Perfect World [EN]: Chapter 73

“No. Regardless of a promotion, I really want you on our team. Even if we fail this year, we’ll keep trying next year, and the year after.”

“Are you sure? My salary might be a burden if I don’t get promoted to pro.”

“Don’t worry about that. We already have enough funds. We can hire you without any problems for about a thousand years. Hahaha.”

With him speaking so confidently, there was no reason to refuse. Susan had completely made up her mind to accept his offer.

“Okay. Then I’ll accept Bumseok’s offer.”

“Yes. Then come find me as soon as this short-term job ends. If you don’t contact me, I’ll chase you to your house, so you must come.”

“Hahaha. Yes, I understand. I’ll definitely come. Oh, and by any chance, do you need someone to handle the office work on your team?”

At her sudden question, Bumseok looked interested. If they got promoted, they would have to hire a lot of office staff. This was not only for handling the piled-up office work but also because the requirements for pro promotion mentioned office staff.

“Yes. If we get promoted, I think we’ll need a few people.”

“Is it okay if they are female employees?”

He would really welcome female employees. To protect the Harem Gladiator Team, they had to minimize the chances of men joining. Of course, in the game world, there was a setting where men were obsessed with elves and avoided women, but there was still a chance that some pervert might steal the romance candidates in the middle.

“Of course. Do you have someone to introduce?”

“Yes. I told you earlier, didn’t I? I gave free treatment with a female employee from the General Affairs Department to help a poor elf. She’s a close friend of mine, and she used to work at the Mikhail Treatment Center until recently. She said she was targeted by the director’s nephew because of that incident and couldn’t continue working there.”

Bumseok, who was interested, openly asked about her appearance. The prettier she was, the more satisfied he would be.

“Oh, really? Is she pretty? She’s not fat, is she?”

Susan looked at him with a puzzled expression. She didn’t understand why Bumseok, a man, was interested in a woman’s appearance. However, it wasn’t something she couldn’t talk about, and seeing that he asked such a question before even asking her name, it seemed like it would have a significant impact on the hiring, so she decided to answer honestly.

“She’s rather thin, to the point of looking fragile. And she’s quite beautiful.”

“Oh. Is that so? Then come with her once the promotion tournament is over. After the interview, I’ll try to hire her if possible.”

Susan smiled brightly. She felt sorry for her friend, who had lost her job because of her and was just staying at home, but now she was relieved. It wasn’t confirmed yet, but a clerical position in a professional gladiator team was a pretty good job.

“Thank you. Then I’ll definitely go with her later.”

“Yes. I’ll be waiting.”

She glanced at her watch and looked hurried. She had been talking endlessly about getting a job, and it was already more than 5 minutes late. Even though it was a temporary job and she would be leaving soon, she couldn’t neglect the work she had been assigned.

“Um, Bumseok. I think I should go now. The match is about to start.”

“Ah, is that so? Then go ahead. I need to go up soon to watch the match too.”

“Then I’ll see you later. I hope you get the results you want in this promotion tournament.”

After saying that, Susan ran straight to the entrance of the stadium. Bumseok slowly moved, wearing a satisfied expression. Suddenly, two women to seduce had appeared before his eyes. He hadn’t even seen one of them, but since she was said to be thin, he would try to seduce her if her appearance was decent. He really liked women with small chests and thin figures.

“Is this it?”

Bumseok, standing at the entrance stairs in front of the E3-2 sign, checked his ticket.

E3-2-077.

Looking at the number, it seemed certain that this was the entrance to his seat. He calmly stepped up the stairs and looked at the scene unfolding before him.

‘Hmph. Amazing. They really are the old-timers of Lima City.’

Bumseok’s seat was in the Snow Trolls team’s cheering section. Thanks to that, he could see the Great Hyenas cheering squad in the distance, and he could feel their power. The spotted wave filled the seats, and even without counting, he knew that the number was easily over 20,000. The fact that such a crowd had gathered, not even for the GA Cup, clearly showed the Great Hyenas’ reputation and large fan base.

