Chapter 7
The Most Valuable Thing
Shine Mall is a big contributor in the distribution industry that supplies materials to Hunter Logistics Center, but there are no offline locations.
Since the business is carried out online, orders that are placed are delivered by the branch and warehouse offices that are set up across the country.
The headquarters stood at the center, controlling all of the logistics while acting as the largest warehouse. Thus, it was always crowded with people working multiple shifts.
“This much workforce is quite surprising.”
“Honestly, I am surprised as well.”
There are employees who go around looking for specific items ordered from the logistics warehouses.
In the meantime, Jeong-Hoon is showing off his presence.
He wasn’t showing off much presence compared to Butler Joo or Yeo Tae-Hyun, and nor was he wearing a fancy suit either.
He was simply walking around in an outfit that the employees wore: a short sleeve shirt and jeans. He was pushing a cart with one hand while holding a tablet in the other.
However, he held a presence different from the employees.
“Jeong-Hoon-ssi, could you tell me where I can find this item?”
“Ah, that? That should be on block C13.”
When employees came up to him, showing him the item on the tablet that they were looking for, Jeong-Hoon would answer right away, pointing in the direction the requested items are located at.
It may not seem like a big deal, but this was quite an impressive skill considering employees who worked here for years couldn’t memorize every single item on the list and their locations.
“If I had known him before he became the head of the household, I would have offered him a position as a full-time employee.”
“If that were to be the case, perhaps it would have lessened the Lord’s hardships in his previous days.”
Butler Joo nodded at Yeo Tae-Hyun’s words, agreeing to his recognition of Jeong-Hoon’s skill.
It has been almost a week since the task had started. Rather than searching for the most valuable item in Shine Mall, Jeong-Hoon had decided to jump directly into a job as an employee.
But instead of working in operations that also dealt with other company’s items, he specifically worked in a position that separated Shine Mall’s own products into categories.
At first, Jeong-Hoon had been looking around in the storage, trying to search for that valuable item. After a whole day of futile searches, he decided to work as an employee, pushing a cart like the others, along with a tablet that showed a list of all the products Shine Mall produced.
The people working in the storage were mixtures of part-time and full-timers, and Jeong-Hoon introduced himself as a part-timer. Ever since then, he has completely turned the working site around.
“Hey, you over there! That belongs in the 2nd storage room!”
“Sorry? Isn’t this the 2nd storage room?”
“This is the 1st storage room. The 2nd storage room is that way.”
Forget searching for that valuable item, at this point Jeong-Hoon is doing a clean sweep of any mistakes found in the workplace.
“This is odd. The Lord didn’t seem like a special person from the information I read.”
“I, too, am very surprised. Whether it’s the position that made the person or if he was always like this but never had the chance to let the talent show, I do not know.”
E/N: “Position makes the person” is a saying in Korea. It means that you become a person who acts appropriately for that position without even realizing it.
Butler Joo said as he shook his head while looking at Jeong-Hoon with bleary eyes.
It was unknown whether he had been living his life hiding his talent or hadn’t known about his talent until now, but during the time Butler Joo had been watching Jeong-Hoon, he thought Jeong-Hoon was someone with a different nature.
“Anyways, I worried for nothing. It’s relieving to know he has the ability to take control of his surroundings.”
“What is there to worry about? Isn’t the reason why we exist in the first place to fulfill the lackings of our Lord? It is our duty.”
“Aw, c’mon Boss Joo. Do you really believe an ordinary person as he is able to comprehend the truth of the family?”
When Yeo Tae-Hyun touched on that sensitive subject, Butler Joo scrunched up his eyebrows.
“I am being careful of that.”
Jeong-Hoon simply believed that he inherited a huge amount of fortune, owned a couple of buildings, and became a head of the household of employees with overwhelming strength.
“Heh? But shouldn’t he have had enough clues to guess?”
“… He has been trying to guess from the start. Even if we were to let him now, it would only end up spoiling his mood. I will at least wait until he asks in detail.”
At those words, Yeo Tae-Hyun let out feigned laughter.
“I can guarantee that the Lord already made his guess and just chose not to ask to avoid feeling pressured.”
Although he only conversed with Jeong-Hoon for a little bit, Yeo Tae-Hyun nodded in confidence that he had Jeong-Hoon all figured out.
And at that confidence, Butler Joo couldn’t deny those words and could only laugh bitterly.
***
Find the most valuable item in Shine Mall.
It has almost been a full week since he was given the task. Jeong-Hoon hummed a little tune while pushing a cart full of items he had found today.
“… finished my work for today.”
Jeong-Hoon slyly smiled towards the CCTV he had noticed that was facing in his direction. He then looked around in search of something.
E/N: CCTV is another term for security cameras.
No, it was more of a pretend to search.
To be honest, on the day he had returned back to Lumen the moment he had first heard of the task, Jeong-Hoon was already sure of what the item was.
He had an item in mind and he was sure he was 99.9% correct. If it was incorrect, then there would be no hope.
The reason why he wasted a week’s worth of time working at Shine Mall while knowing what the answer was from the start, was simple.
“I was never given the chance to be hired to work at Shine Mall, but since now I have, I will settle with this experience.”
One would call this a bucket list. The only job he had worked part-time for was the Dungeon Logistics Center.
He had wanted to work part-time at Shine Mall, but he couldn’t due to the competitiveness.
Hence, working at Shine Mall was one of the things on his bucket list and he was able to fulfill it.
On top of that, since he wasn’t technically ‘working’, it felt like he was playing more than he was working.
“Although, I wonder if CEO Yeo might not like the fact that I controlled the workplace too much.”
