66 Mage

After returning from the wedding.

I returned to my usual work.

Meracle was still the same.

“B-boss.”

An employee whose Third Floor accent still hadn't improved at all.

“Aah, I want to get married.”

The old lady beside me kept grumbling and giving me the side-eye.

“What are you going to do about this!”

An old client who had barged in out of nowhere, demanding that I take responsibility because his wife had cheated on him.

Hmm. Yep, this was the usual Meracle.

If I were an employee, I would've quit this crappy company on the spot.

Today, one more item went onto my Ms. Kim gratitude stack.

“No, customer. I can't do anything about cheating after the marriage.”

Even when I spoke calmly, he was already not listening. Especially since he was such a stubborn dwarf, it was even more so.

Though he was looking up at me with his small frame, the rock-hard muscles packed onto him made him look ready to lunge at any moment.

“What? You can't do anything about the cheating? Isn't this because you introduced me to some weird woman!”

“Just a moment, sir.”

At my gesture, Ms. Kim, who'd been waiting, brought over a file binder.

It was the record for the dwarf customer in front of me.

After reading it carefully, I asked him.

“Sir, by rank, the woman was higher. She was generally stable, and if I remember correctly, she also had the refinement of someone from a noble family.”

The dwarf was C-rank.

The woman was B-rank.

Of course, rank isn't everything.

But in a situation like this, it's a solid weapon for defending myself.

“Meracle matched you up for an upward marriage. Meeting a good woman was true enough. But you can't blame us for the cheating that happened after that.”

“Shut up! You must've graded her wrong!”

“Haa.”

“A sigh? Did you just sigh at me?”

I suddenly remembered Lenea calling the dwarf “Dapdori” last time.

It was unfortunate that he'd been cheated on, but that didn't mean he could come here and throw a fit at me.

“Then what exactly do you want us to do?”

After I asked as politely as possible, he snorted as if the conversation was finally going somewhere and crossed his arms.

“The matchmaking fee. And the membership fee I paid. Give it all back.”

It really made me want to make him throw up.

I, Kim Joo-seon.

A man of iron conviction who never returns money once it's been received.

Just as I was about to tell him to get lost, Lenea finally couldn't hold back anymore.

“Eeeiit! You little shrimp, Dapdori! Get out! Who do you think you are, acting so smug here!”

“What? How dare some pointy-eared homeless bitch—!”

Pointy-eared homeless bitch.

That's a famous insult too.

It's a sort of meme born from elves' habit of seeing a tree and, first thing, spreading out a mat to lie down.

“I do have a house!”

While they were squabbling like that, Ms. Kim, who had briefly gone into the consultation room, held out her phone to me.

Seeing the call-in-progress icon, I knew she meant for me to answer it.

“Yes, hello.”

“— Hello, I heard my ex-husband is causing a scene over there.”

Ex-husband?

I ran through the name on the chart I'd just seen.

“By any chance, are you Ms. Polenia?”

“— Yes, that's right.”

While Lenea was holding the dwarf down, she explained the whole situation to me.

The dwarf was a gambling addict with debts, had demanded a divorce, was actually already living apart, and the divorce proceedings were already underway in court.

“— If he keeps causing a scene, please let me know. I'm doing just fine, so tell him to get out of my life. And tell him to pay back the money he borrowed from me.”

Click.

The call had been cut off.

I handed the phone back to Ms. Kim, then immediately said to the dwarf.

“Hey, you son of a bi—!”

You picked the wrong day.

* * *

“It was a rewarding time when I got to legally insult a customer.”

“……So that's why this happened?”

One hour later, in the consultation room.

Even though the dwarf had gone so far as to say, “I'll definitely win it back and pay you back! Sir, please give it back to me!” I still kicked him out like a soccer ball and sent him packing.

While we were cleaning up the office, which had unexpectedly turned into a mess, a customer came in.

Thanks to that, I stopped cleaning and came into the consultation room, while Ms. Kim and Lenea were still outside grumbling as they cleaned.

Annoying work gets dumped on the employees.

That's what makes a boss.

“Ahem, more importantly, I didn't expect Ms. Ophelia to actually come in person like this.”

At my words, Ophelia smiled with her eyes over the rim of her glasses.

“It's where an attractive boss works, after all. I can't exactly be matched with you, boss, but I'll trust you and leave it to you.”

She was the woman I met at the White Rose party in Top-Horn. She couldn't let a question slide, and she had firm standards of her own.

She was originally a mage from the fourth-floor continent of Lajesta, but after getting a job on the Third Floor, she'd been living here for seven years.

I checked the education section of the checklist.

“If I remember correctly, I heard you graduated from the Magic Academy?”

“Yes, that's right. Surprisingly, they value that highly on the Third Floor too?”

“If you graduated from the Magic Academy, you're an elite.”

You can think of the Magic Academy as the Harvard of the Lajesta continent.

