Chapter 1236. Establishing Plans (1)

“What the hell happened with the documents I asked you for?!”

“Where’s the list of the task force?! We need that preliminary list to get the budget approved!”

“Where are the templates?! Anyone with the document templates?”

“What the f*ck, man? You didn’t even have the templates?! And asking others for it?!”

“My apologies!”

This had to be a war zone.

The war using brute strength might have ended, but the war for the office workers had only just begun.

Trying to deal with the aftermath of a war was unimaginably difficult. At least the war the Japanese had ended in a few days, which reduced the amount of work that needed to be done.

Even so, the mop-up operations still required utmost haste.

Lee Hyeon-Su smiled brightly while scanning the chaos in the office.

“Yup, this is why humans need to learn.”

If the same thing happened in the past, these people would’ve been sitting around in a daze, not knowing what they should do. But now? They were busy running around, trying to search for ways to help out of their own volition!

Such a scene might seem normal to other people, but to Lee Hyeon-Su? This spectacle held a similar level of significance as apes learning to write and speak in human languages.

Frankly speaking, just who, or what, were these idiots? Although calling them apes was not quite right, they also didn’t exactly qualify as functioning humans, either. Indeed, these people were stuck in an uncertain realm between humans and apes.

Such apes had consumed garlic and wormwood to... Didn’t that make these idiots bears and not apes?[1]

Whatever they ate, what was important was the fact that these idiots had finally become

human.

The difference between men and apes was as simple as whether one was useful or not, after all! Seeing this office finally filled with ‘useful’ workers was enough to bring tears of joy to Lee Hyeon-Su’s eyes.

“I should treat Jo Gyu-Min to a bottle of expensive booze later.”

This outcome was all thanks to the hard work of Jaegyeong and Jo Gyu-Min. Technically, it was Hwang Jeong-Hu who made it happen, but Jo Gyu-Min had been intimately involved in every step of the process, anyway.

Lee Hyeon-Su sneaked a glance at the nearest computer monitor. A smile of a proud dad floated up on his face soon afterward.

‘As expected of a large corporation!’

This must be the reason for the old saying about how one should send horses to Jeju Island and people to large corporations.[2]

After successfully concluding Jaegyeong’s newbie training program, these idiots had leveled up into a new species capable of using Excel! Heaven and earth must’ve cracked open or something!

“Hey! Has the list come out yet?”

“No, sir! The data has not been compiled yet!”

“Hurry the eff up, then! You idiots! Don’t you know we gotta get the budgets approved before the end of today?! You’re all supposed to be martial artists, so why are you typing so slowly?! Get a move on! Now!”

Of course, the atmosphere in this office differed rather drastically from what’s accepted in the modern era. If a manager or simply a workplace superior had acted like that guy, he would’ve been fired on the spot.

‘No, no. Hang on a minute.’

Even in this day and age, presidents of companies got dragged to police stations after resorting to workplace bullying and violence. Since that was the case, all sorts of other unsavory events must be happening in workplaces even now.

In any case! The atmosphere in this office differed from the other, more ‘regular’ offices. The workers were busy hurling the Martial Assembly-specific cuss words and intimidating threats, but those things could be found pretty much everywhere within this organization, to begin with.

Lee Hyeon-Su could even sense vitality and enthusiasm from the way these people were busy shouting at each other.

“What the f*ck did you say to me?!”

“Why, you f*cking dimwit! I came here because you said the damn PC was broken, but you were too damn stupid to notice that the mouse wire wasn’t even connected! Hey, are you from the Joseon era? Is that why you’re so dumb?!”

“What?! You! Come outside! Imma disconnect your head from your body! Like my mouse!”

“

Hah

?! You think I’m scared?!”

Look at how enthusiastic they were!

Lee Hyeon-Su smiled contentedly while strolling toward his office.

‘Sure, these idiots are still not quite there yet, but...’

Although they had completed Jaegyeong’s training program, each worker still wasn’t pulling their weight just yet. In the end, that program was only half the education process.

New employees graduating from the program usually grew into excellent office workers under the guidance of older, more experienced seniors in their departments. However, the Assembly suffered from the chronic shortage of experienced seniors. Turning these newbies into a useful workforce was still asking for too much at this stage.

