The staff member lifted my official ID pendant and tapped it against the round charm on her own bracelet.
Beep!
Leila Rowell, class 218 official, confirmed.
Breakfast fee 0.8 marks, added to your tab!
The staff member gave me a bright, cheerful smile.
“There, all done. Please enjoy your meal!”
“…”
“Oh, and your room and maintenance fees are deducted automatically from your salary at the end of the month, so no need to worry about those!”
“…”
Oh, I see, so this romance-fantasy world has barcode artifacts too.
I was so dumbfounded that was genuinely the only thought I had left in me…
No — wait, was I really about to let them charge money off a chick who’d literally just started the job?
From someone who has no choice but to live here in the first place?
Room fees and maintenance fees?!
This rotten company can go straight to hell!
Even after years of working life, my whole body shook with fury at having been blindsided like this.
I gathered up that fury once more and swore, again.
I am going to twist this story so far off course that I get the Black Spoon Division shut down early!
A bit of a drastic solution, sure, but why else would the phrase “drastic measures for a drastic disease” exist?
Because sometimes it really is the best option!
And once I’d saved up my salary and severance pay, I would resign — for good.
All right. Time to steel myself.
For safety’s sake, I’d be commuting to the department with the male lead and Seamus for a while.
Before long, purple hair came drifting slowly toward me from the direction of the men’s dormitory.
“Seamus? Mor—”
Thud.
…And right in front of my eyes, Seamus walked face-first into a hallway pillar.
What on earth is happening right now…
He’d hit it hard enough that anyone would’ve expected a bump to show, and I gasped in shock.
I ran over to him as he swayed, clutching his face.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
“…”
Nod… He nodded, agonizingly slowly, like some malfunctioning doll.
His face looks fine, thankfully — no bruise.
Seamus gave another slow, dazed nod, expression completely blank.
I never noticed it when we all used to hang around together, but the man must have unbelievably low blood pressure in the mornings.
I shook his shoulder roughly, whispering.
“Hey, hey, snap out of it. We still have to get outside the building.”
“…”
“Please, for the love of god, watch out for yourself!”
But Seamus genuinely could not function in the mornings, apparently.
“Hey, in front of you! Watch out!”
Thud. His right shoulder hit the pillar a second time.
“Seamus, look where you’re going!”
“Ungh…”
His need for sleep must have outweighed his pain response entirely, because the man simply could not come to his senses.
This isn’t going to work…
If we left the building like this, someone was going to accuse me of beating him up.
In the end, I brought the end of my sleeve close to his hand.
“Hey. Grab my sleeve.”
“…”
“You still have to walk, don’t you? Just as far as where we’re meeting Senior Rupesk. Okay?”
“Mmn…”
With a faint groan, Seamus managed, with great effort, to grip the edge of my sleeve.
Honestly, this was starting to feel less like walking to work and more like raising a baby bird. A purple one.
Still, I do owe the guy something.
If it hadn’t been for his recording, back at that palace hearing, who knew how badly things could have dragged on…
Which reminded me.
“Oh, right. That skull artifact of yours.”
“Mm…”
“When exactly did you decide to start recording?”
“…”
His eyes, unfocused and half-lidded with sleep, gradually sharpened.
“Because of you.”
“…Huh?”
“I recorded it because of you.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard that right.
He recorded it because of me?
…Wait. Had he seen it coming, that Allison would target me again?
Was he planning on reporting it to Human Resources on my behalf — assuming that department even existed here?
Wait, that’s actually kind of touching?
I was reminded, all over again, of why the phrase “camaraderie between colleagues” existed in the first place.
Right — when you’re being run ragged by a workaholic mentor and an unreadable chain of command, your fellow new hires are all you’ve got to lean on!
“Seamus…”
“You bothered me from the start, so.”
“What—?”
Why was he going from touching to picking a fight this fast?
Maybe I should go back to calling him Grape-Head.
While I was mulling that over, he kept going, dead serious and unprompted.