What's more, the Magic Academy doesn't hand out diplomas just for attendance like our compulsory education does.

You can only graduate if you produce results, and if you can't, it's common to remain an undergraduate into your thirties or forties.

“That's a huge plus. These days, a lot of people especially value being able to talk on the same intellectual level and connect through that.”

“Hm, yes. I'm not really fond of ignorant people either.”

I put a star next to academics.

The person I'd be matching her with should value this side too.

“By the way, may I ask one thing?”

“Yes, of course.”

She crossed her legs.

Her stockings and suit clung together seductively, but after living on the Third Floor for seven years, she'd filled out a little, so she was curvy with just a slight softness.

Of course, that was only how she looked when seated; once she stood up, she didn't seem soft at all.

“You said you came down to the Third Floor seven years ago. Looks like you graduated at twenty? That's really fast.”

“Well, I did get decent grades. And I was lucky.”

As I said earlier, there are plenty of cases of people still struggling as undergraduates in their thirties or forties.

On the other hand, if you're talented, early graduation is possible.

“Hmm, at this level, you're actually an elite among elites even on the Lajesta continent. To be honest, coming down to the Third Floor may have lowered your standing a bit.”

If you'd stayed there, you could've lived high and mighty as a mage.

I wanted to find out why she'd come down to the Third Floor and become an ordinary office worker.

“Of course, if it's unpleasant, you don't have to tell me.”

“Mm... it's not unpleasant.”

Ophelia shrugged and spoke honestly.

“There's something called the Abyss Research Society.”

“Ah, the club at the Magic Academy that was called legendary, right? The one where a bunch of genius troublemakers gathered and the club's name got so big? Makes sense. I heard that back then, because of their innovative methods, they weren't even regarded as mages.”

“How do you know that so well?!”

She was so shocked she almost stood up from her chair. Her voice cracked, and Ms. Kim and Lenea outside started whispering.

How do I know?

“One of our customers is from the Abyss Research Society.”

“What!? No, who?! There were only seven club members at most?”

“Beloa of the Infinite Library.”

“Beloa of the Infinite Library?!”

This time, she really did stand up.

With an incredulous look on her face.

“No, wait! Beloa? That genius among geniuses? Did you know that more than half the people who entered the same cohort as her dropped out?”

“I do.”

The shining sun is glorious and beautiful when seen from afar.

But the sun melts everything close to it.

Beloa was that kind of person.

A woman whose excessive genius alone was enough to make the mages around her break their wands.

She entered the Magic Academy at ten.

She graduated at eleven.

Just hearing that much is already a truly insane achievement.

“Wow. Beloa? Hah, that magic-obsessed fool is getting married? How old is she now?”

“She should be twenty this year.”

“What has she been doing?”

Ophelia looked oddly excited, as if she'd come to a reunion. I was about to answer, then closed my mouth again.

I absolutely couldn't say this for Beloa's honor.

“Right, it's customer information. I overstepped.”

She readily admitted her mistake and shrugged.

“Now then, shall we keep going?”

“Sure. Wow, Beloa—”

Still muttering under her breath, not quite over the excitement yet—

“Hold on. I'm, uh, in the middle of a consultation!”

“What are you doing?! Wait right there!”

The commotion outside.

I was about to get up from my seat, but the other side opened the door first.

When the consultation room door opened, the person standing there had to be over 180 cm tall, with a sturdy build.

Handsome features, green hair slicked all the way back, and square-rimmed glasses.

Every last part of him showed a sharp, precise personality.

Lastly, the Third Floor khaki coat combined with his robe told me he was a mage.

“Mr. Raychen?”

He was another connection I'd met last time at Top-Horn.

One of the three people with the highest Sovereign rank at the White Rose banquet.

Idol Seo Hajin, Cheonjong, the Minister of State's son, and Raychen, disciple of the Great Mage.

I wondered what was going on, but with a face even more robotic than the people of Cyber City, he said to me.

“I want to get married.”

“Huh? Ah, right. That's why you're here. Please wait outside for now. Ms. Kim, make him some coffee.”

I tried to guide him calmly, but he didn't budge.

Even when Lenea pulled at him from behind, he showed no sign of moving.

“I want to get married as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, understood. The consultation will be over soon, so after that—”

“I don't care about the conditions.”

What?

“Are you serious? You even got Sovereign rank at Top-Horn.”

“Yes, that doesn't matter. I just want to get married as quickly as possible. I won't look at the conditions. Is that possible?”

Possible?

I immediately rubbed my hands together and grinned.

“Oh, of course it's possible! For a customer like you, I've got only truly precious prospects set aside! Just a moment—”

I went over to Ms. Kim, who was still stubbornly not moving to make the coffee even after being told to, and whispered to her.

“Go fetch the non-commissioned matchmaking list.”

At last, one item was coming off the bad-stock list!