episode_0002

[The EX-rank gate conquest, which was carried out with the full cooperation of the Three Great Guilds and the Giant Guild through the Association, has succeeded. However, as a result of this conquest, the world’s top three heroes, ‘Dain Adamas’, ranked 1st in the World Hero Rankings, ‘Mire Ryuin’, ranked 2nd, and ‘Mei Luina’, ranked 3rd, have fallen into an unconscious state due to serious injuries. The Association has announced that they will hold a press conference as soon as the treatment of the three heroes is completed…]

In the emergency room, every eye was focused on the urgent news coming from the TV.

The EX-rank gate, the worst crisis for humanity that opens once every few centuries.

When the EX-gate was first detected at the Gate Observation Station, it seemed like the end of the world as described in the records, but fortunately, the conquest seemed to have ended successfully.

“Wow, those three are unconscious? Was that gate really as dangerous as they say, like some kind of lunatic?”

It’s an undeniable loss that the world’s three most powerful heroes have come out unconscious, but still… it’s fortunate that they managed to conquer the EX-rank gate, a legend that had only been passed down in stories.

“The EX-rank gate is said to be so dangerous that each time it opened, it caused an era to collapse. I think it’s actually amazing that they succeeded.”

“That’s true. Anyway, those three will receive intensive care and get up from their beds soon enough. If it was a real emergency, they would have been brought here before the news even came out.”

That’s right. If it had been a real emergency, we would have received the three heroes as patients before this news even aired.

Because this is a national public Awakening Users’ exclusive emergency room.

It was equipped with the best personnel and facilities, where emergency Awakening User patients from all over the world come.

“You’re right. Just the fact that they didn’t come here means it’s not a serious matter. Oh, by the way, youngest one. Have you checked the anesthetics and painkillers that came in today for any defects?”

“Oh, I haven’t done it yet. I had something else to do first…”

“You haven’t done it yet?”

And I am the youngest in this emergency room.

It’s not that I’m lacking in skills, as I’ve been working here for four years already.

Due to the extremely demanding nature of my job, when a new subordinate arrives, they usually leave within half a day if it’s short, or two days if it’s long. There’s no time to hear any youngest member complaints.

“This guy is leaving and… Hey, did you eat enough for your break? Even if you did, you’re just the youngest. You, I hope you drown in the ramen broth I spilled at the locker room!”

“I’m sorry! I’ll quickly go and check it!”

But what can I do? Even after four years, I’m still the youngest. If the seniors criticize, I have to take it.

For the 60,000th time this month, I pondered inwardly about wanting to quit, and I headed straight to the warehouse.

I really want to quit. I want to escape from this hellish place.

Unconsciously forgetting about the three S-class heroes in my head, I entered the warehouse with a broken light bulb, dreaming of quitting, which I couldn’t do.

Days passed so dreadfully that I found myself dreaming of quitting or even suicide every day, and before I knew it, a month had passed.

※

“Hey, you here? Youngest. You’ve been reassigned. Just go to the new workplace I’m about to tell you.”

“Yes?”

After barely sleeping for three hours and arriving at work in a daze, the team leader, who should have been hitting on his subordinates and preparing snacks in the locker room, greeted me from the emergency room entrance.

With an incomprehensible sight and an incomprehensible reassignment, my brain, still booting up, struggled to understand the team leader’s words.

“For now, they’ll guide you once you get there. You’ve done well so far, keep it up there too. Alright, then go.”

After the abrupt and concise reassignment notice, the team leader handed me a note and went into the emergency room.

“What the heck…”

This is beyond sudden, isn’t it? It’s worse than a prison, but this kind of reassignment is a bit…

Thinking that, I opened the note the team leader gave me to see its contents.

“Special Ward Top Floor… VVIP Room?”

Something seemed off.

※

“Oh, you’re here.”

Upon arriving at the location specified in the note, a woman in a black suit stood in front of the VVIP room and greeted me.

“Sigh… What a hassle since dawn.”

