episode_0002

002 – Welcome to Happy World # 2

A nymph is coming as my superior.

I dislike nymphs so much that I don’t even sleep with my head facing North.

Because both start with N.

I’d rather get fired than work under a nymph.

In that case, let’s formulate a plan.

“Marki, do you know anything about the new executive coming? You’ve worked under Charon in the Distribution Department for a long time, so you must have heard things, right?”

“Are you trying to gain points? This year’s outstanding employee will be yours again. Krates was really aiming for it, too bad for him.”

Promotion? Not at all. I’m thinking of doing the exact opposite of gaining points.

Like serving disliked food at the welcome party, or intentionally doing a bad job.

“Marki, I’ll pay for the information, so please find out for sure.”

Clink-.

I handed him a gold coin, but Marki refused.

“Joy, I owe you a lot, so if I get information, I’ll just tell you.”

The information I heard from Marki was just that the new executive was a ‘nymph’.

Honestly, this information is a little suspicious.

A nymph, a fairy of flowers, fields, mountains, and rivers, doesn’t really fit with this hellfire-filled “Happy World”, does she?

Could she have been dispatched from the surface?

Personnel changes have been frequent everywhere lately.

‘Whatever the case, the plan to get on the Nymph’s bad side and get fired remains unchanged.’

However, there was a problem.

“Joy, where are you! Joy!”

No matter what company you work for, there are always people you don’t like. And that person was generally likely to be my superior.

“Ah, there you are! Joy! Our pride! Our outstanding employee!”

This ‘skeleton’ shouting and spitting in front of me looked like a trash mob skeleton from a dungeon, but surprisingly, it wasn’t a trash mob but an elite monster.

To be precise, he was the person serving as deputy head of the “Tartarus Punishment Enforcement Department”, and everyone called him ‘Bones’.

He was a parachute landing from the headquarters, “Palace of the Underworld King”, into Tartarus, but the problem was that he genuinely believed my work ability was truly exceptional without a doubt.

‘I’d rather him curse and scold me like a wicked superior.’

He’s a skeleton with no eyes, but he keeps giving me countless tasks with expectant ‘eye-light’, it’s truly infuriating.

It seemed he was going to do so again this time.

“Joy! Have you heard about the executive who will be newly appointed to Happy World?”

“The Nymph?”

“Exactly! As expected of an outstanding employee! Lazy deceased often don’t even know where the official notice board is! It’s good that you’re so quick with news!”

Clack, clack-.

Bones, clacking his jaw, which was nothing but bone.

“Then you’ll know exactly what I’m going to have you do! You know full well that special inmate ‘R-08A’ is causing problems! We need to deal with him somehow before the executive arrives!”

Special inmates, as the name suggests, meant special prisoners.

They could be described as prominent criminals who committed monstrous crimes when they were alive.

Each one was extremely difficult to manage, so all the staff had trouble with the special inmates.

“Did that guy cause trouble again?”

“He’s the kind of guy who can’t stay quiet for a single day.”

“08A…. He’s an A-grade inmate, so no one can just approach him….”

See, everyone reacts like that.

And you’re telling me to ‘deal with’ such a special inmate?

Suddenly?

Normally, a sudden and enormous task like this would have given me a headache.

But today was different.

“Alright. I’ll make sure to correct him properly.”

“Ohh! As expected of our outstanding employee! You’re full of confidence!”

Of course, I’m full of confidence.

Because I’m intentionally planning to fail this task.

“If Joy steps forward, we can rest easy too!”

“That R-08A guy, he’s a complete swindler, he tricked our staff so many times!”

Whoa whoa whoa-.

It was a situation where expectant cheers were coming from everywhere.

The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment, so it’s even better.

If the Nymph executive sees the messed-up work as soon as she arrives? My highly-rated reputation will plummet, and the probability of me being fired will also increase.

Yes!

Yes!

Then I’ll leave this Happy World, where cockroaches are bigger than my palm, and transfer to Olympus.

Though it was a plan I devised, it was a truly brilliant scheme.

Doing a good job is difficult, but anyone can mess up and ruin things, right?

Even elementary school students could do it.

