While Han-eol was rejoicing, in the control room that looked down over the whole testing ground at a glance, the Head of Human Resources Lee Jae-in was surveying the premises through the CCTV screens.
The reason Lee Jae-in was holding this post today was to supervise whether the interns' evaluations were proceeding smoothly without incident.
At least, that was how it was officially known.
But this was not Lee Jae-in's true purpose. Rather than supervision, his interest was fixed on Han-eol.
In fact, Lee Jae-in's pupils behind the horn-rimmed glasses were riveted to Han-eol's among the several charts displayed on the monitor and would not leave it.
Han-eol's evaluation results were as follows.
Han-eol (Employee No.: In550895)
Category / Evaluation Score
Stamina/Endurance / 3
Speed/Agility / 4
Vitality / 8
Attack Power / 2
Defense Power / 6
Fire Resistance / 3
Cold Resistance / 4
Poison Resistance / 6
Lightning Resistance / 3
Mental Strength / 10
'Strange.'
Lee Jae-in felt a curious sense of dissonance.
Han-eol was without question the blood of Head of the Strategy Division Lee Myeong-u, of the Shinseong Group's owner family.
Last year, Lee Jae-in had confirmed Han-eol's date of birth at an orphanage in Yuseong District, Daejeon City. He had clearly seen the R-shaped pendant as well.
Furthermore, right before bringing Han-eol to Mid-Land Seoul, Lee Jae-in had spirited away a single strand of his hair and secretly conducted a paternity test through Old Earth's unofficial channels.
As a result, he had confirmed that Han-eol's DNA matched the DNA of the Shinseong Group's owner family by 98.9 percent.
'It is clear that Young Master Han-eol has inherited Head of the Division Lee Myeong-u's blood. But why is there no point of resemblance?'
Han-eol's round-faced, slight appearance differed markedly from the sturdy, boldly drawn Head of the Division Lee Myeong-u. Whereas Head of the Division Lee Myeong-u brought to mind a male lion so imposing that merely looking at him made one's breath catch, Han-eol gave the feeling of looking at a harmless herbivore.
'Could it be that the young master takes after his mother's side?'
Lee Jae-in kept this point in mind as well.
But no.
Han-eol's birth mother, Head of the Division Lee Myeong-u's former lover and now his broken-off fiancée, had been a formidable swordswoman. The appearance of that lady as Lee Jae-in called her to mind was far removed from Han-eol.
And in the midst of all that, today Han-eol's stat test results had been produced.
Lee Jae-in chewed over the figures written on the chart and grew all the more troubled in his heart.
'Attack Power at rock bottom. Agility is wretched too. Even his Defense Power and Poison Resistance stats barely clear average. There is no way this can be seen as the Head of the Division's bloodline.'
If anything, Han-eol's Mental Strength and Vitality were passable.
'If he were an ordinary company employee there would be no problem. In the case of an intern with high Vitality the odds of awakening as a healer are high, so he could become a medic and live comfortably in the rear, and that would be that.'
But the owner family was different.
They were fated to contend fiercely with one another amid a throng of countless rivals. Which meant that awakening as a healer would carry little meaning.
Especially for a member of the owner family in as awkward a situation as Han-eol.
'If things go on like this, Young Master Han-eol will be devoured by the other young masters and young ladies without ever once being able to exert his strength. Once it comes out that he is the Head of the Division's blood, he will be subjected to truly fierce interference. Haaah.'
Lee Jae-in rubbed his face over and over with his hand.
Frankly, the other rivals were not the problem.
In the event that Han-eol failed to awaken a powerful ability, a far more fatal problem lay in wait.
And that problem would clearly not be confined to Han-eol alone but would exert an enormous influence on Lee Myeong-u as well.
Lee Jae-in felt stifled inside.
Now that he had thrown in with Lee Myeong-u's faction, it would not do for Han-eol to become Lee Myeong-u's weakness.
Because if Lee Myeong-u failed to become the group's heir and toppled, not only Lee Jae-in himself but his younger sister Lee Ru-in would both have their lives in danger.
'If it is going to come to that, it would be better for Young Master Han-eol to die before his identity is revealed. I will have to watch the young master's growth closely from here on.'
For an instant, the eyes behind Lee Myeong-u's glasses scattered a cold light.
However, that light faded away even faster than it had appeared.
Early in the morning of the following day, April 29.
In the rest lounge on the 58th floor of the Shinseong Group headquarters, located in Gongdeok-dong, Mapo District, ability-holders in distinctive combat uniforms had gathered and were chatting.
As the rich aroma of morning coffee spread through the rest lounge, the topic of conversation turned to the interns' debut match.
"The debut matches start today, right?"
One ability-holder opened the subject.
A response came at once.
"Pfft, is it already time for those milk-reeking greenhorns to have their debut match?"
"I wonder what percentage will survive this time?"
"Looking at the statistics from previous years, out of some three thousand interns only around a thousand succeeded in awakening and returned, didn't they? It will be similar this time too, I expect."
"And among those thousand, the Rookies who awakened a usable ability will be around three hundred at best."
"And out of those three hundred Rookies, the ones who survive three years and join us here will be somewhere between twenty and thirty at the very best."
"Thirty would be something. Our 1st Assault Corps has had its roster shrink by four in the last few months alone. Unless the group supplies manpower to us as fast as possible, we can no longer guarantee resource acquisition in the Highland. So they absolutely have to reinforce us first."
A man of sturdy build made this claim. On his combat uniform, the Shinseong Group's mark was stamped along with the number 1.
