History's Strongest Manager Chapter 7

 ­ Magical Girl of Seoul Subway Line 2

In his apartment located in Sinrim, Kang-Joon starts thinking more about Acacia. What he has seen was a dramatically enhanced telekinesis ability. It was a power strong enough to cut through dimensions over tens of random spots simultaneously. When struck by the werewolves, Acacia did not even move one bit. With no apparent Aether device equipped, that could only be explained if she has an enhanced body like the Knights.

Supernatural powers like the Awakes; enhanced body like the Knights. On top of that, teleportation which only the Awakes with s.p.a.ce-related abilities can handle. All this does not make sense for Kang-Joon.

Taking them apart one by one, there can surely exist someone with such power. Masters in telekinesis should indeed be able to do what Acacia has done. Knights can surely have a body strong enough to stand the strikes from werewolves. The Awakes with dimension-related abilities can definitely disappear into the thin air and teleport here and there.

But, it does not make sense at all for one person to have it all. It is physically impossible for a single hunter to have an enhanced body of the Knights and supernatural powers of the Awakes at the same time. Becoming a Knight, Strictly speaking, is a branch of turning into a Mutant and Mutants cannot ever awaken their supernatural powers inside them. Vice versa, if any Awakes become a Knight through a mutating process, they end up losing their powers.

Hence, the power possessed by Acacia is beyond one’s understanding. It has not been too long since the first appearance of Acacia, so there has been a big discussion about whether or not her power is real.

However, Kang-Joon has been pretty much everything one can imagine as a hunter, and therefore could exactly tell what Acacia’s true power really is. He could come to the conclusion after searching through a number of videos online.

‘She’s only using telekinesis.’

Acacia actually does not have an enhanced body and only uses telekinesis instead. Kang-Joon watched a video footage of her fighting a giant bear which was almost seven meters tall.

The bear’s front paw comes down upon Acacia and there is a ma.s.sive sound of  collision. Yet, Acacia stands like nothing ever happened. However, Kang-Joon pays more attention to the ground. If Acacia really just used an enhanced body in the video, her feet should have gone through the surface deeper into the ground or caused the asphalt on the ground to crack. But, in the video, there seem to be minor cracks from the combat in general yet no cracks or major damage from the attack just then.

Which then means, Acacia’s defense mechanism is something different to an enhanced body. In fact, it is simply generating a resisting force field around herself to block the attacks.

There has been a group of people who shared the same thought as Kang-Joon. However, to be able to explain that, there needs to be a convincing reason as to why Acacia can use more than two of different types of supernatural powers. Telekinesis and teleportation are completely different types. It is a common understanding among people that one can only own one specific type of power. Of course, Kang-Joon has seen special cases of people owning two or more powers, but what he is witnessing is something completely different.

‘This is Avatar.’

He pays more attention to not just her teleportation and telekinesis, but the pink mist she sprays whenever she moves around. It is possible for some special ones to have two or more powers, but to think so, Acacia’s powers are way beyond measure. To Kang-Joon’s understanding, the girl is showing powers that are almost on an extreme expert level and it sure is impossible for such a little girl to be so, considering her age and the time of her debut, regardless of her talent.

However, it would make sense for Acacia to show such high levels of power if she, as Kang-Joon thinks, really has been using Avatar. Avatar is an extremely rare ability and there are no more than five around the whole world who possess that. Hence, only a few people are aware of its existence.

Some Awakes can intentionally fall into an out-of-body state, allowing them to give somewhat of a physical form to their wills. In such spirit forms, the Awakes can make dramatically better use of their powers and use them in a way more exaggerated manners since they are no longer bound by their physical bodies. There is no better state to make use of flames, thunderbolts, and telekinesis.

But, the critical downside is that continuous use of such spirit forms holds the risk of literally burning their brains. Using two or more powers can actually even speed up this process.

Exactly why, Acacia, in fact, has been concentrating only on a dramatic use of telekinesis. Her teleportation actually is just moving her spirit-form in an extreme speed which human eyes cannot follow. Though such movements on a real, physical body will break the body apart due to inertia, Acacia can pull it of using her spirit-form.

‘An avatar user…’

Kang-Joon comes to wonder in what kind of hidden place Acacia has been controlling her Avatar. Her overpowered ability actually is balanced out as it comes to risk her life the more she uses it. Avatar users always have a dagger to their own back by making use of their powers.

