abcnovels
Chapter 78:
Chapter 78:
Chapter 78:
Chapter 78
“Don’t be so prickly, just for a moment, let’s talk…”
“I’ll kill you if you bother me.”
I’ll kill you if you bother me.
That was one of the top five lines that the cider path regressor often said.
That was the line that the Holy Spirits loved so much at the end of the world.
I desperately suppressed the laughter that was about to burst out without me knowing.
But maybe I couldn’t hide that sign, because the regressor in front of me looked a bit puzzled.
To be precise, it was an expression that said, why is he laughing when I’m cursing at him?
I managed my expression and coughed.
“Ahem. It seems that you are a collector who just finished the graduation ceremony this time, right? I’m Kang Yu-hyun from White Flower Management. Can I ask your name?”
“White Flower Management?”
She reacted to the name of the mwhianagement at my words.
She must know most things, but she looked puzzled because it was a name she heard for the first time in this regression?
‘Wait a minute. Come to think of it, did White Flower Management run properly without me?’
Suddenly, I had that question.
If the regressor in front of me had regressed hundreds of times, would I, Kang Yu-hyun, a teller, have been in her life? Or is this my first time?
When I tried to think deeply, it was a complicated factor.
“So what do you want me from White Flower Management?”
My thoughts were interrupted by the regressor’s arrogant tone.
Now that I think about it, her voice was pretty enough to be pleasant to hear.
She looked like she would be a beauty if she dressed up, but she didn’t.
I vaguely remembered when I first met Kang Hye-rim.
“Ah, no, I wanted to make a good offer to you as a collector.”
“I’m busy. Don’t bother me and get out of the way.”
“Ah. No, not like that…”
“I told you to get out of the way.”
The regressor said that and raised her killing intent towards me.
I couldn’t be more persistent in trying to hold her back.
If I go any further, I’ll anger her.
As I stepped back slightly, she clicked her tongue once and left without looking back.
I silently stared at her receding figure.
[Hey, Yu-hyun! Yu-hyun!]
Baek Ryeon’s voice rang loudly in my head, calling me noisily.
[You suddenly ran out and approached that woman. What’s going on?]
‘Ah.’
Baek Ryeon didn’t know that I saw her book.
More than that, it seemed quite strange to him that I acted too hastily.
I nodded my head.
Indeed, I was too excited than usual just now.
But anyone would be excited if they saw that.
‘Sorry. Something important came up.’
[That woman just now? Come to think of it, she must have been quite capable for you to offer her recruitment? Or is she someone you know from future knowledge?]
‘No. She’s someone I don’t know from future knowledge.’
This part was tricky.
If she had a book like that, she would definitely be famous enough, but there was no one who came to mind.
Even after the end of the world, there was no one who matched my memory…
There must be something.
[But why did you react so much?]
‘Well. She’s not someone I know from future knowledge. I just guessed that she had great abilities by herself.’
[But she didn’t even tell you her name and left?]
‘Don’t worry about that.’
In one of my hands,
There was a book that I barely grabbed before the regressor left.
***
I returned to the office and immediately handed over a request to Baek Seo-ryeon.
“Seo-ryeon-ssi. Can you please investigate a person named Kwon Ji-a among the graduates of the training center this time?”
Kwon Ji-a.
The name of the regressor that I found out through a book that I barely grabbed.
Of course, with this book alone, I don’t need to ask Baek Seo-ryeon and I can find out by myself, but this case was a bit special.
‘I didn’t expect it to be hard to check all the information with one book.’
A person who repeated hundreds of lives by taking one part as a starting point.
The book I had in my hand had written from the beginning of her regression.
And she started regressing right before entering the training center.
It’s only been three months in fact.
I can’t get perfect information about the regressor with this.
“Did you come empty-handed and ask me to look up one person? Is this person someone you’re going to recruit as a new collector?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Kang Hye-rim, who was listening to our conversation, intervened.
“Kwon Ji-a, that’s a woman’s name, right?”
“Because she’s a woman.”
“…”
Kang Hye-rim quickly became dumbfounded.
There was a subtle reproach in her eyes toward me, but honestly, it was unfair for me.
No, I didn’t choose her because she was a woman, but because the regressor I chose was a woman.
“Anyway, please do it as soon as possible.”
“…If you say so, she must be no ordinary person.”
“I don’t know the details either. But as soon as I saw her, I felt it. This is the person.”
“I didn’t get that kind of compliment from you.”
Kang Hye-rim said with a pouty voice from the side.
I quickly replied with “You were the same, Hye-rim-ssi.” to appease her.
Seo-ryeon-ssi seemed surprised that I said so much, and nodded her head after showing a slight sign of astonishment.
She accepted my request.
“Okay. I’m busy anyway, but checking one person who graduated from the graduation ceremony is easy.”
“How long will it take?”
“An hour is enough.”
She said that and made a phone call somewhere.
She must be trying to find out through her contacts.
Come to think of it, Shin Ga-ryeong was like that too, but Baek Seo-ryeon had a lot of connections in this field.
It was partly because she belonged to a large clan before, but also because her personality was so good that she got along well with everyone.
“You’ll get an email soon.”
“That’s simpler than I thought.”
“Usually, this kind of thing is embargoed so you can’t handle it carelessly, but actually, the people who know know. Besides, if it was before the graduation ceremony, I might not know, but everyone has already finished scouting after the graduation ceremony, so it’s easy to find out if you want to.”
As she said, the email I requested arrived soon.
Seo-ryeon-ssi immediately printed out the email and made it into a document.
While doing so, she seemed curious about what kind of person she was, and quickly skimmed through the contents with rolling eyes.