A woman with a long scar on her cheek let out a snort.
"Hah. Very funny. Do you think our 2nd Assault Corps has manpower to spare? Reinforcement is far more urgent for us."
"Why leave out the 3rd Assault Corps? Do you not know that we of the 3rd Assault Corps are the ones in a severe manpower crunch?"
The ability-holders in combat uniform vied with one another to raise their voices.
Since these ability-holders belonging to the assault corps were the group's core personnel, they had no reservations about pressing their claims.
By contrast, the desk workers such as the General Affairs Team and the Human Resources Team became mutes with mouths full of honey.
Of course, that did not mean that manpower reinforcement was any less desperate for the office staff than for the assault corps. They too suffered under punishing workloads day after day.
It was only that it was not easy for desk workers to air their grievances in front of assault corps ability-holders, among whom people died from time to time.
***
The Shinseong Group's Human Resources Team divided the three thousand-odd interns into ten battalions.
The debut dates differed for each battalion, and the 1st Battalion, to which Han-eol belonged, was to have its debut match today, April 29.
Lee Ru-in, the escort for the 1st Battalion, guided the shaven-headed interns to the Highland.
When she led the three hundred-odd interns down into Gongdeok Station in Mapo District, a subway train reserved for the Shinseong Group was waiting there.
"All of you board."
Lee Ru-in gave the order with her finger.
"Yes, we will board."
The interns repeated the order back and boarded, dividing themselves among the train's cars.
Han-eol too hurried inside the train and stood gripping a pole.
Inside the sizable backpack Han-eol carried on his back were loaded the supplies necessary for survival in the Highland.
'So it finally begins.'
Han-eol swallowed hard.
Han-eol's heart grew as heavy as the weight of the backpack.
His fellow recruits also showed signs of being tightly strung.
Well, if they entered the Highland today, there was a sixty-seven percent chance of dying or turning into a beast. The rate of returning alive was a mere thirty-three percent.
So it was inevitable that everyone's mouths would run bone dry.
With the interns strung tight, the train rattled into motion.
It was around the time the train, having departed from Gongdeok Station, passed one station and arrived beneath the Han River. With a clanking sound, the train suddenly stopped.
The interns, whose nerves were at their peak, flinched in surprise and set themselves to bolt outside.
Before that, Lee Ru-in issued orders over her radio.
"All disembark. Disembark in an orderly and swift fashion. Understood?"
"Yes, understood."
The shaven-headed interns tilted their waists slightly back and answered loudly, then stepped off the train in matched, marching strides.
By all rights there should not have been a subway station at this riverbed of the Han River, yet strangely enough a platform existed.
Once all the interns had disembarked, the train departed in the direction of Yeouido.
The interns' expressions hardened.
"Hmph. Do not be so frightened; just follow me."
Lee Ru-in snickered at the greenhorns' clumsy bearing, then began escorting them in earnest.
The place Lee Ru-in guided them to was a location a good way further down an underground stairway from the platform beneath the Han River.
There, a blue mist lay spread across the floor.
And yet the mist was so dense that it gave the impression of a liquid rather than a gas.
Lee Ru-in bestowed a minimum of explanation for the sake of the greenhorn interns standing there blankly.
"From this point on, you will be submerging yourselves into that blue mist."
"Ah!"
The moment their escort's words fell, the interns took on uneasy expressions as they stared at the rolling mist.
Into the ears of those interns, Lee Ru-in's account continued.
"There is nothing to be so frightened of. Once you hold your breath for a moment as though diving into water and submerge yourselves into the mist, a new dimension completely isolated from this Mid-Land Seoul, that is, the Highland, will unfold before your eyes."
"Oooh. So this is how you enter the Highland?"
"Whoa, amazing."
The moment they heard that heart-pounding word, Highland, the interns buzzed among themselves.
Lee Ru-in observed the interns in that state and then, with the smug look of an older sister dealing with little siblings, continued her explanation.
"You should already know this from your classes, but I will explain it just once more, so all of you open your ear holes and listen well."
"Yes, please do."
"Your arrival points in the Highland will differ from person to person. But the watches distributed to you will limit the range of the arrival points, so there is no need to worry too much."
This was a very important point.
The Highland was vast beyond imagination, and so humanity still could not so much as estimate where the Highland's edge lay.
If, in a Highland this vast, the arrival point, that is, the transfer location, changed at random every single time, that would truly be a disaster.
For example, suppose that the Shinseong Group's senior ability-holders discovered a mana crystal mine of good quality in some one region of the Highland.
And then what if the follow-up party could not find its way to that mine and was transferred somewhere else entirely?
Then how would the Shinseong Group carry out continuous excavation?
To solve this problem, humanity had found several methods.
Among these, the most widely used method was precisely 'guided transfer' technology, and the Shinseong Group had adopted this method as well.
Guided transfer referred to a method of transfer using a pair of objects that possessed a strong mutual attraction, like an N pole and an S pole.
Magnets were not actually used; rather it was a method utilizing new materials with attractive force (the force by which things pull on each other) that were produced only in the Highland, and the principle explained simply was as follows.
An ability-holder who discovered an important resource in the Highland buried an object corresponding to the N pole in the relevant region.
After that, a junior ability-holder who wore an S pole object on his person would, with high probability, be transferred to the vicinity of the place where the N pole object was buried. The margin of error of the region transferred to in this case was known to be roughly one hundred kilometers or so.
The cities of Mid-Land called this guided transfer technology.