“Mr. Choi Doyoon, could you please give me the matching rate data for the new rookie guides?”
“Yes, I have a bit of a backlog right now, so I will hand it over to you after lunch.”
Today, as always, this damn company is so busy that I can’t even eat a proper meal.
Strange, I’m pretty sure my contract guaranteed a one-hour lunch break.
Civil servant organizations are usually famous for having a good work-life balance, but this place where I belong is light-years away from that concept.
I stuffed a piece of bread into my mouth and walked over to the matching examination room.
The hallways are always bustling with people.
There are staff from the Public Relations Department running around to prepare briefing materials for completed gate clears, researchers from the Monster Research Department who collect monster carcasses after a clear to study their ecology and countermeasures, and…
A hunter, the star of the gate clear, receiving a very passionate kiss in broad daylight.
“Good morning, Doyoon.”
“You can say hello later!”
“Hmm, is that so?”
The teeth marks peeking through the unbuttoned dress shirt and the bite marks on the nape of the neck were clearly signs of a passionate love affair to anyone looking.
Surprisingly, however, this act was a nationally recognized form of medical treatment.
The shocking truth was that the more intense the physical contact, the more the side effects caused by overusing abilities were treated!
Absorbed in ‘guiding’, which is classified as a medical practice requiring a license, the two kept locking lips and making smacking sounds in public, completely ignoring whoever walked past.
“Ah, Hunter Kim Juwon, please visit the Public Relations Department after you finish your treatment.”
“Stop putting me in front of the cameras… Ah, wait… stop, stop!! I’m fully recovered now!!”
“Aw, why~ Just a little more…”
“Guide Lee Yuseong, that’s enough. Excessive guiding against someone’s will is subject to disciplinary action.”
“Fine~”
The large guide, who had been chewing on the hunter’s neck, pulled away while smacking his lips in regret.
Sometimes, I can’t tell if my job is to manage hunters and guides, or if I’m just a teacher at a daycare for troublemakers.
‘Of all places, I had to be assigned to the Ability Management Bureau…’
Three years ago, I passed the Higher Administrative Examination.
Youngest admission to Hankook University, top graduate of the Business Administration department, and the youngest to pass the administrative exam.
It was a proud result achieved with my own hands without anyone’s help, driven by a desperate desire to live a stable life while somehow paying off a 1-billion-won debt left behind by my late, deadbeat father.
‘Well, managing people with abilities sounds grand on paper… but sometimes I get a reality check.’
Even if it is for treatment purposes, watching other people’s passionate skinship with my eyes wide open while recording the data is not an easy task to do sober.
Anyone raised in South Korea with deep-rooted Confucian values would probably feel the same way.
Basically, at some point, monsters, people with abilities, and ordinary citizens began to coexist in this world.
To be precise, right when I walked out after finishing my third oral interview for the administrative exam, the world’s very first dungeon, called a ‘Gate’, opened.
Because that gate wasn’t cleared in time, monsters poured out into the streets.
South Korea’s modern weapons didn’t work well against the monsters.
They deflected bullets and resisted firearms.
Just when everyone was falling into despair, wondering if we had no choice but to fold our hands and wait for help from allied nations, individuals who awakened special abilities began to appear.
They were called hunters, or in our language, people with abilities.
Thanks to their mysterious powers, the situation seemed to calm down, but it was later revealed that using these powers carried severe side effects.
Hunters who pushed their abilities to the limit suffered an overload in their brains and entire bodies, driving them completely insane or causing them to lose control of their powers—entering a state known as ‘Rampage.’
And miraculously, people who could control and stabilize their condition began to appear.
They were called ‘Guides’.
Once the gates opened and hunters and guides emerged, the government established a new department called the ‘Ability Management Bureau’ to investigate gates at a state level and systematically manage the hunter and guide personnel.
And as someone who passed the administrative exam, I became the very first rookie employee of this Ability Management Bureau through an additional interview process.
“You are Guide Shin Chaewon, correct? We will begin the examination.”
“Um, Center Chief… this doesn’t hurt, right?”
“Ms. Shin Chaewon, have you ever been to the dentist?”
“Pardon? Yes…”
“Have you ever had a root canal?”
“Uh… I’ve only had a resin filling. Isn’t that painful?”
“It hurts less than that. Alright, starting now.”
“Ah, wait, wait a minute—Aaaagh!!!”
It really doesn’t hurt enough to scream like that.
I tested that machine myself when the prototype came out.
The initial testing machine was incredibly painful, but after endless improvements, this current machine is completely harmless to the human body.
The guide examination test involves running a microcurrent through the nerves to see if the person actually possesses guiding abilities.
Based on the test results, the hunter with the highest compatibility is paired up with the guide and deployed to the field.
It has only been three years since both hunters and guides appeared.
The ‘Supernatural Ability Management Bureau’ was newly established to prevent their rampages, clear gates, and handle all related tasks at the government level.
Because it is a brand-new department and the importance of its work is extremely high, they offered a massive starting salary of 100 million won after taxes for rookies, along with a post-retirement pension.
This drew in the country’s brightest minds from various fields, including medicine, administration, bioengineering, and IT.
Since they gathered only experienced professionals who were at the top of their respective fields, the government provided a completely different rank system and benefits package for the Ability Management Bureau compared to traditional civil servant organizations.
Because of this, there used to be a lot of complaints from other departments regarding the extraordinary benefits, but those complaints vanished once people learned about the sheer difficulty, intensity, and danger of the work.
Anyway, despite boasting a hellish workload, the Ability Management Bureau—commonly known as the ‘Bureau’—was the most popular department due to its high salary.
The fact that this single department drove the preference rate for civil servant jobs to an all-time high speaks for itself.
These days, they say that having an employee ID card from this place is an automatic free pass when meeting your significant other’s parents.
“Alright, Guide Shin Chaewon, your exam results are out.”
“Sniff… You said it wouldn’t hurt…”
“Hmm, your stats are quite good. B-class guides are rare. We’re actually short on guides right now.”
“Gasp, B-class…! Th-then…”
“Yes, that’s right. For a B-class, the starting annual salary is around 200 million won, hazard pay included. Performance bonuses per gate clear are paid separately.”
“No, that wasn’t what I was trying to ask.”
If she wasn’t curious about the salary information, why was her face so flushed? Isn’t a high salary and early retirement the absolute best benefit of being a guide?
“Um… I was wondering… who my matching partner is…”
Occasionally, there are people like this.
People who come to the Ability Management Bureau with the expectation that awakening as a guide means finding their fated partner.
It is a pretty romantic concept.
After seeing a high matching rate, it’s easy to get swept up in the anticipation of finding the love interest heaven prepared just for them.
But reality is not a dating show.