Still, it wasn’t bad for him. The quarter-finals were being held right here in Lima City, and they had been assigned the home team. That meant they would receive 70% of the admission revenue, so the income seemed quite substantial.

Bumseok chuckled once and looked at the seating arrangement to find his team members.

“Welcome, Master.”

Reimi jumped up to greet him, and Bumseok gently pressed her shoulder to make her sit down. The gladiators from each team were entering at the stadium entrance. The match would start soon, and he didn’t want to miss the scene by receiving unnecessary greetings.

He walked towards his seat and said.

“Just sit still. Concentrate, because the match will start soon.”

“Yes, I understand.”

He sat down and watched the gladiators from both teams forming a formation in the center of the stream. The Great Hyenas team was in a charge formation, ready to rush at any time, and the Snow Trolls team was already forming a defensive formation, preparing for the upcoming attack.

‘Hehe. Poor Snow Trolls team.’

In fact, if you were to pick the person who suffered the most from the conflict between Bumseok and Julian, it was the Snow Trolls team. They were relegated last year around this time and were a lower-ranked team in the Avand Air League, but they still had a lot of funds and were clearly showing the appearance of a professional team without any major loss of power. Therefore, they were even being named as the number one team for promotion this year, and in last year’s autumn semi-pro cup final, they had greatly troubled the Gods Knights, who were missing Oscar and Erpina.

But what happened? This strong team drew the Cb seed in the draw ceremony held last month. As a result, they had to defeat the Great Hyenas and Gods Knights, who had powerful forces, in order to be promoted, and the shareholders who heard this news sold their shares all at once, causing the team’s asset value to fall below 100 million Krang [a fictional currency]. Honestly, Bumseok was receiving support from the Black Society, but these guys were just being victimized without knowing anything because of a bad draw. Anyway, if you were to say the most unlucky team in this tournament, it was the Snow Trolls.

– The match is starting!

Along with the stadium broadcast, the Great Hyenas team crossed the stream in the center and began to attack the Snow Trolls team. The leader was a gladiator named Loria, who was a Dark Hyena candidate, and Jermia was closely following and assisting her.

Soon, with a thud, the two formations crossed each other and were engaged in a fierce battle. But only for a moment, the Snow Trolls team’s formation collapsed due to the combined attack of Loria and Jermia, and a hole was blown in the middle. A World League candidate gladiator and a second-tier gladiator were attacking aggressively, and even with the power of a lower-ranked Air League team, there was no way to withstand it. In addition, the Great Hyenas team had five more Wide League starting gladiators.

‘I shouldn’t have come to see this.’

The faces of the Gods Knights team members, watching the Snow Trolls team collapse, were filled with fear. It seemed that they had lost confidence because their rival team, which they had evaluated as a strong team, was not even a match for them. Even though two of their main forces were missing, they had barely won with 2 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss when they faced them in the semi-pro cup last time.

However, on the one hand, it was good. Now that they knew that their opponent in the quarter-finals was unimaginably strong, it was clear that the team members would approach the game with a new mindset. Of course, they looked a little uneasy now, but there was no need to worry at all because of the characteristics of the Gods Knights. The elves, who would risk even death for their master, would not show such a pathetic attitude of weakening their will just because the opposing team was a little strong. They would somehow defeat the Great Hyenas and become pros in order to see their master happy.

‘Hehehe. Julian, wait. I’ll be sure to show you the horror of elves with a master in three days.’

Then someone tapped Bumseok on the shoulder. He turned his head to confirm that it was Emma, and he stood up slightly and said.

“What’s wrong, Emma? Aren’t you watching the game?”

“I have something urgent to tell you now.”

“What is it?”

She looked at the team members sitting around her and whispered softly in his ear.

“The Black Society contacted me a little while ago. As you thought, something’s up. You know what I mean.”

