Beep.

“I’m coming in.”

As she touched the ID card key the door lock released.

Opening the door and stepping through, Yu Areum bowed her head politely.

It’s her own way of showing respect to a customer.

She knows the VIP whose home it is isn’t there, and she observed the courtesy anyway.

As somebody who works in a service trade it’s a habit worked into the body.

Yu Areum, taking her shoes off quietly and stepping into the inner room.

“Ah.”

At the view straight ahead of her, coming hard into her eye, she let out a short sound of wonder.

The Latte Signiel, visited exactly on nine o’clock.

Following the customer’s message, she had been handed the customer’s master key at the concierge desk.

A VIP customer’s home with none of the equipment life requires in it at all.

The wide view spread out beyond the window did its full share.

“There’s nothing here to use straight away.”

She scanned the space quickly with her eyes.

The moment she’d had the customer’s message she had contacted the team leader and had approval to accept the request.

Straight after that she checked the interior dimensions of the Signiel unit.

The customer is nineteen this year.

However she thinks about it, he’s a VIP whose means are out of the ordinary for his age.

“Sofa, table, television, lights are a pass, fully automatic curtains……”

The instant she came inside she pulled a list of the necessary goods together on an iPad.

“Refrigerator, washing machine and dryer mostly premium brand, Gaggenau. Kimchi refrigerator only, Ilseong.”

She confirmed the electrical brands quickly as well.

Setting-up time is until six.

To anyone looking at it, it’s a request that makes no sense.

Ordinarily it would be an order hard to accept, but among VIP orders there are plenty of requests worse than this.

There are cases of being asked to have a particular foodstuff, imported through strict quarantine from Europe, ready by that same evening.

The road to being a personal shopper opens when you make the impossible possible.

“Thank goodness there’s a Signiel works team among the department store’s partner contractors.”

The scheduling she had arranged in advance by ringing yesterday.

Demolition and installation work inside a department store is carried out at night.

Most of the work bunches at the year’s end when tenants change, or in the gaps between seasons.

For contractors whose work has thinned out or dried up, it’s a honey of a job.

“Curtains in a bright tone with a blackout function would be good.”

Yu Areum went on with the work, guessing at Ha Tae-ung’s leanings as she had read them.

There’s force in the way he speaks and there’s charisma to him, but he was a cheerful person.

“Pictures are…… a pity, but not my territory.”

She means to carry it only as far as the level where living there won’t be uncomfortable.

“In the dressing room…… there’s nothing at all.”

A uniform and a school PE kit hang forlornly on the rail.

“Three basic suits, and…… a light cardigan, shirts……”

Yu Areum, walking round the flat and ticking goods off carefully with the customer’s request as her base.

Ha Tae-ung’s build, his height and the other sizes she needed were confirmed at the golf wear shop already.

“For the tableware set…… setting it for about four should do……”

The kitchen side is just as bare.

“And prepare champagne and wine to put in the wine cellar.”

The VIP’s standing is a student.

But officially he’s an adult.

In the daily life of chaebol families and upper-class people, wine culture is deeply settled.

From childhood they take in wine etiquette naturally at the table, through the adults of the house.

However she looks at it, the VIP customer Ha Tae-ung is presumed to be a chaebol family’s son.

“And the bed, most important of all……”

Most of the VIPs she manages prefer the world’s three great bed brands.

Lately a considerable number of VIP customers have been choosing a Hästens bed.

An outlay for a bed that runs somewhere around a hundred million.

“He’s tall, so…… a double king.”

A Hästens bed, which you can’t buy at once even if you have the money.

They’re handmade to order, so a commission has to be placed.

At minimum it takes several months to receive the finished article.

She took into account that until then it can be used on rental.

And on top of that, Hästens has a concession in Hyundo Department Store.

“The bathroom products want preparing as a full set as well.”

Towels, obviously, and even lavatory paper.

The state of it is that there isn’t a single thing needed.

“Roughly…… this much should do.”

The actual floor area of a 90E type wasn’t so very large.

It comes to about the living room and the main room you see on coming through the entrance.

The Signiel, whose concierge service is perfect and which is popular with women in particular.

Hotel services can be used at a discount too, which makes it more popular still.

But the Signiel now, whose reputation is sinking as all sorts come in and mix themselves in on nothing but money.

Its appeal as a place to invest is falling, and lately it’s being dropped from the properties they recommend.

“It’s good even so……. Who’s going to match that view.”

Yu Areum, finishing the check on the goods needed and looking out of the window.

“This won’t be the end of it. This VIP feels as though he’s going to be a golden rope for me.”

At the end of last year she’d visited a fortune-teller with a name for accuracy, together with her mother.

What the fortune-teller had told her then came back to her.

Before the flowering spring is out, a person of great fortune will come to you.

It’s the reason she went along behind Team Leader Park Taesu as well.

“I’ll be counting on you from here. Ha Tae-ung…… sir.”

The flat is plainly empty, and Yu Areum bows her head slightly all the same, as she had coming in, as though a VIP stood there.

She believed that Ha Tae-ung is the VIP who will make her a personal shopper.

A jolt.

