Surviving Restructuring

“So you’re thinking it might actually be doable,” said the division chief.

“I will make it doable,” Eun-Ho said.

The calmness of his reply robbed the division chief of words. After a brief pause, the man asked quietly, “Is that bravado?”

“No.” Nor was it reckless overreach. Eun-Ho had simply decided that facing the director this time was the better option. “We were going to meet him sooner or later anyway.”

Just as rain had to fall before it could pass, a destined encounter would happen no matter what. If they were going to meet regardless, then meeting at a time he anticipated, and on ground he had prepared offered the highest chance of victory.

“A week from now. We advance into the Wailing Forest.”

“How many troops?”

“One thousand.”

“... That’s more than I expected.”

Now that he knew, he could prepare accordingly.

Plus, I’ve already got a method in mind.

“Then—”

He was about to ask the remaining questions when a tiny hand tugged at his sleeve.

Rustle—

Hm?

It was Yul, their little ninja, the one who had allowed them to come this far without being discovered.

[You have entered the Hide and Seek domain of the new employee Kim Yul.]

He had told her to hide in a corner just in case, yet she had come closer and pulled him into concealment with her.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

As he was about to quietly ask what was wrong, he heard footsteps. They were not the light sound of someone sneaking up, but the soft tread of a small child.

The moment he realized, Eun-Ho pressed the invisible blade even closer to the division chief’s neck. The man’s demeanor changed completely.

He whispered rapidly, panic spilling out in a hushed rush, “Shh! I’ll do whatever you say. Just—”

At the end of that whisper, a child appeared. It was a little girl who seemed one or two years older than Yul.

“Daddy?”

She wore pink pajamas, her long curly hair cascading to her waist. The girl dragged a rabbit plush nearly as big as her torso across the floor.

Rubbing her eyes sleepily, she peered into the room. “Who were you talking to?”

“Ah, um... N-no one!” the division chief said quickly. “Sweetheart, you must’ve imagined it.”

“Mmm... I don’t think so...”

He has a child? Eun-Ho thought.

The man’s fingers trembled. His eyes shook as if an earthquake had struck, fear surfacing in them for the first time. “Y-your mom’s probably looking for you. Let’s go back inside, okay?”

“Mmm... Daddy, can you put me to bed? I wanna sleep with you, Daddy.”

“With Daddy? Uh... T-that’s...”

He hadn’t even blinked when a blade was held to his throat. However, the possibility that his daughter would be harmed terrified him beyond reason.

“I’ll ask the rest by message,” Eun-Ho whispered into the man’s ear.

Cold sweat poured down the division chief’s face as his eyes rolled in disbelief.

Eun-Ho added quietly, “I don’t touch kids.”

He also wasn’t stupid enough to turn someone who was already halfway to being an ally into a mortal enemy.

“You’ll answer, won’t you?”

The division chief kept his eyes fixed on his daughter. After a long, shaky exhale, his reply finally came. “... I’ll tell you everything I know.”

***

According to the division chief, there was exactly one week left until the decisive battle.

“I never imagined the director would come in person,” Ji-Eun muttered.

“Seriously, Noonim,” Jae-Hyuk agreed.

“W-we’ll be okay, right?”

News that the director himself would be showing up had clearly shaken everyone.

“We can stop him,” Eun-Ho said with certainty.

The cleaning lady’s eyes widened. “You mean that for real? I mean, I’ve never seen things go wrong when we did what you said, Young Man, but still...”

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have questioned him. However, they were preparing for a big fight this time.

“That Administrator before was already scary strong,” she added.

“So how strong do you think the director is?”

The memory of trembling before a single administrator at the level of a team leader was still fresh. Hearing that they now had to face a director, it was only natural the team felt uneasy.

In fact, Eun-Ho had fully expected them. He had shared this information for two reasons. First was to replace vague reassurance with constructive tension. Sometimes, emotions such as anxiety and pressure crystallized into greater strength.

“He’ll be strong,” Eun-Ho said calmly. “Anyone who’s climbed that high would’ve cleared absurd evaluations and promotions. The rewards he got for raising his stats are probably beyond imagination.”

His inner circle began discussing among themselves.

“... Ah.”

“Damn, then isn’t he like hundreds of times stronger than us?”

“I can’t even picture what hundreds of times means.”

Second was to rapidly raise the combat power of their allies.

“Even so, it’s still doable,” Eun-Ho said.

“You serious? You’re not just saying that to calm us down?” Swear-Master asked.

“There are a few conditions. But yes, it’s enough,” Eun-Ho admitted with firm conviction. “What matters is how we spend the remaining time.”

If they entered the battle in peak condition, squeezing out every last drop of strength from each and every team member, it was possible.

“Uh, Mister! Even if you say the remaining time, it’s only one week away!” Min Yeo-Jin said.

She was right. It was just a stretch of brutally long weekdays that would pass in a blink.

