episode_0044

The headquarters building is large and magnificent.

The grand auditorium prepared within the company building was especially enormous.

Standing in front of the packed crowd that filled the place, my stomach felt like it was twisting.

“The aforementioned employee Joy successfully recovered the lost divine artifact ‘Kyunee’ and greatly contributed to the restoration of the Soul Society’s honor. Therefore, in high recognition of his achievements, he is appointed as assistant manager and awarded.”

*Rustle*.

Melinoye nim extended a certificate of commendation to me.

“Chairman Hades. Acting Reader Executive Melinoye.”

If I accept this, I will become an assistant manager at the headquarters.

In terms of a subsidiary, it’s a department head-level position.

Department head.

The pinnacle of middle management.

To think I would reach such a rank.

‘My stomach is churning!’

What would happen if I refused this certificate of commendation?

Might I face disciplinary action or dismissal for being deemed resentful?

I entertained such thoughts for a moment, but it was a foolish thing to do.

In this auditorium, there were several executives present.

Refusing the CEO’s award in such a place would likely result in punishment beyond dismissal, as it would be seen as disregarding divine authority.

─Everyone, let’s beat that despicable fellow!

─Transform into a cockroach, poof!

Perhaps I might turn into a horrible hell cockroach.

Reality was a bitter truth.

“Joy, what are you doing? Hurry and accept it.”

“…Thank you.”

Clap clap clap clap clap—.

Applause and cheers.

Amidst the blessings of many people, the certificate of commendation ceremony successfully concluded.

Upon returning to the audit team’s office.

As I hesitated, afraid to open the firmly closed door, someone gave my back a firm push.

“Why is today’s protagonist being so shy and dawdling? You should go inside.”

It was Senior Managing Director Alecto nim.

Soon, I was pushed by an irresistible pressure and entered the office.

Soon, from all directions, burdensome gazes and cheers were directed at me.

“Amazing, rookie!”

“Kyunee, that’s the treasure of treasures that the Chairman cherishes, isn’t it!”

“To think you found it and returned it!”

“I heard you exploited the loopholes of a ghost company, raided them for an audit, and uncovered corruption?”

What is everyone talking about?

It was truly dizzying.

Soon, Alecto nim said something.

“Joy, has it already been four days since you joined the audit team? You’re probably the only person who became an assistant manager from a regular employee in just four days. Even I, who entered as a parachute employee with noble lineage, couldn’t do that.”

*Gesturing*.

Alecto nim pointed at Assistant Manager Narcissus with a gesture of her chin.

“Assistant Manager Narcissus. Please move your desk for Assistant Manager Joy.”

“What? Me? But, but this window seat is a spot I barely managed to secure! It took me no less than 300 years to get here, from that crappy seat by the entrance to this prime spot!”

The headquarters has a strict hierarchy.

Employees below the assistant manager level didn’t even have personal desks.

Moreover, even when one becomes an assistant manager, it’s customary to start with a seat close to the office entrance, where cold drafts constantly blow in whenever the door is opened and closed.

But I didn’t go through such a process.

It seemed Alecto nim was trying to take Assistant Manager Narcissus’s prime seat and give it to me, who had just been promoted to assistant manager.

Of course, from Assistant Manager Narcissus’s perspective, having a well-used seat suddenly taken away would feel unfair.

“I don’t even know what situation this is right now. Didn’t Joy say he was going to audit an illegal passage leading to the surface yesterday? But then suddenly, Kyunee appears….”

You don’t know what’s going on.

Me neither.

However, Alecto nim was angry.

“How dare you talk back to an executive’s command? Do you want a taste of punishment? I can instantly turn you into a hell cockroach.”

“Assistant Manager Joy! From now on, this is your seat! I’ll just sit in that far-off spot near the entrance where drafts constantly blow in whenever the door is opened and closed! I like the wind naturally! Hahaha!”

*Placing*.

Assistant Manager Narcissus placed his hand on my shoulder.

His gaze, felt from his seemingly smiling narrow eyes, was somehow piercing.

“Assistant Manager Joy, then I’d appreciate it if you could explain in detail what happened yesterday to our colleagues.”

# # #

Rewinding time to last night.

I clearly prostrated myself before the Chairman.

“It is entirely my fault for discovering a secret passage and not reporting it to the Safety Management Team! So please, punish me! I will take responsibility and resign!”

Checkmate!

