“Fuu-woo…”

Kang Jin-Ho deeply sighed.

‘It feels so weird.’

His reflection in the mirror looked like it belonged to someone else. Currently, Kang Jin-Ho was kitted out in a slick, slim-fit navy blue business suit and a matching tie.

The store assistant responsible for selling this suit applauded enthusiastically at how good Kang Jin-Ho looked and even took pictures as proof. That was how perfectly he suited his current style.

In the end, it was the person carrying the clothes.

The truth was, though, none of the Martial Assembly's martial artists looked ungainly in a business suit. After all, physiques tempered through martial arts and physical activities would always pull off a business suit look with consummate ease. Kang Jin-Ho was the perfect example of this phenomenon.

He looked good enough to get a job as a male model appearing on the cover of a fashion magazine. Even then, Kang Jin-Ho still found his appearance foreign and hard to get used to.

However, that was understandable. Ever since he completed his mandatory military service, Kang Jin-Ho's attire almost always consisted of jeans, T-shirts, hoodies, or tracksuits. Formal wear, like a business suit, would always feel tight and unwieldy to him.

However, he had no choice in the matter. A salaryman couldn't just rock up at work in a tracksuit, after all! All attire must fit the occasion, now didn't it!

‘And I’m supposed to wear this for one month?’

Jaegyeong’s standard new employee training program usually lasted for around three months. In other words, the actual employees had to train for three months at a bare minimum.

However, Kang Jin-Ho and the Assembly’s administrative staff didn’t need to learn about Jaegyeong’s corporate culture since acclimatizing to how this corporation operated was not what they were attending the program for. No, they only needed to focus on grasping the basics of how administrative work was supposed to be done.

Besides, the administrative staff of the Martial Assembly were still martial artists at the end of the day, even if their lack of talent forced them to quit their cultivation journey prematurely. Their stamina was obviously incomparably better than ordinary new employees participating in the training program.

Knowing this, Hwang Jeong-Hu and Jo Gyu-Min decided to take the training material regular people needed three months to learn and squeeze it into the schedule of one month. Doing this meant the number of instructors ballooned by three times the usual, though.

With that, Hwang Jeong-Hu kept his promise of offering a top-quality training program. However, that was only from his perspective.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

From the perspective of a man who had to go through the program, namely Kang Jin-Ho, one month seemed like an eternity.

“Hmm…”

Kang Jin-Ho cocked his head to the side a couple of times before heading toward his bedroom's exit. However, he flinched a little after opening the door. His family was standing right outside with expectant faces.

“...What’s going on, everyone?”

Baek Hyeon-Jeong began clapping enthusiastically. “It’s my son’s first commute to work! Of course we must see you off!”

“…”

Baek Hyeon-Jeong and Kang Yu-Hwan smiled contentedly at Kang Jin-Ho. The subtle pressure from their warm gazes led to another breakout of cold sweat on Kang Jin-Ho’s forehead.

“This isn’t worthy of a celebration, mother.”

“No, son. We should celebrate. This is your first day of work in one of South Korea's top corporations, after all!”

“I’m just an intern, you know…”

“Even then! Don't you know how stiff the competition between the interns is?”

“…” Kang Jin-Ho did his absolute best to stifle a groan from leaking out of his mouth.

Maybe the ones who underestimated Kang Jin-Ho the most in this country had to be his own family! To think they were this happy about the one and only Assembly Master of the Korean Martial Assembly joining a newbie training program!

“Oppa, do your best today, okay!” Even Kang Eun-Yeong, usually a crafty little fox, was calmly congratulating him.

What an irony this was. So ironic!

“Well, then…” Kang Jin-Ho sheepishly bowed to his family, then hurriedly headed to the exit. After taking out a pair of brand-new loafers from the shoe cabinet, Kang Jin-Ho sucked in a deep breath and put them on.

‘Even this feels weird.’

When he thought about it, this must be his first time wearing shoes like this. Kang Jin-Ho had plenty of chances to wear business suits before, but his shoes always had been sneakers.

The sensation of leather tightening around his feet felt so foreign and strange to Kang Jin-Ho's senses.

“Kuh-uh, look at that salaryman aura coming from my oppa!”

“You look great, son!”

“Do your best today, son!”

Kang Jin-Ho animatedly nodded back before hurriedly escaping through the exit. He was scared of what his family might say next if he were to linger in their presence for a minute longer.

After exiting the house, Kang Jin-Ho finally released that groan he held back earlier.

‘I don’t get it. What’s the big deal?’

