“A-ah, I’m so, so sorry.”
“Get out.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Hayeong gave a quick bow and left the office. Yujin pressed a hand firmly against his throbbing head.
With this many informants, it was likely true that Yujin Langford had harassed guides. Even if he received disciplinary action over this, there was nothing he could do about it. The only thing that stung was that he hadn’t been the one to do it.
Well. Can’t be helped. Doesn’t seem like someone I can negotiate with anyway.
The audit over not doing his job was just a pretext — Seo Yunbeom’s real purpose was clearly this. There was no room to make excuses.
“I apologize for causing this disgraceful incident.”
Yujin admitted to the wrongdoing without resistance. He couldn’t say it wasn’t him. Even if the soul was different, the crimes had been committed by his body. That fact was unbearably infuriating and shameful.
You better not die peacefully, Yujin Langford.
Even as he cursed him inwardly, he felt a pang of sorrow for the victims listed densely on that screen. He found himself wondering whether the number of victims might have been smaller if he’d returned even a little sooner.
“Well, even if this gets reported up the chain, Team Leader Kwon won’t face any disciplinary action or punishment. The Association President will put a stop to it.”
“Ah….”
At Seo Yunbeom’s words, Yujin belatedly recalled the existence of Kwon Seunghyeok. All reports coming to him would be received by Kwon Seunghyeok, the Association President. And he would use every means necessary to cover it up. Regardless of whether they were on good or bad terms, Kwon Seunghyeok was exactly that kind of person.
Knowing that, why had Seo Yunbeom gone out of his way to bring the report and show it to him? Had he come just to call him trash to his face? Yujin watched Seo Yunbeom with still-suspicious eyes.
“I heard you recently began Guiding the Alpha-1 Team.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
Seo Yunbeom abruptly changed the subject. What did his Guiding the Alpha-1 Team have to do with any of this? Yujin swallowed dryly as he stared into those cool, sunken dark eyes.
“If Team Leader Kwon had been acting as irresponsibly as before, I wouldn’t have reported this up the chain — I would have taken it straight to the press.”
“Hmm….”
That would certainly be far more effective at resolving the issue. Of course, Kwon Seunghyeok would still try to manage the fallout, but the moment it hit the news, the entire nation would know and the uproar would force them to at least go through the motions of punishment.
“So you’re saying you have no intention of leaking it to the press right now?”
Yujin immediately caught the oddity in Seo Yunbeom’s words and pressed him. If he would have gone to the press had things been irresponsible — didn’t that mean he wouldn’t do so now, given that Yujin had started Guiding?
“The Espers on Alpha-1 Team already have dangerously high Contamination levels, so I thought I’d hold off and see for a little while.”
“……”
Yujin felt relief at Seo Yunbeom’s answer, but his chest tightened almost immediately after. Being given time was a good thing for him — but it also meant the reports filed by the victims through HR would have to be buried. That sat uneasily with him.
“Then the victims….”
Yujin opened his mouth after a moment’s deliberation. Seo Yunbeom gave a small, humorless smile and turned the question back on him.
“Are you actually worried about the victims who suffered because of you?”
He could tell Seo Yunbeom found it absurd. To him, Yujin was still the trash who’d laid hands on guides. Even if he said it wasn’t him, that he’d been wronged, no one would believe him.
“You seem like a somewhat different person now, Team Leader Kwon.”
“……”
Still, something like remorse showing through must have surprised him — Seo Yunbeom murmured it quietly. Yujin continued, his feelings complicated.
“I’ll apologize to the victims as sincerely as I can. And if there’s anything they want——”
“Ah, that won’t be necessary.”
“Pardon?”
He had been speaking in earnest, but Seo Yunbeom cut him off firmly. Yujin looked at him with puzzled eyes.
“Team Leader Kwon — do you genuinely not remember?”
“What do you——”
“Or are you pretending not to?”
“……”
He had no idea what the man was talking about. Yujin could only blink, unable to even guess at his meaning. Seo Yunbeom gave him a sharp, measuring look.
“Some of these reports — a few of them are exaggerated. Have you truly not noticed?”
“What?”
At Seo Yunbeom’s words, Yujin turned his gaze back to the pad screen. The statements, each grievance laid out point by point, were so thorough and organized that finding gaps in them seemed nearly impossible. On top of that, since he had no idea how Yujin Langford had actually mistreated them, he had no way of even guessing what was accurate and what wasn’t.
“The sexual misconduct cases are mostly false reports. Those individuals were receiving payment from Team Leader Kwon.”
“Payment….”
In other words, it hadn’t been coercion — they’d been willing partners? Yujin slowly closed his eyes, then opened them. The simmering heat in his head cooled somewhat.
