Chapter 556 - 9527, Fall Out

9527 was in the breakroom, comfortably sipping a coffee with orange syrup. He was quite satisfied with his life.

‘Wait, that’s not right.’ He was no longer just 9527, the customer service agent, but 9527, the customer service team lead.

Even though it was just a team lead position, it was a big deal to him. He was in charge of ten people—practically management.

‘At least, he considered himself part of management.’

Besides, the employees under him were all decent people—kids from good families.

The social media platform they managed was past its initial startup phase, so it no longer needed old swindlers running eighty accounts apiece just to bait people into conversation.

Which meant they no longer needed to recruit “special talents” like him, men with rap sheets as thick as a phone book.

He’d never been tormented by a guilty conscience during his long career as a con artist. Yet, after becoming a team lead, he’d started losing sleep, constantly haunted by his inglorious past.

‘He was afraid his subordinates, this group of innocent kids, would find out about all the crooked things he’d done.’

‘His reputation would be ruined.’

His team members all got along well with him now. Most didn’t bother with surnames or titles like “Team Lead.” They just called him by his name.

He loved that feeling.

The feeling of being trusted.

‘For a con artist, that was an exceptionally rare treasure.’

Once his life stabilized, he even started thinking about starting a family. ‘How strange,’ he thought. ‘A man who once had no fixed address, who figured he’d spend more than a decade drifting from one scam to the next, now wants to settle down.’

He even bought a house in Winter City. It was a good house—a two-story, 1500-square-foot place with a small front yard, located close to the city center and near the first public elementary school. It got great light, and he could enjoy the warm sun for most of the day.

He was saddled with a ten-year mortgage for it, but he was still very satisfied.

His gut told him that, nine times out of ten, the house would only increase in value.

That was the pattern in almost every rapidly developing city.

Now that he had a home, the next step was to think about a partner.

‘A much more complicated problem.’

“Team Lead.” A sweet voice by his ear interrupted 9527’s thoughts.

“Uh, wh-what is it?”

‘Damn it, why do I get so nervous I can’t even speak properly whenever I see her? I’m the team lead, for crying out loud.’

The young woman before him was a new employee who had recently been assigned to his team. She was very pretty.

‘Okay, 9527 had to admit it: he was interested in developing a relationship that went beyond friendship and work.’

‘She was five years younger than him. The age gap is a little wide, but not too wide.’

‘And there were no rules against office romance in the customer service department.’

‘The biggest problem was his own shady past, whereas she was the daughter of a well-known carpenter in the city.’

‘And the fact that he became a tongue-tied idiot whenever he saw her.’

“Team Lead, I’ve got a tricky complaint here. It’s about an account being suspended for violating our speech policy, but their comments don’t seem to match any of the specific cases in the manual.”

‘Her voice is so lovely,’ 9527 sighed to himself, then immediately felt like a creep.

“Alright, I’ll take a look.”

「A few minutes later.」

“You’re our team lead for a reason. I still have so much to learn from you.”

“It’s just experience.”

9527 replied, feigning composure.

“So…”

He wanted to take this chance to ask her to dinner, using the excuse of helping her get familiar with the workplace.

‘It sounds reasonable, not too sudden. Like a good boss looking out for his subordinate.’

But when the words reached his lips…

“So…”

“Is there something else, Team Lead?”

“Just… work hard. Yeah, work hard.”

“Okay, Team Lead! I won’t let you down.”

9527 returned to his desk, dejected. He hadn’t been able to say it.

‘After being a con artist for so long, he no longer dared to express his true feelings.’

‘Maybe… maybe if he got a higher position, he’d finally have enough confidence.’

His team had the highest satisfaction ratings, so his chances of becoming the head of the entire customer service center were high. Once he achieved that…

The workday passed uneventfully, just like the hundreds of days before it.

But perhaps he wasn’t quite as satisfied with his life as he let on.

His romantic troubles were one thing. The other was something he kept buried deep inside.

A part of him missed the days of living on edge—never knowing if he’d be exposed, caught by some gang lord he’d swindled, or thrown in prison.

He didn’t miss the prospect of those miserable fates, but the thrill. He was addicted to the adrenaline rush.

The blood of a man who couldn’t settle for a quiet life flowed through his veins.

‘But no matter what, he wouldn’t go back to being a con artist. He was done with that.’

9527 sat in his new chair. When a man is irritated, everything gets on his nerves. Right now, he found this spinning chair with its wheels incredibly annoying. It wasn’t stable at all.

“9527,” his supervisor’s voice echoed across the empty office. “The boss is looking for you. Conference Room 1.”

With that, the supervisor clocked out and left as well.

‘The boss is looking for me?’

9527 didn’t know which boss it was.

‘Could I be getting another promotion?’

‘Has my luck been that good lately? Are all my wishes coming true? If so, I should start making some more outrageous ones.’

Filled with questions, 9527 made his way to Conference Room 1.

The atmosphere inside was tense. Two Beastman Warriors stood there; for them, snapping his neck would be as easy as twisting off a bottle cap.

Between them sat a Spider Elf who looked vaguely familiar. He thought he might have seen them on Demon Vision but couldn’t recall a name. Regardless, they radiated danger.

‘They’re really rolling out the red carpet for me,’ he thought. ‘Whatever they want, this lineup is overkill.’

And next to the Spider Elf was the “boss” his supervisor had mentioned.

Or, to be more precise, the boss’s boss.

Zog.

‘This probably isn’t about a promotion.’

‘You don’t need a welcome party this big to promote a small fry like me.’