Perfect World [EN]: Chapter 42

“Emma! Come over here.”

Startled, Emma paused, adjusted her sword, and approached him. She seemed worried about being kicked out. She stood before Beomseok with her head bowed.

“You, you called for me.”

“I have something important to discuss with you, so follow me.”

“Wh, what is it about?”

Seeing Emma trembling slightly, Beomseok sighed deeply.

“Hoo~ Don’t worry. It’s not about telling you to leave. Like I said before, I don’t plan on letting you go until you say you want to leave. I just have some questions I want to ask.”

Only then did Emma relax her expression, relieved.

“Yes. I’ll answer anything I know.”

“Okay. Then follow me.”

Beomseok led her inside Aron. Soon, they sat facing each other across a table, and Aron’s mechanical arm delivered them glasses of juice. Emma, who was thirsty from training, carefully picked up her glass and took a gulp.

Beomseok watched her for a moment before getting straight to the point.

“Emma, the truth is, you have nowhere else to go, do you?”

Emma spat out the drink she was sipping, flustered by his direct question.

“Wh, what do you mean by that?”

“Isn’t that right? With the Black Society’s financial power, many teams would be eager to show interest. It doesn’t make sense that you still don’t have a team to join after well over two months. Either the Black Society doesn’t really care about you becoming a pro gladiator, or something else is going on. Be honest with me. I need your answer to plan the team’s future development. If you’re leaving soon, I need to make plans without you, but if not, I need to include you.”

Emma put down her glass and stared at him.

“Are you, are you really going to keep me on the team?”

“Yeah, as long as you want. I’m not the kind of heartless person who kicks out team members just because I’m in a bad mood. And it’s not like keeping you around costs me any money anyway.”

“I really appreciate you saying that. But it won’t be easy for you. Someone will be contacting you soon.”

Seeing that the conversation was going as he intended, Beomseok decided to cut to the chase.

“Ah. You mean the Young Entrepreneurs Alliance? They already came by once. They didn’t say it directly, but they wanted me to let you go.”

Emma immediately asked a question, as if something clicked.

“Re, really? So what did you say?”

“Well, I said I’d keep you on the team as long as you wanted to stay.”

“And, they didn’t threaten you or promise any support?”

“Not at all. They didn’t. So I decided not to worry about it.”

“Th, that can’t be.”

“It can be. Even if they did threaten me or promise support, it wouldn’t faze me. So you just need to be honest with me about them. I need to know what the Young Entrepreneurs Alliance is all about so I can prepare.”

Emma hesitated for a moment before finally opening her mouth, as if she had made up her mind. She couldn’t hide the truth and stab him in the back when he was thinking of her so much. Now that he had been contacted by the Young Entrepreneurs Alliance without knowing anything, he had already taken a hit.

The Young Entrepreneurs Alliance. In short, it was a group of young entrepreneurs who were in a hostile relationship with the Black Society. They were young business owners who had entered the economic world with the immense support and wealth they had received from their parents, and they had been competing and clashing with the Black Society in various fields. The root cause was the Black Society’s motto of being self-made without the support of their parents. In the eyes of the Black Society, they were just babies sucking on their parents’ teats.

“So they just ignored you? Seriously, why pick a fight? The Black Society messed up first.”

“Well, that’s kind of true, but…”

However, the Black Society’s power far surpassed theirs. Their innate intellectual abilities and the strong economic, political, and media connections they had built up over a long period of time were enough to unilaterally push back the newly formed Young Entrepreneurs Alliance.

But it is an eternal truth of nature that a mother becomes enraged when her offspring is harmed. The real fight began after that. Just because a lion cub is weak doesn’t mean the lion is weak. The power of various business people based on long social experience, immense wealth, and connections was too much for the Black Society to handle. And the most concerning attack method was to take advantage of the current economic crisis to abolish the free body modification surgery system based on academic achievement. Because their intention was to cut off the roots and wither them from below, the Black Society had no choice but to be quite nervous.

“Well, in terms of justification, the economic group would take the lead. It would be difficult for the government to continue a system that costs billions of krang [currency unit] every year in a difficult economic situation.”

“Yes. That’s the justification they’re putting forward. But if you dig deeper, the story changes. The National Central Hospital, where free body modification surgery is performed, is owned by the federal government, and the reason why free body modification surgery is expensive is not because of the cost of the surgery, but because of taxes. Modified bodies are a privilege in themselves, so the federal government imposes huge taxes on them. In fact, in terms of actual cost, the government is not making an unreasonable expenditure.”

“Then that’s it. If you persuade government officials based on that, they won’t abolish it for the sake of the Black Society, right? It seems like you’re building up quite a strong network.”

“Yes. That’s probably true. But we’re losing badly in the second justification. That is, they’re not using the free body modification surgery at all. So I’m trying to become a pro to find a justification to refute that.”

Beomseok could now grasp the general situation. He was worried that he was unintentionally getting caught up in a fight between whales from the beginning of the game and getting his back broken. Right now, he was just the chairman of an amateur sports team.

“Okay. So what are the contents of their threats? Are they putting pressure on the Gladiator Association to prevent you from participating in the competition or something?”

Emma immediately shook her hands from side to side.

