Twenty years. It was only after seeing résumés with time spans like these that I could finally take an interest.
"That's it. At the very least, this is the kind of tenure you can actually call experienced.
So it was almost inevitable that this particular organization ended up with a large senior population. The boss had hired people based purely—truly, solely—on the amount of their experience, so there was no way a crowd of fresh-faced young adults was going to gather.
"Besides, we already hired plenty of younger people through the rookie hunter track. It's not like I committed some outrageous favoritism this time."
To make matters worse, this issue wasn't the only thing that felt unfair. All of the new hires I selected underwent medical checkups right before being hired—and it was from those examination results that I learned something else: the middle-aged and elderly people who joined this guild had a high likelihood of not suffering from any serious illnesses.
Since they were workers who had chosen to seek employment of their own accord, all of them had intact cognitive abilities and fully functional limbs. So I had hired them without hesitation—people whose work capacity was perfectly fine and whose experience made them extremely valuable assets—
"But to the natives, this never looked like something ordinary."
In the end, that was how it turned out. Of course, from the perspective of an Earth company, employees with better physical strength would naturally be preferable. But to me—an alien—this planet's retirees looked far too young. Some people were even pushed out of their jobs in their forties…isn't that something most Earthlings would also consider excessively early restructuring?
"Just what reason was there for my actions to be blown up into headlines like this?"
I swallowed my sense of grievance instead of letting it spill out.
"Heuk."
There was a guest standing right in front of me, after all. I couldn't behave recklessly.
"Hunter Kim. Did I come by while you were too busy? You've been lost in such deep thought for a while now…"
"The longer I live on Earth, the more things there are that I hate."
Thus, the thoughts of the two very different beings quietly diverged. Still, thanks to Jeong Haseong coming by and saying this, I was also able to obtain the following information.
So in the end, the reason people are paying attention to our guild is because we hired so many older workers, right?"
If that alone was what had become a talking point, then the solution was simple.
"In that case, I just need to hire more young people and dilute the ratio."
Since this guild hadn't yet finished recruiting non-Awakened staff anyway. Since we were increasing the number of hunters, we also needed a lot of personnel to support them—and since I had no desire to ever experience another disaster like having 40 billion won in taxes due, I needed to be especially aggressive about hiring accounting staff.
"Hmm."
So after a brief consideration, I made a decision like this.
"Our guild's know-how is too shoddy to be training complete novices from scratch anyway."
Let's recruit people with a decent amount of experience, but this time, let's narrow the scope to those around young adulthood. I planned to dilute the lopsided age distribution of the staff using that approach.
"Anyway, thanks for coming all the way here today to congratulate me, Haseong-ah. I'll enjoy the gift."
"Oh! Uh—by the way, since we happened to meet during the day for once, I was wondering if later we might have lunch—"
"I'm skipping meals today. I've got a lot to do, so I'll just eat everything later in the afternoon."
That aside, what was with this sudden change of topic?
"But why did food suddenly come up? Jeong Haseong, are you hungry right now?"
"Ah, no. It was nothing worth mentioning, so please don't worry about it."
"Is that so?"
"L… I actually didn't feel like eating today either. Yes."
"Alright."
I guess it was just trivial small talk. And since the conversation was over, I immediately got moving to do what I had decided to do.
***
But I never expected that skipping meals and working would lead to this.
[List of Accepted Applicants for S-Rank Hunter Kim's Company]
[SongYu (29): ]
[KimYi (31): ]
[SeoMu (32): ]
A few days later. More precisely, around the time when multiple weathercasters were announcing the arrival of the autumn breeze. Once again, I was faced with an unexpected turn of events I could never have imagined.
"Wasn't this supposed to be the safe choice…?"
I had thought that missing in some younger individuals, in line with the natives' criticism, would stop drawing attention—but it seemed that wasn't the case at all.
[(Today's Special Report) Hiring Market 'In Uproar'... Does Director Giryeo's "Social Ladder" Move Bring Hope to a Frozen Society?]
Just what, exactly, was the problem with the people I had hired this time? I quietly stared at the now-noisy news site. But glaring at it like this wasn't going to change anything. All I could do was hurriedly grasp the sense of alien otherness that Earthlings—called journalists—were pointing out.