He coughed loudly and repeatedly and got up from his seat. No one should know the conversation he was about to have with Emma. Bumseok entrusted the management of the team members to Diana and Reimi and headed to a quiet place in the stadium with Emma.

“Okay. What did the Black Society say?”

“First of all, they said to tell you that they’re sorry for finding out the information late. They couldn’t easily find it because they couldn’t find anything strange in the financial information or the surveillance of the informants.”

Indeed, there was no way Julian would have moved clumsily with the Black Society behind him. His forces and the Black Society were evenly matched. If he lost in terms of justification, he would be defeated without a doubt.

“Hmm. I understand. But who is the spy?”

“Don’t be surprised. It’s Andrea.”

Bumseok made an unbelievable expression. Andrea’s owner was a wealthy man with several businesses. There was no way he would do such a thing for a few bucks. He was one of the few owners who didn’t waver during the prank call incident and had his elf participate in team training. So, until now, he had firmly believed that she was not the one.

“Andrea’s owner wouldn’t do that. What does he lack that he would do this? Are you sure you didn’t get it wrong?”

“No, I’m sure. I secretly bribed an employee at the telecommunications company to get the communication numbers owned by Julian and his attendants and made a communication pretending to be an advertising call, and one of them was Andrea. After recording the voice, I checked it several times with a voice comparator, and the signal from the communication device is always coming from the place where she is located, so the possibility of it not being her is extremely rare.”

Having Julian and his attendant’s communication number? If Emma wasn’t talking nonsense, there was a very high possibility that Andrea was a spy. Moreover, if she was the culprit, the prank call that came before made sense. Julian could have bought Andrea’s owner and then used such a trick to build trust.

Certainly, after that day, his trust in her had increased even more.

“Why on earth did Andrea’s owner do this!”

“I don’t know the details, but seeing that he recently recruited hundreds of cleaning staff, I think he will be in charge of cleaning a large building as a reward for this deal.”

A cleaning agency that mobilizes hundreds of people would record sales of over 100 million Krang [a fictional currency] a year. No matter how rich Andrea’s owner was, he couldn’t help but be tempted by such an offer.

‘Julian. That bastard. He’s quite clever.’

Honestly, Julian’s side had nothing to lose from this. The building cleaning had to be done by a professional cleaning agency anyway, so it was money that would be spent anyway. He used this to buy Andrea’s owner, so there was no need to spend money separately. In other words, he was screwing him over without spending a penny.

He looked at Emma with a resentful expression and said.

“Emma. Is there any way to hit Julian?”

“Well, it’s hard to catch his tail because he’s so careful. If the cleaning contract actually goes to Andrea’s owner, we can bite and hang on, but the bus has already left. And if the economic organization introduces a building of another businessman who has little to do with them, that won’t work either. Currently, there is no way for the Black Society to help.”

“What about the communication device issue? He has someone else’s communication device, isn’t there a possibility of problems arising?”

“That won’t work either. Andrea can say she picked it up on the street, and Julian’s side can say they accidentally lost it, and it’s over.”

“Emma. How can a communication device accidentally fall into the hands of a gladiator from a rival team? Do you think the police will believe it?”

“Well, as you know, both teams are using the Lima City Colosseum as their home stadium in this promotion tournament. That means they share the gladiator waiting room, as well as the dressing room and dugout. If they say they lost and picked up the communication device here, the police can’t do anything about it. It’s a plausible story.”

Bumseok scratched his head in frustration. He was furious, but there was no way to screw Julian over right now. Well, there was a way to chase after him and beat him up, but he would be the one to get hurt. It was better to look for another way now.

“I understand. I’ll take care of this. Emma, contact the Black Society and tell them thank you for bringing the information.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Bumseok sighed deeply and took her back to the team members. The best way to properly hit Julian was to win the quarter-finals and reach the promotion stage. So now he needed to focus all his energy on understanding the power of the Great Hyenas. He had to beat them to get promoted.”