“Here, is this the person?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
I nodded my head as I looked at the photo on the first page of the document.
At my reaction, Baek Seo-ryeon made a complicated face as if she wanted to say something.
“Do you think she’s not good enough, Seo-ryeon-ssi?”
“Huh? No, that…”
She tried to make an excuse, but eventually nodded her head slightly.
“Honestly… A little.”
“A little?”
“No. A lot.”
Is it that bad?
I sat on the guest sofa in the office and skimmed through Kwon Ji-a’s profile.
The data was neither thick nor abundant.
There wasn’t much known about her, but there wasn’t much to know either.
Seo-ryeon-ssi spoke to me from across.
“You asked me to look into this person all of a sudden, and I was expecting something too, but when I checked, she seemed to fall short of what I expected. She ranked 340th out of 359 collectors who finished the graduation ceremony. The evaluation inside the training was not very good.”
As Baek Seo-ryeon explained, Kwon Ji-a’s rank was miserable.
She analyzed various aspects and scored high in individual combat and real combat with monsters, but her personality, teamwork, and level of abilities were almost at the bottom.
I recalled when I first met her.
She was hostile to anyone who approached her and treated them roughly.
She definitely had a personality that couldn’t be used in cooperative battles.
“Hmm. And according to the record, she caused a fight inside the training center?”
It was a minor incident, but considering that most of the collectors who finished their graduation came out without any trouble, it was unusual.
“Yes. But what’s surprising is that she beat a collector who ranked much higher than her. She almost got kicked out because of that.”
“She barely graduated then.”
“That’s right. Judging by the fact that she beat a higher-ranked collector, she seems to have excellent skills for sure. However, since her bad reputation has already spread widely, it seems that other clans or managements have also excluded her from their recruitment targets.”
“Hmm.”
The good thing was that there was no one to compete with for this regressor.
But still, the attitude was a problem.
Even though I just talked to her, she looked at me like I was a nuisance and acted rudely.
It reminded me of Choi Do-yoon from my previous life.
I read the document with a serious look and Kang Hye-rim asked me.
“Do you really think she’s perfect for you, Yu-hyun-ssi?”
“Yes. I’m sure about my eye for people, and I’m not lying when I say she’s on par with you, Hye-rim-ssi.”
“Hey. That’s a lie.”
“It’s true.”
She probably dismissed my words as exaggeration, but this was not a lie.
The rainbow-colored book that Kwon Ji-a had.
The light that came from hundreds of books accumulated rather than one book was more brilliant than any person I had ever seen.
To be honest… Kwon Ji-a was much more talented than Kang Hye-rim, the sword master.
Of course, I couldn’t say that out loud and said they were similar.
“Besides, it says here that her personality is no joke, are you sure you’re okay with that?”
“Hmm. That’s true. I might get stabbed if I do something wrong.”
“Hey. That’s a joke.”
It sounded like a joke, but it was true.
I don’t know if it was her original personality or because of the characteristic of being a regressor.
If I approached her carelessly, I might get stabbed.
The killing intent she showed me for a moment was definitely sincere.
But it was worth challenging.
[Should I proceed right away?]
‘No. Let’s take our time.’
[Why?]
‘Why? Because the promotion ceremony is coming soon.’
No matter how much I tried, it was impossible for me to persuade Kwon Ji-a before the promotion ceremony, which was only a few days away.
My goal was to officially offer her recruitment after the promotion ceremony, when I became an Assistant Manager.
‘Besides, I have one more person to meet who promised to see me.’
It was time to meet that person.
***
I stood in front of a quiet restaurant in a deserted alley.
This time, there was no Baekryeon, nor Kang Hyerim who usually followed me around.
It was a place I came to alone.
[Waiting at the Door Snack Bar]
‘Waiting at the door.’
It means to lean on the door and wait anxiously.
It might not suit the name of an ordinary snack bar, but considering the situation of the owner of this snack bar, it was quite an appropriate name.
It also implied that he was a person with a decent level of intellectual sophistication.
‘Is this the place where that bastard Choi Doyoon’s mother runs?’
The place I came to find in my spare time before the promotion test was none other than where Choi Doyoon’s mother was.
She said she wanted to meet me once, but I couldn’t make time because I was too busy lately.
I finally managed to come here.
I took a deep breath and entered the snack bar.
“Welcome.”
The inside was narrow.
Maybe because it was located in an alley, the interior wasn’t very neat either.
There was no part-timer working inside, so the owner greeted me right away.
“Are you alone?”
The person who asked me that was a lady who looked like she was in her early to mid-thirties.
She looked quite young for her age and was a beautiful person, but her expression wasn’t very bright, maybe because she had gone through some mental hardships.
But more than that, what made it hard for me to deal with her was that she was undoubtedly Choi Doyoon’s mother.
“Um.”
I hesitated and told her why I came here.
“I’m the person who contacted you about your son a while ago.”
“…Oh. Could you wait a moment?”
“Sure.”
I sat down at a suitable empty seat.
When I looked at one wall of the store, there were several frames.
There were family photos hanging in the frames, and as expected, I saw a familiar face.
‘Choi Doyoon.’
There was no father in sight, only photos taken with his mother, but unlike his mother who smiled brightly, this guy had a sullen expression on his face even then.
He looked very arrogant just by his face.
But he was also damn handsome, so it suited him well.
That made me angry.
“Did you wait long?”
“No.”
The lady who had tidied up her apron and gloves sat down in front of me.
I hesitated on what to say. She opened her mouth first instead of me.
“Do you know… where our Doyoon is?”