A week passed at Daeyoung Marketing, and the legends of the two newcomers grew. "Jonas" became known as "The Phantom," the quiet genius who would complete impossible tasks with silent efficiency, only to deflect any praise by claiming it was a "team effort." "Claire" was "The Diva of Disaster," a goddess of beauty whose spectacular clumsiness always, somehow, seemed to solve major office crises. She had "accidentally" deleted a crippling computer virus by spilling coffee on the main server (Cid had, in fact, used his slime to subtly rewrite the virus's code into harmless gibberish), and had "inadvertently" exposed an embezzler by "mistakenly" shredding his doctored financial reports instead of the real ones.
Kim Min-Joon's life had become a whirlwind of bizarre, secondhand fortune. His projects were succeeding. His mistakes were being mysteriously erased. And he was getting the credit for the positive results of Claire's "disasters." Manager Park was even starting to look at him with a glimmer of grudging respect. Min-Joon was bewildered, but he wasn't about to question his sudden good luck.
The peace of the office, however, was about to be shattered by a fate worse than any Weaver: a mandatory, team-building company retreat.
"Alright, you corporate drones!" Manager Park announced, a sadistic glee in his eyes. "Pack your bags! This weekend, we're all going to a beautiful, remote resort in the mountains for some trust falls, inspirational sloganeering, and mandatory fun! Attendance is not optional!"
A collective groan went through the office.
The mountain resort was as dreary as expected. A cheap, soulless building surrounded by a dark, foreboding forest. The "team-building" exercises were a series of humiliations designed by corporate sadists.
Their first activity was a "trust fall." The employees were to climb a ten-foot ladder and fall backward into the waiting arms of their colleagues.
It was a disaster. The sales team, being competitive and untrustworthy by nature, kept "accidentally" letting their rivals drop. The marketing team was too busy checking their phones to pay attention.
Then, it was Kim Min-Joon's turn to fall. Manager Park, in a rare show of "leadership," stood at the front of the receiving group. But as Min-Joon leaned back, Park was distracted by an incoming call and took a step to the side.
Min-Joon was falling, and no one was there to catch him.
This was a classic slapstick moment. In a normal story, he would land in a bush or a conveniently placed mud puddle.
But this was not a normal story.
Cid ('Claire') and Jin-woo ('Jonas') were in the group. Cid could have used his slime to create a bouncy castle. Jin-woo could have used his Ruler's Authority to make Min-Joon float. But these were overt uses of power. They needed a 'mob' solution.
Cid acted first. With a small, elegant gasp of 'surprise,' he 'fainted' dramatically backwards.
His faint sent him crashing into Jin-woo. Jin-woo, playing his part, let himself be knocked off balance.
This created a chain reaction. Jin-woo bumped into Jina, who bumped into another employee, and another, and another. A perfect, cascading domino effect of human bodies, all collapsing in the same direction.
The result was that a massive, disorganized, and surprisingly soft pile of their colleagues materialized directly under the falling Kim Min-Joon just as he was about to hit the ground.
He landed on the human mattress with a soft whumpf, completely unharmed.
The team-building instructor stared at the pile of groaning employees. "I... I've never seen such... such selfless, proactive, synchronized teamwork in my life! You all anticipated the crisis and formed a human safety net! Incredible!"
The Daeyoung Marketing team, who had just accidentally saved their colleague's life through a series of coincidental stumbles, were praised as heroes of corporate synergy. Cid and Jin-woo, the architects of the chaos, extracted themselves from the bottom of the pile, completely unnoticed.
The final, dreaded activity of the retreat was a "haunted" forest hike. At night. Without flashlights.
"The legend says," Manager Park said, a cheap ghost-story inflection in his voice, "that the spirit of a heartbroken lumberjack roams these woods, seeking revenge! This hike will test your courage and your ability to rely on each other in a crisis!"
In reality, it was a test of his employees' ability not to murder him.
They had been hiking for an hour when the inevitable happened. Jina, the office gossip, tripped on a root and tumbled down a small, steep embankment, her ankle twisting with an audible snap.
She cried out in pain from the bottom of the ravine. "Help! I think my ankle is broken! I can't climb back up!"
The team panicked. It was pitch black. The ravine was steep. They had no rope.
Manager Park, proving his worth as a leader, immediately began to assign blame and shout about liability waivers.
This was a real crisis. It required a real solution.
"I will go," a quiet voice said. It was Jonas (Jin-woo). Before anyone could object, he began to scale down the slippery, dark embankment with an unnerving, inhuman confidence.
"He'll kill himself!" someone whispered.
But he moved with the surety of a mountain goat, his feet and hands finding purchase where there was none. He reached Jina in moments.
Now came the problem. He had to get her back up. He could carry her with one arm and leap up the cliff face. He could summon a shadow to do it for him.
He chose a different, more subtle method.
He knelt down beside her. "I'm going to carry you," he said. He easily lifted her into his arms. To Jina, it felt like she weighed nothing at all. He had negated her weight with a micro-thin layer of telekinetic energy.
Then, he started to climb. And as he climbed, the very roots and rocks on the cliff face seemed to... help him. A root would subtly uncurl to give him a perfect handhold. A patch of loose dirt would momentarily harden into solid stone beneath his feet.
Jin-woo reached the top, carrying the 'weightless' Jina, and set her down gently, without a single scratch on him. The entire office stared at him with a new kind of awe. He was no longer just the 'Phantom' genius. He was a quiet, terrifyingly capable hero.
Just as the awe was reaching its peak, Cid decided the scene needed some comic relief to maintain their 'mob' status.
'Claire', who had been "frantically" searching for a "safer path" on the other side of the path, suddenly let out a piercing shriek.
"SNAKE!"
She came running out of the bushes, a look of pure, theatrical terror on her beautiful face. She 'tripped' and launched herself, with perfect aim, directly into the arms of the unsuspecting Kim Min-Joon.
Min-Joon, his mind still trying to process Jonas's heroic rescue, suddenly found himself with an armful of the beautiful office goddess. He turned bright red, his brain completely shutting down.
Jina's broken ankle was forgotten. Jonas's heroic feat was forgotten. All anyone could talk about was the hilarious, romantic-comedy moment that had just occurred.
The spotlight was once again off of them. The crisis was solved, the hero's identity was protected, and the protagonist of the story, Kim Min-Joon, had just experienced his first, profoundly awkward, moment of romantic tension.
The company retreat from hell was a resounding success.