Episode 4
“Assistant Manager Susanna! What was that all of a sudden?”
“Ah, no, it’s nothing! I thought I saw a bug crawling by! And now that I think about it, I must have confused it with another assignment! This task was completely handled by Assistant Manager Audret!”
“Really? Why are you changing your story now?”
“Hehe, I got confused. I’m sorry…”
Susanna bowed repeatedly as she apologized, and although the Guild Master grumbled, he turned to me and said,
“See! You can do it when you try. Why haven’t you been doing your work properly until now?”
“Haha, I’ll work harder from now on…”
“Good grief. This is what’s wrong with young people these days. All they ever do is slack off.”
After the Guild Master disappeared after making yet another old-fashioned remark, Susanna and I exchanged a secret glance.
It roughly meant, “Follow me outside.”
Unlike the confident attitude she always showed in front of me, Susanna looked terrified, as if I had caught her doing something wrong.
Well, I actually had caught her doing something wrong.
‘You can tell just by looking at her face. She looks like the type who would wear AirPods at work and film a vlog.’
Of course, there were no such things as vlogs in this world.
Even so, I trusted my instincts and investigated something.
And eventually, I found what I was looking for.
‘This is it!’
Susanna had written an essay.
She had leaked all kinds of confidential information from the information guild and published an essay containing it.
<I’m Just a Low-Ranking Assistant Manager at an Information Guild, But I’m Still the Protagonist of My Own Life!>
The book even contained some leaked details about the private lives of clients we had dealt with.
No matter how much the Guild Master favored Susanna, it would be difficult for him to let this matter slide.
If one of the clients complained, he would be in trouble himself.
“Assistant Manager Susanna, don’t you have something to say to me?”
“Uh, uhh…”
She looked unusually flustered.
“That essay of yours is selling really well. You must have made quite a bit of money from it, huh?”
The essay Susanna had published under a pseudonym had surprisingly become something of a bestseller.
It was lucky that the Guild Master, who had absolutely no interest in books, didn’t know about it.
Seriously, why did people in this world keep writing essays about their lives?
Even the president of the X-company I worked for in my previous life, Park Geoseong, had written an essay about his life.
Most of it was lies, but even through those lies, he couldn’t hide his old-fashioned, bossy personality.
Was the title Park Geoseong, Beginning the Second Act of a Brilliant Life?
What a ridiculous title.
While I was remembering Park Geoseong’s absurd essay, Susanna visibly shrank back.
“Th-that’s…”
“Don’t bother denying that you’re the author, Assistant Manager Susanna.
“I’m an assistant manager at an information guild, after all. I have enough evidence to prove that you are the author.”
“O-Oh, Assistant Manager Audret! I’m sorry!”
Once Susanna understood the situation, she clasped her hands together and began begging.
“Please, don’t tell the Guild Master! You know what will happen if he finds out…!”
“If things go badly, you could even be sued.”
“Th-that’s why…!”
“But if I hide this for you, I might get dragged into trouble later too.”
“B-but we’re coworkers who joined at the same time!”
“Oh, right. We’re coworkers who joined at the same time.”
I had considered completely crushing Susanna.
But getting rid of someone whose weakness I had in my hands would be a waste.
It would be much better to keep her working here for a long, long time and make use of her.
I smiled brightly at her.
“Okay. Since we’re coworkers who joined at the same time, I’ll grant your ‘request.’”
“Really?”
“Of course. But in return, you have to grant one of my requests too.
“Isn’t that only fair?”
“What kind of request is it…?”
Susanna rolled her eyes as if she was still trying to figure out what I was planning.
I shrugged and continued.
“It’s simple. You empty the trash cans every morning.”
“What? Why do I have to do that?”
“Then should I do it?”
“N-no, that’s not what I meant… Aren’t we office workers?”
“Then do you think the trash cans magically clean themselves because no one empties them?
“From now on, empty the trash cans.”
“Uh… Okay…”
Susanna looked completely blank, as if she had never once thought about emptying a trash can before.
Good grief.
What a coworker with absolutely no common sense when it came to work!
“Oh, and refill the snacks and tea bags for me too.”
“Can we charge those expenses to the Guild Master later…?”
“No. We don’t have anything like that in our guild. Obviously, we have to pay for them ourselves.”
