Getting Approval from Otherworld Clients - Chapter 6

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 6.
Though this assignment isn’t
my area of expertise,
the first weekend after joining the company arrived.
“Phew!”
Once the tension lifted, I realized just how absurd everything that had happened actually was, and I clutched my head the moment I sat up.
“I’m losing it, completely losing it….”
After getting my bearings, I searched for everything under the sun about vampires, werewolves, and dimensional travel.
…Including information on human trafficking.
Three hours had slipped by with nothing but web surfing.
‘Is any of this even helping?’
Drowning in urban legends and horror stories was only giving me a worse headache.
Sigh… I was grasping at straws, desperate for anything to pull me out of this dark spiral.
‘That person I met before. The definitely human one.’
I reached out to the former employee who’d handed me a business card in the lobby on interview day.
Si Yeon-woo
Design Department
Brand Design Team
010-XXXX-6582
Even in that brief encounter, he’d shown nothing but kindness.
‘He even helped me get my visitor pass.’
When I texted him, he replied with warmth in every word.
Or maybe it was sympathy, I couldn’t quite tell….
– Sure, I’ll see you tomorrow.
He readily agreed to meet at a café the very next day—Sunday.
I was about to send him the address of the chain café right in front of the station when my designer’s instinct kicked in, and instead I sent him directions to a charming independent café ten minutes’ walk away.
* * *
“It’s been a while. How was your first day?”
…Why didn’t you try to talk me out of it back then!
I caught myself about to blame him unfairly and bit my tongue instead.
Don’t forget—this is someone who gave up their precious weekend to see me….
And besides, I’m the one who broke company property.
“Yes, I’m doing well, thank you. I’m Choi Yi-hyeon. And thanks again for helping me last time.”
I shouldn’t forget the kindness he showed when he helped someone lost in the lobby.
“It’s not your typical company, so I imagine it was quite a shock, wasn’t it? I thought about warning you before the interview, but you never know how desperate someone might be. Especially in this hiring freeze.”
……I’m sorry for thinking badly of you, even for a moment.
Guilt washed over me.
“And I had a feeling you’d adapt well.”
There was something oddly particular about the way Yeon-woo answered with a slight smile.
Had I really seemed like such a good fit for Banta’s ideal employee when we’d met in the lobby?
Either way, I needed to ask the most important question first. This was what mattered most.
“When you signed your employment contract, was there anything unusual? Anything the company could hold over you, or strange conditions in the fine print, or a minimum employment period—anything like that?”
“No, nothing like that. It was just a standard full-time contract. I could’ve quit whenever I wanted.”
…Were all these strange things happening only to me?
At that time I’d been in a panic, cornered with no way out, so I’d just signed whatever they put in front of me.
……But with a clear head now, I couldn’t even be sure that I was the one who’d actually broken the statue.
‘There seemed to be a bit of distance between me and the statue at the moment.’
What if the statue had simply shattered by coincidence, or what if someone had deliberately timed it to break?
‘…But come on, there are plenty of designers in the world!’
I mean, they’d hardly destroy a Michelangelo just to hire me—that’d be nothing but ego on my part.
Lost in these tangled thoughts, I must have let it show on my face, because the ponytailed woman offered her consolation.
“Strange things do happen, but Banta Design is actually a good place to work. The pay’s solid, and work-life balance varies by project, but… compared to other agencies in the human world, it’s better.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“The benefits are good too—they provide all three meals in the company cafeteria, which is nothing to scoff at.”
But was it really safe to eat that food? What if they’d used strange ingredients, or what if it was like Persephone’s pomegranate seeds?
…I wanted to ask that, but I’d already eaten plenty.
What you don’t know won’t hurt you—I’d leave well enough alone. Besides, Yeon-woo seemed fine, so it must be okay.
…And maybe I should just squeeze as much benefit as I could from the company welfare to make this less miserable!
‘Wait, are we really working at the same company?’
……A vampire for a CEO, a corpse with its head cut off as a secretary, and a werewolf as my direct supervisor?
I was startled by the glowing praise for the company, but then noticed it conflicted with Yeon-woo’s recent actions, so I asked.
“You seem quite satisfied with Banta Design. Would it be all right if I asked why you left?”
“Well… everyone in the Planning Department left. That was the big factor.”
Yeon-woo pulled a notebook from his bag and sketched out an organizational chart.
The Planning Department used to be structured into three teams like this, he explained.
“The Research Team would explore client worlds and conduct market surveys. To decide what brand positioning to use, we had to understand those worlds first.”
That made sense. This agency brought together intelligent entities from all kinds of places.
There would be plenty of occasions when each person’s common sense didn’t apply.
“The Research Team brought back data, and then the Strategy Team and Language Team would develop direction, names, slogans—all of that. Then our department would design based on that.”
For an agency, the process was remarkably systematic.
With the tentacle monster last time, time had been tight, and the client already had firm ideas for the project, so we’d skipped some steps.
