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Chapter 135.

Malecia murmured at the black tea placed in front of him. "I’m pretty sure I ordered a brandy.”

The waitress smiled and said, "You shouldn’t drink alcohol in the morning. People should be sober in the morning."

Malecia frowned with discontent at the waitress’s nagging.

The waitress met Malecia’s fierce glare with tenacity as she put down on the table toast and scrambled eggs. "Don’t skip breakfast and eat regularly. I know you didn’t eat breakfast and just left yesterday."

At her continuous nagging, Malecia raised his hands in surrender. "Haha, I got it. I lost, so stop nagging."

He sipped the cup of non-alcoholic black tea with a carefree smile. When he frowned, it was normal for people he didn’t know, as well as his subordinates who knew him, to tremble in fear. However, this waitress had always nagged him as if she did not care.

It wasn’t even the battlefield, so it was awkward to have a meal without alcohol. But he didn’t necessarily hate it. He wondered if this is what it would be like if he had a daughter.

When Malecia was about to bite into the toast, a nagging noise came from behind.

"You don’t even put jam on your toast. You seem to have an issue with your taste buds.”

"Ah ah, okay—”

Malecia tried to put jam on the toast, but when he looked back he realized that it was not the waitress’s voice.

Right behind him stood a man in a black mask.

"Master...!"

When Malecia urgently stood up and tried to salute, Aries raised his hand and stopped him.

“It’s fine. I don’t want to make a fuss." Then he sat next to Malecia.

"What brings you to this squalid place?”

"Work."

At Aries’s words, Malecia collected his relaxed face and nodded. Then he skimmed the surroundings.

It was late in the morning, so there were few guests, but it was not good to talk about work where there were eyes.

"Let me escort you upstairs."

"Ahjussi, where are you going without eating breakfast?!"

At the waitress’s nagging, Malecia pointed upwards with an awkward smile. "I’m just going to my room for a moment. I’ll come back and eat it. Don’t worry."

Malecia took his master up to his room. Yang looked around the inn room that was just over two pyeongs and said indifferently.[1]

"It’s even shabbier in the room."

Malecia could not comment on Aries’s assessment. The inn itself was actually quite shabby.

"I can’t sit still seeing my subordinates live in such squalid places. Fix the inn or move elsewhere.”

Malecia was pleased but also felt awkward at his master’s order. "I’m sorry. This is an inn run by the family of my former comrade-in-arms, so I’d like to stay here if possible.”

The woman who was nagging him downstairs was the daughter of the former comrade.

"Then you can fix the inn."

"Haha, yes, I will try."

Malecia did not think it would be easy. There were too many traces left in this inn by his former comrade who died in the war. If he had the resolution to fix the inn, he would have done it long ago.

"So what brings you here without any word? If you had called me, I would have visited you myself.”

Aries took a bundle of documents out of his pocket space and handed it over to Malecia. "It says that the ruins I have been looking for have been found in the empire. I will need to have you go there.”

"I will accept your orders. When should I leave?"

"Now."

Aries took out a magic wand with a black skull on it from his pocket space and performed space magic. Beyond the opened space above the bed was one of Aries’s mansions in the empire. If he jumped into the opening in space, he could move over into the empire, but the problem was the distance between this inn and that mansion. It required crossing the border.

"Ah, is this safe?”

Malecia had a distrust of moving through space with magic, which was known to have very high difficulty. He was afraid to entrust his body to this space magic.

Yang, who understood that feeling, nodded and said, "No."

"What?"

He shoved Malecia’s back into the space opening, and said in a low voice, "It’s a joke." He was proud of his joke.

"Masteeeer!!”

Sadly, however, as Malecia disappeared into space, he was lost in fear and could not hear it.

-o-

The morning shift ended after helping Demuir sort out his accounting documents and classifying requests for Organ.

I put the bundles of papers I was responsible for on Demuir and Organ’s desk and said, "It’s all done."

"Huh? Already?" Demuir was surprised but happily looked over the documents I was in charge of. "Hey, maybe you should be in charge of accounting."

Organ sighed as he watched Demuir trying to hand over his major tasks to me.

"Then I’ll have to ask the Guild Director to cut you first for being a surplus manpower."

I laughed and agreed with Organ’s opinion. "That’s a good idea."

Demuir hurriedly reversed his words. "Ayy, it’s all just a joke. You know I love you, right?” He forced a bad wink and tried to act cute.

I had a rough idea of how to deal with this sly guy. Although Demuir seemed to be a slacker on the outside, he unexpectedly had a perfectionist side to him that left no gaps in his work. Now he just roughly skimmed over the completed documents, but at first, he carefully reviewed every single one of the accounting documents I helped with.

Organ put requests I classified into the drawer without even looking at them. "Thank you for your hard work. Thanks to you, work has gotten a lot easier."

