Chapter 6
The next day, Kim Si-min, still on vacation, arrived at Lighthouse Co., Ltd.’s office early in the morning.
“You’re quite diligent. You come in like this every day.”
“About yesterday…”
Kim Si-min told Park Won-jung in detail about everything that had happened the previous day.
“I see.”
“Do the others go through things like this as well?”
“No, not exactly. They do receive rewards in the form of underworld money or accumulated good karma, though.”
“I spoke with Attorney Hwang Su-ho. He said this company exists on the boundary between this world and the afterlife.”
Park Won-jung nodded with his usual benevolent smile.
“That is correct. We are a company that exists on the boundary.”
“Are the employees here people who committed sins in their previous lives?”
“Sin. I suppose that could be both true and untrue.”
“Could you explain?”
“Is murder a wrong act, or a right act?”
“It is wrong, but I suppose there are times when it isn’t.”
“Exactly. Take a battlefield, for example. There, people may be forced to hurt others in order to protect their families and their country. Even now, there are situations in which people are forced to harm other people. We cannot call all of those acts sins.”
People who existed in ambiguity.
“Those who stand on the boundary—people whose actions would generally be considered sinful, but were justified in their circumstances—work here. We are giving them a chance as well.”
“What kind of work do they do?”
“They do all sorts of things. Those are things you, Representative, will have to learn about one by one from now on.”
“I see.”
He nodded and continued talking about the rewards.
“So even the chief of the secretariat doesn’t know what kind of rewards will be given?”
“That is correct. However, I do know one thing for certain: you, Representative, will receive far more things as rewards. I have only served one Representative before. I remember very well just how extraordinary that person was.”
“Extraordinary?”
“Yes. The Representative of Lighthouse is bound to be an extraordinary being.”
“…”
Seeing Kim Si-min’s expression suggest that he found that difficult to believe, Park Won-jung merely smiled.
“Well, anyway, since you’ve completed a Low Rank request, you might as well try something else. The fields of work we handle are incredibly diverse, so it would be good for you to experience something different this time.”
He pulled a document out of thin air and placed it in front of Si-min.
[Save the Snack Bar]
“…”
Kim Si-min read through all the materials and fell silent.
“Does business fall under our jurisdiction as well? Whether a business succeeds or fails isn’t something we can decide, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“Then how are we supposed to help with this?”
“We’re a company that lends opportunities, not a company that guarantees success.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it might not work.”
“…”
“Even so, we give them an opportunity.”
“Then how exactly are we supposed to do that?”
“By utilizing the enormous amount of data accumulated by our company.”
While Kim Si-min was looking at him with a puzzled expression, Park Won-jung led him somewhere.
[Archive]
“What is this place?”
“Since Lighthouse Co., Ltd. was established, countless requests have come in, and all the solutions to those requests are stored here. You can search through them as well.”
More than a hundred tablet PCs had been installed along one side of the archive.
As soon as he sat down, Kim Si-min searched for ways to save a tteokbokki restaurant.
[100 Tteokbokki Recipes]
[101 Ways to Advertise Without Spending Money]
There was all sorts of information.
And whenever he opened one of the search results, the relevant information was input directly into his mind, as though it were being stored on a data-storage device.
By the time he had absorbed about five pieces of information, his head suddenly began spinning, and his body collapsed sideways.
“Oh dear. You already went through five pieces of information before I could even tell you the precautions.”
Park Won-jung approached with a half-playful smile and stood in front of him.
“You don’t need to read the materials one by one for them to be remembered in your mind. However, if your body isn’t prepared to accept all that information, it becomes overloaded. As the Representative, you’ll eventually be able to store large amounts of information in a short time, but for now, it will be difficult.”
“You should… have… told me that… sooner…”
Kim Si-min struggled to suppress his nausea as he staggered back to his feet and glared at Park Won-jung.
“I’ll make sure to do so next time.”
From that day on, Kim Si-min spent roughly a week holed up in the archive, searching for ways to save the tteokbokki restaurant.
“First, taste, location, price, and promotion.”
Was that about it?
“You have one month. We can’t help a snack bar forever. You simply need to produce results within that month. Of course, shortcuts aren’t allowed. This company isn’t that easy to deal with.”
He had no intention of taking shortcuts anyway.
