Chapter 121.
Flam and I sat quietly next to Fiona, clueless as to what to do.
If someone asked me what I was doing, I thought it would have been acceptable to reply, “Ah, yes. Just breathing.”
"Excuse me, Senior Fiona. I am curious about something. May I ask you?" Flam asked.
Fiona nodded with a caring smile. "Of course. If you have any questions, feel free to ask."
I opened then closed my mouth. For some reason, whenever someone said, “ask anything”, I wanted to see them struggle trying to answer. But it was the first day of work, so I should avoid being marked by my seniors.
Flam asked with a pretty cautious expression, "What kind of work do you usually do when you have your own major tasks?"
It was definitely important. I don’t know if it was because it was my first day at work, but I still had no grasp of the type of work I would be doing. I didn’t know if I would share the work of people who were doing various tasks or do things that I have not heard about yet. Perhaps I would be given the job of the retired civil servant who left me the books.
I didn’t know what kind of work that retired person did, but since he left, I was sure there was a vacant position.
"Well, I’m not sure. For now, you will be focusing on small things such as filing documents and managing supplies. Since we still don’t know what you guys are good at."
"I see." Flam nodded, convinced by Fiona.
Fiona clapped her hands as if she had just remembered something. "Ah, one of you two could take the counter work as your main job."
"Why is that?"
Fiona answered with a regretful smile, "Mr. Roseland’s promotion is just around the corner.”
“What will happen if he gets promoted?” Flam asked an obvious question.
"I’ll fill in Mr. Roseland’s vacancy. Then the window will be empty, so someone else will have to sit at the counter.”
Fiona’s answer suddenly made me wonder where Roseland would go if he got promoted.
"Then where will Mr. Roseland go?" Flam asked.
"If Mr. Roseland is promoted from the fifth to the fourth rank of prestige, he will either be appointed as the head of a local Adventurers’ Guild branch, or he will be on the fourth floor of the headquarters working to manage the entire Adventurers’ Guild."
Fiona said it was something to celebrate, but she looked lonely.
If I were to be promoted, I would like to be the head of a local Adventurers’ Guild. Based on what Organ explained in front of the fourth floor, it would be more comfortable to go down to the provinces.
This time I asked a question. "By the way, there are only seven people even though the Adventurers’ Guild headquarters is quite big. Won’t there be a shortage of hands with just six people after Mr. Roseland’s promotion?”
Fiona thought for a moment and replied with a lively smile, "That won’t necessarily be the case. We’re usually not too busy as our main job is connecting clients and adventurers."
Certainly, when the clients came to fill out the request forms, all they had to do was sort it out and post it on the bulletin board. Since the headquarters was in the capital, there were fewer jobs such as monster eradication and farm assistance than in the provinces.
More than half of the posts on the bulletin board were dispatch requests from the local Adventurers’ Guild asking for help because they were short of hands. The cases where clients came directly to the headquarters were few.
On the contrary, the busy ones were those in the monster by-product business, which was like the Adventurers’ Guild side job. In provincial areas, there were often cases of people not being able to afford it and the strong ones who hunted came to the capital on their own, so the by-products were being absorbed by the headquarters.
Come to think of it, this seemed to be the reason why Roseland was cutting Demuir, the troublemaker, some slack. Looking at the situation at the headquarters, the work was somewhat focused on accounting.
"Oh, come to think of it, I heard Mr. Demuir was on night duty. How does night duty work?”
There were currently seven people, so if night duty was on rotation, I would have to be on night duty once a week. That would be six people to rotate around if Roseland was promoted. But Fiona’s answer was completely different from my calculations.
"Usually, once a month for night duty. Two times if a lot.”
"It’s not once a week?”
"Yes, we employ retired adventurers at our headquarters like the branch offices. There are currently 20 guild workers, and they are also included in the rotation, so there won’t be any difficulties due to night duty.”
I cheered inwardly at Fiona’s answer.
"And it’s not necessary to be awake even on duty. You can take a nap around midnight and dawn."
"Oh, are you allowed to do that?"
Fiona smiled slightly mischievously at Flam. "The Guild Director said that there was no need to stay up all night since it wasn’t even the military. Past 11 p.m., the protective magic will be up, so even thieves wouldn’t be able to break in. Ah, perhaps it’s possible for the thief named Lupin who robbed Count Druval."
Fiona may have mentioned Lupin as a joke, but Lupin, who heard it, felt guilty and flinched.
"Ahahaha, why would Lupin rob the Adventurers’ Guild?” I said with a laugh. If I robbed this place, I might end up working overtime, so there was no way I would rob it.
