Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 542 - Kim Wonjoo (3)

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[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ You’re a lucky man, Assistant Manager Kim! Your predecessor cared for you this much. Good seniors like this are hard to come by these days, you know?

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The system’s words barely registered. I didn’t even have the energy to argue about why showing me this was considered a ‘commensurate reward’. It felt like nothing more than white noise echoing from behind a thick wall.

 

I knew my sister had complex feelings toward me. Having been the one closest to her kindness, there was no way I couldn’t know.

 

But I never wanted to eat away at her life to this extent. If anything, I had hoped that I wouldn’t occupy such a large part of her life.

 

There had even been days when I took comfort in the fact that she had so many good people around her. But……

 

‘Her own life shouldn’t have disappeared this completely.’

 

If she was to have any lingering resentment, the target should have been her own childhood, which was so wretched she didn’t want to go home. She shouldn’t have felt guilty for failing to prevent her brother’s accident just because she arrived a few minutes late. Why did the fact that I said I’d give up on college, or the fact that I was depressed because of my boss, become something she saw as her own fault?

 

How can this be called the data of ‘Kim Wonjoo’? A person’s own existence shouldn’t be erased to this extent from their own life, should it?

 

Don’t you feel sorry for yourself? Why, every single time…

 

It was the first time I had ever felt such an overwhelming emptiness, and I didn’t know what word could possibly describe it. Was it desolation? It felt more desperate than that. And heavier.

 

I needed a word that could encompass all of this guilt and heartache.

 

***

 

The system offered to open the next package for me, claiming there was a document that was a set with the Settlement Statement.

 

I refused. Usually, I would have tried to resolve everything at once, but this time, I simply didn’t have the confidence.

 

After that, I didn’t look at social media or the internet. Not having the strength to do anything didn’t just mean lacking the energy to work or meet people. I couldn’t get out of bed, and I couldn’t stay awake.

 

Even when I got up to drink some water, I’d just sit back down. Since I wasn’t looking at my phone, I didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed. I once went out to throw away some rotten food from the fridge, only to realize my time was flowing wrongly when I saw that every light in the neighborhood was out.

 

Back when I was at the Hanpyeong Industry, there had been times when surviving each day was a struggle. When I thought there was no longer any way to bring my sister back to life, I’d felt that there was no point in being alive.

 

Now, I felt nothing. I felt like an empty tin can.

 

Does everyone write a Settlement Statement like noona after they die?

 

I lay still and asked myself. The system answered.

 

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[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ Of course. That’s how you can hand the work off to your successor.

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‘Your commitment to the bit is disgusting.’

 

I let out a short, hollow laugh. So what? Did noona, the predecessor, settle everything she’d built up in life and finally pass on to the afterlife? 

 

She didn’t. She couldn’t even rest in peace while her revival was conditionally held in my hands. What kind of handoff was this? What was I supposed to do now? If I was the successor, was I supposed to rattle off all the f*cked up things that had happened in my life and then declare that I’d gotten everything off my chest?

 

The more I thought about it, the more I laughed. It was probably fortunate that I didn’t have the energy to get angry. Otherwise, I might have slammed my head against the wall.

 

As I sat there frustrated, sinking and then heating up again, the system spoke to me persistently.

 

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[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ Did you forget the handover I did for you at the beginning? You took over the predecessor’s practical duties at that point. That is…

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The text in the system window flickered like a cursor.

 

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[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ A duty that a ‘human’ must naturally perform.

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‘Human’?

 

My mind, growing sluggish as though coated in dust, turned back to something I’d thought only moments ago. I remembered asking myself, ‘Do all people write settlement statements after they die?’

 

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[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ You think you can survive in this harsh world without making any effort and just getting everything for free? I even laid out a whole roadmap for you, Assistant Manager Kim, and this is how you repay me. How insolent.

 

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ I thought this design was a success since the population was increasing on its own. But there are too many problems within the collective, and irregulars like Assistant Manager Kim keep popping up… I don’t like it. This is why the company doesn’t release new products and just remakes existing ones every time.

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The system grumbled endlessly. Amidst it all, several words kept catching my eye.

 

I had always wondered, ‘Why me, of all people?’ There must have been countless people before me, and with the global population surpassing 8 billion, I wondered why such a thing happened to me specifically.

 

At one point, I suspected it might have been some malicious prank by the system. At some point after that, I felt there was no meaning in searching for a reason, so I stopped.

 

But for the first time, the system had dropped a clue for me: ‘Irregular’.