“That’s absolutely impossible. The Gladiator Association is the largest major sports association in this world, which has grown into a powerful vested interest group. The existence they fear is the fans. If they cause such a situation and it makes headlines, they will receive enormous criticism from the fans, and eventually the chairman of the association will lose his head.”

“But things don’t always go according to the rules.”

“Yes. That’s right. But if our Black Society steps in, it will definitely happen that way. If a team I’m on suffers such disadvantages, our Black Society won’t stand still. I don’t know if you know, but one of our Black Society seniors is the owner and president of WBS Broadcasting.”

Beomseok’s eyes widened as he looked at Emma. WBS Broadcasting was a private broadcasting company with worldwide broadcasting rights, and it was a major broadcasting company that everyone living in this game, including him, would know. From news to culture and current affairs, there was a series of nationally recognized broadcasting programs, and he even enjoyed watching some of the dramas.

But the owner of this broadcasting station was the Black Society. He felt like he had been hit hard.

“Ahem. Okay, then why doesn’t any other team accept you? I don’t understand.”

“That’s because the team I have to go to is a semi-pro team. They always want to advance to the pros.”

“Yeah. I know that too. But if the Black Society provides funding, they can use that money to recruit good gladiators, so it will be easier to advance to the pros, right? Isn’t that right?”

“Yes. I know. But the problem is that some of the economic groups have pro gladiator teams with considerable power. If they accept me, they threaten to lend powerful players to the competing team and make sure they fail in the promotion tournament, so they have no choice.”

Beomseok crossed his arms with a dark expression. The goal of the semi-pro team was to advance to the pros no matter what. The economic group’s threat would definitely work. And this also applied to his team. He couldn’t help but worry.

“Hmm. I guess so. But that only applies to semi-pro teams, not to pro teams that are relatively good. But why aren’t you thinking about going directly to a pro team? They’d be crazy about money too.”

“As I said before, the problem is that I don’t have any experience. Even if I go to a pro team, I won’t be able to participate in the game, and it will put a lot of strain on the team by recruiting me. Imagine putting me, who worked at a bank until recently, in a game. What would the fans say? But semi-pro teams are nominally amateur teams. There will be elves working in local corner stores and elves working in private companies. Of course, there’s no reason why my experience working in a bank until recently would be a problem.”

“Yeah, but what can’t you do with money? The fans know that the team benefits from a lot of money coming in. I don’t understand why you can’t.”

“Yes. That’s right. But the people our Black Society has to persuade are not the fans, but government officials. To be precise, they are the ones who decide whether to maintain or abolish the free body modification surgery system. If there is a strong smell of artificiality in my activities as a pro, they will not adopt it as an example of the use of body modification.”

Beomseok was troubled by the rather complicated situation. He didn’t understand why he had to carry out this fight so painstakingly. He felt that a muddy fight would be much easier to accept.

“Oh, come on. Did everyone eat women’s underwear? Just fight. Why are you calculating this and that so complicatedly? It’s annoying.”

“That can’t be helped. We and they are almost unable to determine superiority in terms of strength. So the victory or defeat of the fight is always determined by justification. However, we don’t have a foothold in this sports field, so we are losing in many ways. So we have to be careful in everything.”

Without hesitation, Beomseok jumped up from his seat. If there was someone who rushed at him, he would just break them, and if there was someone who wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, he would just be friendly with them. After all, this was just one title in the game. It wasn’t reality. If it didn’t work out, he could just replay it. There was no need to build up stress by looking at other people’s faces.

“Okay. I know what you’re talking about. So, in conclusion, Emma, you’re saying that our team is the only place you can go right now?”

Emma drooped her head and answered.

“Yes.”

“Then stay. I’ll definitely recognize you as a member of the team, so don’t disrupt the team atmosphere with unnecessary worries.”

Emma smiled brightly and stood up.

“Re, really? Then can I stay on the Gods Knights team?”

“Yeah. But if you betray me later and transfer to another team, you know what will happen, right? I won’t let you get away with it.”

“Yes. Don’t worry. But are you really okay? They’re going to interfere a lot.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can break those trivial sabotage tactics with force. You saw how strong the Gods Knights team is through the GA Cup [Gladiator Association Cup]. And we’ll continue to increase our strength, so we’ll become even stronger.”

Emma also acknowledged that point. Although they were a pro team in the Area League, they had completely defeated two teams, and in the sixth game, they had almost lost in a close match against the Black Cats team, which was the runner-up in last year’s league. It was all due to Beomseok and his elves, who all had excellent skills, and the Black Society members who watched the results were very satisfied.

Thanks to this, an incident occurred in which Lucas, who had caused trouble with Beomseok, was severely scolded by other senior members. They said that he had ruined a deal that was almost done without even knowing properly. But thanks to Beomseok’s favor today, the Black Society was relieved. Emma had safely settled in as a member of the team that seemed the most suitable.

“Thank you so much. I’ll work hard in the future.”

“Hehe. Yeah. You’re a child with great potential, so if you work hard, you’ll grow into a great gladiator.”

Beomseok, who had created a friendly atmosphere, finished the conversation and went outside with her. Now, one of the team’s troubles was completely resolved. Emma would faithfully live as a gladiator belonging to the Gods Knights team in the future, and it was certain that the team atmosphere would improve.