If the usage of Avatar is too frequent or the user tries to draw out too much power, there is a risk of their very own spirit being detached from their body hence end up becoming a ghost or die from sudden heart attack. Once their body dies, the spirit, with nowhere to go back to, goes on a rampage and becomes uncontrollable. Kang-Joon has fought against such spirit before. The penalty for the Avatar users is bigger than any other Awakes as a payback for their extreme powers.

Nevertheless, Kang-Joon decides to worry about all that once he recruits her successfully.

Acacia right now is almost like a walking time bomb and, to Kang-Joon’s eyes, she does not seem to realize that herself.

“Boss, can I go on a little business trip for a while?”

“Huh? Trip?”

Miss Seol looks at Kang-Joon suspiciously, as if she is asking ‘What trip when the company has no business to do’.

“You trying to go to an internet café or something, aren’t you?”

“What, you think I’m some sort of an a.s.shole?”

“How can I trust any words from you when you got yourself into this company with bulls.h.i.+t?”

“…Well, that’s true.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“Going to do a bit of headhunting.”

“Headhunting?”

“Got to go look for them rather than sitting here waiting.”

“It’s not even the end of the contract period.”

All the contracts over the hunters in Korea come to an end in October. Around then, there is an active switching of management firms among the hunters. Almost like a transfer market for sports players, different managements always get their contracts to finish in October whether it is three years or five years long to be able to concentrate on recruiting only during a specific period. It is a tacit agreement in the industry. Yet, it is only May now.

“I’m going to try getting the Magical Girl.”

“Magical Girl? You talking about Acacia?”

“Yep.”

“Apparently she seems to be better off herself rather than listening to others. There has been a number of managements that tried to contact her but they don’t really seem to have received anything from her…”

Acacia only appears out of nowhere and disappears once the situation is resolved. A countless number of managers tried getting to her but no one got anything back.

“Doesn’t hurt to try, right?”

“Oh, well… I guess…”

Whether Kang-Joon sits at the office or an internet café, there is no different in that the company still has no business to do anyway. Miss Seol seems to consider Kang-Joon’s proposal for a second then give him a nod.

“Ok. Go on. How are you planning to find her?”

“Well, I got my ways.”

Kang-Joon says, grinning. Miss Seol still has no idea what is going on in Kang-Joon’s head.

Kang-Joon’s ‘trip’ was rather long. After Kang-Joon did not show up at the office for a week, Miss Seol even came to worry that Kang-Joon may have just quit his job. By calling him, she always got the same answer, ‘busy on his trip’.  From the sounds of bustling crowds instead of any sort of game sounds, she only could vaguely think that Kang-Joon was not fooling around, hopefully.

On the day Kang-Joon’s trip gets to the 10th day, Kang-Joon slams open the door, coming back into the office. The finance manager has been back to his spot from the holidays and now is falling asleep in his chair. Miss Seol, who has been scrolling through her social network, stands up from her spot.

“Boss, I’m back.”

“Be honest with me, Kang-Joon. You just have been going to Internet ca…huh?”

Kang-Joon certainly has come back from his trip and to his right is a girl who looks to be a university student in her early twenties, blus.h.i.+ng with her head down.

“Who is this lady?”

“Who do you think?”

Kang-Joon smiles confidently.

“The Magical Girl.”

The girl lifts her head up slowly, still scared. Then, she gives Miss Seol a bow once they make an eye contact.

“He….h.e.l.lo… I’m Gi-na.”

“Wh…What are you talking about? Acacia is a little girl…”

Acacia only looks to be about eleven or twelve, although the girl who Kang-Joon brought with him certainly looks to be rather young, it is obvious that she is an adult woman. But, looking at her face slowly, there seem to be a subtle traces of Acacia.

“An avatar generally takes a different form than the physical owner.”

As Kang-Joon starts using a random jargon, Miss Seol does not seem to quite understand. The girl blushes even more with her face turning almost pure red like she is going through the most embarra.s.sing moment of her life.

The Magical Girl Acacia is, in fact, a full-grown woman, not a kid.

“How…How did you find her?”

“That’s a long story. Let’s write the contract first.”

The Magical Girl Acacia (24) sits down at a table.

Miss Seol still is curious about how in the world Kang-Joon succeeded to pull Acacia and bring her to this very spot right now. In fact, she is not even quite sure if this girl before her eyes is really Acacia. Nevertheless, as there is a willing customer, Miss Seol pulls out a hunter contract which she has not made any use of for quite a while.