# # #

I left the Punishment Enforcement Department and headed to the actual work site where the punishments of Happy World were being carried out. It was to meet our biggest headache, special inmate “R-08A Sisyphus”.

Sisyphus.

He was a prisoner who, for tricking and deceiving various gods during his lifetime, received the punishment of eternally rolling a boulder.

The pitiful situation was that if he rolled the boulder to the mountaintop, it would roll back down, and if he brought it up to the peak again, it would roll back down again.

I felt no pity.

Considering he’s a prisoner, he’s sly and cunning, having messed with our staff multiple times.

On the one hand, I was also afraid, thinking, “If I try to escape this underworld and get caught, I’ll end up like that too.”

Anyway, the problem arose when the Underworld experienced various growing pains as it was renamed “Soul Society” due to this business innovation.

During the business innovation, new changes were also brought to the punishments prisoners endured, and the result was this.

“A boulder? Why roll something like that?”

The prominent criminal Sisyphus was lying on the ground, resting, instead of rolling the boulder up the mountain.

—Whoosh—.

—Whoosh whoosh—!

Small ghosts from the practical team were saying something beside him, but he just lay there, ignoring them and acting arrogant.

“What? I’m not pushing any boulder.”

“Everyone is working hard. I am Joy from the Punishment Enforcement Department, Team 4. So, what’s going on?”

At my appearance, the small ghosts approached and began to complain.

—Whoosh whoosh whoosh—!

Whoosh whoosh—!

They were white and tiny, looking exactly like clouds covered with a cloth, and their mumbling was quite cute.

“So, what you’re saying is that Mr. Sisyphus isn’t undergoing his proper punishment because he’s resting according to the ‘break time’ clause in the contract he recently signed, right?”

Nod, nod-!

Nod-!

The ghosts nodded their heads vigorously at my words.

And then they pointed at a burly man who looked like his brain might also be muscle.

A superhuman whose entire body had become steel-like muscle from rolling boulders every day.

The wise Sisyphus.

He looked at me and laughed, “Haha-.”

“It seems you are proficient in ‘Ghost Language’, Mr. Joy? Truly, you are like a model warden. There’s a saying, ‘Those whom ghosts follow well are no ordinary people—’.”

“Mr. Sisyphus, I am not a warden now, but an employee. Please correct your designation.”

“Look. In the end, what an employee or a warden does isn’t much different, is it? It’s just a prank where only the name has changed. Tartarus? Happy World? Who cares! If you call it something else, does this horrible hell become happy?”

For a moment, my resolve almost broke.

That the one who understood my heart the best was not my colleagues but a prisoner undergoing punishment!

“Business innovation, they say. What kind of wind has blown into this terrible hell? Mr. Joy, I completely don’t understand. How this hell is trying to change. Why on earth it’s trying to change.”

Anyway, Sisyphus was putting many field workers in difficult situations with his flashy rhetoric and sharp mind.

He was claiming a legitimate ‘break time’ and causing trouble by not rolling the boulder for a long time.

Was the ‘kinetic energy’ generated when Sisyphus rolled the large boulder being used to light the dormitory lamps of the ghost field workers working in this Tartarus… damn it, Happy World?

If Sisyphus didn’t roll the boulder, the poor ghost field workers would have to live many moments plunged in darkness. What a truly pitiful and unfortunate situation.

“Mr. Joy, I am, you see, taking a legitimate break, am I not? As signed on the new contract you gave me. Look here.”

Flap-.

The arrogant man Sisyphus showed me the dust-stained contract.

Indeed, it contained the clause: “Sisyphus shall perform his punishment as before, but shall have a 10-minute break whenever he moves the stone to the summit 5 times.”

The problem was that this contract was something I didn’t remember.

It was customary for me to personally conclude most of the prisoners’ punishment contracts and regulations, but on this particular document, the name “Bones” was written for approval, not mine.

Deputy Head Bones!

This bony fellow who’s all eagerness and no brains!

In a normal situation, it would be a true catastrophe caused by an incompetent superior.

However?

In my current situation, it was actually good.

The matter needed to snowball so much that I couldn’t handle it for things to truly go wrong.

‘If a special prisoner like Sisyphus caused trouble when an executive was coming from headquarters, the person in charge would be reprimanded. Meaning, it was the perfect situation for me to get fired.’

