novelraw Chapter 209: Role-Playing Interview (2)
Chapter 209: Role-Playing Interview (2)
After 30 minutes passed, the participants were granted access to the messenger.
It was a messenger commonly used in many startups. They probably got a corporate trial account just for the filming.
There was a simple messenger user manual below. Of course, I didn’t need to look at it, so I quickly checked the profiles.
Fortunately, my messenger account was still active. Naturally so. If even that had been deactivated, it would’ve immediately revealed that I was the target, and the game wouldn’t be able to proceed.
As a low-ranking employee, it was not wise to send messages early in the morning in a chatroom where your boss was present. I held my breath and waited for the right moment.
Then someone sent the first message.
Ahn Joyong
[Good morning, everyone~]
He was using polite language, but in the organizational chart, Mr. Ahn Joyong was the team leader. It seemed like a first attempt to see if people knew he was their superior.
Yoo Yeonseong[The weather is so nice~~]
His soft response, befitting his name, was artistic.
(TL note: Yoo Yeonseong’s name means flexibility, softness, adaptability.)
In situations like this, it was not ideal to be the last one to send a message either. I chimed in appropriately in the middle, signaling my presence.
Jo Yonghan
[Yes, good morning, Team Leader!]
After reacting to Ahn Joyong’s message with a smile emoji, the others started sending their messages belatedly.
Maybe they weren’t used to using messenger, or maybe they hadn’t figured out their positions yet. Either way, the two who responded late would be my targets.
While the three of them fumbled with their messages, I checked the calendar again.
‘There’s something suspicious about last month’s meeting dates.’
Unlike other weeks, last month’s page had two meetings marked, one on Wednesday and one on Friday.
Considering that resignation notices were usually given a month in advance, these meetings were likely resignation interviews in disguise.
Once the target was identified as someone who resigned, Team Leader Ahn Joyong would likely suspect anyone who didn’t have an alibi on the interview date. So I had to establish an alibi by then.
What did the Data Team at Hanpyeong Industries usually do again? For junior employees, it was usually data labeling or, at best, verification tasks…
For now, I decided to just mark the dates in question.
Meanwhile, someone took the opportunity to test things using the meeting date, the most obvious clue.
So Moonnan
[Team Leader! Are we proceeding with the meeting date as scheduled?]
It was the easiest way to initially filter the target by dividing those who knew Wednesday was the regular meeting day and those who didn’t.
Unfortunately, no one took the bait. Maybe the calendar was too easy an item to find.
So Moonnan continued to send messages frequently after that. He seemed to have decided that maintaining a character befitting his name would be helpful.
(TL note: So Moonnan’s name means famous, notorious, or widely talked about.)
On the other hand, as Jo Yonghan, I only sent emojis occasionally or mechanical replies like ‘Yes’. Poor So Moonnan. He was probably sweating bullets, trying to come up with something to say.
(TL note: Jo Yonghan’s name means quiet.)
After the short 5-minute communication time, we were given an additional 25 minutes to investigate.
‘First, I need to figure out what kind of work this team does.’
Since I was processed as resigned and couldn’t access the work site, I had to look for scrap paper or shredded documents. Fortunately, the paper waste was well-sorted into one place.
As I flipped over the scratch paper and reorganized it by the print dates, a familiar word caught my eye.
It was Jo Yonghan’s resignation letter.
***
“Hey, what’s that kid doing?”
Director Ma, who had been listening to the audio, pointed at the screen and asked. On the monitor, Kim Iwol was comparing scratch paper with a calendar, muttering nonstop.
“I gave him easy hints because he’s a rookie, but he’s doing all sorts of strange things?”
Thinking back, Kim Iwol had been different from the start.
While others had frantically searched their character’s workspace as soon as they entered, Kim Iwol had calmly sat down at the desk, opened drawers, and started poking around the computer as if he were used to it.
When Kim Iwol accessed the company’s internal network, all the staff were shocked.
“Hey, is that actually working?!”
“It shouldn’t work based on the character settings, so it’s not technically a problem — but we only added that in as an Easter egg! We didn’t think anyone would actually manage to log in!”
Kim Iwol even checked the recently visited web pages from Jo Yonghan’s browsing history.
On the notepad on the split screen, he began listing the words that kept recurring in the articles and web pages:
AI Trend → For personal competency improvement? Or reference research?
Limitations of Deep Learning Technology → Likely trying to find ways to improve
Big Data Verification → Pre-work for deep learning / Possibility of being in the reporting stage
.
.
.
After checking the interview schedule on the calendar and the one restored from the recycle bin, Kim Iwol muttered to himself.
『I’m the one who resigned.』
It was the fastest keyword identification of a target in the show’s history.
It was his colleague who had introduced Kim Iwol. He said Kim Iwol had appeared on his program a few times and that his quick thinking made him useful.
‘Your show’s all physical stuff, man.’
‘He’s good with both his body and his mind.’
‘He’s an idol, right?’
‘What does that matter? If you’re getting paid, you’re a pro. And he has that mindset, at least.’
He thought he’d gone weird from doing nothing but grueling shows like ‘Challenge! Life Experience’, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.
