Bzzt. Bzzzz.
The smartphone in his pocket buzzed as if having a seizure.
The vibration traveling through his thigh was irregular and irritable, like a heartbeat.
Siu narrowed his eyes and checked the screen.
It was a message from the construction company saying the office interior was complete.
“Hoo.”
A deep sigh sank to the floor.
Out of habit, he opened his banking app.
The number on the screen pierced Siu’s pupils.
[Balance: 324,000,000 won]
The tip of the finger touching the screen trembled faintly.
Roughly 300 million.
The severance pay he had received after being discarded like an old hunting dog by the major management company he had devoted ten years of his life to as an agent.
The loan he had taken out using his worn-out villa as collateral.
And when even that wasn’t enough, the high-interest loans from third-tier finance companies he had reached for, scraping together everything down to his very soul—money that was, quite literally, the price of his life.
‘If I lose this money, then it’s really the Han River for me.’
Siu clenched his fist tightly in his pocket.
The pain of his nails digging into his palm held him fast to reality.
“I must’ve been insane. Seriously.”
The self-mocking words that slipped from his mouth spoke for the tangled mess of emotions inside him.
But he had come too far to regret it now.
He had already established a management corporation and overextended himself to sign a lease for an office in the heart of Gangnam.
On top of that, even the interior work had finally been completed after two months of construction.
There was no turning back anymore.
Siu raised his head and stared at the building before him.
The enormous glass-domed structure glittered dazzlingly in the afternoon sunlight.
Inside, hundreds of people lined up every day, dreaming of turning their lives around as they waited to receive their awakening evaluations.
And it was also a hunting ground crawling with hyenas after them.
Scouts from small, medium, and large guilds. Agents from management companies aiming to secure exclusive contracts.
They competed by staring holes through the electronic board in front of the evaluation room, where the results were broadcast.
The moment a result of C-rank or higher appeared, they would rush in like predators snatching prey, shoving contracts forward.
It was truly a battlefield without gunfire.
Siu straightened his crooked tie and checked his reflection in the display window.
He was dressed in a neat suit.
But fatigue lay dark beneath his eyes, and his lips were parched.
He might look respectable on the outside, but inside, he was burning up.
“Let’s go.”
With grim determination, he pushed through the revolving door and stepped inside the building.
Along with the cold blast of air conditioning, a murmur of noise flooded his ears.
“Huh? Chief Han? Ah, no. You’re not a chief anymore, are you?”
A mocking voice caught Siu by the ankle.
A familiar yet unpleasant tone.
When Siu turned his head, Assistant Manager Park, a former coworker, was standing crookedly with a canned coffee in hand.
A jeering smile hung at the corner of his mouth.
“What brings you here? I thought you packed up and went back to your hometown.”
Siu did not answer.
Assistant Manager Park, who had been the ace of the sales team at a major guild.
Obsessed with performance, he was the kind of person who took pleasure in trampling over coworkers, even if it meant stealing their results.
“Ah, don’t tell me you started some management company with that piddling severance pay? No way.”
Assistant Manager Park openly snickered.
Because his voice was rather loud, the gazes of the other scouts and agents in the lobby turned toward Siu.
There was less curiosity in their eyes than contempt and pity.
This industry was small.
The rumor that Han Siu had been miserably fired from the guild where he had worked for ten years due to poor performance had already spread far and wide.
A failure whose contracts always fell through, a useless man notorious for having no eye for talent.
That was the brand the industry had stamped on Siu.
The effort he had put in, running around more diligently than anyone else for ten years, meant nothing.
The hunter world did not care about the process.
Even if the rumors were baseless and different from the truth.
No matter how loudly an individual shouted, rumors did not die down.
“······.”
Siu silently endured their gazes.
But they did not know.
On the night Han Siu received his dismissal notice, packed his things, and walked out.
After he drank soju alone in miserable self-pity, fell asleep, and woke up, the world—no, he himself—had completely changed.
‘Status Window.’
Siu murmured quietly inwardly.
Ding—
With a clear notification sound, a translucent holographic system window visible only to him appeared before his eyes.
[Name: Han Siu]
[Awakening Name: Manager (Unique)]
[Rank: D]
[Owned Skills]
Mind’s Eye (心眼) (Active)
Growth Synchronization (Passive)
This was the reason Siu had emptied his entire fortune and jumped into this insane gamble.
An awakening name unique in the world: “Manager.” And fraudulent skills specialized for that profession.
With this, he could overturn the board.
No, he could swallow this entire industry whole.
Ignoring Assistant Manager Park’s sneer, Siu headed toward the inside of the awakening waiting room.
“What does he think he’s going to do in the waiting room? It’s not like he can know anything in advance. Tsk, tsk. No wonder he got fired.”
Assistant Manager Park’s contemptuous voice stabbed into the back of his head.
‘Of course. Because to your eyes, nothing will be visible.’
Siu twisted up the corner of his mouth and opened the waiting room door.
What he was about to do from now on was something they would not even dare imagine.
The waiting room was filled with suffocating tension.
About two hundred people were waiting. Their hands, clutching number tickets, were damp with sweat, and the room was crowded with people bouncing their legs in anxiety or closing their eyes in prayer.
Even the air had sunk heavily.
Siu slowly walked among them and steadied his breathing.
