It was my third year on Crimson Moon’s payroll when I was summoned to the Seoul office. This was an odd request as my hunting grounds were generally the Eastern Coast of North America. As I walked into the office, the head of Korean operations stood and shook my hand, ‘Welcome, Moonlight Dagger, to Korea.’ I nodded in return. ‘Your excellent results in North America have caught the attention of the higher-ups who want to test to see if your skills are transferable’.

I hate to say it, but during the previous three years, I expanded the North American talent acquisition business by over 200%, slowly expanding the number of staff under me to almost 10. I guess this management expertise is why they decided to promote me to middle management. But Seoul? My Korean was worse than my Japanese, while I understood it, speaking it was like talking to a first-grader. The Korean Branch Head nodded his head as he continued, ‘As you may know, the Korean office has many functions, however our most important is the talent. Talent is where our operating funds come from and you will be managing a team that records our talent’s deeds.’ he patted my shoulder like an old pervert, but with the fearsome reputation I have built up over the past three years as the Moonlight Dagger, he dared not take it any further.

Yeah, that name, Moonlight Dagger. I asked someone later why they called me that. She said, ‘Its because Truck-kun noticed you were staring at the moon and you tend to use a dagger more often than not.’ That made me query this entire organisation, how can a code name be created from just a single moment, long ago? It made me feel sorry for Truck-kun who was given a name with such a stupid reference. I shook my head at the thought and followed the Korean head out of his office into the workspace. It was a very unique location, tens of people, clustered around a group of central monitors, typing on their laptops what they saw.

You see, while there were many different authors who publish stories under the Crimson Moon brand, three years in the organisation let me in on some secrets. Zhao Lucheng, Yu Hachiyama, all these famous authors are made up; played by actors who sign books but couldn’t write to save their own lives. Those who really wrote these novels were poorly paid interns, with dreams of making it big as an author and would do anything to achieve this goal, even as far as to work at a shady company like this.

I glanced at a screen I was walking by and noticed a familiar face; it was that Yuki kid who I saw on my first day of work, I recall his novel was called travelling A New World with Elven Slaves, despite the sick contents, it was a rather popular novel. You see, while many people call what I did assassination, I would rather call it talent acquisition. After all, those who are killed are pulled into another world and are forced to live out a story. At this point, the exact how Isekai Inc. did this eluded me, and this was one of the reasons why I came to this place; to learn how.

The Korean head gestured me towards a group of monitors, and said; ‘Headquarters have their eye on you, you will be managing this team. Do well, and good things will come.’ I simply nodded in reply, in the past three years, I found that I talked less and less as I fell deeper into my shell as the Moonlight Dagger. Maybe, I thought, this will be a good chance to unwind, to get back a sense of normality, rather than going from city to city, killing teenagers and youths for what seemed like no real purpose. The boss clapped his hands, getting the attention of the fifteen or so writers who were staring at the monitors while typing out their stories in various different languages, before introducing me, ‘This is Moonlight-sunbae, she will be your boss for the next few weeks.’

I was surprised at being called a sunbae by the Korean head as my new team greeted me in bad English. I noticed authors from Korea, from Japan, from China, and even from Malaysia, and English was the language they all used to communicate. To their greetings, I released a menacing aura, the type you only get after you have walked the bloodthirsty path before sitting down, glaring at the team to get back to work. The truth is, I didn’t know what to say. It had been a very long time since I was around normal people. I picked up a nearby clipboard and read over the novel stats.

The teams which I was to manage were in charge of four books, the Villainess must die, Romancing the Black Bellied Fox King, Realistic Martial Lands and Black Hearted Demoness. While I hadn’t read these books, I knew that they were once-popular novels which had lost popularity in the past couple of months, and they were close to the point of being dropped. I glanced at one of the screens, the one showing the Black Hearted Demoness, seeing the girl on screen battling the demons, a tear formed at the edge of my eye. Wiping the tear away, I turned to the Korean head and asked, ‘What happens to the talent when they are cancelled?’

The Korean head shook his head sadly, ‘Their systems are turned off, and the talent will be exterminated. Systems are expensive to maintain, so we don’t want them running on unprofitable novels.’

I knew a bit about these systems, but not much. I knew this was how they recorded the talent’s life in the other world, it had functions that could help the talent and could somehow bend time so that what amounts to a year could be viewed in as little as a day. I looked at the screen showing Black Hearted Demoness again and sighed, speaking softly enough that no one could hear, ‘I promised you your isekai would be better than your current life,’ the girl on the screen slew the demon, absorbing some of her power, ‘I will make sure you’re not cancelled, Sakura-chan.’

I placed down the stats, and clapped my hands, summoning my team, who apart from the current scribe, circled around me I sat on a nearby chair and turned to them, ‘Tell me why, the novels you were given have gone down-hill so fast?’ I tapped the armrest as I waited for their response… no response, ‘You should know that our company is not very… forgiving. You may be poorly paid interns, but you still know a bit too much to simply fire… maybe we need new talent?’, I tapped my fingers against the armrest and smiled sinisterly, ‘There are, after all, always hordes of kids who want to be paid to write, it would be easy to find… replacements.’

Still, no response. But the interns where shivering. Maybe I went too far. Maybe I should offer them a carrot? I withdrew my murderous aura and sighed, ‘but it would be too much effort training them up, which means I am stuck with you. Now, tell me. How are you going to improve the quality of your writing?’ I tilted my head as I waited for them to answer.

One of the young writers nervously opened his mouth, ‘We could increase the shifts, and work harder?’

Another writer replied, ‘idiot, just working harder will not improve the writing, I think it would make it worse. I think...’ the band of writers huddled together and began to discuss how to improve their writing. After all, their lives may not be precious to the company, but they are precious to themselves. I nodded my head to this. After all, while I am a reporter, I know little about writing quality fiction. They were the experts, many of whom fresh out of college into this black company. They would know how to improve their work the best, not me who has spent the past three years killing.

I turned to look at the screen that was showing Sakura-chan, and glanced over the synopsis, ‘Facing the demons of her life, she must save the galaxy and cut the strings of fate’. I shook my head, wondering who writes these awful synopses. I later found out that they were written by a separate device called the fate engine, which gazes deep into the potential future of the talent’s story and producing a short paragraph explaining it, hence why they could be so vague at times. I continued watching the screen as the screen changed perspective. I wondered, if I were to see her again, would she thank me? Would she despise me? Is her Isekai better than her current world? Stuck in a hospital bed or out killing demons, what was better?

I glanced at the interns who seem to have finished their discussion and had gathered around me once more, ‘well you worked it out yourself. See? You are talented if you put your mind to it. Get out there and write!’

A week later, I was called into the Korean manager’s office and given the good news. I succeeded in my trial, the quality and quantity of the work from my team had increased and the ratings of the novels from the team I was managing had a significant increase. I was to be congratulated, I was moving to Shanghai to join the R&D team. This was the chance I needed; to see what exactly was up in Isekai Inc.

Incidentally, Black Hearted Demoness became one of the most popular novels from Crimson Moon Publishing, and the story is currently being used to create a live action television series. To tell you a bit of inside gossip, the live action television series is being produced from the footage captured by the system. It is after all footage they already have, and they can save significant money on actors, cast and crew.