The Main Characters That Only I Know

Chapter 197:

Chapter 197

“What do you mean…”

A sudden promotion to manager.

If it wasn’t for Celestina who said this, Yu-hyun would have thought it was just a joke to tease him.

Celestina nodded her head as if Yu-hyun’s reaction was natural, and crossed her arms.

“Yeah. That’s the normal reaction. To be honest, I can’t believe it either. Kang Yu-hyun. How long have you been an assistant manager?”

“…Not that long. It’s been a little over three months, I guess?”

“That’s right. Usually, it takes several years for a teller to become an assistant manager from a regular employee. And from assistant manager to manager? Only a few of them, and that too after spending several times longer than before. But you became the fastest assistant manager and then the fastest manager.”

Yu-hyun felt confused.

He was okay with becoming an assistant manager quickly, but he didn’t expect much from becoming a manager. 

For Yu-hyun, who didn’t belong to any department, the position of manager was quite scarce, as it required some politics and networking.

‘I didn’t really care about the title of manager anyway. But this is too sudden.’

If he wanted to aim for a promotion to manager, he expected to spend at least a few months in preparation. But now that all his worries were useless, he didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

‘No. This should be something to be happy about.’

There’s nothing wrong with getting promoted. 

Rather, the more he rose in rank, the more tellers would look at him again.

Yu-hyun quickly accepted the reality and agreed.

“I was surprised, but it’s good for me to get promoted.”

“You’re quick to accept it. That’s good. You’re worthy of being my junior. You’re the youngest and fastest to become a manager, and also the first unaffiliated among all the managers in history. It’s hard to get to that position even with a hundred backers.”

“But there must be a reason why I’m getting this much benefit.”

“Of course.”

Everyone opened their ears and focused on Celestina’s words.

“Honestly, the mixed world has been quite noisy because of the stories inviolability violation incident. Not only the places where our Celestial Corporation is in charge of, but also other places are interested in it.”

“Other places? You mean…”

“The Comedy Faction and Exodus. They’ve always been rivals, but even they couldn’t ignore this incident. The crime was committed in Paradise Land, but because of that Shamath bastard, we also got burned.”

“That’s a big deal.”

Especially, it was a big deal that the Comedy Faction and Exodus took advantage of this incident.

The three organizations had different preferences for the genre of time painting, but in the end, they were competing for time stories in the mixed world.

From the perspective of the two organizations, they wanted to shake up the Celestial Corporation, which had the largest power in this field, at this opportunity.

“At least the Comedy Faction guys are just checking out of curiosity, but those damn Exodus guys are literally trying to eat us up.”

“What about Paradise Land? Didn’t they say anything like ‘We’re not guilty’?”

“Do you think they have any face to say that? They’re busy denying that they did it. In the end, we had to make a big decision to renew our image somehow.”

“And that’s related to my promotion.”

“You’re quick to understand. Or did you have a vague idea?”

“Of course not.”

Yu-hyun smiled bitterly and waved his hand. 

He really didn’t expect this. 

He just guessed based on the situation before and after.

Celestina leaned back on the sofa and crossed her legs.

“Fortunately, you were the one who recorded everything and revealed it to the world. The one who did the bad thing was Celestial Corporation, but the one who stopped it was also our teller. With this alone, we could pass it off as something done by a minority within us.”

“What about the possibility of manipulation?”

“No way. They’re not idiots or saints. A real saint descended to stories and died there. How can they doubt that? Well, they don’t seem to believe that you guys took him down directly. To be honest, I don’t either. Even if he descended in an incomplete state, he was still a second-generation saint. I can’t believe he was defeated by a human of stories. Most people think he died because of the penalty.”

“Is that so?”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Not at all.”

Yu-hyun thought it was rather fortunate.

If there was a rumor that Seo Sumin directly took down Chulapantaka, he would have received a lot of attention, but it would have been too much attention.

There would be people who doubted Seo Sumin’s identity, and people who tried to pick on them for no reason.

He was glad that the result was like this, even if he had to reduce his achievements a bit.

“Well, at least those who know something about this incident will know that you guys are not ordinary.”

“That’s enough. I don’t care as long as I avoid excessive attention.”

“Anyway, we decided to make your heroic act more prominent by boldly promoting you. It makes sense. You know there’s a promotion ceremony soon, right? You’ll be the main character there. We also had to deal with this as quickly as possible, so we’re only telling you now.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Look at you, you already have over 10,000 viewers, right? Your library size is enough for a deputy director, and you’ve also accumulated a lot of contributions. Even if it wasn’t for this incident, you would have been promoted soon. Just think of it as being moved up a bit.”

Celestina finished her words and got up from her seat, dusting off her hands.

“Let’s do well from now on. Chief Kang Yu-hyun.”

***

Yu-hyun boarded the space train heading to Celestial Corporation.

He didn’t know exactly when the promotion ceremony was, so he asked Celine, and he was so surprised when she said it was the next day.

In the end, Yu-hyun had no choice but to postpone learning from Seo Su-min and head straight to the headquarters for the promotion ceremony.

Baek-ryeon said.

[It seems like we’re taking this train quite often now.]

‘I didn’t expect to go back so soon.’

It felt like it was just a while ago that he applied for expanding the capacity of his library.

[Hey. Aren’t you happy? You’re a chief, a chief. Most tellers can’t even become chiefs, you know.]

‘Yeah. Only the top 10% of all tellers can become chiefs.’

[And you’re one of the fastest ones to get into that top 10%. At this rate, you’ll be able to reach not only deputy director, but also director, right?]

