Han Tae-oh felt a perverse sense of relief. Walking into the Quartermaster's chaotic, dust-filled office felt exactly like walking into his old workplace—only the paper stacks were scrolls, and the financial irregularities were measured in Mana Cores, not Korean Won.
This isn't a life-or-death scenario. This is Q3 budget review. I got this.
He immediately pulled up the Guild's digital procurement records, ignoring the Quartermaster's suspicious glares. Tae-oh set up a spreadsheet on his private laptop—a piece of technology far superior to the Guild's ancient mainframes—and began charting three variables: Acquisition Cost (AC), Estimated Dungeon Yield (EDY), and Reported Loss Rate (RLR).
His Intelligence (INT) 13 stat, tiny as it was, felt like a cheat code. He could process the messy data streams instantly, recognizing patterns invisible to the naked eye.
"The problem isn't the Hunters," Tae-oh muttered to himself, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "The problem is the RLR."
The Reported Loss Rate for F-Rank Mana Cores was nearly 15%. This wasn't due to monster damage; it was due to "storage decay" and "miscellaneous damage"—terms that sounded suspiciously like a corrupt expense report.
He activated his new skill.
[Basic Audit (Passive)]
The office flared in his vision. The Quartermaster's ledger glowed red. A small, locked cabinet glowed red. But the brightest, most irrefutable glow centered on a low-ranking logistics accountant named Seo-jun, who was nervously shuffling papers at a nearby desk.
[Flaw: Undocumented Wealth Accumulation (Correlation 98%). Estimated Source: Core Loss Divergence.]
Tae-oh didn't need a sword; he had a data point. Seo-jun was siphoning cores by reporting them as "lost to decay" before selling them on the black market.
A common white-collar crime. Too simple. Too sloppy.
Tae-oh spent the next few hours meticulously packaging the evidence. He cross-referenced Seo-jun's family purchases (which included a recently acquired, rare A-Rank Artifact Charm that was far beyond his salary) with the dates and times of the highest RLR spikes.
He didn't confront the accountant. That would lead to a confrontation, and a villain should never fight when they can simply submit a report.
Tae-oh printed the findings, not as an accusation, but as a clean, irrefutable Business Process Failure Report. He titled it: Vulnerability Assessment: Low-Grade Core RLR Anomaly.
He submitted the anonymous report to his father's secretary, stepping back into his room, exhausted but exhilarated.
[System Alert: Low-Grade Mana Core Efficiency increased by 19.3%! Process Vulnerability Eliminated!]
[Quest Complete! Reward: Virtue Points +50. Unlocked Skill: Basic Audit.]
[Host Status: Virtue Points (VP): 50. Intelligence (INT): 13. New Skill: Basic Audit (Passive).]
Tae-oh leaned back on his silk pillows. He had just saved the Guild a fortune by being technically heroic, purely to save his own neck. He smiled for the first time in his new life.
I am a Villain who is saving the world by maximizing profit and exposure—a perfect, cynical win.