“…Team Leader, I think I’m going to slack off today.”
I said that quietly to the team leader.
The place was none other than the staff café on the first floor of the Association building.
Well, whether there was anyone around to hear me or not… today, I was in a situation where I simply couldn’t not say it.
“So you’ve finally, truly lost your mind?”
“But… but…! I’m tired! Honestly, Team Leader, you admit that there’s way more work than before these days, don’t you?!”
At the team leader’s reply, I truly had no choice but to say that.
Because, because!
“They still haven’t officially made me their handler, and I’m not getting any extra pay…!”
Of course, I wasn’t someone who was separately… seriously obsessed with money or anything, but regardless of that, lately my workload had been increasing while the compensation stayed exactly the same.
As an office worker, it was only natural that I’d feel wronged.
I did have some company loyalty, and I did have a sense of responsibility when it came to my work, but… this was a bit much, wasn’t it?
There was no problem with Bathory, but now Saran had been added too.
In any case, because of those two, my workload had been increasing lately, and regardless of the fact that I’d planned the mentoring myself, every day it happened was just one exhausting situation after another.
“Please either register me officially as their handler already, or reduce my workload a little… please do something….”
“…Mm.”
“Honestly, it’s been a little too much lately, hasn’t it? I have to meet heroes for extra work almost four times a week, but it’s not like my vacation days have increased.”
“That’s true, but…. Charlotte, the thing is… I may be the team leader, but this isn’t something I can do as I please, you know? I did submit the paperwork to the higher-ups and asked them to resolve this quickly, but….”
“…But?”
“The Association keeps saying it can’t be done because, according to official procedure, it wasn’t something the hero requested first, and you met privately and proceeded with the work…. And in truth, Saran’s side hasn’t submitted an official request either….”
“…….”
“So I think it’s probably going to take a little more time.”
“…….”
I felt like tears were about to flow.
But I also knew, in my own way, that there was nothing that could be done, and I now knew that the team leader was doing what he could as well.
Fine. Should I be satisfied with committing just one bombing?
“Haa….”
“Still, if I ask them every day like I’m filing a complaint, maybe they’ll approve it just because they’re annoyed.”
“Yes….”
In the end, the conclusion didn’t change.
But there really was a procedure, and since the matter had been carried out without following that procedure, there was no need for them to go out of their way to accept it and spend extra money.
They called themselves the Association, but… fundamentally, they were no different from a corporation, and it was only natural for them to pursue profit to some extent.
In other words, just because I was disappointed, sad, and exhausted didn’t mean the Association had to change its basic stance.
“So that means I have to stay like this for now….”
“Still, you have vacation days left, don’t you? You barely used any this year.”
“That’s because I’m someone who doesn’t really do anything special besides come to work every day… so there wasn’t any need to take time off. This is practically the first time since joining the company that work has gotten this busy.”
“Now I feel bad all over again.”
“Then please resolve it a little faster.”
“Haha… I’ll try.”
The team leader said that with a bitter smile, but….
I knew very well that if things stayed like this, it would take quite a while in the most ordinary way possible.
It was sad, but… well, I was an office worker.
I couldn’t exactly expect everything to be resolved the way I wanted.
*
“Hwaaaam….”
My meetings with Bathory and Saran continued.
By the time a month had passed since I started meeting both of them, Bathory had been promoted to D-rank… and Saran was just Saran.
A daily life where nothing particularly tremendous happened.
Just an endless string of days where I drank twice as much coffee as usual.
—Recently, abnormal mechanical malfunctions have been occurring in D City’s industrial district. The Association has announced that it will form a team consisting of C-rank and B-rank heroes to resolve the incident…….
—D City announces plans to create an ecological city, with a park to be designed through the forest located in the southern district.
—The gradually increasing disappearance rate in D City. Is this really all right?
—The Hero Academy established in A City. Is it effective?
“…Same as always today.”
As always, all sorts of incidents and accidents were happening throughout the city, and in the midst of that, I was at work again today.
Today was, for once, a day when I didn’t have to meet either Bathory or Saran, so I was enjoying a relatively uneventful bit of salary-thief time. But that didn’t mean I was comfortable.
“As I explained last week, today’s meeting is about the recent increase in heroes submitting requests for problem resolution to the Welfare Bureau. How should we handle that? That’s what we’ll be discussing.”