.
[Article Body]
[S-rank Hunter Kim Giryeo once again drew attention with this round of staff recruitment.
In an industry where even simple office positions typically demand high specifications, he stood out for offering hiring practices that were 'unaffected by career gaps,' a rare move in the hunting sector.]
Career gaps…… Career gaps, of all things.
"Now that I think about it, the reasonably young employees I hired this time all had suspiciously high marriage rates."
I briefly shifted my Sambagean eyes.
"And checking more closely, now every one of them has a newborn listed in their family records."
A slight cold sweat followed immediately.
"Don't tell me these people were actually fired from their previous jobs just for taking parental leave…?"
Damn it! It's not like they spelled out "I am the parent of a child" at length in their personal statements. They didn't even bring it up directly during the interviews—how was I supposed to know something like that?
"I even looked at eight years of experience and thought it was short."
I slightly scrolled the screen on my phone.
[YTV News: Interview Call With Successful Applicant ● LIVE]
What came through was the voice of a mammal who had recently been accepted into our guild.
[SongYu (29): ]
"The voice is distorted, but judging by the overall way of speaking, this must be her."
Listening to the story, it turned out that this Song woman in her twenties had suffered severe harassment at her previous workplace. She was a graduate of a top-tier university in Seoul, and someone whose work performance had been good enough to earn her consistently high bonuses. The reason her life had suddenly become so difficult came down to just this.
[New Hire: My child was sick, so I had no choice—but the moment I said I was taking parental leave, the executives at my previous company cursed me out right to my face.]
[Anchor: Cursed at?]
[New Hire: And because I felt uncomfortable, I couldn't even take a long leave. When I rushed back to work, the company that had treated me like a talent suddenly turned on me and started glaring at me like I was a problem. It's absurd, but they even took away the computer I'd been using and replaced it with a low-spec one.]
[Anchor: That must have been very difficult.]
Workplace harassment really is the worst. I could fully empathize with the interview of an employee who had suffered like that, but with things turning out this way, it was a bit troublesome.
[Follow-up Article: Are Kim Giryeo's actions a "frontal challenge" to the cynical business leaders of this era?]
I was at a loss.
"I didn't challenge anything. I didn't challenge anything."
And the worst part was that I had no idea how this awkward situation would last. In fact, those weren't even all of the people in their thirties that I'd hired in this last round.
[Hunting News Sharing Platform CURTAIN]
[Free Board]
[Title: [Article Shared] Is There Light for Those Who Challenge…? Mr. Cha, part of the "Just Took a Break" population, Dramatically Passes the Hiring Process]
Even the last remaining person ended up becoming news material without exception. It wasn't even a guild I planned to torture much with care anyway. That was why I had deliberately chosen to hire ordinary, unremarkable people who wouldn't draw attention—but still.
"Should I just drop a meteor on Earth and be done with it?"
The mammals I had hired without much thought seemed to occupy rather distinctive positions in society. Even so, despite reading the lines the reporters had written, it took me a while to fully grasp the situation.
[Mr. Cha was unable to engage in any activities for the past three years due to burnout caused by an excessive workload.]
Giving up on job searching and all that. They were making such a huge fuss about it. In the end, the period that man had taken off amounted to just three years, didn't it?
"That's nothing—you could easily spend that long doing nothing at all."
The soul with a labor allergy reacted.
"Seriously. When you're alive, isn't it normal to suddenly want to do nothing for about three years at some point?"
But of course, grumbling to myself in my head wasn't going to change anything. In the end, the situation I was in was quite simple.
***
It was the very next day.
"Alright—everyone, I think we've dug up enough by now. Why don't we stop work and head outside for a bit?"
"Yeah! It's lunchtime."
"We're not hunters or anything—there's no reason to push ourselves eating emergency rations to the brink of death. Let's head out and order something good."
Lively chatter could be heard from somewhere nearby. An ordinary metal protective suit that a mail-order company would probably price at around 170,000 won. And inside, it could you vaguely see worn, shabby clothes, and the like. A motley group of humans who didn't look like hunters at all soon came into view.
