Ch.253[Chapter 253] Peaceful Daily Life

“Oppa!”

“Huh.”

Sir Dominic detected the sound from behind him and simultaneously drew his sword, brushing away the approaching hand.

The tip of Sir Dominic’s sword touched the forehead of the person behind him.

“O-oppa? What are you doing?”

Remi, Sir Dominic’s younger sister who had spotted him from afar and was running toward him, raised both arms and shouted when suddenly faced with the tip of a sword.

Sir Dominic stared blankly at Remi who had approached him from behind for a while, then sheathed his sword.

“I’m sorry. I suddenly had an ominous feeling…”

Sir Dominic took deep breaths, trying to regulate his disturbed breathing.

“Are you okay?”

Remi thought about scolding Sir Dominic but soon noticed something was off about his condition and began to worry.

“I’m fine. Anyway, what brings you here?”

Sir Dominic asked why Remi was at the Executive branch.

As far as Sir Dominic knew, Remi was a researcher affiliated with the Black Company, and he didn’t think she had any particular reason to come to the Executive branch.

At Sir Dominic’s question, Remi awkwardly scratched her fluffy, wool-like brown hair.

“Actually, I’m involved in this incident.”

“Involved?”

Sir Dominic looked at Remi with surprised eyes.

Seeing his expression, Remi realized that Sir Dominic was misunderstanding.

“Ah, no. Not as a culprit or anything like that. Just as a witness… yes, a witness. I have to testify about the situation at that time.”

“Ah.”

Sir Dominic nodded.

Instead of questioning Remi further, he began to ask about her well-being.

“By the way, when you say you’re involved, does that mean you were nearby?”

“Yes. I was passing by the area at the time. Well, I wasn’t caught up in it though. But why are you here, oppa?”

“I’m a victim of that anomaly. Well, I also came to pay taxes while I’m at it.”

“A victim?”

Remi shouted at Sir Dominic in surprise.

Her voice was so loud that people in the Executive branch lobby turned to look at Sir Dominic and Remi.

Ignoring their gazes, Remi continued speaking loudly to Sir Dominic.

“Where were you? I heard the range of this anomaly wasn’t that wide, so I should have seen you!”

Remi had passed through the pixelated area by temporarily increasing the resolution.

Since Remi’s path was somewhere in the middle of where the incident occurred, unless Sir Dominic was completely at the edge, there was no way she wouldn’t have seen him.

Just as Remi was trying to deduce if he might have been at the edge…

“Well. I suddenly returned from being pixelated to normal, then fell through the floor.”

Ah.

Hearing Sir Dominic’s words, Remi turned her head away for a moment.

Surely it couldn’t be that the floor had broken because she increased the resolution without applying anti-aliasing…

Remi broke into an unprecedented amount of cold sweat in panic, but fortunately, thanks to turning her head, her fluffy wool-like hair concealed her face from Sir Dominic’s view.

“Well, let’s stop talking about this. By the way, did you say you came to the Executive branch to testify about the situation at that time? Where are you doing that?”

Fortunately for Remi, Sir Dominic changed the subject.

Sir Dominic had fallen into Glitchburg because of that incident.

Having suffered considerably in Glitchburg, Sir Dominic had decided not to think about anything related to it.

And that decision was a stroke of luck for Remi.

Breathing a sigh of relief without Sir Dominic noticing, Remi immediately answered his question.

“Right over there. Two people just went in, so I’m waiting for my turn. It looks like it might take a while, so I was going to get a drink.”

Remi pointed to a small door nearby.

The door had a nameplate that read [Interrogation Room cum Questioning Room cum Testimony Room cum Ice Cream Production Room cum Kebab Skewer Storage Room]. Sir Dominic thought the first three were related, but the last two seemed random.

“Actually, if your testimony time overlaps with mealtime, they give you kebabs and ice cream. They used to bring them from elsewhere, but the hallways got too crowded, so they just combined everything.”

“I was curious, so I asked the lady in the lobby,” Remi added.

“Anyway, you said you came to pay taxes, right?”

“Ah.”

Sir Dominic recalled his original purpose at Remi’s words.

