“Team Leader.”
“What is it this time? What are you going to talk about to say you don’t want to work?”
“…It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it?”
The office was quiet, with no work to do and not many heroes stopping by today either.
In that situation, while I was continuing with my tasks, a concern regarding Saran came up, and because of that, I had no choice but to call the team leader.
Unlike other people, in Saran’s case… the number of people I could discuss this with was truly limited.
“There’s something I need to talk about regarding Saran. Do you have a moment?”
“Saran? Hmm… Well, I’m free right now. Will it take long?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, then it should be fine.”
After bringing the team leader from the office to the meeting room, I handed her several reports.
All of them were about Saran.
They weren’t reports I was going to officially upload, and there were only a few pages I had personally written about Saran, but in order to move the conversation along smoothly, I needed to show her these.
“These are reports on Saran? The ones you were working on last time?”
“Yes.”
“This one is… just a brief opinion on her current state, the next one is about a method of resolution, and after that are notes on the improvements she’s shown… Why?”
The team leader skimmed through them lightly.
After all, simply showing her those probably wouldn’t have been enough for her to guess exactly what I was trying to talk about.
Once she had read through all the documents, I handed her one more sheet of paper with only a single title written on it.
“…Establishing Goals for Resolving the Issues of the Hero Black Viper?”
“Yes. I need a bit of help with that.”
“What is this? Something you made on your own?”
“It’s just something I tried sketching out on a small scale. Recently, while helping Miss Bathory… the rookie hero I told you about before, I thought designing goals was a pretty good method. I figured it might be worth applying to Saran too.”
“Hmmm….”
It was exactly as the title said.
Creating a goal for Saran to help resolve her issues, like in Bathory’s case.
In Bathory’s case, the goal was to raise her hero ranking to C-rank so she could use her ability and receive a costume convenient for hero activities.
But in Saran’s case… it was quite difficult to create that kind of goal.
I hadn’t spoken to her directly about this yet, but before meeting her and discussing it, I wanted to prepare lightly first, which was why I ended up talking to the team leader like this.
“What do you think?”
“I think it sounds fine. This kind of thing is used a lot in places like psychiatric hospitals… or fields like psychotherapy, right?”
“That’s right. The Welfare Bureau doesn’t have any established method for it, but I think it’s a good approach, so I’d like to try applying it to Saran this time too.”
“So?”
“But I’m not sure what kind of goal I should set for Saran.”
Saran’s concern was basically social isolation and alienation caused by the characteristics of her job.
For that reason, I had decided to meet with her occasionally, talk with her, spend time together, and do various activities, but there was no way that alone would solve everything, right?
For a long-term resolution, it was necessary to adopt multiple methods.
“In Saran’s case, she’s a hero who operates in secret, right? She’s almost never officially exposed to the media?”
“Yeah, that’s true. Of course, if she herself wanted to switch to being an ordinary hero, it would probably be possible.”
“But it’s not as though there’s a problem with her personality or anything like that. It’s just a problem that arises because she can’t talk about her work at all, so it’s even harder to take action…”
“Hmm… That’s true. Since it’s hard to say anything about the activities Saran does.”
What should we do?
I had thought about it in my own way, but I still hadn’t come up with any particular plan.
To be honest, I also wondered whether creating a goal would really solve Saran’s isolation and sense of alienation by itself…
In Saran’s case, the situation was so ambiguous that I even thought it might be much better for her to make a few acquaintances who were former heroes.
“Hmm.”
“Mmm…”
“Hmm…”
“Mmmmmmm……”
The two of us continued thinking in the meeting room.
Was it difficult even for the team leader after all…?
She had worked as a hero for years, and since she had some personal connection with Saran, I thought she might be able to help.
As expected, the team leader was as useful as dirt.
The answers I got when I asked TeamGPT were the worst.
“How about exercising?”
“…I don’t think she’d like that very much.”
“Karaoke?”
“That too, obviously…”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm….”
It seemed I would have to leave a one-star review.
Of course, even afterward, we continued discussing things slowly and talking about what method might be good.
Even if her answers were a little disappointing, the team leader was basically the only person in the Welfare Bureau I could keep discussing things like this with, so it was only natural.
“Honestly, if it weren’t Saran but a rookie hero who had that kind of concern, I think we could just make them feel a sense of accomplishment.”
“It’s already been six years since she debuted.”
“Yeah, so I don’t have anything to say either. In the first place, ordinary heroes usually retire within ten years.”
