Returnee's S-Rank Management Guide

Those Who Aim (4)

The lights that had gone out turned back on just a few seconds later.

It was a very short moment, but the manor instantly became chaotic.

"...... Who are you?"

Min Gwang-hun glared at the figure before him.

The figure was wrapped entirely in black cloth, concealing their face and making even their gender ambiguous.

However, based on the small and slender build, he could only guess it was a woman—maybe even a girl.

'No, that can't be.'

Even if the intruder was an Awakener, there was no way a young girl could possess such skills.

After all, that figure had broken through the manor's security and made it to him.

The people in charge of Min Gwang-hun's security were all Awakener, and each of them was at least B-rank.

"Catch them, now!!"

The guards charged at the sudden intruder.

They had allowed the breach, and if they just stood by, it would be their heads on the line.

Bang!!

"Gah!"

The intruder dodged the first guard's sword by ducking and kicked him in the abdomen.

With an almost comical force, the guard flew through the air and crashed into a nearby wall.

"Hmph."

The intruder let out a derisive snort and lightly flicked their hand.

Instantly, black hands shot out from the shadows, swinging horizontally and batting the guards aside. Those who dodged were struck directly by the intruder, who hammered their faces with punches.

Thud, crash!!

As the guards were flung away near simultaneously, those stationed at the rear raised their hands. While the others had bought time, the guards capable of using magic had prepared attack spells.

"Fire!!"

The intruder's lips curled as projectiles of fire and ice hurled toward them.

"Ha! Who do you think you're casting magic at?"

Snap!

"W-What the?!"

With a simple snap of the fingers, the incoming spells vanished all at once.

Any Awakener with even a smattering of magic knowledge would have been appalled.

The intruder had applied their own magic power to the completed spells and momentarily disrupted the spell formulas.

To do this, you needed to possess more magic power than the mage who cast the spell, and you had to understand the formulas perfectly.

There were only two ways to prevent this: overwhelm with absolute magic power or twist the formula with separate code-spells.

Either way, these were advanced techniques, difficult for anyone below B-rank to employ.

In other words, the intruder was highly skilled in magic as well.

"I can't use it myself yet, but I can still break it."

Muttering cryptically, the intruder closed the distance with the dumbstruck mages in an instant and struck them down. Bodies crumpled with her punches and tumbled to the floor from her kicks.

"Ugh......"

It took less than five minutes to take down nearly twenty guards.

"Assemblyman, that guy might be at least a top A-rank, maybe even S-rank."

The head of security said this to Min Gwang-hun, his tone tense.

He was an A-rank Awakener himself, but the intruder's display far surpassed his abilities.

"Hmm......"

Min Gwang-hun gave a soft groan, fixating on the intruder as they walked toward him.

"Judging by your actions, you seem to know me. But who are you, really? I don't recall knowing anyone like you."

A vague smile formed beneath the black cloth at Min's calm words.

"Oh my, that's a pity."

Judging by the tone and timbre, it was definitely a young girl.

But he couldn't be certain.

There were many Awakener with special abilities who could change their appearance.

"Did Park Sung-tae put you up to this?"

"Well, who knows?"

Min Gwang-hun's eyebrows twitched at the ambiguous reply.

"I don't know who you are, but if you do something like this—"

Slice.

Min Gwang-hun couldn't finish his sentence.

Suddenly sensing a chill in his arm and glancing down, he saw his own arm rolling on the floor.

"Aaaaaagh!!"

"A-Assemblyman!!"

Other aides surrounded Min Gwang-hun, who had fallen to his knees clutching his severed arm, but he gritted his teeth and glared at the intruder.

"You, you bastard...!"

"Honestly, I don't really care what you do."

She said this with a twisted smile.

"I just came to give you a warning."

"...... A warning?"

"It's best if you stop sticking your nose into Ji Yeon-hwa's disappearance. That's all."

Min Gwang-hun's eyes widened at those words.

"We should play fair, don't you think? There's no point in digging into one another's business. Moderation, you know? You should always stop at moderation."

"Grrr!!"

With those words, the intruder strolled over and tapped Min Gwang-hun's head as he knelt.

The surrounding aides and head of security tried to stop her, but they were immobilized by a massive black hand that shot forth from her shadow.

'M-My magic power won't move.'

They tried to break free with their magic power, but a foul energy flowed from the black hand, blocking the channels through which their magic power moved.

"And I suggest you keep your hands off Taekyung Group as well."

"......!!"

Having said her piece, the intruder slowly backed away.

The grip of the black hand began to loosen, but no one dared try to catch her.

"This is your only warning, assemblyman Min Gwang-hun. You've been elected three times—you should try to stick around for a long time, don't you think?"

The intruder looked at the silent Min Gwang-hun for a moment, then slowly turned her back.

Just like before, when the lights in the manor flickered a couple of times, she vanished like a wisp of smoke.

It was truly uncanny, enough to make a ghost weep.

"A-Assemblyman, are you all right? We've called an ambulance, let's get you to the ER right awa—"

"Those bastards... how dare they pull a stunt like this?"

As his wound was being dressed to stop the bleeding, Min Gwang-hun ground his teeth, forgetting even the pain.

Just thinking about the intruder's words made it easy to guess the culprit.

Digging into Ji Yeon-hwa's past and mentioning Taekyung Group—there was only one answer.

Upstream.

Lately, Min Gwang-hun hadn't been restricting his moves to Unique's Lee Soo-ah.