Kim Iwol also successfully found the key clue, the resignation letter. It was the moment when it became certain that Kim Iwol was the target.
But the smile was short-lived. Kim Iwol’s expression shifted subtly.
He took the resume and approached the desk calendar. Then, he flipped the calendar back and forth, comparing it with the resume.
Kim Iwol’s eyes darkened.
『Oh… This company seems to have some problems.』
At that moment, everyone wearing earphones held their breath.
***
The seal stamped on the first resignation letter I found was gray.
It was likely set up so that the original was submitted to the company, and a copy was kept but then discarded in the scrap paper bin as a hint for me, the participant.
However, there was something peculiar. The submission date of the handwritten and copied resignation letter, and the printing time written at the bottom of the paper.
‘He wrote the resignation letter in the afternoon and submitted it in the evening?’
The date the resignation letter was submitted and the resignation date were the same. While I’d seen cases of people resigning on their first day at Hanpyeong Industry, apart from those instances, it was rare for someone to write and submit a resignation letter within a day.
Moreover, if the situation was so extreme that someone resigned within a day, there’d be no reason for them to stick around past the end of the workday. Why would anyone hang around when they had already decided to leave?
At this point, I couldn’t help but be suspicious.
The ‘personal reasons’ stated as the reason for resignation on this letter were definitely not true.
If the resignation letter was fabricated, I would be a victim disguised as the target by someone. If it was real, something fishy had definitely gone on behind the scenes.
I dumped the entire contents of the scrap paper bin onto the floor. Small pieces of paper hidden among the stiff sheets emerged.
‘How much time do I have left?’
Less than 7 minutes remained on the timer. By the time I picked up all the pieces of paper and spread them roughly on the floor, the remaining time had dwindled to 3 minutes.
So Moonnan
[Mr. Yonghan, what are you doing? So quiet~]
Jo Yonghan
[Sorry. I was trying to find something, and my area got messy. :sweating_face:]
Yoo Yeonseong
[Take your time, take your time~~ haha]
Jo Yonghan
[Yes, thank you, Manager!]
Yoo Yeonseong went quiet after my message.
The organizational chart came out yesterday.
My resignation letter was also processed last night.
So there was practically no chance the org chart had changed in the meantime.
I took advantage of that and referred to Ahn Joyong as the team leader and Yoo Yeonseong as the manager first, so they would be convinced that I was their team member.
There was also someone who suddenly started actively participating in the conversation. It was my colleague, Yeong Yangga.
Yeong Yangga responded enthusiastically to everything So Moonnan said, agreeing with him. It seemed they had formed some sort of faction.
One person was quitting, while others were smoothly navigating the company through connections? It left a bad taste.
So Moonnan
[But Mr. Seong Silhan hasn’t said a word since they greeted everyone earlier???]
For now, I avoided suspicion. The phrase ‘Seong Silhan is typing…’ appeared with three dots bouncing up and down, and soon a new message arrived.
Seong Silhan
[Sorry. My Korean isn’t very good.]
‘So it’s a foreigner or overseas-educated character?’
In that case, it made sense that his typing was slow or he wasn’t very visible in the chat. It was believable, since English was often used when handling or viewing big data.
However, Seong Silhan’s reply seemed to be taken as easy prey by the others.
So Moonnan
[Abroad? Where are you from?]
Seong Silhan
[I’m Korean. I just studied abroad for a long time.]
So Moonnan
[Oh, really??? Why am I hearing this for the first time??]
[Mr. Yangga, is this the first time you’re hearing this~?]
Yeong Yangga
[Oh, this is the first time I’m hearing about it!]
Ahn Joyong
[Seong Silhan lived in Germany, right~?]
Here, the team leader stepped in to cover.
This meant that Ahn Joyong had some personal information about his team members.
‘He’s probably racking his brains right now, trying to find the resigned employee based on their information.’
It was incredibly tragic that even at Hanpyeong Industry, I couldn’t do a resignation interview, and here, they had conducted one without me knowing. At least let me experience it.
The subsequent conversation provided quite meaningful information.
Only Ahn Joyong and I should know that the target was the resigned employee. I was the one who resigned, and Ahn Joyong was the one who conducted the resignation interview.
However, there was one more person who knew about the resigned employee.
So Moonnan
[Shall we steer the conversation more towards work? That way, the outsider won’t be able to actㅋㅋ]
Mr. So Moonnan, who had been sending messages incessantly.
He hurriedly posted a new message, trying to push the previous one out of view, but I saw it. Everyone did.
Did he not watch ‘In My Office’, the show that didn’t quite become a national sensation, but was relatively popular?
A team could theoretically include a psychic investor, a chaebol heir, or a lottery fanatic.
You couldn’t just assume someone was an outsider.
‘More importantly….’
As I typed, I was still piecing together the scraps on the floor, trying to reconstruct their original form.
The bright red seal proved that this document was the original.
‘The reason for resignation is workplace harassment.’
In that case, who else but the harasser would think one of us had resigned?
Author's ThoughtsHello, everyone, for this week, I'll release 6 chapters. it's just more immersive that way. Starting next week, I'll release 5 chapters/week.