“……Hwaam.”
Because today just had to be meeting day.
If I’d gone out on a field assignment instead, I wouldn’t have had to bother attending the meeting….
It was truly exhausting, but no matter what I said to the team leader, any employee who wasn’t even out on a field assignment had to attend.
“Compared to half a year ago, the number of heroes our Welfare Bureau is responsible for has increased quite a bit, right? I’m sure you all know this. But if we look at the numbers…….”
When I entered the conference room slightly late, probably by about a minute, the team leader was already showing a PPT and continuing to explain various things to the employees.
Since it was a meeting held once a month, the discussion was bound to be fairly serious, but I didn’t have much on my mind.
After all, even if we held a meeting like this… most of my work involved meeting heroes face-to-face, so nothing in particular about my duties was going to change. And I was already handling Saran too.
There was no way the team leader would give me more work, right?
“I think the fact that more heroes have been debuting recently is a factor as well.”
“In particular, most of the people making requests to our Welfare Bureau remain at E-rank and D-rank.”
“It’s always been the case that most higher-ranked heroes like A-ranks and B-ranks don’t use the Welfare Bureau’s services, but it does seem unusually extreme.”
Is that so?
Listening to the meeting between the various employees and the team leader, all sorts of thoughts came to mind.
Because from the beginning, I had been feeling better than anyone that high-ranking heroes had never really used the Welfare Bureau’s services.
As someone who had been handling heroes and resolving their problems almost every time since joining the company, it wasn’t something that felt especially notable.
“Charlotte, what do you think the problem is? Want to share your thoughts?”
“Mm….”
…Did it show too much on my face?
Or was it because I kept yawning?
The team leader looking at me with a smile and asking made me very worried, but it wasn’t as if I couldn’t say anything.
“First of all… the high proportion of E-rank and D-rank heroes has been that way for a long time, even since I joined the company. And I think it’s simply natural that high-ranking heroes don’t come to the Welfare Bureau.”
“Hmm?”
“…….”
The team leader sent me a look as if telling me to go on.
Pushed along by that look, I began to continue speaking.
“Nowadays, because the city is so noisy due to heroes and villains, and because the number of people harmed by that is increasing, people have become used to things like psychiatric treatment and counseling. But a long time ago, there was a period when saying you went to a psychiatric hospital made people treat you like an extremely strange person, right?”
There was no need to distinguish between students, office workers, or anything else.
It was a time when the mere fact that a modern person was mentally unwell was treated as proof that they were someone who seriously failed to adapt to society.
In the current world, ordinary people were almost never treated like that anymore, but my previous life had been exactly that kind of era. Having lived in such a world, I could say that with confidence.
On top of that, the fact that public authority could no longer resolve problems, leading to the development of heroes as a special form of private sanction, was itself proof of a chaotic society.
Along with that, it was only natural that psychiatry and welfare businesses developed as well.
But the problem was….
“Heroes. The heroes themselves are gradually becoming a kind of public figure, entertainers, idols, celebrities. That tendency is especially strong from C-rank and above, isn’t it?”
The way heroes were treated was changing day by day.
Cool people who protected the city.
Not just people like that, but people who protected the city while being exposed to the media, gradually appearing on broadcasts, and recently, there were even attempts to turn cool and pretty Awakened into something like celebrities.
“In that kind of situation, what if one high-ranking hero suddenly came to the Welfare Bureau saying, ‘I’m having a really hard time lately’? Would ordinary citizens be able to think of that person normally as a ‘cool hero’? If anything, they’d feel frightened about having their safety guaranteed by someone like that, and that hero’s standing as a public figure would inevitably decline. The public wants heroes who are perfect in personality, health, abilities, and appearance. In other words, the difference in how ordinary citizens and heroes are treated when they come to a counseling facility like the Welfare Bureau is too large.”
“So what you’re saying is that the reason high-ranking heroes don’t come to the Welfare Bureau is because the damage to their image would be too great?”
“Yes, that’s more or less it. For most high-ranking heroes, pictures get posted on communities whenever people are bored, and there are reporters who follow them around at the level of paparazzi. If a hero were ever photographed directly visiting the Association, the Welfare Bureau, to talk about something… it would be a huge loss for them.”
