Ugly Guy, Hardcore Fighter-Chapter 80: Making a Branch Office and Becoming a Corporate Slave

Visbridge Selenoa Branch.

White walls. Blue roof. A three-story building along the main street.

Both its location and size were impeccable.

Above all, a brand-new sign was already hanging at the entrance.

〈Visbridge Selenoa Branch〉

“I haven’t said I formally accept yet, right?”

Kato-kun’s glasses caught the morning sun and glinted coldly.

Having received word from Seiji-san, he checked the procedures with Kai-san and then came to Selenoa.

He had brought Ria along too, while he was at it.

“What do you mean, while you were at it?!”

“I came to establish the branch. You got on the carriage because you wanted to see Selenoa yourself, didn’t you?”

“Then I’ll make it that I also came to establish the branch.”

“Please don’t rewrite the past.”

Kato-kun and Ria were bickering again.

Say what you will, in the end they’re always together.

Reia-san was leaning against the branch’s door.

Thin black frames, with wide lenses completely covering the eye area. The black sunglasses oddly suited her worn leather armor and long hair.

“Reia-san, you’ve started wearing black glasses. They’re lovely. They suit you very well.”

Seika-san said happily.

Sunglasses, huh.

“R-really?”

Reia-san seemed embarrassed, and turned her face away from Seika-san.

She then tapped the branch door twice with her fingertips and listened closely to the sound that came back.

“A three-story building, huh. Quite a splendid branch.”

Someone who didn’t know wouldn’t realize she can’t see.

Maybe those sunglasses were to hide scars. But to me, it looked like it wasn’t only that.

Maybe she chose them so she could walk among people once more as her current self.

She’s properly moving forward in her own way.

Come to think of it, Reia-san has been here ever since the Church incident.

“Did you become a Visbridge employee?”

“I haven’t.”

“You should.”

“You don’t need a delinquent like me as an employee, right?”

Apparently Seika-san had invited her several times, but each time she just laughed lightly and refused.

And yet, why is she here again today?

Well, whatever, details don’t matter. Seika-san is happy too.

The registration documents already had the building’s location and Visbridge’s name printed on them.

“The necessary items were prepared at the royal palace.”

An official in a white uniform explained as if it were nothing.

Accepting work under the branch’s name. Using national facilities. Depositing Gratia into the joint account. Compensation in case of accidents.

All of them seemed necessary if one was to work in this country.

Kato-kun confirmed not only the opening but also that the authority to suspend and close the branch lay with Visbridge, and finished reading all the documents.

The approvals from Seiji-san and Kai-san were also left in writing.

“I see no legal problems.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Abel smiled as if delighted from the bottom of his heart.

At the end of the registration, there was a simple interview that doubled as encouragement from the king and an aptitude check.

Abel asked each person one by one.

“If an order and a record contradict each other, which do you believe?”

“I believe neither. I will confirm the process by which the record was made and the basis of the order.”

Kato-kun answered.

The vividly colored parrot perched on Abel’s shoulder rolled sounds deep in its throat several times. Abel stroked its throat with a finger as if praising it.

“Where do you think you could use your power most beautifully?”

“I’m the one who decides that.”

Ria puffed out her chest.

“But you like making lots of people happy, don’t you?”

“Of course. When people see something beautiful, it’s normal for them to be happy.”

The parrot flapped its wings.

“Abel, happy. Abel, happy.”

“What? So you do have an eye for it.”

“This one remembers my words well.”

Abel smiled wryly and stroked the parrot’s throat again.

He asked Seiji-san, “Which do you prioritize, the country or your comrades?”

“Before it comes to a stage where I must sacrifice one, I will do what I can.”

He asked Seika-san, “Can you do what is right even if you are hated?”

“If it will be for that person’s sake, I want to become able to do it.”

She tried to give a strong answer, but couldn’t say for certain that she could.

Rizu, no matter what she was asked, went with “Please forgive my silence.”

I was asked, “What do you think of this country?”

“I don’t know yet. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem bad, though.”

“Many people are saved by this system.”

“I think you’re doing your best too.”

The parrot tilted its head.

“Abel, sad.”

“Why? I did praise him, sort of.”

When I protested, the parrot emphasized once more, “Sad.”

Abel’s smile stiffened slightly only when it was my turn.

Registration ended, and we opened the branch.

We flipped the reception sign to 〈Open〉.