‘Maybe that’s too hard? Well, I’d love to be a deputy director, but honestly, director seems too difficult.’

Director is literally the head of a department.

There are eight departments in the Drawing Room, so naturally there are only eight directors.

The Drawing Room had especially more directors than other rooms. 

In some less mainstream rooms like the Inspection Room or the Finance Room, there were less than four directors.

Among tens of thousands of tellers in the whole mixed system, director was a position that only a very few could reach.

[Isn’t it better to have bigger dreams?]

‘My real goal isn’t just to become a director anyway.’

[Then, what is it?]

‘That is…’

Yu-hyun stopped talking. 

The space train had arrived at its destination.

Baek-ryeon clicked his tongue as if he was disappointed. 

Yu-hyun changed him into a brooch and got off the train.

Usually he would have to walk alone, but today he had an unexpected acquaintance.

“Hey! Kang Yu-hyun!”

From afar, a teller recognized Yu-hyun and ran towards him.

“Alisha?”

“You bastard. Long time no see?”

A girl with dark skin and silver hair that shone in the light. Alisha, Yu-hyun’s classmate, approached him and punched his arm with her fist. 

He noticed that her horns had grown bigger than before.

If it was before, she would have looked at him with a challenge in her eyes, but today she was surprisingly friendly, so Yu-hyun asked curiously.

“What’s up with you? Did something good happen?”

“Keeheehee. What? Can you tell?”

Alisha smiled with her sharp teeth.

“Uh, yeah. What’s with that laugh?”

“Hee. Well, of course I have to. You know today is the day of the promotion ceremony, right?”

“I know.”

Yu-hyun asked with a feeling of disbelief. Alisha nodded as if his guess was right.

“I’m getting promoted to assistant today.”

“Oh. Really? Congratulations. That’s pretty fast.”

When he said that sincerely, Alisha seemed even more pleased and patted Yu-hyun’s arm.

“You bastard. I told you, right? I’ll catch up soon. I’m not far behind you. Just wait.”

“Is that so? By the way, how’s your drawing going? You should be choosing your second collector soon.”

“Of course. I’m getting popular with an amazing twist that you never expected.”

“An amazing twist?”

“Yeah. I just got one of my second collectors. It’s another world where swords and magic exist like before. But it’s totally different from the previous one.”

“How so?”

“He’s the youngest son of a prestigious family who’s good at swordsmanship. Oh man. But this family is so inhumane even for a teller like me. The lord doesn’t care if his children kill each other, and the whole family values power so much. They’re all assholes with no morals.”

Yu-hyun listened attentively to Alisha’s chatter.

He felt familiar with the background and settings that flowed out of her voice.

“But among them, the youngest son caught my eye. I thought he was perfect for me, so I immediately hooked him up with a contract. The jerk. He must have good eyes because he agreed right away.”

Watching her happily talk, Yu-hyun swallowed down the words ‘actually he accepted the contract because he wants to use you’.

Instead, Yu-hyun asked something else.

“So the youngest son was ignored by his older siblings at first, but then he suddenly showed his power and got their attention?”

“Huh? What? How did you know? That’s weird. Did I tell you before?”

“Doesn’t the youngest son have twins or triplets above him who bully him?”

“Huh?! Yeah! How did you know? That’s amazing.”

“But then the youngest son awakens his power and beats them up, and his father says ‘well done’ to him and looks at him like ‘not bad’, right? Actually the youngest son is also a jerk, but he looks relatively better because his family is so trashy, and the spirits also like him and say he’s awesome?”

As Yu-hyun’s words continued, even Alisha couldn’t help but feel something was wrong.

She clutched her goosebumped arm as if she was shocked.

“You, what are you? How do you know that so well? Hey, tell me the truth. You secretly peeked at my poem, didn’t you? If you’re honest, I’ll let it go.”

“What are you talking about? How can I peek secretly? Don’t you know that when a teller enters the library, the log is obviously left to you?”

“Ah, no. That can’t be. There’s no way you can know this otherwise.”

“Well, maybe it’s because your poem is a bit obvious?”

“…!”

As Yu-hyun smiled slyly and said that, Arisha bit her lip and glared at him as if looking up.

He felt that she looked cute and thought about teasing her a bit, but Arisha reacted faster than that.

Her eyebrows raised to the sky settled down again, and Arisha snorted exaggeratedly.

“Fine, fine. Whatever. It’s not like I can do anything by getting angry here.”

“Wow. You’re so generous.”

“Shut up… Ahem. Anyway, today is the day I get promoted. It’s the day I become the protagonist, so I can be magnanimous for a day.”

As if he had done her a favor, Arisha said to Yu-hyun, who asked her.

“Aren’t there other tellers who are getting promoted besides you?”

“Well, they’re all just deputy promotions. There’s no one above that. Even among the same deputy promotions, there are only people with higher grades than me. Of course, I’m practically the protagonist since I have the lowest grade, right? It means I’m the best.”

“That’s true.”

The two chatted as they walked toward the building where the promotion ceremony was held.

Then Arisha belatedly remembered something and asked with wide eyes.

“By the way, what are you doing here? Aren’t you busy? This is where the promotion ceremony is held. I appreciate your farewell, but you don’t have to come this far.”

“No. I have something to do here too.”

“Huh? What? Did you come to watch the promotion ceremony?”

Arisha asked with a strange expectation, but Yu-hyun shook his head.

“What are you talking about? I came here to participate in the promotion ceremony too.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, right. You probably don’t know because it was decided recently?”

Yu-hyun said to Arisha who was still confused.

“I’m getting promoted to manager today.”