The woman didn’t greet me warmly. Behind her sunglasses, she wore an expression that seemed to convey how annoying it was to even bother showing any sign of welcome.

“You’re Mr. Stay, right? Working in the emergency room.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“I’m Niss. I work in the Central Information Division of the Association.”

Introducing herself as Niss, the woman took out a document from her bag and handed it to me. However, even as I looked at the document, I couldn’t move a finger.

The Central Information Division? Why would they summon me from there?

The division she belonged to was one of the places modern Awakened Ones feared the most, where nothing could be leaked, carrying out the Association’s dark side without hesitation for the sake of its goals. It was a place that even large guilds, regarded as possessing power equivalent to that of a country, tried to avoid. The fact that they had come looking for me from such a place meant they knew everything about me, from the moment I was born to what I saw yesterday and even the fight I had with my daughter.

One of the reasons the Central Information Division could maintain its reputation was its thorough investigation of everything about the target before taking action. So why did they come looking for someone like me, a mere F-rank Awakened One drowning in debt, someone who wanted to quit every day but refrained from doing so for fear of facing laundry duty if he did?

“Hey, Mr. Stay. Are you not going to take it?”

“Oh, yes, I will!”

Startled by Niss’s irritated voice, I quickly snatched the document from her hand.

Just as I was about to check the contents, fearing she might rush me with “Aren’t you going to read it?” Niss handed me a pen over the document, preventing me from seeing what was written.

“I’ll explain it quickly, so you don’t need to read it. There’s no time to wait for you to read it. Just sign and listen. You have no choice other than to sign.”

“What? What on earth…”

“My affiliation is with the Central Intelligence Bureau, right? You should have a rough idea. You’ve already known that you’ve incurred an enormous debt that you can never repay unless you’re in this job. If you don’t sign those documents, you’ll be fired from this job. In that case, you’ll probably end up living a life where you periodically give up your organs to the expensive awakening organ storage of the loan sharks.”

“······.”

Such indifferent and swift words, lacking even a hint of consideration. But since she didn’t say anything wrong, I had no choice but to take the pen from Niece. There was no other option for me.

“It’s good that it seems you understand. By the way, there’s no reason for you to feel hostility towards me. You and I won’t meet after today, and the contents of the relocation contract written on those documents will be quite favorable for you.”

“Favorable?”

“Yes, just sign it quickly; you’re going to do it anyway.”

She’s right. If I don’t sign, I’ll be fired from my job, so ultimately, I have no choice but to sign. Yeah, if you can’t avoid it, you just have to accept it coolly. As Niece started to sign the document she handed over, she began explaining the contents of the document as she saw my reaction.

“From now on, your job will be to care for three awakeners. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t cause any trouble, so you don’t need to worry about that. All three of them are plant people.”

“······Pardon?”

“You probably know these people. You’ve met them before. Mei Luina, Dain Adamas, Mir Ryuin. You know them, right? Well, it may not be a pleasant connection from your perspective, but… still, we’ll pay you double your original salary, so it’s okay, right?”

Upon hearing the names of the three people I had to care for, I couldn’t help but doubt my ears. But when I glanced down to briefly check the contents of the document, I realized that their names were also written there. The world’s number one hero, Dain Adamas.”

World Hero Ranking 2nd, Mir Ryu-in.

World Hero Ranking 3rd, Mei Luina.

Even for those who are not Awakened, they should naturally know the world’s greatest and mightiest heroes living in the same era.

These three individuals, who successfully conquered an EX-rank gate that could have brought about the world’s destruction at the cost of their own lives, were wielding such tremendous influence that they had earned the title of saviors of humanity. However, the problem was that they had become plant-human hybrids.

“Over the past month, the Association, along with the world’s major guilds and the Holy See, cooperated to seek a cure, but ultimately failed. It seems that these three will have to spend their lives as plant-human hybrids. Even the Holy See, which reveres Hero Mei Luina as a saint, has confirmed the impossibility of their recovery, so there will be no reversal of this fact.”