It felt like the people in his surroundings were making more fuss about this situation than him. Kang Jin-Ho groaned again, his shoulders slumped, before climbing into his trusty Zoom-Zoom.

Rumble, vrooooom…

Turning on the ignition greeted him with the familiar rumble from the engine behind his head. Kang Jin-Ho heard this every time he headed to the Martial Assembly, but it felt a little different today.

Kang Jin-Ho typed the address on the satellite navigation while licking his parched lips, then pressed the accelerator.

***

“Wow. It really is Jaegyeong…”

Bae Jae-Min’s jaw fell slightly as he stared at the tall skyscraper.

The logo of Jaegyeong Corporation, which all South Koreans should recognize, was proudly located on the top of this building seemingly trying to break through the heavens.

‘And this is where I’ll get my training?’

What a strange feeling this was.

Jaegyeong Group was one of South Korea’s top corporations. Some people even thought that getting a job in Jaegyeong was a sign of a successful life.

The number one company everyone wanted to work for… That was Jaegyeong!

Of course, it wasn't as if Jaegyeong recorded South Korea's highest profit margins or revenues. Even then, it still came out on top of any surveys done with the prospective job seekers.

That was because, unlike other corporations that mercilessly fired anyone who didn’t perform as expected, Jaegyeong’s public image was that of a company that valued its workers as family and tried its best to work together with them.

Some people thought that if Hwang Jeong-Hu had discarded such a mindset and pushed its employees as hard as other large corporations, Jaegyeong could have become South Korea's number one company without too much problem.

That was Jaegyeong in a nutshell. And Bae Jae-Min was about to attend such a corporation’s training program. Of course, attending a training program was just that. It wasn’t as if he was going to work for Jaegyeong.

Even so, he couldn't help but mull on the significance of this moment.

‘This is kinda a big deal, isn’t it?’

There was an uncomfortable truth he must acknowledge. And that was… The administrative job in the Martial Assembly was the domain of dropouts.

No one said that, of course. And no one openly looked down on the Assembly’s office workers. But Bae Jae-Min didn’t need those to know.

If he had any talent in martial arts, he wouldn’t have volunteered for a job in the Assembly’s administrative department.

The dream of all martial artists throwing their lot with the Martial Assembly was to eventually become stronger. Those who didn’t have the passion and drive for this dream lacked the qualifications to call themselves martial artists.

The thing was, though, martial artists were a rather stupid bunch. In an era where individual physical strength didn’t mean much, these people risked their everything to become stronger and rejected what it meant to live an ordinary life.

The story for those doing the administrative work was even more… tragic. After all, their lack of talent prevented them from becoming stronger no matter how hard they tried.

People like that usually gave up on the path of martial arts.

That was because the disadvantages of giving up on an ordinary life would outweigh the advantages of being a martial artist from the moment they stopped getting stronger.

As such, many who gave up on the path of martial arts hid their identities and tried to integrate into ordinary society.

The Martial Assembly's administrative staff existed on the boundary. They couldn't become stronger. They had run into a wall no amount of effort could overcome, forcing them to give up on the path of martial arts. But they also couldn't get over their attachment and remained in the martial world.

That was the story of the Assembly's administrative staff. No wonder their treatment overall wasn't so great.

They never learned anything in school and didn't receive any training in office work, either. They were just deployed into the department and did whatever was ordered of them. That had been Bae Jae-Min's and his colleagues' story until now.

‘In other words… We’ve been just existing. Coasting along.’

What made things harder psychologically for Bae Jae-Min was that… working in the administrative department was not physically demanding at all.

Objectively speaking, the administrative department in the Martial Assembly was closer to being a freeloader's dream job. It'd be similar to those cushy posts in the military every soldier dreamed of being assigned to.

Why? Because no one got mad at the Assembly’s administrative staff!

All criticisms and condemnation regarding administrative work stemmed from people’s expectations. In other words, when people’s expectations of standards were not met, rebuke and blaming would begin in earnest.

However, no one expected great things from the Assembly's administrative staff, to begin with. That was because everyone in the organization knew they were not specialists in this sort of thing. They knew these dropouts were incapable of doing a stellar job in the administrative department.

Watching from a close vantage point the life he wished he could live while drifting from one day to the next… That was the fate of the Assembly's administrative worker in Bae Jae-Min's view. But now…!

‘I’m about to enter Jaegyeong…’

That mindset was quickly going through a massive transformation.

Bae Jae-Min stared at Jaegyeong’s tall skyscraper and nervously swallowed his saliva.

Without a doubt, Jaegyeong was one of South Korea’s top companies. And such a company was about to train Bae Jae-Min and others. He obviously had no idea how things ended up this way, but one thing seemed certain at this point.