“……!!”

An Hyeonju’s couple-round partner, Ha Tae-ung!

The moment he shook the young fellow’s hand, a jolt of current ran through him.

Somehow or other his mood was thoroughly bad.

He felt for no reason that strength was draining out of him, and it was unpleasant.

Thinking it might be static, he tried to pull his hand back quickly.

But Ha Tae-ung, unpleasantly, held his hand to the end and wouldn’t let go.

“What is this!”

Park Dojun snapped at him in his displeasure.

The boy bit down on a smile with a chill going through it.

“Thank you.”

“……??”

Madman!

Even after displeasure had been shown him, he came out with some nonsense about being grateful before he let the hand go.

Insufferable bastard! You’re dead today!

Shaking his hand out once, Park Dojun ground his teeth.

It’s a million won a stroke.

A beginner, on his first time out.

With luck and a good hit he’d be a hundred-shooter.

Shale CC, where he has visited several times and played rounds — Park Dojun’s lowest score here was sixty-five.

Today he can collect several tens of millions at the very least.

Money is the only thing he’s got?

However much money a man has, no man is going to feel good about losing a game.

“It’s about time……. Let’s go out too.”

Choi Yurin took the lead.

An Hyeonju! I’m going to drag you all the way down to the floor today. Hohohoho.

By the rumours, An Hyeonju has hardly been able to get onto a field since the scandal.

For a professional, field training is essential.

Holding on to the feel of competition on the ground, which screen practice can never fill.

That An Hyeonju’s form wouldn’t be what it was, you didn’t have to look to know.

The partner she’d brought is a beginner as well.

She badly wanted to see the two of them lose the game and go back with gloom on their faces.

“Yes……”

An Hyeonju, whose worries had multiplied watching Park Dojun and Choi Yurin go ahead.

Ha Tae-ung is a true beginner.

He should never have taken the bet on.

Pro Park Dojun’s presence at the round, which she hadn’t expected either.

She isn’t unaware that it’s a scheme of Choi Yurin’s, but there’s nothing she can do about it now.

The only thing she can hope for is……

Tae-ung. Take heart.

Ha Tae-ung, with a smile filling his whole face, knowing nothing at all of how serious the situation is.

An Hyeonju, burning up inside, bit her lip quietly.

Plunder, of all things……

I’m still in a state of not having the whole of the buff manual the granny gave me as a present worked out.

The talent-PLUNDER manual, newly appearing after ACQUIRE and EXPLOIT.

This one is seriously strong.

I felt it through my whole body when I shook Park Dojun’s hand.

Something I couldn’t identify rode up my palm in a moment and spread through all of me.

The feeling of that instant, a jolt as though a current were running.

Park Dojun’s colour, on the other hand, wasn’t good.

But…… is this possible? Golf is a sport you have to learn with the body.

The talent-plunder ability, not yet confirmed.

Even so, I trusted it.

It’s a talent taken in a similar form to when I shook Pro An Hyeonju’s hand.

But what’s different from that time is that no merit was used.

There’s a need to keep watching it, but for now it’s a good thing for me.

“We’re going to start from the white tee……. What about you two?”

Choi Yurin said it, looking back.

“Men go from the black tee.”

I threw the first punch.

It’s the course that suits professionals.

“Heh heh. That’s right. Men go from the black tee.”

Park Dojun laughs with a satisfied expression.

“Tae-ung. Will you be all right?”

Pro An Hyeonju, holding her eyes on mine, her look full of worry.

Where she’s sitting now will be a bed of thorns.

“I’ll win today and buy you a bag.”

“A— a bag?”

“What? A bag? Pff-hahahahaha.”

“Hohohoho. This friend! He’s funny.”

All three of them treated what I said as a joke.

“The first hole is a par four by the black tee. A four-three-five course. It bends to the left, and the green isn’t visible, so the approach will be a burden. The safe fairway where the hole cup is visible comes to about three hundred and twenty-five metres.”

A caddie of middle age explained the course they’d chosen.

“Right, then, I’ll start.”

Park Dojun took up a driver with practised ease and stepped out in front.

Plain to see, he’s an ill-bred sort with no consideration in him.

“Do that.”

Park Dojun, planting his tee without hesitation.

Whoosh. Whoosh!

Gripping the driver, he swung lightly a few times and set his stance.

And.

Craaack!

“Nice!”

The golf ball, struck rather well, flew through the air and ran on and on.

“Landed on the fairway at about two hundred and eighty metres.”

The caddie announced the ball’s position.

For a professional it’s a distance that feels slightly short.

The long hitters ordinarily go well past three hundred metres.

“The driver’s coming off all right today. Hahaha.”

The driver had met it exactly.

As befits a professional, there wasn’t the width of an inch out of place.

A firm press.

Following on after Park Dojun, I planted my tee.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

I swung the driver twice, lightly.

Thanks to having taken in Pro An Hyeonju’s technique, the stance settled rather well.

And my own particular power was added on top of it.

Craaack!

Along with a bright, clean sound, the golf ball running on and on through the air!

“Oh!”

“Oh my!”

“Nice shot!!”

(End of Chapter 40)