Chapter 14: Company and Branch Manager

Chapter 14:
Company and Branch Manager

 

I OPENED MY EYES to the dim, pale light of dawn. Two spellbound crimson eyes peered into my face.

Whoa, your face is so close! O-oh, it’s just Gol…

This always surprised me, and I really wanted her to stop doing it. I did wake up, though.

“Good morning, Gol. You get up early every morning, don’t you?”

Waking up to Gol bending over me reminded me of how my dog used to lick my sleeping face to wake me up. Golems really were dogs… However, Gol didn’t slobber over my face, so all things considered, she was quite tame.

 

***

 

It was still early in the morning and felt a bit chilly. The white light of the sun shone through the cobblestone alleys between the rows of buildings. In that light, we left the inn and departed for the Paisley Company’s Zibil branch office.

We were an odd group, composed of the Sorcerer King, his golem, and an old man and his five-year-old child.

Even though the morning sun was still climbing over the horizon, the people of Zibil were already coming and going. It seemed the people of this world woke up pretty early. Come to think of it, even Master Speria had woken up before daybreak, although I think that had simply been because the monkeys always attacked him at sunrise.

Before long, we arrived at the entrance of our destination. I stood in front of the door and gazed up at the impressive building. This Paisley Company branch office was profoundly huge by this world’s standards.

It was a two-story building made of wood, but it was several times larger than the other buildings in the area. The architectural style was also different, with clearly expensive and high-class decorative features like columns and ornate latticework.

Mr. Chotos’s shop had seemed slightly on the large side, but compared to the building in front of me, his was nothing more than a meager shop. There could be no doubt that this company was immensely profitable.

“Well, at any rate, I just want to hurry up and finish so we can grab some breakfast…” I said, letting out a pale breath as I looked up at the Company building’s decorative roof.

We hadn’t yet eaten. Right after we woke, we all got dressed and left the inn to head straight to the Company. Mr. Chotos had probably been so nervous that he forgot about breakfast. He didn’t even hear my indirect demand. A thin shadow lined his lower eyelids, meaning he probably hadn’t slept very soundly.

Well, that was a given. Even though we had only dealt with an outside party sent by the Company, we’d still indirectly had a dispute with them the other day. Then again, it was really my Gol who was the most guilty.

In any case, our goal for today was to peacefully repay the debt. This was an extremely ordinary procedure, so normally I would’ve let Mr. Chotos go to the Company by himself, but I decided to accompany him. I thought it would be a good opportunity to observe the business processes and study the contractual terms of this world. In other words, it was social studies.

It wasn’t like I was worried about Mr. Chotos or anything. I was a cultured man and had a passion for learning. I just so happened to get a sudden urge to learn about society. I didn’t care about this guy at all.

I really, really need you to understand that!

In a vast and splendid wooden entrance hall, a well-dressed, middle-aged representative of the Company greeted us. He was in his early fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and wore a monocle, but I was surprised to see he was quite the beauty. He certainly stood in stark contrast to Mr. Chotos. Even though they were both old men, for there to be such a difference between them… The gods were truly unfair.

I ask of you to please endow upon my ugly old man even just 1 percent of the ingredients you used to make this handsome, dashing gentleman.

With the two of them facing each other like this, my old man was just too pitiful.

Two younger men stood on either side of the dashing man. Whoa, these guys are also astonishing beauties. They had a kind of strange, delicate feel to them, so rather than looking manly-man cool, they were more the type of beautiful the average woman would prefer.

This was really bad! Our party of the disheartened Mr. Chotos and the pathetic-looking me had lost to this gorgeous army before the battle even began.

Hey, mister, I’m dropping out of this fight…

The first one to open their mouth was the dashing, monocle-wearing man. “Why, hello, Mr. Chotos. Welcome to our office. To take time out of your busy schedule and come all this way to our humble branch…I’m very much obliged.”

His voice had the lovely tenor of an actor, and as he greeted Mr. Chotos in his genteel manner, he led us inside. Even though we had caused such a ruckus the other day, no resentment was evident in his attitude, and I detected no signs of antagonism. What an extremely adult response.

Once inside, the gentleman lowered his head in such a precise manner that it almost seemed unnatural, like a mannequin. “I say, I heard of some horrid mismanagement by an outside party we hired to collect your debt,” he apologized to Mr. Chotos. “I deeply regret it, and I apologize for any inconvenience this caused you. The staff member in charge of the incident will be severely reprimanded.”

Hmph. So it really was mismanagement. Yeah, that’s right. Of course. No proper loan company would hire such an aggressive group to collect debts.

I could overlook this mistake. However, if they made another scandalous error in judgment, no matter how gentle a man I was, I wouldn’t stand for it. A lawsuit would be coming their way.

I decided to believe their words for now. I was just an outsider, after all. I had no basis on which to judge them.