On the contrary, Organ, who seemed strict, tended to be clumsier than expected. So he made quite a few mistakes.

"You don’t hate me, do you?" Demuir asked jokingly.

I laughed. "Hahaha, how could I hate my senior? But all of a sudden, I feel like I want to eat the donuts sold at the bakery just out front."

Demuir took out his wallet as if he was going to go buy it right away. “Shall I go buy it now?”

I shook my hands. "No, I was on night duty yesterday, so it’s time for me to get off work now. It’s too bad, but let’s plan on eating it tomorrow."

At that time, Flam came out of the consulting office and asked, “Oh! Are you getting off work now?” He had been working in the consulting office in place of Dano who was away on a business trip to the ruins.

“Yes. Work hard at night duty today.”

"Ahahaha. There isn’t much work to do."

Certainly, there was not much work. What was hard for me yesterday was the exhaustion from using magic all out in a long time. It wasn’t because there was a lot of work.

I packed my briefcase and got ready to go home. Just as I was about to get off work, Roseland came out and called Flam.

"Oh, I caught you as you were about to go home. Sorry about that."

I shook my head lightly at Roseland’s apology.

"No, it’s all right."

"Since you are about to go home, I’ll say it quickly." Roseland handed me and Flam an official document and said, "Dano is on a business trip to the ruins. There was an order from the Guild Director to additionally send the two newcomers, Den and Flam, on the business trip as well."

"A business trip?"

Flam and I read the official document puzzled. This document contained a brief outline, which, to sum up, was to learn the work at the ruins as part of on-site training. Of course, unless these ruins were frequently found, there were few opportunities to learn on-site.

"If the two of us leave, there will only be four of you left at the headquarters. Is that okay?"

Even now, it was already busy because Dano had left for his business trip, but with the two newcomers gone, it would definitely become crazy busy. Especially Demuir who started to feel better when I began helping. It was obvious he would get hit by work and die again.

"That’s all right. There are some guild workers who are able to do paperwork, so we will be able to temporarily fill in the gaps."

Flam nodded at Roseland. "Then that’s a relief."

Even if the holes were temporarily filled with guild workers, they would not be as efficient as Flam or I, who had learned imperial administration professionally. It wasn’t for nothing that they went through the process of selecting and teaching civil servants for professional administrative affairs in the empire.

"By the way, Demuir and Organ also haven’t had experience with these kinds of ruins, right?"

Then shouldn’t Demuir and Organ go before Flam and me?

"Oh, that’s all right. Once a year, the Adventurers’ Guild conducts training at the ruins where the excavation has been completed. Demuir and Organ have already gone and done this training."

Then can’t I do that training too?... Is what I wanted to say but Roseland kept saying that it was a good opportunity and that we should try it.

Certainly, if I do well in the actual ruins, there would probably be additional points for the personnel evaluation. But since I didn’t really care about promotions, anything was fine. More than that, since the official documents had already been sent out, I had no choice but to follow as a bottom-rung civil servant.

Roseland handed me and Flam some thin documents. "This is a list of preparations for a business trip. The things written here are the minimum, so if you need anything else, feel free to take it. But don’t take too much because you have to carry it yourself."

Roseland’s handout felt like reading a home newsletter about school trip preparations.

"But there’s a pistol listed here?"

And also at the end of the preparation document there was written- one pistol, 10 lead bullets, and 10 gunpowder bags. This was not like a home newsletter from the other world.

In fact, all civil servants associated with the Adventurers’ Guild were given a pistol, a musket, and an imperial army officer-use rapier. Of course, it was not used in ordinary times, so it was put in weapon storage and maintained once every 15 days.

For your information, my weapon numbers were Pistol P-579, Musket M-6579, and Rapier S-580.

If it turned into a war situation, members of the Adventurers’ Guild and I would wear all of our equipment and be transferred to administrative distributors to be reorganized into a reserve army unit of adventurers. Since I belonged to the headquarters, I guess I would probably be an administrative officer of a unit led by Glont, the guild director, or a platinum plate adventurer.

"Yes, it’s necessary for your own safety as there are some strange people out there looking for ruins. Pistol and other items will be given out on departure."

I could beat such strange people with my bare hands without any pistols, but I obediently nodded.

I might be the strange person too.

-o-

The prickly sunshine, which marked a warm afternoon, fell pleasantly over my head. Snow gathered in the corners of the road glistened in the sunlight.

It was still winter in January, but the weather seemed warm today. Maybe I felt cozier because others were working and I was getting off work.

On my way home from work, I didn’t go straight to the boarding house, but to the café on the market street.

When I opened the door of the café, before the clerk could even greet me, Milpia waved at me, sitting in a corner.

1. Pyeong is about 36 sq ft.