Even so! That was still better than nothing. Even if these idiots couldn’t do one person’s job, all Lee Hyeon-Su asked for right now was for them to do 0.5 person’s job individually. That alone should greatly relieve the burden on his shoulders... Or, that was how it was supposed to be.

Lee Hyeon-Su opened the doorway to his office, then an incredibly gentle, soothing smile formed on his face.

“...Why! Why are there still so many of those things! F*cking hell!”

He could see towers upon towers of documents in his office. There were so many of these damn things in here that he couldn’t even spot his desk anymore!

“Hold on! Excuse me, Chief Lee!”

As if to say all these documents weren’t the end of the troubles, several workers forced their way into the office while carrying large stacks of papers.

Lee Hyeon-Su’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “What are those?”

“Sir! These are documents to be reviewed for the budget approval! Please review them as quickly as possible. We need these approved first before we can proceed!”

Lee Hyeon-Su cried out, “What the hell?! We aren’t back in the eighties or something! So why did you have to print them out like this?! Haven’t you learned how to do these things on your computers!”

“Please check your inbox first, sir! All the budget documents that could be uploaded electronically are stored in there, waiting for you. These documents are separate things, leftovers that didn’t fit in there. You have at least five times more electronic documents to deal with!”

“...That was a joke, right?”

“No, sir! It’s not a joke, so please get to work immediately. Everyone’s dying of overwork, so why are you the one not doing anything, Chief!”

“...!”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s complexion paled as he scanned the imposing stacks of documents.

“What the hell? My work should have decreased, but why do I get the feeling that it’s only gotten worse instead?”

“Why would it decrease, sir? When everyone has leveled up? We’d have taken at least five days to bring in all these documents in the past before going to the program. With everyone getting far better at their jobs, though, we can now process a lot more documents in the same time period.”

“

Hah

?”

Lee Hyeon-Su had not thought of that possibility before.

‘N-no, hang on a bloody minute!’

How could this story unfold in that direction?! Didn’t that mean Lee Hyeon-Su’s workload would only continue to increase?!

Lee Hyeon-Su’s complexion paled even more as he asked the junior. “H-hey, man. It’s just your work speed that has improved, right? Not the volume of work?”

“No, sir. The volume’s gone way up as well. Stuff we didn’t even know about and brushed aside until recently are now being unearthed one by one. And documented in detail as we speak.”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s cheeks twitched ominously.

“W-why?! When I didn’t even order you to do that?!”

“Miss Lee told us to do it, sir.”

“Miss Lee? You mean, Lee Hyeon-Ju?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lee Hyeon-Su dazedly stared in silence at the documents again.

“She told us to pay special attention to documents related to the Assembly’s finances. She also said she’d crack our skulls even if the calculations are off by one cent.”

Lee Hyeon-Su groaned. “No need to put a violent spin on what she said, okay?”

“I only repeated everything she said word-by-word, sir.”

“...No need for fact-based violence, either.”

“Please do your best, sir. I’m not joking when I said you gotta go through them as quickly as possible. Our people are currently sitting on their hands, unable to do anything, because they are still waiting for the budget approval.”

Lee Hyeon-Su grew dismayed while listening.

‘Holy cow. To think there would come a day when the Assembly demands me to work even faster...!’

Should he rejoice or wail in despair?

This development should be celebrated, yet this inexplicable sorrow still washed over him. His working environment, and even the whole situation, had changed so much, yet nothing for Lee Hyeon-Su seemed to have changed!

Actually, it might get even worse at this rate!

“...Got it. I’ll deal with them immediately.”

“Thank you, sir. But you gotta finish them first before going home for the day.”

“...Yeah, I got it. Now leave me alone.”

Lee Hyeon-Su trudged unwillingly toward his computer while pulling out a bottle of antacids from his pocket. After dumping several pills in his mouth, he spat out a lengthy groan. The pills tasted bitter as he roughly chewed them without water.

‘I will die early if this keeps up...’

A martial artist dying of overwork? What an absurd storyline that was, something not even a sitcom would want to touch! However, Lee Hyeon-Su was genuinely fearing for his life. He could sense the breaths of a grim reaper near the nape of his neck!

