CHAPTER 01
1. When You Look Into a Company With Fewer Than Five Employees, It Also Looks Into You…
I can guarantee one thing.
No matter what company I ended up in, I was confident that I could endure it.
Because I had already worked at a company with fewer than five employees.
End of explanation.
For those who don’t quite understand, let me explain a little more.
Originally, businesses with fewer than five employees are given several exceptions under labor laws in order to reduce the burden on small business owners.
However, some companies use the term “business with fewer than five employees” as an opportunity to become the ultimate X-company that can escape almost every law.
They destroy common sense, commit ridiculous and unreasonable acts, and show everyone exactly what the worst kind of company looks like.
“So, this is…”
I looked around in confusion.
My last memory was of falling asleep after working overtime at an X-company.
So why did my body feel so light?
After getting out of bed and carefully checking the room and even the mirror, I reached one conclusion.
Just like in those common romance-fantasy novels, I had possessed someone else’s body.
“Okay. Not bad.”
I didn’t have much attachment to my previous life.
My parents had died as soon as I became an adult, and after getting a job at an X-company and becoming a worse person because of my terrible personality, I had even lost contact with my friends…
So, couldn’t I just think of this as being given a second chance and enjoy my new life?
I searched through the memories of the body I had possessed.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, there were still some faint memories left.
“Audret Lavendel, twenty-one years old this year.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t a noble lady.
I was an ordinary commoner.
Still, I had a small house registered in my name.
And I even had a job that I went to every day.
‘I worked at an information guild.’
Audret Lavendel, just like me in my previous life, had lost her parents and inherited only their house.
After that, she got a job at an information guild and lived a busy life every day.
Apparently, she had eventually died from overwork, and my soul had entered her dead body.
‘An information guild…’
I didn’t know anything about that kind of work.
Wait a minute.
While I was thinking about how I would adapt to my new life, I suddenly realized something amazing.
‘What if I’m inside a romance-fantasy novel that I’ve read?!’
Usually, when someone possesses another person’s body, they end up inside a romance-fantasy novel that already has an original story.
So maybe I simply hadn’t realized it yet, but this world could also be based on an original novel.
If that was true, then I knew the future of this world.
That meant I was practically perfect for working at an information guild!
‘That’s it. Our information guild will become hugely successful.’
My memories weren’t completely clear yet, so I couldn’t remember exactly which information guild this was.
But either way, I was confident that I could turn it into the greatest information guild in the world.
An information guild was usually…
“Put one olive in this martini.”
“How did you know that code?”
Once you passed through a secret process like that…
“I’d like you to investigate someone.”
“This person is… someone even we can’t touch.”
And then you became involved with all kinds of important people, such as the Crown Prince, the Grand Duke of the North, or a Saintess, eventually becoming their helper.
Yes!
First, I would figure out what world this was, and then I would use my knowledge of the original story!
If this world didn’t have an original novel, that would be unfortunate…
But even then, if I used the usual romance-fantasy clichĆ©s, wouldn’t I still be able to find information faster than everyone else?
It was a little disappointing that I couldn’t enjoy a luxurious life as a noble lady like an ordinary romance-fantasy heroine.
Still, I was happy to accept my new life.
As long as I could escape a company with fewer than five employees, I didn’t care where I ended up!
Yahoo!
‘It’s time to go to work, right?’
Following Audret’s original memories, I put on some comfortable clothes and headed toward the information guild.
‘But this place isn’t very secretive.’
Unlike the information guilds in ordinary romance-fantasy novels, the place where I worked literally had its name written right in front of the office.
And why was the name so lame?
It sounded exactly like some X-company pretending to be a trendy startup.
I tilted my head in confusion but entered the information guild anyway.
Under the dim lighting, I saw three people already sitting at their desks.
‘Are these my teammates?’
I was trying to search through my vague memories and figure out how I should greet them when someone suddenly shouted.
“Why are you coming in at this time?!”
“…Guild Master?”
Fortunately, I remembered him as soon as I saw his face.
The guild master was a middle-aged man in his forties.
He was the perfect example of an old-fashioned, bossy man.
“Uh… It’s still ten minutes before work starts.”
“How can a new employee arrive later than me?!”
“I’m sorry…”
“And you’re putting your bag down as soon as you arrive?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you know what you’re supposed to do?”
“Um… What do you mean?”
“I told you to make my coffee as soon as you arrive!”
“Ah. I see… I’m sorry.”
I bowed again.
That’s right.
The guild master of the information guild where Audret Lavendel worked wasn’t cool, mysterious, or secretive like an information guild should be.