Kim Si-min took the elevator from the eighth floor.
Ding.
The elevator stopped on the seventh floor.
“Hey, Si-min.”
Hwang Su-ho, who had now become a familiar face, stepped into the elevator on the seventh floor.
“Another field assignment?”
“Yes. This time, I’m supposed to save a tteokbokki restaurant.”
“Really? Your field training is lasting quite a while.”
“I know.”
“Well, I suppose you need to learn everything about how the company operates.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course. Anyway, hang in there. Let’s grab a drink together sometime.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Business trip.”
Seeing Hwang wrinkle his face as though he really didn’t want to go and head off somewhere, Kim Si-min couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Hmm… Maybe I should go too.”
Since Si-min didn’t have a car of his own, he took public transportation to the area around Cheonho Station.
On the way to the market alley located behind Cheonho-dong, he had to pass through the young crowds on Rodeo Street.
After walking for quite some time, Kim Si-min entered the market.
Then he froze when he saw the owner of one of the snack bars.
Why is she here…?
It was a face he could never forget.
Her hollow eyes and exhausted face, as though she had spent days and nights crying without being able to sleep at the funeral home, were burned into his memory.
“Welcome.”
The tteokbokki shop owner was smiling brightly at the customers entering her store.
She looked different from the day she had come to his branch, but Si-min could still sense the exhaustion buried deep within her eyes.
“Ma’am, two servings of tteokbokki and some sundae, please.”
“Yes, certainly.”
Customers who had finished their first round of drinks and come here for a second round sat down at the snack bar and ordered tteokbokki.
The sun had already gone down, and since there were many bars nearby, most of the customers were drunk.
“Ajumma, where’d that pretty girl who used to be here go? Was she your daughter?”
Among the drunk customers, as usual, there were also those who had no manners.
“My daughter is studying.”
“Really? That’s a shame. She was pretty.”
It wasn’t just the drunk middle-aged men. The young men at another table also perked up at the conversation, suggesting that they were thinking along much the same lines.
“…”
Why did it have to be here?
A scene he desperately wanted to forget resurfaced in his memory.
—If I die… at least my family can survive…
The eyes of the man who had fallen into the Han River.
He remembered those eyes, as well as the face of the middle-aged father who had worried about his family until the very end.
“Phew…”
With heavy steps, Kim Si-min turned around.
He simply couldn’t bring himself to go inside today.
And just then, someone brushed past him.
“Mom!”
“Our daughter is here?”
“You must be tired.”
“Tired? Not at all.”
“By the way, did you see that young man outside staring at the shop?”
“A young man?”
“Yeah. His expression was strange. I think I’ve seen his face somewhere before. Where was it?”
“A young man? I didn’t notice. Maybe he’s another person waiting around because he wants to see our daughter. Anyway, be careful, sweetheart. There are so many strange people these days.”
“Come on, Mom.”
The people at the tteokbokki restaurant were Park Mun-seong’s wife, Lee Seon-hye, and his daughter, Park Min-young.
“Come to think of it, I’m sure I saw that face somewhere before.”
She thought about it for a moment, but soon gave up.
Right now, helping her mother at the snack bar came first.
The next day, Kim Si-min was sitting across from Park Won-jung at the company.
“I suppose you’ve figured it out now.”
“That the snack bar owner is Mr. Park Mun-seong’s wife?”
“Yes. It is a matter of fate.”
“You could have told me beforehand.”
“Would that really have changed anything?”
“…”
He supposed that was true.
What would it have changed?
“Do I really have to handle this request?”
“Yes. Because the request chose you, Representative. You may give up if you wish. But they may never get another opportunity. Once an opportunity passes them by, even we don’t know how long they’ll have to wait for another one.”
“…”
He was trapped.
“The Representative tried to save that man until the very end. The mark from that day is still on your wrist.”
Indeed, the mark left by Park Mun-seong, who had struggled desperately to pull away from him, was still visible on Si-min’s wrist.
“I believe you can do this, Representative.”
What exactly are you basing that belief on?
Even so, Kim Si-min didn’t dislike Park Won-jung’s words.
He let out a deep sigh and left the company.
Before he could solve this problem, there was something else he needed to do first.
He checked the single sheet of paper tucked inside his clothes.