At last, Mr. Chotos sat at the reception desk and began the procedure to repay his debt. I stood behind him and looked over the contract document he held while I propped up Teru in my arms. She was a little drowsy, but that couldn’t be helped, since it was still early in the morning.

Huh, I guess this is how contracts look in this other world.

From what I could tell, this one required signatures from both parties. The texture of the paper was smooth, and even at a glance I could tell it was special. For some reason, I felt that it resembled Selvei scrip. Had some spell been cast on it as well? The scrips didn’t burn, so could it be that important documents in this world were thus protected to prevent damage, or even forgery?

At any rate, I was bored. Standing around with Teru was so mind-numbing that I finally began to read the contract’s contents. In fact, I had a rare burst of motivation to meticulously examine the calculations, since they would concern Mr. Chotos and Teru for the rest of their lives. That was why, instead of like when I flippantly counted my coins on the restaurant counter, or when I bought as many spare pairs of underwear as Gol wanted without thinking about conserving my funds, I focused in with real clarity of mind and assumed the rarest of serious-about-money modes.

At first, I was primarily interested in the unique phrases this world used in contracts, but as I went on, my serious mind gradually came to understand what I was reading, and I unconsciously raised my voice in astonishment. “What?!”

What was with this interest rate? Were they serious?! This was worse than the sort of thing you would’ve seen in the Japanese consumer credit crisis before the 2000s reform laws. Even the brutally high interest rates of the Edo period hadn’t been this cruel.

Worse, when I read more closely, the Company’s calculation method proved downright wicked. These nasty credit tricks felt strangely modern to me. In any case, with this contract, the payments would have swelled rapidly from interest before Mr. Chotos even realized it. It would have been a cyclic hell where no matter how much he paid back, the debt would increase.

This was unreasonable. The contract reeked of malicious intent to destroy the borrower and devour their life. Was the remorseless Paisley Company some kind of gaki or other hungry ghost…? Even if I dreamt up an idea like this, I wouldn’t be able to stomach putting it into action.

In my arms, Teru mumbled, half-asleep. I gently stroked her back as I stood silently in the lobby. Now I had seen firsthand the absurd interest rate concocted by these actors who played innocents. Meanwhile, in my mind’s eye, I saw an unattractive middle-aged man devoted to his family. He cried tears of happiness as he thought he might have finally obtained the money to pay for the medicine for his sick wife and daughter.

I looked up in a daze at the gorgeous interior of the office. This beautiful building was built on the sorrowful tears of naïve and kindhearted men like Mr. Chotos. A terrible haze weighed down on my chest, smothering me.

All this while, Mr. Chotos proceeded reading and signing the contract. One glimpse of the contents had disgusted me, but at least he would be freed of it today.

Only something was bothering me. That dashing, bespectacled man sitting opposite the reception desk wasn’t looking at Mr. Chotos—rather, he was looking straight at me where I stood behind my merchant companion. In fact, ever since he’d greeted us, his gaze had been fixed on me.

As for my old man, he hadn’t realized this at all; he was far too nervous. An old man can only be an old man, after all.

The genteel middle-aged man studied me intently from behind that single monocle lens, assessing every part of me, and truthfully, it didn’t feel very comfortable.

Hey, stop that. Don’t look at my body with such lewd eyes! Sorry for you, but I don’t swing that way! I was unnecessarily frightened by the dashing man’s gaze, but another thing was actually bothering me even more: Gol.

Gol had moved strangely ever since we entered the office building. She stuck close behind me as if snuggling me like usual, except for some reason, she occasionally fidgeted as if ready to move in front of me.

Now Gol was looking toward the back of the lobby. Weird. She mostly only looked away from me when she discovered a monkey, and she only moved in front of me to fight or protect me. But I couldn’t imagine a monkey, dinosaur, or punk inside this elegant office building.

Near as I could tell, Gol was looking at a space that operated like a waiting room. Even though it was early in the morning, plenty of people sat there. I followed her line of sight until I locked eyes with another man. He was young, with a handsome face, and he wore an eye patch over his left eye. He too was quite the beauty. The moment our eyes met, the man was clearly shaken.

What’s up with this guy?

Just when I was getting suspicious, Mr. Chotos finished the procedure and stood. “Sorry for making you wait, Nemaki. I’ve safely repaid the debt.”

“Oh, did you? That’s fantastic.”

I casually turned to respond to Mr. Chotos, but when I looked back toward the waiting area, the eye-patched man was no longer there. I scanned the lobby, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was almost like he had disappeared into thin air.

“Huh, that’s strange. I’m sure he was there a moment ago…”

“What’s wrong, Nemaki?” Mr. Chotos had noticed my restless stare.

“No, it’s just, there was a man sitting over there…” I was about to point to the waiting area when I realized something. Ah. No pointing for me, not when I was holding Teru.

With our business done, we left the Company building. As we exited, we passed other personnel. Each and every one was an unbelievable beauty. Actually, everyone here was unspeakably gorgeous, including the staff members I’d met during the repayment.