 

If the group whose numbers increased on their own—which the system thought it had successfully designed—was the collective I belonged to, it must refer to humanity.

 

According to the system, humans were naturally supposed to take over their predecessor’s practical duties. However, because of me—a mutation—the structure the system tried to build collapsed, and so the system stepped in to handle the trouble under the guise of a KPI… or so I understood.

 

There was still one thing I couldn’t make sense of. Ultimately, what was my sister’s Settlement Statement trying to say?

 

It wasn’t as though my life had been as difficult as hers, so following in her footsteps and venting all my grievances wasn’t the answer. And it didn’t seem likely that the system, which criticized entities for surviving without making any effort and getting everything for free, would encourage something like that.

 

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[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ Since Assistant Manager Kim seems confused, I’ll tell you: the task you were supposed to be delegated wasn’t ‘Settlement.’

 

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ This is why they say you have to listen to Korean until the very end. You look at one measly settlement statement, don’t understand it, and start whining…. is the company a playground to you?

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Look at you, acting like a victim after you deceived me by pretending the goal was to achieve a KPI, when your true intention was something else entirely.

 

After gleefully lecturing me for quite some time, the system opened a new window.

 

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[SYSTEM] As a reward for completing the ‘Comprehensive Evaluation,’ a ‘Support Request (Kim Wonjoo)’ is notified to ‘Subordinate.’

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The document the system had said was meant to be viewed together with the settlement statement, the one I’d received that day, was thrust in front of me again. Expecting it to ask whether I wanted to view it would have been too much to hope for.

 

I was helplessly dragged along by the system. And all the while, I desperately prayed that this would be the last time—that I wouldn’t have to dream anymore.

 

***

 

The scene that followed was my apartment.

 

‘Did the system have an error?’

 

That was a mistaken assumption. The place where I had opened my eyes was indeed my apartment, but the time period was different. It was before the regression, when I was facing the first holiday alone without my sister.

 

The dream didn’t end; it continued.

 

“Noona, this is the first time you’ve seen a memorial table set up at our place, right?”

 

I saw one of the few things I remembered perfectly. I remembered clearly setting up a table full of desserts and pouring refined rice wine.

 

‘Shouldn’t this scene not appear in a memory attached to noona’s name?’

 

The last thing recorded in the Settlement Statement was the conversation noona and I had at the cafe. It was strange for an event that happened after her death to be mentioned.

 

‘Does this mean what I’ve been seeing wasn’t noona’s past? Then what was the stuff before?’

 

There were only two possibilities: my subconscious or my delusions. Neither was normal.

 

As I sank into confusion, the system window appeared in my field of vision. For some reason, it wasn’t floating right in front of my face like usual, but off to the side at an angle.

 

And that thing was…

 

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Friend

How is it?

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It was talking to someone other than me.

 

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Friend

Are you still feeling conflicted?

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I held my breath and turned my head. Standing next to me, across from the dialogue box, was my sister.

 

‘Noona?’

 

I called out to her without thinking. My voice cracked pathetically from the shock.

 

But she didn’t look back. Her gaze was fixed solely on me, who was asleep in front of the memorial table.

 

Did noona have a system attached to her too? Since when? In the world after I regressed, was noona living a second life with a system too? If so, then who is this noona standing next to me?

 

My head was a mess. Questions followed one after another.

 

While my own system remained silent, something resembling a system glowing in front of noona displayed another message.

 

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Friend

I guess you need a bit more time.

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With those words, it faded until it was barely visible.

 

The background changed again. Only then did I realize that that side was the one deciding when the scenes would transition.

 

The new scenery was as familiar as my apartment. The Hanpyeong Industry office, and me sitting at my desk working. It was a day about a year after noona had died.

 

The field of vision and eye level overlapped exactly with the dream I had before. That time… had been looking down at myself from noona’s perspective.

 

Noona watched me tapping on the keyboard in silence. Just like the me in front of the monitor, her face was void of any smile.

 

‘Since when did noona have a system too?’

 

Even though I had confirmed she couldn’t hear me, I asked the meaningless question, not knowing if that noona was part of a dream or a physical reality.

 

‘Did you go back to the past and live again too, noona? If so, what were you…’

 

I wanted to ask what she was supposed to achieve. I wanted to know whether my sister had been unable to come find me until she achieved her objective.

 

Or whether she’d simply wanted to ignore me and live a new life of her own.

 

Until just moments ago, I had spoken aloud even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. But now, even though I knew there was no way my words could reach her, I swallowed them instead.