"There's a gukbap place nearby that delivers fast, so let's all go with that for lunch!"
"Yes, yes! Team leader."
To put it more precisely—Since I was actually part of a crowd like this myself, it wasn't as though they had suddenly come into my line of sight.
[Notice]
[No experience required / Newcomers welcome / No car needed]
[*Recruiting herb-for-cash gatherers (an industry term referring to day laborers who focus on collecting dungeon resources) to work together in an F-rank gate.
The herbs you collect will be measured by the wholesaler on-site by the gram and purchased immediately, so there's no need to worry about transportation.
An E-rank hunter will enter together as a safety supervisor, so non-Awakened individuals are also welcome!]
The place where the Archmage had quietly slipped in among them was, in fact, an F-rank gate located in the Hoseo region.
"To think this kind of part-time work has already become widespread among civilians. I've seen mentions of it pass by in the news from time to time, but still—South Korea really has loosened restrictions on non-Awakened dungeon entry a lot this year…"
Because excessive attention had ended up focusing on the guild, I was forced to carry out all suspicious research that could get me pegged as an alien personally.
"That said… I never expected a high-grade asset like me to end up back inside such a trivial feeding ground."
Now, imagine entering a lowest-difficulty hunting ground while wearing the well-known face of Kim Giryeo. If that happened, it was obvious there'd be another online uproar about an S-rank hunter stealing work from the weak. There's only so much criticism one can tolerate.
Honestly, I was sick to death of seeing that kind of negative public sentiment all over again. So, to make sure no pointless rumors cropped up, I had—naturally—prepared appropriate additional measures in advance.
"For now, entering the soil-type gate I'd had my eye on was conveniently taken care of thanks to this part-time job posting…"
Step, step.
It was around this time, as I was walking out of the dungeon in lost various thoughts. A middle-aged civilian who had been slightly separated from the group approached me.
"Excuse me!"
The person calling out to me was the team leader of this part-time crew.
"Hey, foreigner!"
He suddenly came up to me and said that—what was he going on about?
"Work is stopped for the next hour. Lunch! Eat? Do you understand?"
"You can just speak Korean."
"Uh—what? You speak our language?"
I stared at him intently. Reflected in the lenses of the man who seemed to be the work crew leader was a certain image—slightly drooping eyelids that him look sleepy, a slack, spiritless mouth, and skin scattered with small dark spots, and so on.
There was no need for further explanation. I was already disguised in that work-appropriate appearance I'd used often enough in the past.
"Just in case, I even borrowed the [Vampire's Mirror] Kang Changho used overseas and brought it as is. Well, even if someone tried to tell me from that side, the situation would be the same. Like I explained when borrowing it the E item, this time it was simply a matter of it being difficult to operate with an S-rank face."
And besides that, there was one more thing I'd prepared.
"It's not like I'm doing anything shady here. Let's just quickly confirm whether there are any viable resources, like planned, and be done with it."
I'd asked Andy Oliver, a wealthy figure in the underworld, to arrange all the necessary documents, including forged visa papers. I had, of course, also brazenly forged a foreign driver's license into a domestic one to change my identity. But if you really thought about it, there was little chance that a small labor group working in such a quiet dungeon would conduct strict identity checks anyway.
"Come to think of it, this might be my first time having a one-on-one conversation with the crew leader."
For now, I decided to relax and deal with him normally. Since I stayed silent and waited, the crew leader continued the conversation.
"Hey, since you speak Korean so well, this works out nicely. There was actually something I wanted to ask one of our young guys—"
"What is it?"
"Everyone else will probably just go with gukbap for lunch, you know? But your tastes might be a bit different. Uh—bread? Should I order something like bread separately for you?"
So it was just a lunch menu question.
"That's fine."
Given how thoroughly tangled my life had become, I wasn't in a state where eating anything would give me energy anyway. Still, seeing the crew leader's consideration in asking at all, I forced my voice out.
"Please order from the same place for me as well. If possible, could I get one with a good mix of offal and lean meat?"
"…I"
"At restaurants, I think they usually call that modum gukbap."