If there’s anyone who would dare rob the Adventurers’ Guild, I’ll rob him of even his soul.
"Hohoho, right? Actually, there are some adventurers who live here 24 hours a day, and moreover, Guild Director and Rosellis live on the fifth floor. So even if Lupin comes, he will probably get beaten to a pulp in an instant.” Fiona laughed, pretending to flex the muscles on her thin forearm.
"Hahaha, that’s true!”
Hahaha, I wonder if that’s true? I said the opposite of what I thought and changed the subject.
"By the way, I heard Miss Rosellis call the Guild Director her father. I was surprised to hear that."
It wasn’t a topic I was particularly interested in, but it was better than the one about Lupin. However, Fiona had a lively face and clapped her hands like she was interested in the topic.
"Yes! I heard so! Actually, it’s not very well-known because she and the Guild Director don’t resemble each other much...”
Afire, Fiona constantly talked about Rosellis without a break. In hindsight, Lupin might have been better instead.
Fiona’s fan sentiment toward Rosellis not only made me and Flam sick of it but also kept adventurers who had begun to show up from getting near the counter.
"Tsk, tsk, are you new? I can’t believe you talked about Bloody Rosellis in front of Fiona. What’s your teacher doing that he didn’t even tell you about the taboo word you shouldn’t mention before her?"
The adventurer clicked his tongue and shot me a look of pity. Seems like I really screwed up.
Some adventurers went away just moments after they came in saying that today was a bust.
No, how famous are you that people are saying that today was a loss so quick?
While thinking about how to get out of this hell, I heard some unwanted information about Rosellis. She was a squire in the Black Water Buffalo Knights until the age of 17, and that she had studied under Uncle Bloody.
My goodness! She was a high school military girl. I changed the subject around to try to stop Fiona for now.
"Oh, come to think of it, there’s a holster on the uniform. Do we get a pistol supplied to us?” I took the gun holster off from my side and shook it in front of Fiona.
"Pistol? Ah, come to think of it, Rosellis-nim once took on a request to transfer 10 latest pistols and 20 muskets, and a group of bandits aimed at the empire’s military technology ambushed them. That was four years ago, or five years ago now since it’s past the new year...”
This was wrong. Whatever the topic I threw out, it’d end at Rosellis. How do we get out of this hell? The only way I knew was to impose an iron fist on the person who kept running their mouth. However, I couldn’t possibly throw a punch at a weak woman who was also my senior colleague.
If Fiona was a man, I would have punched her first and see what happened after. The devil seemed to whisper to me in the face of a dilemma. If I followed the devil’s whispers, I would be able to get out of this place safely.
However, I was hesitant about whether it would be okay to do such a thing.
"So, Rosellis-nim successfully repelled the bandits and proudly defended the pistols and muskets and returned to the capital. And with that achievement, she had fulfilled the conditions to be promoted from silver to gold plate. When adventurers meet their promotion requirements, they have to take the promotion test, and so did she. However, her promotion test opponent was...”
I can’t take it anymore. As soon as the story of defeating the bandits was over, the story of Rosellis’s promotion test began.
I’m sorry! Forgive this unfaithful friend!
"Oh! Come to think of it! Flam was childhood friends with Miss Rosellis!”
I spoke as loud and clearly as possible so that Fiona, who never stopped talking, could hear.
"Wha-what! What are you doing!?"
Flam must have realized the intention behind my words, so he pointed his finger at me. If someone else had pointed at me, I would have broken the finger-like one of the gangsters Alphonso encountered, but I decided to let it go because it was Flam.
I was only letting it go because it was Flam. It wasn’t because I felt like the hair of my conscience was being pulled out.
Fiona looked at Flam with jealous eyes. "Uu-hic!" Her fan sentiment was so crazy that even the quite tough Flam was frightened.
Fiona spoke slowly, gradually holding Flam’s hands carefully, "Rosellis-nim’s, childhood, what was it like?"
I’m gonna run away from here! I never heard there was a monster like this here!
"Don’t leave me behind!"
Flam asked me for help, but I had no choice but to swallow my tears and run away, leaving him behind.
Forgive me, Flam!
The effectiveness of my statement was better than expected as Fiona’s presence seemed to have disappeared.
Thanks to you, I was able to get out of there safely.
Maybe because I misplaced the flag, but I never imagined that running away now would have caused me to be dragged into a more annoying situation. But actually, thinking about it, was it better than dealing with a fanatic?
It was close. I was only able to run away for a little bit but I think it was better.
For reference, it was only three days later that he got away and I offered the finest aphrodisiacs to soothe the abandoned Flam.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