“We can increase the time,” Eun-Ho replied.

“Huh?”

There was a way to stretch seven days into as many as four hundred and twenty.

“Self-development time.”

“Sorry?”

At the Training Institute, one hour equaled one minute in the real world. They would shut themselves in there and train.

“You’ll each take classes suited to you. Just in case, we’ll split into four groups of ten. One group will stay behind as guard duty, and the rest will move together.”

The confused high school girls tilted their heads.

“C-classes? All of a sudden?”

Park Gong-Chan, who had been listening quietly, furrowed his brow. “That doesn’t make sense. We don’t have any training completion points. How are we supposed to enter the institute?”

“We do.”

“What?”

“Training completion points. Turns out, a team leader can grant them directly to team members.”

Apparently, most team leaders in this garbage company never used that privilege, which Eun-Ho genuinely couldn’t understand.

They probably see their own team as competitors.

Even that so-called ace from Sales had been busy stealing results from his subordinates. That told Eun-Ho everything he had to know about how shallow team relationships usually were here.

“We can just buy them with benefits.”

“One training point costs a hundred Benefit Points.”

Park Gong-Chan stared at him, mouth hanging open, as if the idea had never crossed his mind. “Oh. That works?”

Of course, training all forty-three team members would take an enormous amount of benefits, but they had more than enough.

[The Labor-Management Cooperation Team]

- Benefits: 4,950 Points

They’d started with nearly two thousand, and thanks to someone smashing up a fortress, trials had poured in nonstop.

“But if we do that, won’t we use up almost everything we’ve got?”

“You all deserve it. We only got this much because all of you kept completing team trials,” Eun-Ho replied.

[Team Trial, Construct a Watchtower, has been completed.]

[The Labor-Management Cooperation Team has earned 30 Team Benefit Points.]

[Team Trial, Clear the Snow, has been completed!]

[The Labor-Management Cooperation Team has earned 5 Team Benefit Points.]

[Team Trial, Repair the Ceiling, has been completed!]

[The Labor-Management Cooperation Team has earned 10 Team Benefit Points.]

...

Also, there was one more trick he’d prepared. “Actually, that’s one reason I split you into groups.”

“Huh?”

“The group staying behind for guard duty will have a special task.”

Uneasy gazes and raw thoughts flew among the gathered members.

“What task?”

Eun-Ho brushed them all aside with a confident smile. “Destroy the building and rebuild it.”

“W-what did you just say?”

He’d realized back during the desert battle that whenever a building got damaged, team trials popped up, telling them to repair it.

[Team Trial List]

1. Repair the mud walls (79%)

2. Repair the entrance (45%)

3. Logging (22%)

4. Repair bedroom furniture (0%)

4. Repair kitchen furniture (0%)

...

“So you’re saying we deliberately wreck a perfectly fine building and rebuild it?”

“Exactly.”

“So we can farm benefits to buy those training points?”

“You’ve got it.”

It was a kind of mining, a sacred strategy of relentless, backbreaking labor.

Just then, Bo-Ra timidly asked, “Um, Oppa? We do get time to sleep, right?”

“Good question.”

He’d been meaning to explain that anyway. Yeon Bo-Ra had asked at the perfect moment, though she immediately looked nervous. Eun-Ho ignored that for now.

“Everyone, listen up. For the next week, you will only sleep inside the Training Institute.”

“What?”

He announced a plan to literally squeeze even sleep into their study time.

“For the guard group, we’ll rotate shifts, so don’t worry.”

“You kidding...”

“Alright, now I’ll assign groups and classes. When I call your name, step forward. Park Gong-Chan, Jang Han-Il, Kim Min-Soo...”

Let’s collect, spend, and grow stronger aggressively.

***

“I need to get stronger.”

Eun-Ho hadn’t expected those words to come out of his own mouth. Not only was that kind of line completely unlike his style, it sounded straight out of a shōnen manga.

“For someone who shows up after so long, that’s a rather dramatic opening,” the assistant instructor said.

“I’m about to clash with people way above my pay grade.”

The assistant instructor raised one eyebrow slightly. “People way above?”

They had the same features, but he wore an expression Eun-Ho knew he would never make. Therefore, it was familiar yet strange.

“The Personnel Bureau director, Seung Gi, “ Eun-Ho said.

The assistant instructor’s pupils dilated instantly, his brow furrowing deeply. His lips also quivered.

Eun-Ho watched his own face frown in shock. “You know him?”

“Have you crossed swords with him?”

“More or less. You?”

“Same here. One thing led to another.”

Hah. Didn’t know that.

At this point, it was almost impressive just how thoroughly rotten he was, to collect grudges from so many people.

Well, I guess that’s how he climbed that high in the first place.

This worked out nicely either way. The enemy of his enemy was a friend, after all. Besides, Eun-Ho had grown somewhat attached to the assistant instructor, so getting help out of him wouldn’t hurt.