Although I couldn’t go to the surface through the secret passage.

Since I confessed my audacious criminal act to the Chairman, I would surely be fired.

“…Wait!”

But the Chairman interrupted my story.

“Whether that passage is dangerous enough to threaten the safety of this Soul Society, I, the Chairman, will personally determine.”

*Striding*.

The Chairman, with his massive build, walked ahead.

And then he stopped in front of a certain puddle.

As he extended his foot into the puddle, strangely, his shoe didn’t get wet; instead, his leg slid deeply in as if plunging into a deep place.

“This is a rift of chaos! The miraculous fragments scattered by the primordial god Chaos when creating the world sometimes exist throughout the Soul Society, creating such rifts. Where does it lead?”

*Whoosh*.

The Chairman entered the rift.

I followed him in.

Soon, a lake reflecting the moonlight and stars high in the night sky became visible.

*Whoosh*.

The surface, where cool breezes blew.

The scent of the outside world.

As I saw the surface for the first time in years, I felt as if tears would well up.

The fresh air on the surface is indeed on a different level compared to that underground.

And what about the moonlight?

No matter how brightly the fake sun underground shines, it can’t compare to the warmth of real moonlight.

But then.

The Chairman subtly kicked aside the fishing rod that was placed by the lakeside.

What’s with the fishing rod?

“It’s an ordinary place. It doesn’t seem very dangerous. At this level, there’s no need to specifically report it to the Safety Management Team. It seems I, the Chairman, can handle it myself!”

“…….”

“What’s with that look?! Yes! It’s just as you suspected! This is my secret fishing spot that I discovered a while ago! A place for men only, where I can be free from my wife! You knew that, which is why you didn’t report it, didn’t you!”

How perplexing.

To think this lakeside on the surface was the Chairman’s secret fishing spot.

And the Chairman seemed to think that I already knew that fact, which was why I hadn’t reported it to the Safety Management Team.

“You, Joy, how dare you demand an award from me as payment for your silence? How dare a lowly mortal like you try to cut a deal with me, the Chairman of this Soul Society! You despicable fellow!”

“No, I have no intention of dealing with the Chairman!”

“What? If you don’t intend to deal with me, then who do you intend to deal with? If you’re thinking of telling my wife about my secret fishing spot, stop! You cruel fellow!”

The Chairman only heard what he wanted to hear.

He only said what he wanted to say.

Doesn’t that remind you of someone?

It’s Melinoye nim.

So it was Melinoye nim who resembled the Chairman.

“Alright. Joy. I will promote you now that you’ve come to the headquarters. No one has ever been promoted to assistant manager just four days after being assigned to the headquarters. It’s an unprecedented achievement that no mortal has ever accomplished. I shall give that to you!”

“No, I don’t need such an achievement!”

“What? Are you saying this isn’t enough?”

The Chairman’s eyes flashed menacingly as he looked at me, as if I were contemptible.

At that moment, I instinctively knew.

That if I refused this offer, I would become a hell cockroach.

So, when I remained silent, the Chairman thrust his arm into the air and pulled something out.

“This is Kyunee. It’s the item my son Zagreus used when he ran away from home to avoid the eyes of the guards. It’s a divine artifact of the Soul Society that makes the wearer transparent.”

*Display*.

The Chairman pulled out a helmet shaped like a crown.

If it’s ‘Kyunee,’ isn’t it an item symbolic of a ‘CEO’ in myths?

To think the day would come when I’d see the genuine article; it was interesting even in this situation.

Soon, Department Head Bones, who had been trembling, was greatly surprised.

“Kyunee…!? Isn’t that the item that Prince Zagreus nim was said to have lost somewhere in the Soul Society the last time he ran away from home?”

“That’s what was known. But I found it again. It has a GPS function, so I actually know where this Kyunee is. I created a ghost company and hid this Kyunee there.”

“Uh, why would you do something like that….”

“Men sometimes have times when they want to disappear without others knowing. Bones, you’re a married man, so you’ll understand my feelings, won’t you? Let it be known that you, Joy, recovered this Kyunee.”

“Me?”

“Yes, most of the expenses from the ghost company I created are for electricity to charge this Kyunee. Most of those expense documents are fabricated. I will hand over those fabricated documents to you.”

*Flutter*.

The Chairman pulled out a bundle of papers from thin air.

Indeed, it seemed the Chairman had been wearing the transparent helmet and wandering around every night to enjoy his fishing hobby.