“Urgh….”
It was exactly as the team leader said.
Heroes were in a line of work where stress inevitably built up, so they tended to retire within ten years, and the team leader, who was a former hero herself, had retired around her mid-twenties too.
If Saran had been working for about six years, she would normally be at the stage where she worked moderately as a veteran before retiring.
“…Ah, then how about this?”
“What is it?”
After thinking for a long time, the team leader spoke to me while wildly waving her finger, as if she had realized something.
She looked like some mathematician who had realized something after soaking in a bathtub, which was ridiculous…
But in the current situation, where no good method at all was coming to mind, I felt like anything would do, so I had no choice but to look at the team leader.
“You know the rookie hero you’re currently in charge of? Have her meet that kid!”
“With Miss Bathory?”
“That way, starting with how to use abilities, there are lots of things she can teach her, right?”
“…Aren’t their types of abilities a bit different?”
Something Saran could teach Bathory?
Immediately after hearing the team leader’s words, I thought for a moment about what that meant, but not much came to mind.
Was it because I had only ever done simple office work…?
Nothing came to mind easily, and when I thought about Saran’s personality and Bathory’s personality, all I could think was that it would be difficult in many ways.
“No, no, not just about abilities. Starting with how to fight, how to subdue people. There are lots of things she can teach her about that, right? Especially Bathory? That rookie hero probably isn’t learning anything in particular.”
“…What does teaching her like that have to do with providing Saran with a goal?”
“She can’t talk about her secret work, but she can slowly talk about her own experiences, right? In that process, wouldn’t Saran gradually feel a sense of openness too?”
“Oh….”
“And on top of that, in the report you uploaded this time, you said you were planning to raise the rookie to C-rank, didn’t you? I think it would help with that too.”
“Ooooooh……!”
She was a team leader like the earth—no… like the heavens.
TeamGPT was a god and invincible.
As expected of a former hero, our team leader was quite skilled at handling problems from a hero’s perspective, so I had no choice but to worship her.
Damn it, damn it.
She was omniscient and omnipotent…!
“Adopted!”
I immediately had no choice but to return to my seat and complete the documents based on the team leader’s remarks!
*
“I prepared something in my own way for you, Saran. Would you like to read it?”
“…Mentoring Project?”
“Yes!”
“…Me?”
“Yes!”
“…Teaching a rookie?”
“Yees!”
I answered Saran’s words by nodding my head enthusiastically.
Because it was exactly what the contents said.
Originally, I had thought of using titles like “I Hope You Become Friends” or “Raising a Rookie Hero,” but they were way too lacking in style and also too plain.
So I used the name “Mentoring Project” to make it feel a little more serious and impressive, and handed Saran a document filled with content that also sounded quite impressive.
Naturally, Saran reacted as if she found it a little puzzling… but I sincerely thought it was a decent method.
“In your case, Saran, you work as a hero, but there are many things you can’t talk about regarding that, right?”
“…That’s true.”
“I thought you might be able to talk about very small fragments of that, and aside from that, there would also be many things you could teach in terms of combat.”
“…….”
Of course, from Saran’s perspective, I thought it might be hard to understand what kind of random nonsense this was.
That was why it was important for me to use my mouth well from here on.
After all, anyone could simply write down this and that in a document, but there were few people who could persuade someone with words.
“You prepared this?”
“Yes? Uh… that’s right? I prepared this for now in order to resolve your concerns, Saran. Do you perhaps not like it…?”
“…No. I’ll do it.”
“…Really?”
…That was why I had been preparing to talk my mouth off.
But when Saran accepted far more easily than I had expected, I couldn’t help but find it strange.
I had thought I would need quite a long time to persuade her…
Why was she accepting it so easily?
I was the one who had prepared it, but even I absolutely hadn’t thought this would be something she would accept this easily, so my head became a little complicated for a moment.
“Thank you…!”
“…No. You’re going through trouble because of me.”
In truth, it was a document where I had massively inflated the team leader’s opinion, and I had also been planning to explain the effects in various ways afterward, so I couldn’t help but feel a little flustered.
In the end, though, I couldn’t help but feel happy that Saran accepted what I had prepared for her.
Now what remained was… Bathory.
But Bathory, for some reason, had a suspiciously strong tendency to trust what people said, and even though I had definitely warned her using hypnosis… she trusted my words far too well.
So I wasn’t particularly worried.