Then half a day passed.

Customers: zero.

Applications for local staff: zero.

“You even made a branch office, and now you’re going to be a corporate slave again?”

Ria was lying on the sofa.

“Corporate slaves work. You are just lying there.”

“This is me looking at the big picture.”

“You’re only looking at the ceiling.”

Kato-kun let out his fourth deep sigh of the day.

“Just looking won’t teach you how work in this country functions.”

Seiji-san opened the guidebook we’d received when entering the country.

“Even to introduce work to local people through Visbridge, we first need to understand the system ourselves.”

The guidebook had a map of the 〈National Benefits Bureau〉.

The National Benefits Bureau was like a city hall, adventurers’ guild, and employment agency crammed forcibly into one building.

Request slips were plastered all over one wall of the wide hall.

For those who couldn’t read, a guide was also reading the request contents aloud in order.

〈South District Relief House — Patient Guidance and Treatment Assistance〉
〈Central Plaza — Illumination Magic for Founding Festival〉
〈Joint Warehouse — Investigation of Discrepancies Between Inventory and Ledger〉
〈West District Third Water Station — Poor Water Flow〉

I looked for a reward column.

There was none on any request.

“How much can I get for this?”

“Rewards are distributed by the Kingdom after the work is finished, according to the gratitude gathered from everyone.”

“You don’t know until you try?”

“Because we cannot put a price on gratitude.”

The guide answered straight.

For jobs that earned a lot of Gratia, people gathered where you couldn’t see. The water station request had been left at the edge of the wall since three days ago.

“Let’s take this one. If it’s just a water clog, it’ll be done soon.”

I peeled off the water station request slip.

Seiji-san: market arbitration.

Seika-san: relief house.

Kato-kun: joint warehouse.

Ria: Magic production for the founding festival.

Rizu: search for lost documents.

“Next, East Second Street. Rescue of a cat that can’t get down from a roof.”

The guide read out the request.

Reia-san touched the edge of her black sunglasses—or so I thought, and the next instant her figure had vanished from the hall.

The request slip the guide had been holding was gone too.

“…The moment she heard ‘cat,’ she took off.”

“For Reia-san, it must be the request that takes priority over all else.”

Each of us took a request slip and left the Benefits Bureau.

That day, the newspaper rewrote the locations of lost items, the busy hours of facilities, and the times rain would fall many times.

Rizu used the newspaper articles to find the lost documents, and Seika-san delivered necessary medicine before the relief house got crowded.

At the market, two stall owners were claiming the same street stall spot as their own.

Rather than driving one out, Seiji-san checked past usage days and foot traffic, and proposed splitting the spot between morning and afternoon. After the two reluctantly shook hands, light of gratitude came in from both.

When Seika-san arrived at the relief house, before using healing Magic, she sorted the patients in the waiting room by symptom. She spoke to crying children, let severe patients through first, and without rest closed wounds. Each time patients or family thanked her, the number on her bracelet increased.

At the joint warehouse, Kato-kun found duplicate entries in the ledger and misplaced inventory. It took half a day, and he even remade the shelf tags, but only the two warehouse keepers knew how convenient it had become.

Meanwhile, at the central plaza, Ria was making flowers of light bloom across the entire sky.

“You may be even more amazed!”

A hundred people cheered, and gratitude poured into her bracelet one after another.

Rizu pulled the lost documents from the gap in the archive indicated by the newspaper and handed them to the client.

“Where were they?”

“You put them there yesterday.”

“…Th-thank you.”

The gratitude was one instance.

Reia-san pinpointed the cat’s location by its meow alone, picked it up, and jumped down from the roof.

Right after the owner cried with joy, she was billed for the repair of the roof tile she had broken through.

Even in the same half day, the way they worked, the way they were seen, and the gratitude that came back were all different.

I headed alone to the West District.

The division of work wasn’t the only reason I was alone.

In my Special Notes, there was a hopeless entry: Income Rate 1/10,000. If I received rira as income, only one ten-thousandth remained for me. There were even times the money I held vanished.

But Gratia isn’t gold coins. Gratitude becomes light and is added to the bracelet’s record.

I wanted to test once whether even this counted as “income.”

The Third Water Station was a small washing area surrounded by apartment buildings. Three stone basins. Even when you turned the faucet, only a thin stream came out.

I removed the faucet.

It wasn’t clogged.