“Th-then can’t we just not refill them?”
“The manager told us to keep them stocked.”
“But still…”
“How much money did Susanna make from selling her book again…?”
“Ah! I’ll do it!”
“Good. Thanks for agreeing to my request.”
After dumping all the annoying tasks I had been responsible for onto her, I smiled victoriously.
Good.
I had escaped the lowest rank in the X-company guild.
“By the way, why do you still want to keep working at this guild? Didn’t you make a lot of money from selling your book?”
“W-well, I already have a contract for my next book… If I break the contract, the penalty is huge.”
“Oh, I see. Then you’ll have to keep working here for a long, long time.”
“Yes! So please, please keep it a secret from the Guild Master!”
“Oh, then I’d like to ask for one more favor.
“Emptying the trash cans is the Guild Master’s order, and stocking the snacks and tea bags is the manager’s order.
“So shouldn’t you grant one request of mine too?”
“What now…?”
A human X-company who had survived two years at an X-company.
Now, I would show her exactly how things were done.
“Good grief, Susanna. I noticed you were using a calculator when you were doing the accounting.”
“Yes…?”
“From now on, don’t use a calculator when you work. Calculate everything by hand.
“The calculator might be broken, you know. How can you trust a machine?”
“What are you even…”
“Don’t use a calculator anymore. It seriously bothers me.”
“No, but… Ugh, fine…”
In the end, Susanna nodded while carefully watching my reaction.
It might have seemed strange, but at least for the time being, this was necessary to keep Susanna in line.
Mr. Park Geoseong, thank you for teaching me all the ways to nitpick every little thing.
“Then let’s get along well from now on.”
“Yes, yes!”
Susanna glanced at me as if she were looking at a strange person.
But I didn’t care.
If you want to survive at an X-company, you have to become part of the X-company yourself.
“Something doesn’t add up…”
Inside a neat and orderly office, a man’s gray eyes showed beneath his black hair.
His gaze was fixed on the documents he had received a few days ago.
The man’s identity was none other than Cedrian Elbaron, the Crown Prince of the Empire.
Right now, he couldn’t stop thinking about one thing.
‘How was she able to find that information through such a tiny guild?’
He hadn’t expected anything from the “Global Whatever” Guild.
He had gone there as a desperate last resort, like a drowning man desperately grabbing onto a rope.
He couldn’t ask the large information guilds for help.
The employee who had dealt with him there was a young-looking woman who appeared to be nothing more than a low-ranking employee at the information guild.
Her dark black hair and purple eyes gave her a somewhat gloomy appearance.
Objectively speaking, she was beautiful.
However, her dark circles were so noticeable and she looked so depressed that her beauty didn’t stand out very much.
The condition she had demanded in exchange for finding the information had also been strange.
She wanted him to build them a bathroom?
Who would have thought he would receive such a bizarre request in his lifetime?
Yet that woman had actually succeeded in finding the information he desperately wanted.
If the person who had helped him that day was the Lady of Calliard, then everything made sense.
The more Cedrian recalled the conversation they had shared in the forest, the more certain he became that the woman had been the Lady of Calliard.
Now that he knew his mysterious helper was the Lady of Calliard, the rest was his problem to solve.
However, there was something unsettling about that information guild.
Cedrian’s gaze returned to the documents he had received.
At the very top, written in small letters, was the title.
0411_ReallyReallyFinalReport(3)
‘This is exactly the same title format used by the Temple.’
An ordinary person would never have noticed.
But Cedrian had spent years keeping an eye on the Temple and gathering information about them.
So he recognized it immediately.
Something was definitely suspicious.
Cedrian decided to investigate the guild’s background.
“Eric, I don’t even remember what the guild was called. Anyway, investigate this guild and find out everything you can.”
He gave the order to his aide.
A few days later, the Crown Prince received some shocking information.
“Your Highness, that guild appears to be connected to the Temple in some way.
“To put it simply… it seems to be something like a subcontractor of the Temple.”
“A subcontractor of the Temple?”
Cedrian’s eyes lit up.
He had recently been looking for a way to get closer to the Temple.
And this guild was so poorly run and so easy to approach.
If he used it properly, he might be able to obtain the Temple’s information from the inside.