Feeling as if he made it too obvious that he was showing too much charisma while working, Jeong-Hoon shook his head in worry.
Since he wasn’t there to actually work, he got carried away by his feelings and got ahead of himself.
He was actually surprised that he had such talent for this.
Now that he thought about it, he had been slowly discovering his talents ever since he became the head of the household.
From martial arts to shooting guns, he had been showing various talents enough to impress Butler Joo and the maid of honor, who were teaching him etiquette.
And they weren’t the type of people to say empty words. If Jeong-Hoon had made a mistake or gotten something wrong, they were the type to strictly re-teach him to fix those errors.
The base standard they had in mind was the previous head of the household.
Although the previous head of the household was a family member Jeong-Hoon had never met before, he was someone who was born and raised to become a family head.
One can believe that the two had very high standards. And it was these two people who had accepted Jeong-Hoon’s talents.
Butler Joo even brought up stories of Jeong-Hoon’s grandfather after saying ‘it runs in the family’ every time he was impressed with Jeong-Hoon.
Jeong-Hoon’s grandfather was said to have been disowned by the family for going against the family’s principles at the time, but until then, he had shown the qualities of an exceptional family head.
However, because his grandfather’s opinions would bring danger to the family, none responded to cases when he would run away from home.
As a result, when the world changed and his life fell into jeopardy, Jeong-Hoon’s uncle searched for a new head of the household candidate and found Jeong-Hoon, the only survivor of the family, and appointed him as the new family head.
“Up to this point is what I know so far about the family’s secret.”
If he tried to know more in detail, he would develop doubts.
Butler Joo had said this: if Jeong-Hoon brought all of the family businesses together, completed all the tasks, and become recognized as the true head of the household, then establishing the power of the family will be possible.
And Jeong-Hoon knew that this was not a joke. He knew it was not a joke from the moment he had checked the list of all businesses operated by the 12 key vassals, on top of additional 3,000 vassals.
No matter how much money and loyal subordinates he had, it was far too suspicious.
To include, all 3,000 vassals were ideally A-class awakeners.
And among the 12 vassals, 3 were SSS-class, 4 were SS-class, and 5 were S-class.
Among the top 10 that were selected as the best guilds, S-class hunters are rare, and they are either given the position of guild masters or vice guild masters.
SS-class or higher is classified as a major national figure, so they don’t carry out guild activities for a while.
Even among the top 10 guilds, only three have SS-class hunters.
However, the number of awakened beings in the family is already at the national level.
Aside from the power of founding, it is an armed force that can certainly aim to overthrow the entire nation.
Can this amount of force be made in 10 years’ time with the wealth and loyalty accumulated over the years?
“Definitely not.”
Shaking his head, Jeong-Hoon thought of Butler Joo who always tried to make Jeong-Hoon approach the family secrets.
It probably had relations as to what secrets the family was hiding and why monsters started to appear out of nowhere.
Perhaps it was the family that released the monsters into this world.
Because of all those what-if and bad thoughts, Jeong-Hoon refused to approach the topic of the family’s secrets.
But that didn’t mean he planned to reject the position of the head of the household.
“In the end, it’s the fact that I make those decisions that matters.”
Jeong-Hoon smiled widely at the person at the counter he parked the cart in front of.
“Jeong-Hoon-ssi, good work today as well.”
“Yes, you as well. Uhm? You’re not going to check?”
“Eh, is it possible for Jeong-Hoon-ssi to be wrong?”
“But you should still check.”
Jeong-Hoon tried to stop the person from sending the items he had brought in the cart to the release section for not checking along with the list first, but the person paid no attention to the list.
This kind of behavior is acceptable if Jeong-Hoon was a manager, but as someone who only worked for a week, Jeong-Hoon felt troubled by the person’s trust.
“But please still check. It’s my last day so it doesn’t feel right to let it go like that.”
“Last day? I thought Jeong-Hoon-ssi was an employee here?”
“Nah, I’m only here to help out. It’s about time I return to my actual job.”
Because he had enough fun working at Shine Mall, Jeong-Hoon had decided to end his work here.
Come to think of it, family businesses are perfect to knock down Jeong-Hoon’s bucket list.
“Is that so? Well, there’s no way someone like Jeong-Hoon-ssi be unemployed. You’ve done well while you were here.”
At the disappointed tone, Jeong-Hoon nodded his head twice and shook hands with the person.
He considered saying his farewells to other employees, but since it wasn’t his style to leave splendidly, he decided to leave as quietly as possible.
If he accidentally ended up exposing his position as the head of the household while speaking to the other employees, it would be quite bad.
“… Shall I go and give them my guess now?”
Exiting the warehouse, Jeong-Hoon headed towards the area where there weren’t many people.
After confirming that there was no one around him, Jeong-Hoon snapped his fingers.
“Have you called?”
“Have you found the answer?”
As if they’ve been waiting for his call, Butler Joo and Yeo Tae-Hyun appeared in front of him.
Jeong-Hoon opened his mouth.
“Where is the agreement contract that was made with Dungeon Logistics Center?”
“… It’s in my office. May I ask why you’re looking for that?”
As Jeong-Hoon spoke of the item, Yeo Tae-Hyun’s eyes sparkled.
“Because that is the answer.”
As the world changed, Shine Mall was created. It has become a big contributor to the distribution industry.
It was created by the nation in an effort to deliver items to the Dungeon Logistics Center to make it easier for hunters and guilds to interact.
As soon as the contract is over, Shine Mall’s business will crumble in one shot.
Therefore, it is the most valuable item to a business called Shine Mall.