He'd also been investigating the sudden disappearance of Ji Yeon-hwa and the suspicious activities at Upstream.

If he could get a weakness on one of the Big Three management agencies—Upstream—he could control and shake them.

"Na Ji-hwan, that bastard... so this is how he's going to play it?"

She'd said there wouldn't be a second warning.

The intruder who broke into his manor was clearly not ordinary.

But so what?

He was Min Gwang-hun, known as the 'mad dog'.

Even if he lost his head, he couldn't let this slide.

"Even if I die, I'll smash your company to pieces."

***

"Wouldn't it have been easier to just kill him?"

Yeon-ji said this nonchalantly in the car as they were driving away.

She sure could say brutal things with a straight face.

"It's very different, killing criminals versus murdering an assemblyman in his own manor."

"Well, you're right about that."

"But if we let him be, he'll just keep being a nuisance. It's better to make him look elsewhere."

I also knew a fair bit about Assemblyman Min Gwang-hun.

He was shady and would do anything to win an election.

There was a reason his nickname was 'mad dog'.

He probably had more than a few bodies buried somewhere.

"So you threw Upstream out there as bait? But do you think he'll believe it? Isn't that a bit too much like 'please, target Upstream for us'?"

"It's a process of elimination."

"... Ah, I guess there isn't anywhere else that would pull something like this."

Min Gwang-hun had many enemies.

But there weren't many who could actually pull off something like this.

Which group could send a hunter capable of laying waste to an assemblyman's manor single-handedly?

Yeon-ji's display of skill was at least top A-rank.

That kind of power wasn't common, and certainly not something an average assemblyman could command.

You'd look for a group that possessed such talent, and that meant only one of the Big Three management agencies.

And among them, the only one desperate enough to make such a move against Min Gwang-hun was Upstream.

"From his perspective, all he did was ask to meet us once, so he wouldn't think we'd go this far."

"Oh, true. Even if he sent some criminals, officially, that's all there was."

"Even if we guessed who sent those criminals, would he ever expect us to move like this?"

For now, Unique was barely known, so we could maintain a low profile.

Other than the fact that we had two S-rank hunters, everyone else was weak.

Even Shin Ah-yeon, Unique's top hunter, didn't have the personality to do something like this, and Lee Soo-ah's abilities were too distinct.

So naturally, Unique was off the suspect list.

"Honestly, you have me to thank for this, right?"

The smug look on Yeon-ji's face as she raised her chin was the same as when she boasted about her management team to Ah-yeon. It used to be insufferable, but now—maybe because of her appearance—it just made me laugh.

"Yeah, it turned out even better than I expected. Now Upstream will have a headache for a while."

Yeon-ji had really helped a lot this time.

Knowing the relationship between Min Gwang-hun and Upstream was huge.

She'd been a key hunter at Upstream during Ji Yeon-hwa's time, and had met Min Gwang-hun before, so she knew a ton of information related to Upstream.

"I like this too. I've been wondering what to do about Upstream anyway."

Upstream had been desperately searching for Ji Yeon-hwa ever since she disappeared.

It was nearly impossible to find her now that she had become Yeon-ji, but it still made her anxious—you never knew.

But after this, both Assemblyman Min Gwang-hun and Upstream would be so busy fighting each other that they wouldn't have time to focus on us.

"But didn't you actually like Upstream quite a lot? I'm surprised you don't mind using it as bait."

"That's how business relationships are, aren't they? Besides, it's not like this will ruin the company... And separate from Upstream, I don't really like President Na Ji-hwan."

"Really? That's surprising. I thought he would've treated you well."

Yeon-ji scrunched her lips and gave a lopsided grin.

"He did. He tried hard—mostly to get me in bed, though."

"......."

I fell silent, at a loss for words.

"Ahem. Anyway, I'll teach you more when we get back. We won't have any work for a while, right?"

"... Ah, about the demon's magic?"

"So, how was it? Not bad, right?"

At last, Yeon-ji's expression brightened, her discomfort over Na Ji-hwan forgotten.

"Oh my, of course. I've barely learned the basics of handling demonic energy, but it's just completely different. Dark magic... right? I like it a lot."

"That's good to hear."

Because she possessed demon blood, Yeon-ji couldn't use modern magic or the circle magic Ah-yeon had learned.

Instead, she was able to use dark magic, a demon magic.

Dark magic could only be used by those who possessed both magic power and demonic energy.

In that other world, only mages who had made contracts with the demons or demons themselves could use it. But as a half-demon, Ah-yeon didn't need to make any contracts.

"Hm, but it really is strange when you think about it."

"What is?"

"How do you know about circle magic, which you taught Shin Ah-yeon, and then also know dark magic......?"

I'd already told Yeon-ji about my knowledge from another world.

It was unavoidable if I wanted to help with her problems.

But as a mage, Yeon-ji was curious about my knowledge.

Of course, she would be.

The circle magic and dark magic that Ah-yeon knew far surpassed anything in this world.

"Well, that's..."

"You're not about to say 'I learned it in the rift,' are you?"

Before I could speak, Yeon-ji asked with a meaningful look.

But I had expected a reaction like that from her.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
Na Ji-hwan, you sleazy bastard.
I didn't expect Jung-woo to use mind games against the assemblyman.
I thought they would straight up beat the assemblyman to the ground.
A little bit of underhanded tactic is always welcome.
Why dirty your hands when you can make other people do stuff for you?
【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】