When is an office worker happiest?
Is it when she finally cashes in her precious fifteen days of leave for a trip?
Or is it when she collects a bonus laughably small for all the work she put in, and has to shout something like *For the eternal glory of the Empire and the pride of our department!*
*No. Wrong. None of the above.*
The answer is resignation.
“At last — my letter of resignation…!”
I smirked down at the resignation letter I’d written up so neatly, in perfect accordance with Arpelt Palace formatting.
*I’ve endured everything, just waiting for this day.*
Me, Leila Rowell. Bottom-rung office worker of a romance fantasy world.
A full year grinding away in the harshest department in the palace — the Department for Black Magic Collection and Containment, known to everyone as the Black Spoon Division.
I’d saved up enough gold to swim in it for the rest of my life.
I’d twisted every dangerous plot development from the original story. Saved characters who were supposed to die.
Solved even the final incident!
*There’s no reason left for me to stay here!*
I’m off to the land of happiness! Casting off every shackle this world ever hung on me!
But to take that first step, I first needed to hand over this letter — to my mentor, who happened to be the male lead of the original novel.
*Hmm. A little nerve-wracking.*
My steps toward his desk felt heavy.
Maybe now that I was actually leaving, some part of me felt reluctant.
There was the Minister — the original novel’s mastermind — who kept smiling and telling me to speak freely, even though he’d clearly already made up his mind about everything.
There was my fellow trainee, dressed like a delinquent with negative social skills, whom I’d practically raised by hand — the future Mage Tower Master, and the original novel’s second lead.
And then…
“What is it, Rowell?”
There he was, greeting me — my workaholic mentor, presumptive heir to the Grand Duke of the North. The original novel’s male lead.
*I suppose working together builds a grudging kind of fondness. Even if there were moments… when he acted like a complete jerk.*
I gazed wistfully at my mentor, the single most gorgeous man in this entire world.
Black hair and red eyes that screamed *I’m the male lead* to anyone with functioning eyesight.
Chiseled good looks with just a spoonful of prettiness stirred in — the cold, handsome type. A frame that filled out a sleek black suit to perfection.
But…
*To me, he was just… a fellow slave to the office, same as me.*
I looked away from the dark circles under his eyes and held the resignation letter out, politely.
“Carlyle, sir — there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Why so formal all of a sudden? Every report you write is flawless anyway—”
But the male lead looked down at the document I’d handed him and froze.
“Rowell, is this—?”
“Well. As you can see. I’m resigning, sir.”
“What—?”
“I wanted to speak with you first, and then discuss it with the Minister. Now that the Division has accomplished what it was founded to do, I don’t think there’s any real need for me to stay on.”
“Rowell…”
I laid out my prepared speech as cleanly as a presentation, and an icy silence settled over the room.
*Right. This is probably a shock.*
Normally, when a junior announces they’re quitting, the senior panics first and tries to talk them out of it.
But once the male lead finished reading the letter, his eyes flashed—
Wait, why are they flashing?
“I’ve been waiting for this day too, Rowell.”
“…?”
Wait, what?
I nearly said it out loud. I clenched my jaw before it could twitch any further.
*He’d been waiting for his junior to quit?*
Sure, I’d sung the praises of resignation like it was breathing, but actually hearing that from him felt a little…
*Huh. That actually stings.*
But I forced my face back under control.
Right. What did I expect from office relationships anyway.
*Fine, then. Let’s cut ties. I don’t want them either.*
I’m about to be free! I’m finally resigning, even from this damned romance fantasy world—!
“Leila Rowell.”
“Huh, yes?”
I snapped back to attention.
Wait — has he ever once called me “Leila” before?
“You really are the perfect junior.”
“Oh. Thank you…?”
“Every time I watched you work, I was so moved my heart would race — I genuinely worried I might have a heart attack one of these days. It’s rare to find an official with your kind of ownership and thoroughness.”
“What? Thank you…?”
“But now I understand it was never a medical condition.”
The male lead — Carlyle Rupesk — blurted it out, his face reddening.
“Go out with me.”
“…What?”