Then, he activated his skill.
‘Mind’s Eye (心眼).’
In that instant, Siu’s pupils glowed blue.
A strange sensation overcame him, as if the world before his eyes was transforming into streams of data.
At the same time, a severe headache stabbed into his temples, but Siu gritted his teeth and endured it.
Above people’s heads, their latent information began to appear in the form of status windows.
[Name: Choi Mingu]
[Rank: F]
[Potential: F]
[Special Notes: None]
Bust.
[Name: Park Jiyeong]
[Expected Rank: E]
[Potential: E]
[Special Notes: Unstable mana control]
Bust.
[Name: Kim Cheolsu]
[Expected Rank: F]
[Potential: F]
[Special Notes: None]
Bust. Bust. Bust.
Siu frowned and pressed hard against his temple.
He had scanned dozens of people, but not a single talent caught his eye.
Most were either F-rank or E-rank.
They were at a level where even making a living as hunters would be difficult.
‘Please… Just one. Please.’
His insides burned.
This was a gamble with his life on the line.
He had not started this just to earn pocket change.
To overturn the board, he needed at least an A-rank.
No, he needed a jackpot with potential close to S-rank.
Statistically, the chance of an A-rank hunter appearing was 0.0001%.
An atrocious probability of one in a million.
There were only five S-ranks in all of South Korea. Even A-ranks numbered just thirty-four.
The chance of an A-rank emerging from the two hundred people gathered here was effectively close to zero.
That was why scouts did not even glance at the waiting room and clung only to the electronic board.
But Siu was different.
Nowhere in the world did a skill exist that could appraise rank in advance.
None had ever been discovered or reported.
A power granted only to Siu.
His “Mind’s Eye” could see through not only a person’s current rank, but even their future potential.
In other words, he was looking into the future.
It was then.
In the deepest corner of the waiting room.
Hidden in the shadow behind a pillar, a woman crouched with her head lowered came into Siu’s sight.
Disheveled hair. A gray tracksuit with the knees stretched out.
Beyond thick horn-rimmed glasses, her eyes shook anxiously without focus, and the fingers biting at her nails trembled faintly.
At a glance, she gave off the unmistakable air of someone lacking confidence, socially maladjusted, or perhaps a loser in life.
The people around her sat at a distance as if she smelled.
An existence like an invisible person, ignored by everyone.
But Siu’s eyes were trembling madly.
His heart began pounding as if it would break his ribs.
[Name: Lee Jia]
[Current Rank: F]
[Potential: A-rank Reawakening / D-30]
[Special Notes: Latent mana for reawakening is rapidly condensing within the body.]
‘I found her.’
It felt as if his breath had stopped.
In Siu’s eyes, Lee Jia was not some shabby stone on the outside.
Hidden within her was a brilliantly shining diamond—no, a raw piece of vibranium even more precious than that.
A-rank.
And not just an ordinary A-rank, but a case where she would dramatically reawaken thirty days after receiving an F-rank evaluation.
Such a case was unprecedented in the history of South Korea.
This was an opportunity.
No, it was a lifeline lowered from the heavens.
Only Siu could know this information.
The other scouts would consider her F-rank trash and not spare her a glance.
Siu swallowed dryly.
No matter what, he had to secure the contract before she entered the evaluation room.
He could approach her after the result appeared on the board as F-rank and sign her cheaply.
But what Siu was aiming for was not a simple contract.
‘The problem is after the reawakening.’
The moment she reawakened as an A-rank, guilds from South Korea—no, from all over the world—would rush to target her.
A penalty fee?
To major guilds and management companies, a few billion or even tens of billions in penalty fees was pocket change.
If they crushed him with money, a newly established management company like Siu’s would have no choice but to helplessly lose an A-rank hunter.
To make her truly his, a mere scrap of paper called a contract would not be enough.
He had to win her heart.
At this moment, when she was at her most anxious and most miserable.
He had to reach out his hand to her and make her owe him a debt of gratitude she would never forget for the rest of her life.
Siu tightened his tie once more and adjusted his clothes.
Then, putting on the most courteous and trustworthy expression he could manage, he approached her.
“Excuse me.”
When Siu spoke to her, Lee Jia jumped in fright and trembled at the shoulders.
“Y-yes? M-me?”
She raised her head.
The eyes beyond her thick glasses were terrified.
“Yes, may I ask your name…”
“Lee Jia… That’s my name. But who are…”
Lee Jia looked up at Siu with eyes full of wariness.
Her reaction was like that of a stray cat seeing a stranger for the first time.
Siu showed her the smooth, trustworthy business smile he had honed over ten years as a scout.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Han Siu, the CEO of Miracle Management.”
“Ma-management? Why now…”
Lee Jia stared blankly at Siu, unable to understand.
She seemed to think there was no reason a management CEO would speak to someone as shabby as her.
“I worked as an agent at a major management company for ten years. My eyes have never been wrong. I am certain that you, Miss Jia, will be a C-rank hunter.”
From inside his jacket, Siu took out the contract he had kept as if it were precious—perhaps even more precious than his own life.
Then, without hesitation, he picked up a pen and wrote a number in the signing bonus field.
100,000,000.
“I’ll get straight to the point. Please sign an exclusive management contract with Miracle.”