"He's not going to icepick you but he will correct you every time." Yoo-min seems to think this is hilarious. "People do vary in how seriously they take it but, like, this is Korea so everyone's going to at least find it weird if you don't do the thing. It's second-nature to us, see, Tae-gun calling me sunbae is downright affectionate, especially compared to calling me shi or," shudder, "nim. But if anyone's, like, a dick to you about it you can yell at them. Or tell me to yell again, or yell at prez, always healthy to yell at prez."

"Correcting me is so much woooooooorse," she moans. "Like that nightschool teacher! Would you call your mother 'young lady'? No, teacher-nim, if I end up inside Nightmare and have to speak to my mother again that is not what I will be calling her!"

"You can never go wrong with calling him sunbae-nim, or just sunbae if you get partnered, but I realise that's not that helpful."

Ding, the elevator's here.

Elevator! Probably it's glass, right, that's the kind of establishment this is?

It is! How'd she guess?

It actually goes up really fast, and soon they're on floor 15, where her meeting with the bureaucrat will be.

"'Scuse me," says the tallest guy in the lift as he gently tries to push past the crowd and then continuing to lead the way.

Marza isn't the shortest person in the lift, but she is not very large. She does know how to get through a crowd, though.

Andddd meeting room!

There's a person already inside. She gets up and bows. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Marza-nim, my name is Jeong Seo-ah."

"And here's where I leave you! Catch ya later."

"See you, Minimi. Hello, Jeong Seo-ah-nim. I am going to meet a great number of people today, and if I am pleased to meet them all, I may combust, but I think I can safely be charmed."

Another two-finger salute and off he goes.

She blinks a couple of times, but decides to not draw attention to whatever it is that Marza just said and sit down instead, gesturing at the chair across the table from her. "Please, sit. So here I have the standard contract for new hires; I can go over it with you or you can read it in your own time if you wish. You are of age, yes?"

"Indeed I am. By all means let's go over the provisions of the standard contract."

Saying "I literally don't care what it says as long as I can eat and sleep somewhere and blow up dungeons" does not go over well with pencil-pushers.

The guild has basic housing and siloing as a standard part of the contract, and she'll be making a mildly obscene amount of money, so that's a yes to two out of three, at least. There's a lot of customisation available to her, but they're apartments, and not huge ones at that, so if she wants something else she'll need to acquire it herself with her actual money. Beyond that, the contract has a lot of legalese for saying exactly the things she's been told: training, interfacing with other companies and the media, assigning her dungeons, medical care, etc etc etc. This contract itself does not assign her a partner, but it does say that helping her find a suitable one—in-guild or not—is also part of the guild's responsibilities.

As for her obligations, she needs to help clear at least 70% of the dungeons she's assigned to, plus make a reasonable effort to replace the remaining 30% with an equivalent workload, barring injury or impossibility. She should uphold the image of the guild in public, which basically means not talking shit about it where the media can get their grubby hands on it or airing any kinds of dirty laundry about people in the guild without their permission. Plus, in general, stuff she says to the media needs to be treated with care, and the contract highlights that they have teams responsible specifically for dealing with PR and she should really strongly consider never ever talking to the media on her own ever because the media is full of sharks. The guild reserves the power to break the contract should Marza be found to be acting negligently with respect to her or the guild's image.

(Seo-ah goes over this as someone who's outlining a way in which this guild is a lot less draconian than one might expect; she keeps phrasing things as "you only need to worry about" and "it's not a problem if". Which probably stands to reason, given the whole way celebrities are made to behave in public in Korea.)

Finally, there are a lot of non-disclosure clauses. In full generality, she is not allowed to discuss or publicise any details about any espers' powers or backlashes that aren't already public, including her own, without the guild's permission. She is not allowed to leak any internal documents, in public or in part, to any third parties, and there are strict internal access levels and she can't share anything of a given level with anyone of a level lower than that. She is not allowed to discuss details of the dungeons themselves, tactics and strategies, team compositions, or partnership planning with outsiders. She is not allowed to disclose her schedule. Other guilds are generally considered to be "allies" and have their own rules for disclosure that are more lax than with proper non-guild third parties, but independent espers do not have such exceptions and are treated as external actors.

And on, and on, and on.

"Am I covered if I... wink salaciously, or something, in a direction containing cameras? I have no intention of voluntarily interacting with the media, and I don't make friends I could leak information to, but I might roll my eyes at reporters if not warned otherwise."

"It's... risky. There's more leeway for less communicative acts like winking or rolling your eyes, especially in light of espers' altered emotional states after using their powers, but if you could lean on the more positive kinds of interaction that has less potential to backfire. We don't have as much of a focus on enabling parasocial relationships as K-pop artists do, but it's definitely something your audience will be familiar with, showing positive or flirtatious emotions towards them or the media."

"...yes, I can probably do that. Redirect to neutral-flirtatious... tossing my hair? Hmm." She shakes her head. "These terms are acceptable to me."

Then she can sign here, here, and here.

"Alright! Welcome aboard, Marza-nim! Do you have a preference for what form your access to the comms system should take? Most people just have chips implanted but some people prefer earrings or rings or bracelets. Once you're linked to it you'll have access to a welcome packet with more information about next steps. Oh, and if you've already arranged for guild lodgings you may be able to teleport to them directly using the system."