"Ten points for Gryffindor!"

"I'm a—never mind. Okay. Got our work cut out for ourselves, then."

"Yeah, no shit, Woo-young."

Hye-jin meanwhile is distracting herself from her traumatized trashfire of a partner by attempting to put the shreds of her own shattered life together! She gets a realtor to narrow down her options, then looks at houses. She's been persuaded into buying instead of renting, because this means more options that she actually likes, and she has the absurd amount of money to just buy it outright, no loan required. This turns out to be much more simple than leasing. It'll be a bit of a pain for if she decides to flee the country, but, well. It could always just go to her aunt or cousins if she really and truly does not want to deal with that nonsense.

She's also looking into independent esper advocacy and support companies, but truthfully, the esper industry in South Korea is... very guild based. Just like Japan. This is good for the overall peace of the country - guilds have a vested interest in systematically categorizing and closing dungeons, and cooperating and competing with each other as it benefits the whole, whereas an individual might not have the perspective to manage it. After over five decades of dungeons just being a fact of life, those systems have become very robust. Of course, she's personally experienced the downsides. Guilds advocate for the interests of the overall guild, which can often come at the expense of the individual esper. Suck it up for the good of the collective, and all that. Companies that represent and fight for the interests of a singular esper client, or multiple unrelated clients, are a Western invention, and accordingly haven't trickled over here in any sufficient numbers. That doesn't mean they aren't here, exactly, just that they're very small fish in a very large pond.

As an A-rank partnered to Korea's star S-rank, it really wouldn't be difficult to scoop up one of these small companies and basically turn it into the 'take care of Hye-jin' company. Really, it's more difficult to avoid it; many companies would see this as an opening to attempt to become proper guilds themselves, just structured around making the new half-Japanese resident happy. This would probably be very comfortable for her personally, but it isn't what she wants. She wants the thing they have in the West, in spirit and not just name, where an esper can pay the company money and trust that their interests, and only their interests, are being fought for. No inter guild politicking or power games or favored espers that everyone else gets shafted for. Just paying for a service, which they get, and which they can stop paying for at any time if it stops meeting their needs. No strings, no meddling. It's not really the thing she wants if it's just her that benefits, so. Picking a company that will not make her its number one priority is... tricky. She needs to be careful, and it'll take a while.

But it's a nice project to pick at, along with all of her other projects. Of which there are... admittedly many.

Kang Jaeha intercepts the Lucid Guild president in a hallway between meetings and starts walking with her.

"Guild president?"

She looks at him and smiles. "Ah, Jaeha, good to see you."

"Ma'am, I assume you've heard of Kim Hye-jin?"

"Of course, hers is the name on everyone's lips nowadays."

"Are we looking into the issues she's been having with Quasar Guild?"

She lifts an eyebrow. "Issues?"

"It seems that they may have, ah, bungled hiring her."

"She's working with Lee Tae-gun."

"Yes, she is, but not with Quasar. They assign her dungeons but she doesn't use their silo or even go to their HQ at all."

The president laughs. "Honestly, Jaeha, sometimes I feel like I hired you for the wrong role, you're better informed than my team half the time."

He grins shamelessly. "But then who would take on the role of walking out of dungeons looking gorgeous?"

She slaps his shoulder with no force and rolls her eyes. "You're a bit too full of yourself, aren't you?"

Then she pauses, humming thoughtfully, and asks, "Why the interest?"

By which you mean, "Why are you looking into Lee Tae-gun's partner?"

"I'll readily admit that I was curious because of Tae-gun," he replies, rubbing the back of his neck, sounding a bit embarrassed. "I mean, he hasn't had a partner since, well, me. A guy's bound to be curious about what kind of person managed to get through his icy exterior."

"And what kind of person is she?"

"She has fire," he continues on his pun spree. "Very good at advocating for herself and going for what she wants. And, of course, an S-rank candidate after that stunt she and Tae-gun pulled the other day."

"A compelling case, if I've ever heard one."

"She's also currently looking for independent representation, like they do in America. I think—"

She lifts a hand in a "stop" gesture, and he shuts up. "You've convinced me. I've never had reason to question your judgment. I'll have my people look into it. Lucid could definitely use an S-ranker in its hoster, if one is up for the taking."

He grins again. "My thoughts exactly."

The next morning, she gets a notification that their morning has been cleared of dungeons and is instead invited to a meeting with Lee Tae-gun and Min Woo-young. The invite has a specific meeting room in HQ but Woo-young has added a note that that's just because it's the standard for their scheduling app and they can have this meeting wherever she wants.

Well, that's kind of a scary message to wake up to, sort of like the esper equivalent of 'We need to talk.' That doesn't mean she's not going to go, of course, it just means she's got some anxiety about it.

Meeting room is fine by her. Here she is, at the meeting room, trying not to overthink this. (She's pretty sure she's done everything right???)