On the very day I’d declared my resignation from this romance fantasy world.
“I want us to be the kind of people who text each other even on weekends now.”
My mentor had just confessed to me.
“But, sir.”
I forced my trembling lips to move.
“We already live in the same house.”
About a year earlier. On a beautiful spring day.
“Oh, damn—”
I muttered a curse, staring up at the radiant golden gate.
*So the novel’s called* Beyond the Golden Gate *because of the color of the palace doors?*
Who names a novel after someone’s commute?!
I’d just remembered an entire previous life in another world, so surely a little cursing was allowed.
*And apparently I was an office worker back then too.*
One who happened to be very fond of office romances, no less.
Modern-day dramas gave me flashbacks, so I’d buried myself in *Beyond the Golden Gate*, a romance-fantasy office story instead.
*It’s so mild and easy to read!*
The romance moved at a seriously glacial pace — I doubted there was another reader besides me.
Still, it had suited my taste perfectly.
The company I’d worked for back then was truly, ut-ter-ly awful. Awful enough that I’d needed that novel just to survive the stress.
*Next meeting’s Monday, nine a.m. Assistant Manager Lee’s in charge of prep!*
*Why are young people these days so uncreative? Ownership! It’s all because you lack a sense of ownership!*
Living as a sorry-robot in that hell…
*Ugh. Dying the same day I got my severance pay.*
Drunk driving sentences were so light that victims like me just kept piling up.
…And every one of those memories came back to me on my very first day reporting for duty as an official of the 218th class of Arpelt Palace.
That I was Leila Rowell, who’d passed an exam with fifteen-hundred-to-one odds, and that I was living inside the world of *Beyond the Golden Gate*.
But…
“This life seems kind of screwed too.”
At twenty years old, I was an orphan.
I had no idea who my parents were, and in this world’s class system, I was a commoner — the bottom of the bottom.
And when I checked a hand mirror, my pink eyes — which should have sparkled clear and bright — looked dull.
Platinum blonde, a decent face — so why did I look like this?
*Is it because the memories of a burned-out office worker just came flooding back?*
Tap, tap.
Just then, someone tapped my shoulder, gently.
“Um, hi?”
“Huh? Oh!”
“We’re in the same class, right?”
Good grief, how did a voice like falling flower petals even exist?
Cherry-blossom hair and blue eyes, no less.
In a world where being gorgeous was the default, someone radiating this much of a halo could only be—
“Oh, right. Are you… Julianna Crosswell, by any chance?”
“Eek! You know my name?”
“Of course I do. You’re the top of our class.”
And also, dear bright-eyed heroine, you’re wearing a name tag.
In the novel, Julianna was the textbook cheerful, warm-hearted heroine.
Proven by the fact that she’d walk right up and talk to a dazed-looking stranger like me.
Julianna beamed, looking delighted.
“You looked about my age, so I wanted to say hi. We might end up in the same training group!”
“…”
At that, I quietly pulled out my palace acceptance papers.
*You will undergo a three-month training period. Over this time, you will tour multiple departments and personally experience the ones you wish to apply for. Your final placement will be determined by your performance evaluation during training.*
The flashbacks hit me all over again.
I’d made it all the way to assistant manager and quit in my last life, and now what?
*A training period, seriously?*
I had to go through an internship for full conversion all over again?
“Let’s do our best together— huh? Wait, are you crying?”
“Hnngh—”
“Oh no, you must have worked so hard to get here! Poor thing, it must have been so hard…!”
No, dear heroine.
These are the miserable tears of someone who’s just been dropped to the bottom rung of the food chain called “the company.”
But even as the tears fell, my mind was working with brutal practicality.
*I’ve been living at the orphanage until now, but I can’t keep living like that forever.*
I hated the company. I didn’t hate money.
*Starting from the very bottom of the pyramid is awful, but—!*
Fine. Alright.
Let’s accept reality, fast.
But if I had to live at the bottom of the corporate pyramid all over again, there was one thing I intended to make absolutely certain of.
I was going to land myself in the cushiest department there was.
No matter what it took!