However, Sisyphus’s hobby was tricking employees, and he was quick-witted, so there was no telling how he would act if he caught onto my plan.

So, I decided to at least outwardly act like a proper employee.

“Mr. Sisyphus, I would like you to carry out your duties according to the contract. Or, would you not like to sign a new contract to improve your rehabilitation environment?”

“A new contract? I don’t want to. Mr. Joy, you speak as if I’m doing something wrong. I am merely taking a 10-minute break according to the regulations.”

“Mr. Sisyphus, let’s just speak openly among ourselves. Isn’t the concept of ‘time’ vague in this ‘Happy World’? Therefore, a 10-minute break is a sophistry.”

The concept of ‘time’ was only valid on the surface, so time did not flow in the underworld.

At best, only the passage of years could be vaguely guessed as seasons changed.

That’s also why Happy World employees’ commute times are not fixed.

Therefore, 10 minutes in this “Happy World” sometimes meant eternity.

In other words, Sisyphus was enjoying a 10-minute break that would last forever.

‘Deputy Head Bones, to draw up such a ridiculous contract.’

Clearly, our naive bony boss must have been played by Sisyphus.

It’s not surprising.

Sisyphus was a fellow with a history of deceiving both the ‘highest’ and ‘lowest’ people, so tricking a skeleton like Bones would have been no trouble at all for him.

“Mr. Sisyphus, this is my final warning. If you don’t sign a new contract with me, our last goodwill might disappear?”

Please refuse!

“A warning? How amusing. Mr. Joy, I am very curious to see how you will react. Then until then, shall I continue to enjoy my 10-minute break? My eternal 10-minute break, that is.”

Sisyphus acted arrogantly, as if his pride had been scratched.

Good—good—!

I cheered inwardly, but pretended to be unconcerned and spoke.

“Alright. For now, I’ll have to acknowledge Mr. Sisyphus’s break time. Because the contents of the contract are absolute. Even if it were the great ‘CEO’, this cannot be denied.”

“Haha, so you finally understand my intentions?”

“Instead, absolutely, no matter what happens, Mr. Sisyphus must not roll the boulder during his break time. You understand? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely! Absolutely not!”

Even though I firmly warned him, I felt uneasy for some reason.

A plan is always better the more meticulous it is.

As I was pondering various things, a brilliant idea popped into my head.

‘How about setting the stage completely for Sisyphus to rest comfortably? Of course, by draining the department’s budget recklessly!’

Let’s do it!

As I prepared a gift for Sisyphus, Krates, the elite employee of Team 1, couldn’t hide his sneer at me.

“You’re even giving a valuable gift to Sisyphus, who’s just goofing off? How foolish! It seems the pressure was too great with his impending promotion to deputy manager. This is why commoners are—.”

Deputy Head Bones also clacked his remaining teeth and grabbed my shoulder, shaking me.

“Joy! What on earth are you thinking?! To use all the remaining budget for a gift for a prisoner! At this rate, we won’t even be able to have a celebratory reception to welcome the executive who will arrive soon!”

“I have it all planned, so don’t worry.”

The die has been cast.

I shall cross not the Rubicon, but the River Styx, and go to that glorious Olympus!

# # #

On the day the executive was appointed.

Krates, who had been a prince of Phoenicia and became an employee of Happy World after death, walked with light steps towards the bulletin board where the promotion list was posted.

‘That Joy guy, to try to become a deputy manager surpassing me, who worked 50 years longer than him, despite being only his second year on the job, he’s truly despicable. But, since he got caught by that troublesome Sisyphus, his career is now over.’

For the offense of failing to guide Sisyphus, Joy might not be promoted but instead lose his job.

Being fired from Happy World, literally a “god-tier workplace”, was humiliation itself.

The smile vanished from Krates’ handsome face, who had thought he would thoroughly mock the face stained with defeat.

Candidate for Deputy Manager Promotion – Punishment Enforcement Department, Team 4, Joy

Reason – Successfully Guided Special Management Inmate Sisyphus

“Th-this is… What! This makes no sense!”

What on earth happened?!

Krates was so surprised that he felt like his breath stopped.

Even though he was already dead!