“In a week, he’s coming for my head.”

“What do you mean a week?”

“By outside-world time.”

“Ah.” The assistant instructor nodded. “So you need to prepare.”

“Yeah. I was hoping you’d help.”

The assistant instructor fell silent, sinking into thought. It was the first time Eun-Ho had ever seen him like this.

What’s he thinking that hard about?

They shared the same enemy, so maybe he was considering how to help. Eun-Ho waited, a mix of expectation and curiosity bubbling up.

Fwoosh—

Then, the assistant instructor twisted his mouth and waved. What opened wasn’t a classroom, but an unfamiliar screen.

“This is...”

The footage showed a desolate plain resembling a wasteland, where the only living things were dying soldiers. Among them, standing alone and upright, was a face Eun-Ho recognized immediately.

The director?

A soldier who had been playing dead lunged at the director’s back. “You demon bastard!”

Thud—

The blade pierced, but the one coughing up blood wasn’t the director. A black hand had seized the attacker by the neck. He shriveled in an instant, before vanishing like a sandcastle swept away by a storm.

“So that’s the Death Hand?” Eun-Ho said.

“... You’ve seen it before?”

“No. I’ve only heard about it.”

“From whom?”

“I’ve got an informant.”

The black aura acted without requiring the director to lift a finger. Just watching that grotesque hand was enough to make one’s skin crawl.

The assistant instructor clicked his tongue, clearly displeased. Still, he replayed the moment the hand activated, again and again. “The activation range is about three meters. It may have expanded since then. No, it definitely has.”

He was trying to teach Eun-Ho the countermeasure to the core ability the division chief had warned him about.

“Do not enter its activation range. Shields, armor, it doesn’t matter. The moment it touches your skin, it’s over.”

“So long-range attackers are key.”

The division chief had said something similar, so Eun-Ho nodded in agreement.

However, the assistant instructor went a step further. “That’s a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.”

“Why?”

“Because that ability isn’t used only for offense.”

He’d heard that as well. “Oh, so it can be used defensively too? Like a barrier?”

Apparently, arrows and projectiles were simply swallowed as the black hand wrapped around the director.

“You knew that too?”

“Roughly.”

“In any case, it’s a terrifying ability. It blocks attacks the director notices and even the ones he doesn’t.”

That Death Hand really was close to invincibility. Though it moved according to the director’s will, it was more accurate to think of it as a separate entity altogether.

“But there’s still a gap,” Eun-Ho said.

“A gap?”

“A barrier without the director’s will behind it isn’t that sturdy.”

The assistant instructor, who had been explaining at length, froze. “Huh?”

Looks like he didn’t know this much, Eun-Ho thought.

Well, he’d faced the director as an enemy too. Compared to the director’s own subordinates, his information was bound to be incomplete.

Good thing I started by getting information from the division chief.

With that thought, Eun-Ho smoothly took control of the conversation. “I’m planning to pour everything into mid-range attacks.”

“Mid-range?”

Eun-Ho was referring to attacks that could be used from just outside the Death Hand’s reach. “With skills like Wind Blade.”

“But the attack power is pitiful. Using beginner-level skills like that against the director is like trying to crack a boulder with an egg!”

That was true. Wind Blade gained range at the cost of raw power.

“Which is why I’m going to upgrade them.” He finally got to the point. “They’re all over the swordsmanship skill tree. Skills that keep near-melee-level power while extending range.”

Eun-Ho had already checked. “Intermediate swordsmanship, advanced swordsmanship and the swordmaster course. I’m going to unlock all of it.”

The assistant instructor stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. Eun-Ho really wished his face wouldn’t make expressions like that.

“You said using beginner skills would be like cracking a boulder with an egg. So I’ll just master the whole swordsmanship tree before I go.”

For once, the usually calm assistant instructor looked obviously incredulous. “You’re saying you’ll do all of that in one week?”

Therefore, Eun-Ho kindly explained, “For intermediate swordsmanship, the average completion time is eight hundred hours.”

“What are you—”

“For advanced swordsmanship, it’s two thousand five hundred hours. And the master course is five thousand hours. That’s a total of eight thousand and three hundred hours. So, if I sleep four hours a day, and train for the remaining time for four hundred and twenty days straight, it’s theoretically possible.”

One week in the outside world meant four hundred and twenty days here. In other words, he could put in ten thousand hours.

And even this is only possible because the team took care of the grind for me.

He silently sent apologies and thanks to the teammates, who were probably still tearing down and rebuilding buildings even now.

“The ten-thousand-hour rule... You lunatic,” muttered the assistant instructor almost inaudibly, nodding slowly. After a moment, he lifted his head. “Fine. There’s a kind of audacity you can only have at that age. Go.”

A new door opened. As Eun-Ho stepped through, the assistant instructor’s final words followed him, barely audible.

“If it’s you...”