This was also something a hero I’d been in charge of before, probably around last year, had told me.
Of course, I had added my own details and various explanations to it.
In the end, from the perspective of a hero treated like a celebrity, it was better to silently keep their mouth shut, keep working, and drink alone at home in the early hours of the morning.
“Hmm….”
“Now that you mention it, whenever we ask B-rank heroes questions, a lot of them answer that there are no problems at all, that everything is perfect.”
“When you consider that the last B-rank who came to the Welfare Bureau for even a consultation was already several months ago….”
“I see. That’s quite… no, that’s a very good point. The original topic of the meeting was the increase in the number of heroes coming to the Welfare Bureau, but…. I think that issue should also be resolved as soon as possible. Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
…Right.
Now that I thought about it, what I’d said had strayed pretty far from the meeting topic.
In any case, it was true that the number of E-rank and D-rank heroes coming to the Association was increasing.
They’d probably put out a hiring notice soon or something.
To begin with, most of the problems E-rank heroes had weren’t about their abilities like Bathory’s, nor were they usually that serious.
Afterward, various words were exchanged back and forth between the employees and the team leader, and after that process, the meeting came to an end.
“Hwaaaam….”
Lately, I’d been working busily, day after busy day.
But today, at least, I was getting off work on time.
If anything, it even felt like I’d left about five minutes early, so I was in a fairly good mood. If I went home like this and threw myself onto my bed… it would probably feel pretty nice.
“…It just had to rain.”
If only I hadn’t seen the rain the moment I left the Association building, I would have kept thinking that.
What greeted me at the same time as I stepped out in a good mood was the evening sky, with rain beginning to pour down in sheets.
Fortunately, I always carried an umbrella as a matter of course, so it wasn’t a problem… but it felt a little unfortunate that I’d failed to end the day on a happy note.
And so, listening to the patter, patter… of rain falling on my umbrella, I slowly headed home.
I usually used the subway, but on rainy days like this… clothes always got wet from rain-soaked umbrellas, and I hated getting my innocent coat dirty for no reason.
On top of that, I disliked the subway when it was mixed with that distinct smell of rain.
“Haam….”
Feeling the fatigue piled up inside me, I remembered that tomorrow was the day I was supposed to meet Saran….
What kind of place should I take her to?
Thinking about that… and thinking… I slowly entered the alley leading home.
“…….”
Step, step.
From around the middle of the alley, footsteps slowly began to reach my ears.
As if following me, at a steady rhythm, too precisely matching my own steps, the sound began to come from behind me.
“…….”
Step, step.
Calmly, I left the alley.
Step, step.
The sound following behind me was still there, and while calmly reaching for my phone, I kept walking… and walking, before entering another alley.
To prepare for an unforeseen situation, I opened the call app, and if they were really continuing to follow me… I decided I would call Saran immediately.
She was the closest hero I knew, and the strongest one.
Bathory still wasn’t used to actual combat, and in the first place, she lived a little far from here.
Like that… I entered a convenience store located in the alley.
Ding. Behind me, the bell attached to the convenience store door rang again.
…Calmly, while picking out things a person living alone might eat, like a hot bar and ramen, I set my phone to the screen right before calling Saran.
Then I made the call.
“…What are you doing right now?”
—I’m lying down at home. What’s wrong?
“…If you happen to be bored, could you come out for a bit?”
Aside from the fact that we were in the same convenience store, even though the person was looking around a different aisle from me… it was still certain that they were following me.
It was too obvious that whenever I moved to the next aisle, they moved one aisle closer.
So I had no choice but to call her and tell her my location and various other things.
—Yeah. Are we eating dinner?
“Mm… it’s not that. I think you need to… come here for a moment. Can you come out right away?”
—If I take the car.
“Then take the car… Right now, I’m near the Association building… Ah, it’s number 2, 49 Hero-ro. The convenience…….”
—Hm?
…I wanted to keep pretending everything was normal and calmly ask Saran for help, but I could no longer do that.
The moment I briefly turned my head to the side…….
“…I think I’m about to be kidnapped now, so could you hurry over?”
The person who had been following me had come right up beside me, and just like that—
Crackle.
Something like electricity flowing from their fingertips touched me, and as the strength left my entire body, I lost consciousness.