“Whatever... I better finish this as quickly as possible. I swear to God, Imma get out of this office before midnight tonight!”

Otherwise, all the crazy hard work he had done while everyone was studying in the program would have been for naught!

‘I swear! I will definitely go home before midnight! Wait for me, a life with a free evening for myself! Wait, I guess it’s a life with a free dawn...?’

Rrrrrriiing~!

Unfortunately, it seemed the heavens didn’t want him to focus on his work. His phone noisily rang just then. Lee Hyeon-Su scowled deeply while getting ready to switch his phone off. However, he stopped and groaned after noticing the caller’s name appearing on the device’s screen.

Beep!

“Good day, Prime Minister, sir. This is Lee Hyeon-Su. I have to say, it feels like we’re chatting a lot more often lately.”

Lee Hyeon-Su sighed again after listening to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea on the other side of the line.

“Of course, I’ll deliver your message. However, as you might know, our Assembly Master has a lot on his plate at the moment. Finding some time for a meeting in his busy schedule will not be easy, unfortunately. Sorry? Of course, we have successfully put out a huge fire. But the thing about a fire is that, if we miss even a small spark, it’s going to reignite again. Until the situation in Japan has stabilized, our Assembly Master will not be able to vacate his position for long.”

Of course, Lee Hyeon-Su was lying.

If Kang Jin-Ho had to stick around to manage the mop-up operations, the Martial Assembly should be called an utterly useless organization incapable of doing anything for itself. Obviously, Lee Hyeon-Su had no thoughts of letting such a thing happen under his watch.

But he still told all these lies to the Prime Minister to create an impression that Kang Jin-Ho was not someone with a lot of free time on his hands and therefore, should not be taken for granted.

‘Who do you think you are, telling us to come and go as you please?’

Kang Jin-Ho might have become more wise to the ways of politics lately, but he still had ways to go. In politics, or in relationships in general, the establishment of boundaries began with minor things like this.

The one summoning the other side would eventually become the leader, while the summoned would end up as the subjects.

It wasn’t as if Lee Hyeon-Su wanted to start a tug of war with the Korean government over who called the shots. As long as the invitation came from the government itself, he had no problem passing it along to Kang Jin-Ho.

‘However, the Prime Minister’s office is a different story.’

Obviously, the Assembly wouldn’t be too pleased by an appointed politician, who could lose his job at any given moment, trying to act superior.

Even if the Assembly tried to maintain a cordial relationship with the current Prime Minister, Kim Myeong-Chan, everything would go back to square one when he got replaced with someone else. Worse still, the situation could go in the wrong direction if the new Prime Minister’s tendencies differed from Kim Myeong-Chan’s.

Considering all these factors, keeping a certain distance was the right move.

“Yes, sir. Then, please look after yourself during these cold winter months. Good day, Prime Minister.”

Lee Hyeon-Su ended the call and put the phone down.

“Gimme a break. Trying so hard to take the credit when you don’t even deserve it.”

This was why dealing with politicians could be so exhausting. Despite doing what they should do as a part of their duties, they would try to paint themselves as heroes as much as possible. Even though their achievements weren’t anything to write home about!

“Well, then. Time to start my work...

Mm

?”

Before Lee Hyeon-Su could touch his keyboard...

Slam!

His office door was shoved open with some force. Lee Hyeon-Su scowled deeply while looking away from the computer, only to straighten his expression after realizing who his intruder was.

Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, since even the one and only Lee Hyeon-Su would not dare scowl at Kang Jin-Ho!

However, the problem this time was something else.

“S-sir? Assembly Master?”

Kang Jin-Ho’s expression was strange. He trudged into the office, his usual expressionless face nowhere to be found. In its place was this very strange look of half-stupefaction.

Lee Hyeon-Su jumped up to his feet in surprise. “Sir?! Did something happen?”

Kang Jin-Ho plopped down on the couch and weakly waved his hand. “C-coffee. Brew me a cup of coffee.”

“Of course!”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s shock grew even larger at that order, and he rushed toward the office’s coffee machine.

Kang Jin-Ho always complained that Lee Hyeon-Su’s coffee tasted too bland and brewed his own cup. But today, he actually asked Lee Hyeon-Su to get him a cup of coffee! That could only mean something was definitely wrong.