“It seems like the people who went in first are about to finish their testimonies, so you go ahead. I’ll rest a bit and have a drink.”

“Alright. See you later then.”

“Yeah. See you later.”

Sir Dominic bid farewell to Remi and left.

He waved his hand until Remi disappeared from his sight as he climbed the stairs.

Remi also waved until Sir Dominic disappeared, drinking the beverage in her hand.

“Ugh, my goodness. That was exhausting.”

“That was the most thorough questioning I’ve experienced since the Heresy Inquisitor.”

“Oh? You’re already done?”

Remi looked at Arkus and Ogreson who had come out of the testimony room.

Arkus and Ogreson shuddered as if disgusted by the persistence and thoroughness of the staff in the testimony room.

“By the way, why are you waving your hand?”

Ogreson asked, looking at Remi who was still waving her hand with a puzzled expression.

“Ah, I just met my oppa.”

“Your oppa… could it be…”

“Sir Dominic?”

Arkus and Ogreson shouted in surprise.

“Ah.”

Remi let out a sigh as if she had just realized something.

Arkus and Ogreson knew that Remi was Sir Dominic’s sister.

And Arkus and Ogreson were people whose wish was to see Sir Dominic up close just once.

“W-where is Sir Dominic? Where is he, I say!”

“Calm down.”

“Seeing you wave, he must have been nearby, right? This is no time to waste. We must go see him right—”

“I said calm down!”

Arkus was so excited about Sir Dominic being nearby that he didn’t know what to do.

Ogreson was trying to hold Arkus back to prevent him from going berserk, but despite his skinny build, Arkus displayed incredible strength from who knows where.

Seeing this, Remi sighed.

“I should have asked him to wait a little longer.”

It was a mistake not to think of these two when she was flustered by Sir Dominic’s mention of being caught in the anomaly.

Thinking this, Remi escaped into the testimony room to avoid the chaos.

Arkus’s rampage continued until the security guards of the Executive branch came and chased him out.

…

“Yes. Your payment is complete. You don’t need to come in person next time.”

Sir Dominic had paid his taxes at the tax office he had reached by following a map.

The tax office employee received the goods Sir Dominic handed over along with his character card to verify his identity, and typed something into the computer.

“What do you mean I don’t need to come next time?”

“It’s basically automatic payment. You only need to come in person the first time to verify your identity and set up the automatic payment link.”

“I see.”

Sir Dominic nodded.

“Oh, right. Just a moment.”

The tax office employee reached under the desk.

The employee began to rummage around under the desk as if looking for something.

Sir Dominic stared at the employee, wondering what they were trying to do.

Suddenly, Sir Dominic felt his senses heighten and time seemed to slow down.

The employee was pulling something out from under the desk with a deeply furrowed brow, and judging by how it slightly glinted in the light, it seemed to be made of metal.

In the slowly passing time, Sir Dominic continued to watch the employee.

As the employee finally pulled their hand out from under the desk, Sir Dominic could finally deduce what the object in the employee’s hand was—it was shaped like a gun.

Sir Dominic’s nerves were on edge once again.

Before the employee could fully draw the gun, Sir Dominic grabbed the shield on his back and raised it like a wall between himself and the employee.

With a bang! sound, a brief flash of light sparked from the gun in the employee’s hand.

“Congratulations! You’re the 100,000th taxpayer this year… Huh?”

The employee had set off a gun-shaped firecracker to announce that Sir Dominic had won an event.

Until just now, they hadn’t realized, but a colleague nearby had signaled them to let them know.

So the employee who set off the event firecracker noticed that Sir Dominic in front of them had raised his shield with sharp eyes.

Sir Dominic stared at the employee for a long time, surrounded by paper confetti flying from the exploding firecracker, then suddenly, as if time was flowing properly again, he inhaled with a “huh” sound.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would be so startled…”

The employee put down the gun-shaped firecracker with an embarrassed expression.

“No, no. It seems I overreacted.”

Sir Dominic apologized to the employee while catching his breath.

Why was he acting like this?

Sir Dominic felt like his senses were malfunctioning today.

He clenched and unclenched his hand, looking down at his palm with his head bowed.

Something was wrong with his body.