“Like I said. Your grades were lower than mine and Crosswell’s, and your practical skills were average, too.”
“Uh, yeah. That’s true.”
“And yet everything you say still turns out to be right. That’s strange.”
“No, that’s just your social skil—”
“So I wanted to go back over what you’d said. I need to understand why you’re right.”
In all my years alive, I had never heard nonsense this original.
And instead of telling him to knock it off, my own mouth produced something equally original in response.
“Seamus, recording someone without their consent is a privacy violation. It’s upsetting. I nearly got chills.”
“…But at the Mage Tower, they record everything a humanoid magical beast says.”
“Hey.”
“You have to, if you’re going to analyze it properly.”
…My earlier sense of being touched had already collapsed, but since I had, in fact, benefited from the recording, I decided to give him a proper explanation anyway.
“Finley. No more recording without my consent, going forward. To start with, doing that without asking isn’t just rude between people — and if you actually want to understand me, just work alongside me instead.”
“But that alone isn’t enough—”
“We’re about to spend nine hours a day together from now on. If you still can’t figure me out after that, the problem’s with your analysis, not with me.”
“Ngh.”
That must have hit a nerve, because Seamus flinched, just slightly.
Then, looking a little deflated, he muttered.
“…That’s reasonable.”
Oh? Good to hear.
And right on cue, the male lead arrived to collect us.
“Ah, senior. Good morning.”
“…orning.”
“Right, good mor— both of you—”
The male lead’s greeting trailed off awkwardly, then stopped dead.
“Finley. Why are you… holding onto Rowell’s sleeve?”
“Ah.”
Seamus and I both looked down at my sleeve at the same moment.
Sure enough, the end of it was still lightly caught in his grip.
Seamus slowly released it, shaking his head.
“It’s nothing.”
The male lead’s expression soured, visibly uncomfortable.
“Finley. Rowell. Romantic conduct between officials on palace grounds violates the Code of Proper Conduct.”
What was he even talking about. I forgot my manners entirely and just blurted, blankly—
“Sorry…?”
“If you’re curious, feel free to look into the Arpelt Palace Workplace Conduct Code, Rowell.”
“The two of us aren’t anything like that—— ah, yes sir.”
“There can be fines involved, so do be careful.”
Ah, now I finally understood.
This was exactly why the romance in Beyond the Golden Gate moved at such a miserably slow pace.
Because the whole setting is basically the palace grounds.
Even holding hands, let alone trying for a kiss, would give an ordinary little nobody like me serious pause if there was a fine attached.
Though watching other people’s office romances play out is always fun, at least.
For me, though, a safe resignation and a fat severance package mattered far more than any romance.
And to actually get that fat severance package?
“So, senior.”
The department’s entire reason for existing had to be smashed to pieces.
I looked the male lead dead in the eye and asked, wide-eyed.
“What should we start with today?”
The first morning of collecting his juniors.
I have no idea what state Rowell will be in.
Unfair as it was, of the two of them, Carlyle found himself far more worried about Leila.
He’d apologized as sincerely as he knew how, but wasn’t there still a chance she’d be down about it?
But no. Not even close.
“What should we start with today?”
The face Leila Rowell wore, asking that question, was—!
Her eyes are honestly dead, if I’m being honest.
And yet her sheer force of will seemed a match for even his own father, the Grand Duke of Rupesk.
How… how can anyone be…
Carlyle found himself at a loss for words in the face of his junior’s almost frighteningly professional attitude.
Swallowing down her own feelings and vowing to give her absolute best to whatever task was set before her — that kind of resolve!
Carlyle laid a hand back over his chest.
A heart attack…?
Not even during training back home in the north had his heart pounded like this.
It must be because this is the first time in my life I’ve felt this kind of admiration.
Nodding to himself, unnoticed, he let his gaze drift briefly down toward Leila and Seamus’s hands.
Well — reminding them about proper conduct wasn’t wrong, exactly.
Though why, exactly, had he felt the need to exaggerate it into something with an actual fine attached?