‘The Assembly Master… and Chief Lee are not thinking of abandoning us!’

They were about to get some training under their belt. Didn’t that mean the Assembly’s higher-ups wanted to utilize them?

Bae Jae-Min had already given up on himself, yet the two men in charge of leading the Martial Assembly were still trying so hard to train them and use them somehow.

Since Bae Jae-Min felt subtly moved by that, it must mean he had hit rock bottom psychologically.

‘But… Can I even do this?’

If he was being honest here, Bae Jae-Min did not feel confident. At all.

Those qualified to receive Jaegyeong’s new employee training were some of the best talents in South Korea. Only the elites who won the perilous competition to get hired by Jaegyeong could step into that tall skyscraper.

Could Bae Jae-Min handle the training such elites received, though?

It should not be easy. But Bae Jae-Min… was the very first person to volunteer when the announcement for the training program was made.

To have people expect things from him... To be perceived as “useful” by someone… Such things might be insignificant to others, but to Bae Jae-Min? Even insignificant satisfactions like those were precious to him. He was desperate to feel it.

“Huh? What are you doing here, Mister Bae?”

“Eh?” Bae Jae-Min hurriedly turned around and spotted Deputy Chief Gwok Jin-Hyeong from the same department waving his hand while closing the distance. “You’re here too, sir.”

“Yeah. What’s up? Why haven’t you gone inside?”

“I was about to, but… I got nervous, sir.”

“...You too?” Gwok Jin-Hyeong looked up at the imposing building and groaned softly. “I wanted to bluff and say this is a cakewalk for me, but… My legs are shaking too much for that. Dude, I might die of nervousness at this rate.”

“Me too, sir. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Well… Let’s be objective here, Mister Bae. Chief Lee surely wouldn’t cook up a training program we can’t handle. Now would he?”

Bae Jae-Min hopefully asked back, “You think so?”

“...Nope. That demon is fully capable of doing exactly that.”

The two men anxiously stared at each other.

“In any case… Let’s go inside. We can’t chicken out after coming this far, right? We have our pride to think about.”

“That’s true, sir. Then, shall we… Mm?”

Just before the two men could step forward…

RUMBLE! VROOOOOM!

Their hearing, which was several times sharper than ordinary people's, caught the familiar rumbling of a powerful engine and sent the signal of “Stop!” to their brains.

“What?”

“Huh? What was that?”

The two men quickly turned their heads and spotted the familiar shape of a supercar.

“Eh? Is that… Assembly Master?”

“Huh? That is his car, isn’t it?”

Rumble!

The rumbling supercar unhesitantly slipped into the mouth of an underground parking lot.

“...It is his car, right?”

“I saw the number plate and yes, it is. But, uh, why is he here?”

“...Maybe he's stopping by to give us a pep talk? He doesn't have to do that, though?”

The two men tilted their heads this way and that in confusion while staring at the exit of the underground parking lot, then turned around to leave. Or, at least, that was what they tried to do.

Their movements were stopped by the figure of Kang Jin-Ho awkwardly trudging out of the exit.

‘He’s… in a business suit?’

‘And he’s wearing… loafers?!’

The two men’s eyes powerfully quaked when they saw Kang Jin-Ho’s attire. Could it be?!

Kang Jin-Ho discovered the two Assembly members and walked toward them.

Bae Jae-Min and Gwok Jin-Hyeong hurriedly sobered up and bowed toward their boss.

“G-good day, sir!”

“Assembly Master! Good morning, sir!”

Kang Jin-Ho hurriedly waved his hand. “Please don’t address me as Assembly Manager or sir while we’re here. Call me Kang Jin-Ho.”

“...Sorry?”

Kang Jin-Ho replied with a flat expression. “I’m here for that training course, too.”

“…”

“…”

What nightmarish and diabolical horse manure was this nonsense?

Why would the boss of the Korean Martial Assembly receive training meant for newbies?!

“Besides all that… Have you seen any cafes nearby? I was supposed to get a cup of coffee, but... I forgot.”

“It’s, uh, it’s over there, sir!”

“Allow me to show you the way, sir!”

The two men nearly freaked out and hurriedly took the lead to show Kang Jin-Ho the way to the cafe they saw on their way here. While walking to their new destination, though… The faces of both men were as pale as a sheet of blank paper!

‘We’re in the same training as the Assembly Master?!’

‘Chief Lee, what have you done?! What the f*ck?!’

This was the moment these two poor souls realized this training program would be unlike any other training program in history.