“What happened, sir?” Lee Hyeon-Su asked in a slightly rushed tone while handing over the cup of coffee.

After somehow reeling back in his soul trying to escape his body, Kang Jin-Ho’s near-hollow eyes shifted over to Lee Hyeon-Su. “I told her, you see?”

“You told... who? And what?”

“To Miss Yeon-Ha. The truth, I mean.”

“...

Oh

!”

Lee Hyeon-Su clamped his mouth shut.

This was a rather delicate problem. Most ordinary people couldn’t accept the way of martial arts and the lifestyle associated with it. As such, quite a few martial artists in the current era chose to hide their true identity from their loved ones.

That was because humans inevitably felt instinctive

fear

toward creatures that were... different from them.

The extra wrinkle in this situation was how unique Kang Jin-Ho was, even as a martial artist. It wouldn’t be surprising if Choi Yeon-Ha freaked out and ended their relationship right there and then.

‘Although, I don’t think things would spiral in that direction...’

Still, the relationship fracturing wouldn’t be out of the question.

Lee Hyeon-Su cautiously asked, “Sir, when did you tell her?”

“Last night.”

“...How did it go?”

“Well...

Uh

...” Kang Jin-Ho muttered, his head tilting to one side. “You could say it went well. Very well, in fact...”

“

Oh

? She accepted the truth?”

“Yeah, sure. That’s... right.”

Lee Hyeon-Su grew confused just then. “Then, what’s the problem?”

Kang Jin-Ho’s expression suddenly crumpled. “...It’s her endless nagging.”

“

Huh

?

Eiii

, it couldn’t have been that bad. Her nagging, I mean.”

“She had been nagging me since last night, though?”

“...!”

Lee Hyeon-Su sneakily looked at a wall-mounted clock. Its needles pointed to four in the afternoon.

So, did that mean the nagging lasted for... twelve hours? No, maybe more like sixteen hours?!

Forget nagging, wasn’t that a torture instead?

If Lee Hyeon-Su was put into that kind of situation, he knew he’d even reveal the information on... on what the color of his great-great-great-grandfather’s underwear had been!

A cramped smile formed on Lee Hyeon-Su’s face. “Let’s look at the positives, sir. At least she... was accepting of the truth.”

Now that would be a cheap price to pay, indeed!

Before Lee Hyeon-Su could smile for real, though, Kang Jin-Ho stopped him with his next revelation.

“So, she wants to see it for herself.”

“...See what, exactly?”

Kang Jin-Ho slowly raised his index finger before pointing downward.

Lee Hyeon-Su tilted his head. Downward?

“This place,” said Kang Jin-Ho.

“...I’m sorry?”

“She wants to see the Martial Assembly for herself.”

“Say what, sir?”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s brain went into a state of overload just then.

“W-what was that, sir? Miss Choi Yeon-Ha will... So, the Madam will... No, I mean, Director Choi will show up here? In the Assembly HQ?”

“...Yeah.”

Lee Hyeon-Su’s complexion paled in an instant.

‘What the hell?! Fighting a war against the Japanese will be better than that!’

He nervously swallowed his saliva, then cautiously asked.

“S-so? What did you say, sir? Did you say okay?”

“No. I told her it’s not possible. But...”

“But?”

“She said she has the right, since she’s one of MK’s directors. I had nothing to say against that.”

“...”

“So I told her to do whatever she wants.”

Lee Hyeon-Su shot up to his feet and began pointing at Kang Jin-Ho.

“What?! Why! You should’ve stopped her, no matter what! Oh, my god! What were you thinking, dude!”

For the first time ever since he came under Kang Jin-Ho’s wing, Lee Hyeon-Su yelled and pointed at Kang Jin-Ho in sheer flabbergast.

With that, the hierarchy of the Korean Martial Assembly began rocking unsteadily.

1. This bit about bears, garlic and wormwood refers to the founding mythology of the ancient Korean dynasty, Gojoseon. There isn’t enough space here to explain it all, so please refer to Wikipedia for a quick summary. ☜

2. Actually, this is not how the actual saying goes. Replace ‘large corporations’ with Seoul for a more accurate proverb. ☜