I checked under the basin.

This was normal too.

I listened closely.

From beyond the wall, I heard irregular sounds of water.

Somewhere water was leaking, and the flow was pulsing.

“So the root cause is over here.”

In the back alley, there was an iron door leading to an old underground waterway.

When I went inside, it smelled of damp stone and algae. Dripping water from the ceiling echoed through the old passage.

After advancing a little, I saw that a support pillar of the main waterway had broken, and the stone wall was leaning inward.

Layers upon layers of makeshift repairs stuffed with wooden boards and cloth. This wasn’t a collapse from yesterday or today. For a long time, someone had been patching it each time it broke.

If left as is, it wouldn’t stop at one water station.

The water for the entire district would stop.

After confirming there was no sign of people, I lifted the stone pillar that was about to fall.

For this body, it was lighter than a feather.

Even so, doing it in front of people would cause an uproar.

I replaced it with a new support, filled the gaps in the wall with scrap wood and sand, and corrected the waterway’s tilt.

The water volume increased at once.

In a distant place above ground, children cheered.

“It’s coming out!”

“The water’s back!”

There was no voice shouting that Shigeru-san fixed it.

Of course. No one could see me down underground.

When I returned above ground, Abel, wearing a white coat, was looking at the water station.

On his shoulder was the parrot from the registration interview.

“It seems the water is back.”

“Looks like it.”

“Did you fix it?”

“The request was to investigate the faucet, but the cause was underground. So, well.”

Abel’s eyes narrowed.

“Why didn’t you gather people before fixing it?”

“It’s easier to fix it before it breaks, right?”

“If they knew you saved it, many would be grateful.”

“If water comes out, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

The parrot tilted its head roundly.

Abel looked somewhat restless.

“What do you think of this country?”

“It’s not bad. I think you’re doing your best too.”

It might have been a patronizing evaluation directed at the King.

But I wasn’t lying.

Abel smiled.

That smile didn’t crumble. But his eyes didn’t seem to be smiling.

In the evening, I reported completion of the work at the Benefits Bureau.

“We have confirmed the restoration of West District Third Water Station.”

“Right. So, how much?”

The clerk checked my bracelet.

“The gratitude record is zero.”

“Yeah.”

“Therefore, the distribution this time will be zero Gratia.”

“Huh?”

The water came out.

The work was treated as complete.

But zero.

This wouldn’t even serve as an experiment.

Would Gratia slip past the Income Rate? Or would it be shaved down to one ten-thousandth like rira?

There was no way to confirm with something that never came in.

“What if you at the counter said thank you on behalf of the Kingdom?”

“I am not a party who received the benefit. It is forbidden for officials to issue gratitude on behalf of the citizens to prevent fraud.”

“You’re strict.”

I wasn’t thanked.

That was all.

When I returned to the branch, the Gratia results were lined up on the desk.

The “G” displayed on the bracelet is short for Gratia.

Seika-san, 26G.

Ria, 22G.

Seiji-san, 8G.

Kato-kun, 2G.

Rizu, 1G.

Reia-san, 3G. Minus 2G for roof repairs, effectively 1G.

Me, 0G.

“I think I did the biggest job in this country, though.”

“Ria-san’s Magic was also a splendid job that made many people smile.”

Seika-san immediately defended Ria.

“I know that. I’m not saying Ria’s work was worthless.”

“It’s only natural that gratitude gathers for my beauty.”

“Yeah. That’s fine already.”

Looking only at the results, I did nothing.

Because no one thanked me.

Seika-san transferred her Gratia to the branch account.

Seiji-san, Kato-kun, and Rizu followed. Ria hesitated a little, then put in the full amount. Reia-san tossed in the one leftover Gratia.

The joint account was a business distribution quota granted to the branch by the country. It could not be refunded to any individual’s bracelet. It wasn’t that I received it as money, nor did I need to touch it.

“We can just use it together, can’t we?”

Light flowed from Seika-san’s bracelet into the branch account.

There are people here who will say, “Shigeru-san worked too.”

Living alone might be tough.

But if you support each other with comrades, this system isn’t bad.

“Tomorrow, let’s use this Gratia to gather what the branch needs.”

Seiji-san said.

There was still nothing inside the branch.

Even so, outside the window, lights of gratitude came and went, and the new sign shone in the setting sun.

At this point, even I couldn’t come to hate this country.