Chapter 82
Ellen had never disliked going to work at the mercenary office.
But there had been times when she found it bothersome.
Especially when she was tired from sparring with Flora or had stayed up all night enjoying games and anime the night before.
But these days were different.
After work, she returned home and waited only for the next time she could go to work. She would drum her feet and roll around on her bed.
She wanted to spend all day in Max’s office.
This desire could not be satisfied unless she went to the office where Max was. She knew it was abnormal, but that was how she felt.
Was it because she had become an intern instead of a part-timer? No. That didn’t seem to be it.
Then was she what people called a workaholic? Definitely not. Maybe Flora, but that wasn’t a word suited to Ellen’s temperament.
In any case, it was certain that Ellen’s daily life was changing because of Max.
Normally, the moment her head touched her pillow, she slept like a log, but these days she tossed and turned at night over fantasies she found too embarrassing to voice.
If she sent him a message and didn’t get a reply, she would groan and keep checking her smartphone. She had even taken her smartphone into the shower in case a reply came while she was bathing.
“···.”
In truth, her innermost thoughts were simple. She knew.
Being with Max made her unbearably happy and joyful.
But she had no idea what to do with this feeling she had experienced for the first time.
Even while talking with Max, whenever she became aware of it, she strangely wanted to run away. Yet she also wanted to draw closer to him. How could she possibly get used to such a paradoxical feeling all at once?
‘Ah, I’m going crazy··· What the heck is wrong with me, seriously···.’
Before heading to work, she checked her bangs in the glass outside the building.
She twisted this way and that to make sure there was nothing wrong with her outfit. She had even redone the nail art that had all been stripped off when she used her unique magic.
‘Yep! I look good today too!’
Having gained confidence, Ellen took the elevator to the office.
When she reached the fifth floor, she swallowed nervously and entered the office.
“Huh?”
But Max was nowhere to be seen. Only Flora was sitting in a computer chair.
The greeting that had been about to leave her lips vanished.
“···Where’d Oppa go?”
“He went to switch his smartphone over to satellite internet. It’ll take a while.”
“Hmm~ I guess the wasteland really shook him up.”
Ellen moved, pretending she wasn’t disappointed in the slightest.
She scooped heaps of ice from the ice maker she had purchased recently and made an iced coffee.
“Are you writing your report?”
“I can take my time. I can write it all at once on the last day and still be fine.”
“···Do you think this is a diary? Don’t ask me to look at it later.”
Ellen let Flora’s words go in one ear and out the other as she sat on the sofa.
She thought as she savored her coffee.
‘I should start preparing my report too, like that girl said.’
Surprisingly, there wasn’t much time left in her internship. This was the first hands-on internship she had experienced that had passed so quickly.
And once the internship ended, graduation would be right around the corner.
After graduating, naturally, she wouldn’t be able to continue her part-time job at the mercenary office. She would have to take part in the family’s affairs.
Then she wouldn’t be able to see Max this often, either.
Would they naturally drift apart? Just thinking about it made her depressed.
“Sigh···.”
“Why are you sighing all of a sudden?”
Ellen’s eyes turned toward Flora, who was looking at the computer screen.
She envied Flora for being family with Max, but at the same time, she didn’t.
“What’re you gonna do when you graduate?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”
“I mean, where are you gonna get a job? Genesis Bio?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? You still haven’t decided?”
Most students about to graduate had already settled on the company where they would work. Especially with a good background and grades, Megacorp was practically guaranteed.
Among them, Flora had top-notch grades and an outstanding background, so everyone at the academy was watching her.
“I’m not in a hurry to decide. Where are you planning to go?”
“I don’t know either. Mom’ll stick me somewhere.”
Ellen puckered her lips like a duck and sprawled across the sofa.
The future was a problem, but she also had no idea what to do about the distance between her and Max.
She was happy simply by looking at him, but after graduating from the academy, even that would no longer be easy.
Brrring! Brrring!
The office phone rang for the first time in a while.
Before the call could be forwarded to Max’s phone, Flora quickly answered it.
“This is Max’s Mercenary Office.”
At the reply from the other end, Flora blinked.
After figuring out who it was, she answered in a relaxed voice.
“Oh, yes. It’s been a while. I’m an office employee now, so you don’t have to be so formal with me.”
At Flora’s reaction, Ellen raised her head and mouthed, Who is it? Flora silently mouthed back that it was the association president.
“Oppa is out for a moment. I don’t think he’ll be gone long.”
It was easy to guess what the conversation was about.
Ellen lost interest and lay back down on the sofa.
“Yes. The office is open.”