“I see…”

“Although they have become essentially plant-human hybrids, it doesn’t change the fact that these three are the heroes who saved humanity. Therefore, it has been decided that the highest level of aftercare services available at a national level will be provided to them.”

Mei Luina, Dain Adamas, and Mir Ryu-in were not particularly outstanding individuals by human standards, or frankly speaking, they were quite eccentric people. Nevertheless, they were the heroes who saved the world. That’s why I nodded in agreement with what Niece said.

“Well, that’s true. It’s a fact that these three are the heroes who saved humanity… Huh? The best aftercare?”

Suddenly, something in her words struck me as odd.

“Why would someone like me receive the best aftercare?”

In response to my question, Niece answered as if it were obvious.

“That’s because you work in the national public Awakened-exclusive emergency room.”

“Huh? What on earth…”

“It’s been four years since you’ve worked flawlessly in that hellish place, proving that you are the best service we can offer to our three heroes. Did you not know? Do you know how the emergency room is evaluated among the Awakened individuals?”

It was a new revelation for me. To me, working at the national public Awakened-only emergency room was like reaching the edge of a cliff just before plunging into the hell where life had completely fallen apart.

“People in general call those who work in that emergency room examples of self-sacrifice. Of course, those who know the truth about the employees couldn’t say such a thing… Nevertheless, it’s an unchanging fact that public opinion remains favorable.”

“Unbelievable.”

“That’s why you caught our eye while working in that emergency room. How about it? Do you now understand why we chose you as the caregiver for those three individuals?”

After hearing Nis’s explanation, I honestly couldn’t quite comprehend how that dreadful emergency room received such evaluations from the public, but somehow, I did understand.

Certainly, to someone who knows nothing, we might appear incredibly impressive working in the emergency room. I never knew that we were receiving such evaluations for working all our time, sleeping only three hours a day, and without any days off.

However, despite all that, there was one question that seemed unlikely to be resolved without asking. So, I confidently asked Nis.

“But I was the youngest among the people in the emergency room. Why on earth was I chosen?”

In response to my question, Nis smirked and replied as if it were obvious.

“You said it yourself. Because you’re the youngest. You can think of it as being assigned the grunt work in professional terms.”

The reason for selecting a caregiver for the three heroes who saved the world was so realistic yet absurd.

“Anyway, I’ve roughly finished the important explanation, so from now on, I’ll start explaining the duties you must uphold while caregiving. I won’t repeat myself, so listen carefully the first time.”

And thus began the explanation of the duties I had to uphold while doing Nis’s caregiving job.

“Until those three people recover. Until then, I will devote myself to this matter. That’s what you need to uphold.”

It ended so simply. Just as I was about to raise a question mark above my head at her explanation, which was far simpler than I had anticipated, Niece’s explanation continued a little further.

It was an explanation about the penalties that would occur if one failed to fulfill their duties.

“By the way, this is an unavoidable obligation from the moment you sign the documents. If you fail to uphold it, our Central Information Bureau will designate you as an enemy. A criminal who abandoned the heroes who saved the world. We will manipulate public opinion, attributing both true and false crimes to you, and issue an immediate termination.”

“······.”

“Well, the salary is double, and the intensity of the work isn’t that high. You could just think of it as having a lifelong job, maybe?”

As someone who had dreamed of paying off debts, quitting, and opening a café in a quiet neighborhood, these were not comforting words for me.

Even the Vatican had hammered in that there was no chance of recovery, so essentially they were telling me to live as a caretaker for those three until they die······.

“Well, that’s all I have to say. Now, any events that occur while caregiving are entirely your responsibility, so please work diligently with a sense of duty.”

Having finished speaking, regardless of whether I was in despair or not, Niece took the employment contract from my hand and left the room as it was.

Alone in the corridor, I keenly felt why the seniors had assigned this task to me, the lowest of the low.

“To be enslaved just because I’m the lowest of the low······. To live my whole life as a caregiver for vegetable humans······.”

This is my life legend, for real.