In psychology, there is something called the “Illusion of Truth Effect.”
It means that if certain information is repeatedly fed to a person, they will eventually come to believe it.
Whether that information is wrong or not, the human brain supposedly accepts that “frequently heard sound” as established fact through repeated learning, but...
- Story time: I screwed over a convenience store owner who refused to pay weekly holiday pay... [454]
- You never said you’d work for a year? What probation period, lol. Get a grip, owner bro, lol [311]
It was an era when the flow of the times and the accumulated victims began creating a kind of database and uploading it to the internet.
There were more than a few places that would fact-check things for you with just a flick of a finger.
“Hey, other places take off as much as 80%, you know? Compared to them, I’m actually guaranteeing you quite a bit!”
Even if he put on a frustrated face and tried gaslighting him while bringing up “relevant cases”...
“Ah, yes. I’ll work hard to learn.”
‘Mm, when I quit, I won’t say anything. I’ll just report him to the Ministry of Employment and Labor and screw him over.’
There was no way such cheap trickery would work on a generation that had grown up seeing that the one who got fooled was worse off than the one who did the fooling.
““Hahaha, hahaha!!””
They were laughing as they looked at each other, but it was the perfect moment for a standoff with knives hidden behind their backs.
‘This guy’s a criminal whose face is already known everywhere. Whatever he says later, he’ll be easy to steer public opinion against.’
One side knew the face of Kim Chomok, who had proudly made the main headline on the nine o’clock news.
Later, he would use the frame of “I hired him out of goodwill, and he cowardly stabbed me in the back.”
Compared to Kim Chomok, who was far stronger physically, he would craft himself into an older, weaker underdog.
While hiding his own wrongdoing, he would mobilize the power of the public and serve up a people’s dogpile as the main course—an evil employer!
The other side was the poor part-timer caught by that evil employer, but...
‘...Well, in the worst case, when no one’s around, I’ll pretend to go to the bathroom and throw a boulder at him.’
If he had cared about public perception from birth, he could never have taken the ten million people of Seoul hostage.
Unless someone was in a similar situation to his own, if they were “even the slightest bit above him,” he did not care whether they lived or died.
A first-class troll, imagining methods of protest beyond anything a normal person could even conceive!
Among poisons so toxic that even most antisocial monsters would be frightened just brushing past them...
To determine who could be born as the final Gu poison¹...
It was the moment two idiots, both needlessly strong in pride, collided head-on with force against force.
***
Just as no brat is born knowing everything from the start, a newly arrived recruit is, quite literally, a blank slate.
What that blank slate needs in order to “understand” the work even a little and function, even if not normally, is training!
“Now, I’m going to explain the POS system. I’ll only tell you once, so listen carefully.”
But the evil store owner, unable to even realize that he only knew the work well because he had been doing it all along...
“Mm, so if a customer splits payment between two methods, you press this first and...”
“...What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m making notes on my phone just in case...?”
It seemed Kim Chomok, who was quickly writing down only the parts likely to confuse him based on how he had studied in school, annoyed him.
Smack!
“No, you need something like this because you can’t memorize something this easy in one go?! How did you even get into college?!”
He acted as though he was desperate to project his own academic complex onto someone else.
Of course, among students these days, people who refused to lose even a single word were everywhere.
“That’s how I memorized things and got in, though? Surely you’re not bad at studying... Ah, do you have perfect memory?!”
“......”
“Wow, you must at least live with a memory palace² in your head! Amazing. I guess you need that much to be a convenience store owner.”
At the sight of him openly raising the corners of his mouth while his eyes were not the least bit kind...
Most people would have at least shouted, “Do you have any idea how scary society is?!”
But the other party was not “most people”; he was a human bomb that would explode instantly on the spot if handled wrong.
‘...Damn it. If this bastard weren’t the lunatic who made the front page of that “society news” section all by himself...’
The time he could safely mess with this guy was after “the necessary part-time period was over” and he had fired Jeong Chomok.
After all, wasn’t he in a situation where it hadn’t been long since mediation had taken place because a high school dropout minor—an already hard-to-find daytime part-timer—had reported him to the labor office over nothing more than unpaid weekly holiday pay, despite how well he had treated him?
If he wanted to save even a little on part-time wages, touching that bomb and setting it off right now was a terrible move!
‘That guy won’t fill all three months anyway... One month? Once he lasts about a month and a half, I’ll immediately slot in the next person...’
No matter how few people were looking for part-time work, surely he could hook at least one person in that amount of time.
Until then, no matter what this annoying bastard said...
“Ha... hahaha, no... well, if you want to write it down, you can... You seem diligent, so I like that...”
“So explain it properly. How can we be speaking the same Korean, but your explanation doesn’t get into my ears?”
“......Grrrk.”
Perhaps enduring it while grinding his teeth was the responsibility of a convenience store owner.
And so, in less than thirty minutes, the light manual training finally ended.
“When you switch shifts with the evening part-timer at the end, don’t forget to match the cash...”
“Ah, I wrote it all down here. How many times are you going to repeat the same thing?”
“......I’m leaving.”
Now, the time had come for him to be left alone in earnest and work on-site.
“Welcome.”
“Ah, could you charge my transportation card... and give me one of these, please. Thank you!”
And, as with all service work, when a kind customer arrived in response to kind service...
“Please take your card. Thank you. Come again!”
Kim Chomok, who had no taste for spitting in a smiling face, also smiled back and waved goodbye.
The place where Kim Chomok was currently working part-time, however, was an area where a university and an entertainment district overlapped.
“Hey, Marlboro³.”
“...There are at least five cigarettes here with that brand written on them. Which Marlboro?”
In other words, it was an area with a fairly high rate of villain appearances—people who were already flushed and drunk before even 3 p.m., throwing out nonsensical quizzes based on their own preferences.