Kyunee, known to have disappeared simultaneously with Prince Zagreus’s running away from home. Who would have ever thought the Chairman was wearing it to go night fishing?

Furthermore, the Chairman had even established a nominal ghost company to charge the Kyunee.

However, he thought I had discovered that fact.

He was trying to make a deal: he would give me the glory of recovering Kyunee if I kept silent about the secret fishing spot.

How could such a thing happen?

Of course.

These facts had to be kept secret from everyone.

I was merely a hero who, while auditing the suspicious expenditure details of a paper company, discovered excessive power consumption, tracked it down, and recovered Kyunee—.

That’s how it turned out.

“Who on earth hid the Chairman’s treasure, Kyunee, in a ghost company, and for what reason?”

“Weren’t they the rebels? They were stirring up trouble.”

“Kyunee was lost by Prince Zagreus, wasn’t it? And Assistant Manager Joy of our audit team recovered it. In a way, the audit team cleaned up Prince Zagreus’s mess, striking him right in the face!”

“That feels so satisfying!”

It was the fourth day since my assignment to the headquarters.

It was also true that I had been an outsider in the audit team until then.

This place was a hostile territory to me from the start.

It was natural to be disliked.

Except for Assistant Manager Narcissus, who became my superior, no one even spoke to me.

─No matter how much of an ace he is, isn’t he just a subsidiary’s deputy department head?

─There are more than one or two people who were doing well at subsidiaries but then stumbled after coming to the headquarters.

─Shush, he’ll hear.

─Let him hear.

I also heard many whispered conversations behind my back.

But?

Now, in everyone’s gaze directed at me, there was recognition and admiration.

“Indeed, he’s worthy of being noticed by the Chairman.”

“People from ‘Happy World’ are indeed thorough.”

“Did you see the Safety Management Team guys’ expressions in the auditorium earlier? They looked completely like they’d bitten into something bitter!”

“Assistant Manager Joy! It seems I misunderstood you. Let’s get along well as one family from now on!”

Why did it turn out like this?

And, why was Department Head Bones going in and out of the surface in the first place?

It doesn’t seem like he wanted to fish in the lake either.

# # #

Department Head Bones was watering the flower bed at the Happy World company building.

As I approached, his eye-light shone faintly.

“Assistant Manager Joy, congratulations on your promotion. An assistant manager at headquarters is either equivalent to or higher than a department head like me at a subsidiary. I knew you would become like that. I’ve never seen such an excellent man like you, you see.”

“Department Head Bones. Did you also know that the Chairman enjoys fishing there?”

“I swear on the River Styx, I didn’t know. I discovered that rift just recently. On the day you brought me cactus kimchi.”

“That day?”

“That day you exuded such a deputy department head-level aura that all the hell cockroaches lingering in the Happy World company building scattered in all directions and fled.”

The eye-light within his hollowed-out skull became lost in thought.

His explanation was as follows.

The day I previously discovered a huge gold vein in front of the company building.

He said that while digging around the gold vein, he discovered a tunnel full of hell cockroaches.

He said there were too many hell cockroaches, making access impossible, so he decided to just ignore them.

But when I came back after eating a lot of cactus kimchi.

All the bugs in the tunnel also fled.

Department Head Bones became curious about what was in that tunnel, so he revisited the location.

He said that instead of bugs, it was filled with water.

“I knew it was a rift connected to the surface. I was going to enter it myself to report it to the Safety Management Team. But….”

Department Head Bones headed towards the rift.

I followed him.

A lakeside with beautiful trees planted.

The high-rising sun shone dazzlingly.

Where on earth could this place be?

How far is it from my home?

Still, it must be closer to our home than the deep Soul Society.

As I was thinking that, Department Head Bones touched a tree with his hand.

“These laurel trees are my wife Boni and my daughter Libby. To think that a rift to the surface, formed by chance, was connected to the lakeside where my daughter and wife are. What a coincidence…”

The trees are his daughter and wife?

To think Department Head Bones had such an unusual preference for loving trees!

Truly a shocking confession!

And I subtly withdrew my hand that had been stroking the tree’s smooth surface.

Hoping I hadn’t just caressed the Madam.

So, does that mean I stroked the daughter?

That would be equally strange, though.

Ahem.

I opened my mouth to escape the awkward feeling.

“Department Head Bones, it’s unlikely you married a tree. Could you please explain what happened?”