He was just a bossy middle-aged man.
“Miss Audret! You’re here?”
“Huh? Yes!”
A man who looked slightly older than me spoke to me.
I searched through my memories.
This man was…
“Manager, is there something you need me to do?”
“Haha! Today is the day our information guild will achieve a great revolution! I scheduled three meetings today, so prepare everything for the meetings in an agile and asepshe way!”
“Uh… Okay.”
That’s right.
The manager was a villain overflowing with enthusiasm.
His specialty was creating a huge amount of work for himself and then making his subordinates suffer because of it.
He even mistakenly believed that he was young and trendy, so he constantly mixed strange foreign words and newly invented slang into his speech.
“Three meetings today!”
“Yes. That’s… wonderful.”
I slowly backed away from him to make the guild master’s coffee.
Then the woman sitting at the last desk spoke to me.
“Assistant Manager Audret!”
“Ah, Assistant Manager Susanna…”
Susanna was my fellow new employee.
She was…
“Hehe, you’ll make mine too, right? We’re colleagues who joined at the same time!”
“…Sure.”
“Looking at the atmosphere today, I think the guild master will leave work early…”
“But I don’t think I’ll finish my work by then, so Assistant Manager Audret, could you take care of it for me? I want to leave right on time!”
“What? What about me?”
“Huh? That’s not important. I have to leave on time!”
“……”
Wait a minute.
Something felt wrong.
Only then did the memories belonging to the original Audret Lavendel become clear.
The bossy guild master.
The overenthusiastic manager.
The Gen-Z-style assistant manager.
And me.
One, two, three, four.
What the hell?!
I was working at another company with fewer than five employees!
That’s right!
I finally remembered!
It wasn’t that we had different teams.
This guild literally had only four employees, including me!
Which meant that in this life too, I was working at a company with fewer than five employees!
‘No! I have to work at a company with fewer than five employees again? And I’m stuck with these villains?!’
Every single person in the guild was a villain.
That’s probably why the original Audret Lavendel had died from overwork!
And to make things worse, Audret Lavendel was a complete newcomer to society.
She had absolutely no experience or tricks for surviving a workplace like this!
That’s right.
According to the memories I had, Audret Lavendel hadn’t even completed her basic education.
She had no qualifications that would allow her to get a proper job.
That’s why she had ended up working at this X-company!
I briefly tried to deny reality.
Then, to confirm the situation, I spoke to the guild master.
“Um… How many days of annual leave do I have left?”
“Annual leave? What’s that? Did you dream about something? Where would you get annual leave?”
…
According to Audret’s memories, the word “annual leave” existed in this world too.
“Then what about weekly holiday pay? Overtime pay? Minimum wage?”
“Audret, get a grip. You looked exhausted yesterday. Did you eat something strange…?”
The guild master clicked his tongue.
“Our guild has fewer than five employees, so none of that applies to us!”
“……!”
What the hell?!
Finally, I understood.
I was working at a company with fewer than five employees where I had no legal protection.
“Don’t expect things like that. If you wanted those benefits, you should’ve gotten a job at the main company instead of working for a subcontractor.”
It was even an X-company subcontractor!
Whoever that main company was, they were probably going to ignore us and dump all kinds of unreasonable work on us.
“Aaaaaah… Yesss…”
I was half out of my mind as I made coffee for the guild master and Susanna and returned to my desk.
“……”
There was a mountain of work waiting for me.
The enthusiastic manager had dumped all of it on me.
I stared down at it with exhausted eyes for a long time.
Couldn’t I just quit?
‘But I don’t have any experience.’
I had only been working here for two months.
If I quit now, it wouldn’t even count as proper work experience.
“Aaaah…”
I sat at my desk and suffered for a long time.
Another company with fewer than five employees?
Another X-company?
And instead of the cool and mysterious information guilds from romance-fantasy novels, I was an assistant manager at a guild filled with nothing but insane villains?
I suffered like that for a while.
Then my eyes suddenly opened wide.
“Ever since you joined that strange company, you’ve become a little weird…”
“Isn’t that a little selfish toward your teammates?”
“No matter how you look at it, can you really behave like that at work? You’re saying some really strange things.”
In my previous life, I had survived two years at a company with fewer than five employees.
And during those two years, I learned something.
When I looked into a company with fewer than five employees, that company also learned how to look into me.
‘It was eight parts Park Geoseong who raised me.’
I remembered the name of the president of the X-company I had worked for in my previous life.
A smile slowly appeared on my face.
‘Human X-company, launch operation now.’
I was confident that I could adapt perfectly to this insane X-company information guild.