When Flora finished the call, Ellen asked,
“Is that old geezer, the association president, coming to the office?”
“Yeah. I think he has something to discuss with Oppa.”
“Isn’t he going out on another dangerous job?”
“···Make some coffee. He should be here soon.”
Flora said nothing about the request.
In the past, she would have answered, even if only as a formality, that he was a mercenary and couldn’t help it. But now, even that answer did not come easily.
*****
‘It’s insanely expensive.’
Max had finally activated the satellite service.
The connection was faster too, but its biggest advantage was that he could now use it without any problems not only outside the city, but also in specific areas within Haze where no base stations provided coverage.
With that, he returned to the mercenary office.
Before he even reached the elevator, he sensed some familiar presences.
‘Three guests?’
When he stepped off the elevator and opened the door, he saw them.
The association president, Meredith, and a man named Ludwig, the association president’s bodyguard.
The association president, who had been drinking coffee, greeted Max first.
“I was already making myself comfortable.”
“It seems it’s been a while since I last saw you.”
“Oppa! I came to work too!”
Ellen waved her hands vigorously to make her presence known. Max replied with a naturally forming smile and sat across from the association president.
He accepted the coffee Ellen handed him.
“You look well.”
“Another member of the Association has reached the fifth tier. And our requests have been going well too, so it’s a double celebration.”
“Oh···.”
The mercenary Usagi Hoshikawa came to Max’s mind.
Hoshikawa contacted him often, but they hadn’t met since they had shared a meal with the payment from a request.
Hoshikawa seemed to be busy with recent requests.
‘Hoshikawa said we should meet soon.’
That had been their last conversation.
If the association president had come with a designated request, their already uncertain promise might be delayed even further.
“So what brings you here?”
“I came to give you some work. And to take a look around this fine office, too.”
“Since you came personally, I assume it’s a designated request.”
“Mm.”
In response to Max’s question about whether it was a designated request, the association president readily confirmed it.
“I welcome the request. I’m available at the moment.”
“This time, you’ll have to go quite far.”
“Do I have to go to another city?”
Was Max really going to leave Haze?
Flora and Ellen both flinched. Ellen’s internship was already nearly over, and this meant the time they spent together might be drastically reduced.
But that wasn’t the case.
Thankfully, the association president shook his head.
“I don’t plan to send you that far. I simply mean you’ll have to go down quite a ways.”
Could it be an area in the 70s, where even the subway didn’t go?
As Max started turning the possibilities over in his head, the association president let out a hearty laugh.
“Listen to the details first.”
“Yes.”
“This is something that’s still only at the stage of suspicion as to whether it’s connected to them.”
By “them,” he meant Cheonmyeong Pharmaceuticals.
Max nodded to show he would bear that in mind, then asked,
“Should I consider this a personal designated request from you, President?”
“Not quite. A higher-up heard the news and told me to investigate the truth.”
Eisen had apparently agreed as well.
When Max listened closely, the association president began his explanation.
“There are suspicious people wandering around the lower districts.”
“Suspicious people? There’s no shortage of suspicious types down there. Do they have any specific characteristics?”
“There are. They wander through the lower districts teaching magic to people they don’t even know.”
“Teaching magic···?”
It was certainly suspicious.
Their very behavior reeked of something rotten.
“They teach the basics of magic regardless of age or gender. If someone shows even a little aptitude for magic, they lure them away by offering them work or food.”
Naturally, those who went with them never returned.
Apparently, even after asking around, there was no information about where those who followed them disappeared to.
“The method is unusual, but isn’t kidnapping far too common? The lower districts are crawling with criminal organizations.”
“It’s an area without CCTV operated by the authorities, so I can’t say for certain, but isn’t the method too elaborate? I don’t believe it’s a criminal organization.”
“Hmm···.”
“All the third-tier mercenaries we sent to investigate have lost contact.”
The association president slurped down the remaining coffee and continued,
“It’s an unsettling incident, too serious to ignore. Frankly, I’d feel relieved if we confirmed that a criminal organization was trafficking people for money.”
The association president reached a conclusion based on his characteristic intuition, but Max formed a hypothesis of his own.
The immortality magic Eisen Crimsonhowl had mentioned.
He imagined the countless brains that would be needed to attempt creating a life-form capable of calculating it.
‘The brain of a human capable of wielding magic might be worth more than an ordinary brain.’
He didn’t know whether that was actually the case, but it was a simple inference.
“Will I be going alone?”
“Someone will accompany you.”
Max took the materials from Meredith and slowly looked through them before
agreeing to take over the investigation.