“…But then, while researching a particular project, the entire Research Team vanished.”
“Wait—vanished? Then who took over the Research Team’s work?”
“At first, the other teams in the Planning Department divided up the work. But the Research Team disappeared while on the job—meaning during an expedition to another world…”
Yeon-woo hesitated before continuing.
“A lot of people were already reluctant to do that kind of work, so they quit one after another. Even the people who stayed on ended up leaving when the workload became too much.”
……
A sinking dread washed over me, and I finally found my voice.
“…So what happened to the Planning Department’s work now?”
“We decided that the design teams working on each project would handle whatever additional tasks came up. That’s also why I left.”
Ah.
Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no.
This was definitely… going down, going down,
No wait…
This was screwed.
‘Even that dignified client sitting in the conference room was trembling with fear!’
I was supposed to wander around strange worlds without proper protection?? As an ordinary human??!!
My mind ran through every nightmare scenario imaginable.
What if the tentacle monster burst something that wasn’t slime—what if it was me…
“Still, not all requests require new research. For worlds where we already have data, there’s no need to do another survey.”
……
“If we’re just adding planning work, it’s easier for the designer to establish the direction themselves anyway.”
Yeon-woo added that the CEO was also making efforts to hire new staff, trying to comfort me in my panic.
But of course, that didn’t actually help…
* * *
‘Sigh…’
After hearing that shocking story, I dragged myself home and lay there listlessly, waiting for Monday to arrive.
Like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse.
My smartphone search history was accumulating more and more entries.
[Can an employment contract be terminated?]
[Labor attorney consultation costs]
[Is jellyfish poison just from touching it?]
……
I chewed over our conversation from earlier with growing despair.
‘Okay, so the planning work increasing—that’s manageable.’
Just as Yeon-woo said, when designers participate from the brand strategy stage onward, the quality of the design improves.
That’s why many designers already do both. I do it quite a bit myself.
‘But this is the problem.’
The research work.
Exploring new worlds.
I really didn’t want to end up dead in some place where we didn’t even have data…!
Zzzziiing—!
My internal scream meant nothing—my phone buzzed inside the room, indifferent to my anguish.
I checked it and found another message from the number that had texted me on the interview day.
– Yi-hyeon, please come to the CEO Office when you come in tomorrow! I’ll explain the things I didn’t get to before ^^
…This crazy boss!
Something that could’ve been handled Monday morning on the company messenger—they sent it on a personal message Sunday evening instead.
‘They seem to like humans, but maybe they don’t know human culture very well?’
Someone brave should’ve told them that unless it’s urgent, contacting people on weekends isn’t polite!
But then I remembered all those scary stories about vampires, and I typed out my reply with careful courtesy.
– Yes, I’ll send it to you via messenger on Monday.
.
.
.
And so time slipped away, until Monday arrived—the day I walked into the slaughterhouse.
‘Should I just disappear?’
I’d entertained the thought of not going to the office at all.
But who knew what those surreal beings might do to me? So here I was again, dutifully reporting for work—a hapless office worker at the mercy of the impossible.
‘The lobby’s empty again, just like last time.’
But as I scanned my temporary visitor pass and stepped through the gate, I spotted the security guard standing behind the desk that had appeared vacant a moment before.
Nod.
Our eyes met again, and I offered a polite bow of acknowledgment.
‘So this entrance gate really is the boundary between worlds.’
Free from the crushing pressure of the project, I could finally observe my surroundings with fresh eyes, and details I’d overlooked began to register.
‘I’ve never actually looked at the security guard’s face properly before.’
His uniform was less the standard security outfit and more like a police dress uniform—all black, with a classical cut that seemed to reflect the CEO’s taste.
But the collar was set slightly higher than normal, and a cap sat balanced on top of it.
And between that collar and cap there was… nothing.
A void of absolute black.
In that emptiness floated two luminous orbs like headlights, hovering where eyes should have been.
‘Unsettling.’
Goosebumps crawled up both my arms as I stepped into the elevator and headed to my desk.
The moment my status changed to “in the office” on the company messenger, a message from the CEO—who’d apparently detected my arrival—came flying in.
– Choi Yi-hyeon, you’re not busy right now, are you? Please come to my office!
– Yes, I’ll head right there.
In the messenger window, only the CEO’s name was displayed in a somewhat unusual font.
Because while other executives and employees appeared in standard typefaces like this:
[Pascal]
[Hena]
[Choi Yi-hyeon]
The CEO’s name was deliberately set in a distinctly unique style.
[
]
“…….”
That’s a bit much…….
Still, when a superior calls, you go quickly.
Especially when that superior is a terrifying vampire who casually dangles impossible contracts in front of you!
‘Let’s go.’
So I headed to the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.
Ding.
I arrived at the CEO’s office.
I straightened my appearance and took a deep breath.
I raised my hand and was just about to knock on the door.
“Yes, come in!”
A cheerful voice called out from beyond the door.
I froze, hand still raised.
……But I hadn’t even knocked yet.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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