If these people had been Yujin Langford’s partners, why had they filed these reports? He watched Seo Yunbeom with skeptical eyes. The man pulled the corner of his mouth up into a smile.
“Didn’t I say it before? That if Team Leader Kwon had still been neglecting his duties, I would have released it.”
“Ha….”
So Seo Yunbeom had deliberately gotten a hold of this leverage in order to force Yujin Langford into Guiding. By dressing up facts into something more sensational and threatening to take it to the press? Yujin let out a long sigh.
Thinking back now, no matter how much of a lunatic Yujin Langford was, there was no way he would have committed crimes this openly. This world was different from the one he had lived in. After adapting to it, surely even he would have realized that living recklessly in a society without a class hierarchy wasn’t viable.
It seemed that, unable to seduce Espers and frustrated by it, Langford had turned to keeping paid partners instead — and Seo Yunbeom had somehow extracted something resembling false confessions from them. Yujin regarded him with wary eyes.
“Why are you telling me all of this so freely?”
The more they talked face-to-face, the stranger the man seemed. What reason could he possibly have to lay out his own scheme right in front of him? Seo Yunbeom retrieved the pad and answered evenly.
“Because I don’t think I’ll be needing this anymore. Though I can’t say what would happen if Team Leader Kwon goes back to being negligent.”
“……”
So it was purely leverage for coercion. What kind of HR Team Leader was this — he was more like a con man. Yujin glanced at the pad in Seo Yunbeom’s hand.
Whether its contents were true or not, even one moment under press scrutiny would be enough to send his image crashing into the gutter — and not just domestically, but worldwide. Seo Yunbeom clearly knew that too, which was exactly why he’d sensationalized it as much as he could.
“I’m surprised, though. I expected you to take one look at the pad and start shouting that you never did any of this.”
“Ah….”
Seo Yunbeom’s expression shifted from curiosity to suspicion. Yujin mentally kicked himself and quickly added an excuse.
“Well — the fact that I threw my weight around at the Center is true. I thought of them as partners, but some of them might have seen it differently.”
“Hmm.”
Whether it was enough to satisfy him, Seo Yunbeom seemed to let the suspicion go. Right — it would be hard to believe someone’s soul had been swapped just because they were acting a little differently. Yujin drank his coffee, relieved.
“T-Team Leader. What happened?”
“Well……”
The moment Seo Yunbeom left, Hayeong came rushing back into the office. Whatever he’d been imagining outside had turned his face the color of ash. Yujin snorted with amusement.
“By the way — you called me trash earlier, didn’t you?”
“M-me? When did I ever — haha……”
“I’ll kill you, I swear.”
“Eek.”
The threat Seo Yunbeom had delivered a moment ago was a concern, but as he’d said — as long as Yujin kept consistently Guiding Alpha-1 Team, it would stay buried. And as long as his soul didn’t swap back again, he’d keep Guiding, so it wasn’t a real threat to him.
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry. It was a misunderstanding.”
“A m-misunderstanding?”
“Yeah.”
He gave Hayeong only a vague answer and left it at that. Whatever he said to Hayeong would be reported directly to Kwon Seunghyeok. Yujin played dumb and downed the rest of his coffee.
“C-could you elaborate just a little more?”
“No.”
“Team Leader….”
“I’m going to Guide.”
It happened to be time to head out for Guiding, so he got to his feet. He left the whining Hayeong behind in the office and made his way to the Guiding room. Walking down the corridor, he thought about who he’d be Guiding.
Lee Siyun’s Contamination levels are always pretty steady.
That was because he was regulating them with his mental-type abilities, which made it difficult to push them down any further. What he was receiving wasn’t truly Guiding — it amounted to nothing more than a placebo effect.
I’m a little wary of him reading my memories, but just in case — I should try Guiding him more intensively.
He didn’t have enough data, having never Guided an S-rank mental-type Esper before. Still, he had encountered mental-type Espers in the novel world, so he figured Lee Siyun would be similar.
Click.
Just like last time, Lee Siyun was sitting quietly alone inside the Guiding room. Because Lee Siyun was a high-rank mental-type Esper, he almost always entered Gates on his own, which meant when the other team members were deployed into a Gate, Lee Siyun was the one left behind.
“Hey.”
“……”
As Yujin approached, Lee Siyun didn’t answer — he only lifted his gaze and stared.
Yujin swallowed a sigh and continued.
“You can turn off the device.”
“……”
At that, the device, having recognized Yujin’s voice, switched off on its own. Confirming that Lee Siyun could now speak, Yujin tried again to start a conversation.
“Langford — turns out he’s a character from a novel.”
“What?”
But Lee Siyun beat him to it, suddenly speaking up first. And on a topic Yujin hadn’t remotely anticipated.
Yujin stared at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
