Vol 5 Chapter 60

"Ah, it was such a nice treat for the eyes, but now we have to go back to work. It's really sickening."

"I want to change out of this shabby short-sleeved T-shirt! What is this, really?"

"Once you enter the capsule and log into the game, it automatically changes to the operator uniform anyway. Just bear with it, thinking that comfort is comfort."

"Sigh, once we log in, we'll be saying goodbye to food for a while, so let's at least grab some coffee before we go."

"Shall we?"

As they were heading to the break room with sighs, they saw Nam Mugeon, the head of GM Team 3, running hurriedly towards the direction where Branch Manager Yoon Seok-ho had gone earlier. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a stretched-out neck, probably having just come out of a capsule after working.

He was their superior, and at the same time, in the game, he was the person managing the entire eastern region of the Mist continent, handling an inhuman amount of work. Despite his seemingly irritable manner of speaking, he was actually quite popular among the baby GMs for his kindness. There was a famous rumor that he had a girlfriend he was engaged to, but an even more famous rumor was...

"That was definitely Department Head Nam just now, right?"

"That direction he went is where Branch Manager Yoon Seok-ho went, isn't it?"

"Isn't there that... what was it? The video control conference room or something in that direction? The place no one usually goes!"

"Oh my, oh my my my! I wondered why the Branch Manager had graced this den of shut-ins, but it seems that rumor might actually be true."

In fact, there was a rumor quietly spreading among Saturn employees that Branch Manager Yoon Seok-ho often called in Department Head Nam Mugeon in the middle of work. This rumor was known to have originated from the Branch Manager's secretarial office, adding to its credibility.

Given that Branch Manager Yoon Seok-ho was famous for never showing interest in the advances of the company's renowned beauties, this rumor soon developed into an urban legend that Yoon Seok-ho might actually only be interested in men. In fact, the main background for the spread of such rumors was the anger of those who had been cleanly rejected after making advances towards Branch Manager Yoon Seok-ho, but people tended not to care about such background details.

The group, who had been gossiping for a long time while looking towards the corridor where Department Head Nam Mugeon had run, forgetting their original purpose of getting coffee, were eventually scolded loudly by a senior employee passing by, asking what they were doing not working when their break time had long ended, and were dragged away dejectedly.

Meanwhile, at that time, Nam Mugeon arrived in front of the video control conference room, unaware of what was happening behind him after he passed. He was out of breath just from running this much, having lived mostly inside capsules every day since getting the job. He nervously pulled at the employee ID hanging around his neck and held it up to the scanner. After a red laser light blinked, the door opened with a message saying the identification was complete.

Waiting inside the dark conference room was Branch Manager Yoon Seok-ho with a relaxed expression. His neatly pressed suit was annoyingly tidy as always.

"I wonder why you're only coming now when I called you ages ago. You've gotten slack."

"Are you kidding me? You suddenly call someone in the middle of work and tell them to come here within 3 minutes! Haven't I asked you many times to contact me in the morning if you're going to call like this?"

"Did you? I was on my way back from visiting an important place since this morning, so I didn't have time to contact you. It was really unavoidable circumstances, you know?"

"..."

At that completely unapologetic, nonchalant tone, Nam Mugeon trembled and expressed his anger with his whole body, but Yoon Seok-ho just looked around with an expression as if he was hearing a dog barking somewhere. In the end, Nam Mugeon had to try to calm himself down by looking at the ring on his ring finger and repeating the name of his sweet honey angel So-young several times, as always. When he finally managed to subdue his anger, Yoon Seok-ho turned his head as if he had been waiting.

"So, you know why I called you, right?"

"...What are you talking about out of the blue?"

"That thing, you know. The thing I asked you to look into last time. Don't you remember?"

"Last time? Last time, didn't you just receive the usual report on the status of the ReL project subjects as usual? If I could remember every single word of the conversations I have with you, Branch Manager, that wouldn't be human... Oh."

Mugeon, who was about to burst out in anger, stopped mid-sentence as if something had occurred to him.

"Don't tell me..."

There was one thing Yoon Seok-ho had said in passing when Mugeon was about to leave after finishing his report on the status of the ReL project subjects.

"Department Head Nam. Are you getting along well with your subordinates these days?"

"Why are you suddenly asking that?"

"Work is good, but take good care of your subordinates too. You have to give to receive, right? Like me. Hahaha."

...At that time, he had honestly thought it was just one of his usual nonsensical remarks and had answered perfunctorily, immediately erasing it from his mind. But could there have been some hidden intention in those words that he didn't know about?

Yoon Seok-ho smiled and opened his mouth.

"Looks like you remembered."

"You mean when you told me to take good care of my subordinates... that?"

Mugeon asked, clearly showing his disbelief on his face, but Yoon Seok-ho's smile only deepened without any change.

"Yes. That."

"Why suddenly the normal employees..."

He had received orders with unclear intentions many times before, but this was by far the top among them. To Mugeon's incredulous question, Yoon Seok-ho silently held up the remote control he had been holding in one hand.

"Do you know what this is?"

"It's... a remote control, but?"

"No, I meant what's turned on in front of you."

As Mugeon looked ahead embarrassedly and in a hurry, a large VT screen was filling the entire front of the conference room three-dimensionally, though he didn't know when it had been turned on. Ignoring Mugeon's face, which had turned red up to his neck from embarrassment, Yoon Seok-ho spoke.

"Internal enemies are more frightening than external ones. As you can see."

In contrast to his smooth tone, his sharply honed gaze was fixed on the screen, which displayed a report containing evidence that someone had personally extracted some data from the GM Management and Operations Department.