After getting annoyed and realizing that this was not the part-timer or owner they usually saw...
There were people who would kindly say “brand + product line,” or even add the tar and nicotine content afterward.
“Ah, shit... Isn’t it obvious it’s the red one? Seriously, kids these days have no sense.”
But there were also countless lunatics in this world who insisted on throwing in a completely unnecessary jab.
“Do drunk bastards these days have no brains? Can’t you see my hair’s full? Stop drinking so much. Your eyesight’s going bad.”
And most people, even if hurt by the other person’s scolding, would endure it for the sake of the money entering their bank account.
But there were also humans who attempted the kind of part-time job a college student might try once, not for the purpose of earning money, but for the sake of “returning to everyday life.”
“What?! Hey, you bastard, just because you’ve got a mouth, you think you can say anything...”
Since he had spoken while thoroughly drunk, casually throwing down a five-thousand-won bill...
The courage he had gained from not knowing what the face of this part-timer he had never cared about in the first place looked like...
“What are you glaring at, you bastard? It’s 4,500 won. Here’s five hundred won, so get lost.”
“...Hiiik.”
The moment he realized that the other party was a madman who could casually stack up ten prior convictions and had bent the government with force...
It could only deflate, psssh, like air leaking out of a balloon.
“Hey! Exchange this for a bottle of soju!³ No, if you exchange this, it’s definitely more expensive than soju!”
“No, I’m telling you, I know the owner?! How many times do I have to say you can just take out the money for me?!³”
After that, several more villains came to the novice convenience store part-timer.
But from the perspective of Kim Chomok, who had eaten even expired dosirak lunches heartily while calling them memories, their struggles were meaningless.
No matter how rice had been cooked into a meal and the energy efficiency extractable from it had plummeted in the process...
“Gim is seaweed. Seaweed is what? A living thing that breathes deeply in the sea. Photosynthesis? Energy.”
To deal with mere ordinary people, what he needed was only five triangle gimbap!
With absurd fuel efficiency, did he not have a body that could personally show miracles most people could not even attempt?
Crunch...!!
“Sir, if you don’t want to be folded like this coin instead of the soju bottle, leave immediately.”
“U-uaaaagh!! It’s a monster!!”
At times, just by showing a simple “performance,” a moved audience member would forget the water of life and cry out Eureka.
“I don’t even know the store owner well, so would I know you, sir? I don’t know anything! Get the hell out!”
“Y-you...! I don’t know what the owner will say to you tomorrow!”
“Yeah, if I quit, it’s over, right? It has no effect on me, right? Whether my relationship with the owner gets bad or not, it’s not my problem, right? You mad?”
At times, by sinking to the other person’s level and shouting at the top of his lungs no matter what they screamed...
Kim Chomok, who had claimed the position of greatest lunatic in this place where countless villains gathered...
“...Ha, fuck. I’m exhausted. Why is this neighborhood full of nothing but lunatics?”
Sat down with an empty, tired expression and began to feel relieved that his shift change was slowly approaching.
“The cash all matches, there’s nothing wrong with the expiration dates, and I’ve marked all the disposals...”
All that remained was to confirm there were no special notes after handing off the baton; it was truly a “peaceful convenience store with no work” state.
But Kim Chomok, who was working his first day as a convenience store part-timer, did not know.
That the true villain did not come from the outside, but was within.
And that this villain was the worst enemy of all part-timers.
“...Who are you? Ah, I guess that person quit? Hello. Nice to meet you.”
With an utterly calm face, the next-shift part-timer, who had arrived more than thirty-five minutes late³ to the shift change...
Put on the apron lying in one corner of the store, paying no attention whatsoever to Kim Chomok’s hardened face.
“Hello, boss?”
- What is it, did some problem happen on your first day?! Haa... I knew this would happen! You didn’t look stupid, but...
“No, is the bastard working after me perhaps brain-damaged or sick somewhere?”
Kim Chomok, who did not even have the energy to get angry, asked the owner the sensible question of “What the hell did you hire?”
- What are you talking about?! People can be late! You can’t say that about my second cousin’s kid!
What came back was only the harm of nepotism and a shameless “let’s not make a big deal out of it” policy.
- Don’t be so cold and leave right away. In a little while, the shipment will come in, so help organize it together...
“Ugh, this isn’t getting through... Anyway, I handed over, so I’m clocking out.”
A needless appeal to human feeling, assigning him additional logistics work?
If there was a lunatic³ who would do that for free, they would probably be some pathetic human who wrote weird novels.
The sullen woman in an arrogant department jacket, already sitting on a chair with her charger plugged in and a drama turned on...
...Wait, “department jacket”?
“...Her first impression already puts her in the human-failure category, so what’s the problem if I play a fun little prank?”
The store itself would break down soon anyway, so she would not be able to relax comfortably and coast like now.
But that was karma the store owner had to bear, not the price to be paid by some ruined wretch who did not even pretend to be sorry to him.
Ring...
Why did the sound of the chime bell attached to the door sound so clear, unlike when he had first started working?
“...Huh?! Wait a second! The boss told you to help with the shipment...”
“Haha, fuck off! I’m free!! Freeeedoooom---!!”
Before he even finished listening, Kim Chomok quickly returned to his room.
“My old phone... my old phone... There it is!!”
For the first time since changing phones, he turned on the old device in order to check the status of “acquaintances from his old messenger he was not particularly close to.”
“Hehehe, as long as there’s money, there are plenty of half-unemployed people who’ll drink free booze for you.”
From late night until dawn, all history was made at night.
In order to carry out the flashiest revenge at the convenience store—the hell of part-timers—Kim Chomok busily moved his fingers.