In fact, something felt kind of…off. Ever since reaching human civilization, I’d seen all sorts of folks. Many looked like Westerners, and some sported unusual hair colors, but everyone was pretty much ordinary. This was a wondrous world with a beautiful tapestry of many cultures, but it definitely wasn’t a world straight out of a fairy tale filled with people of unusual loveliness.

To be fair, I had yet to grasp this world’s beauty standard. Culture has a dramatic effect on how people assess appearances. Even within the same cultural sphere, time can greatly change these criteria. Historically, what determines whether a person’s face is considered beautiful or ugly is a fleeting thing. For example, see the Heian period, where women with round faces and narrow eyes were preferred. However, during the Warring States period, fat, bearded men were the most popular.

In the restaurant where I enjoyed a baked sempiol, Pizzaman had complimented Gol by calling her an absolute beauty, so I could at least say with certainty that Gol was considered lovely according to this world’s standards. Based on this, it was possible that this world’s aesthetic sensibility resembled that of my original world.

Even so, it was possible that for a work of art as charming as Gol, changes in culture and time made no difference. For example, when modern folks like me look at the Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica, we’re still taken aback by its unbearable beauty. It was frankly weird of me to assume the people in this office were beautiful just because they aligned with my sense of beauty as a modern Japanese person.

Additionally, when it came to my Gol, she was a golem, not a human. Maybe golems had their own separate standard of aesthetics, like dogs in a dog show. It was possible Pizzaman had complimented her on that basis.

Ah, I think I might have digressed a bit too far… In other words, the crux of this story was what again?

Right: “It was difficult to say whether this world’s beauty standard was exactly the same as that of my original world.” At the very least, it would have been normal to see some slight deviation.

However, each and every one of the personnel of this Paisley Company was beautiful in every imaginable way by my standards as a modern Japanese citizen. There was not a single exception.

Of course, it was possible this was all pure coincidence. Say, if the Company’s personnel were chosen solely based on the Company’s preferred facial type, it might explain their negligence in other areas—though it would make whoever was in charge of human resources one of the most incompetent people ever. If this beauty standard were only for selecting receptionists, it could be excused, but it looked like practically all the staff were hired this way. If I were the manager, I’d fire that HR bozo in two seconds.

Besides, I wasn’t really concerned with what was going on in the human resources department at the Paisley Company. I would never need to deal with them, especially not after this.

Usually, I would ignore this kind of discomfort. But a little—really just a little—at that moment, I had an incomprehensibly bad premonition.

I’m going to change topics for a bit here. As I explained before, this world’s standard of external beauty was still wrapped in mystery. Do you understand where I’m heading?

In short, at that moment, it was still possible that I was living the dream—you know, the one where I was an outstandingly handsome man to the women of this world. That’s right. This was still a very real possibility, my friends!

But you know… Well, I’d experienced something disheartening during my shopping trip in Tibar. Neither the female merchants nor the women on the street would have any real contact with me. When they first spoke to me, the young women of this world wore bright, flowery smiles, but after exchanging a few friendly words, they would inevitably start to pale. In the end, they would run off. No exceptions.

Right before each of these women fled, they’d stopped looking at my face. Their eyes were averted, as if they couldn’t even bear to behold the shape of my head. Instead, for some reason, they all stared at the space just behind me, their faces frozen in fear.

Yeah… The probability that I was considered an outstandingly unattractive man was devastatingly high. As such, I feared anything that might force me to face the reality of this world’s beauty standards.

I’m starting to feel depressed, so let’s stop talking about it.

 

***

 

The afternoon sun shone brightly over the city of Zibil as we left the Paisley Company behind.

“With this, finally…” Mr. Chotos spoke softly, as if he were releasing everything that had been pent up inside his chest. “I’ve finally settled my debt with the Company…”

“So you have. Well, I’m glad for you,” I said.

“I was relieved from the bottom of my heart. I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve felt so at peace. Thank you, Nemaki. I really, truly appreciate it.”

“Huh? Ah, yeah.”

Mr. Chotos was moved to tears. Ah, what an ugly face. Hey, stop that.

Maybe I should have said, While you didn’t forget to show me gratitude despite being who you are, aren’t you getting a bit lax? Your battle starts now! You’ve repaid your debt, but you’re only at square one of rebuilding your life. Your shop shelves are barren, and your customer’s footsteps echo far, far away. You also have to raise Teru while you’re managing your shop. That’s at least three kinds of normal hardship stacked on top of each other, don’t you think? Do you get it? Huh, mister?

In spite of my entirely sensible and composed, albeit unvoiced, concern, Mr. Chotos wiped his sweat and tears as he smiled, relieved. “Ah ha ha… Still, to think that Sir Spero himself would come out. I was so nervous that I was drenched in sweat.”

“Sir Spero?”

“You know, the man who greeted us at the office and handled the repayment procedure? The fellow with the monocle.”

Ah. Could he be talking about that dashing, bespectacled, middle-aged man with a strange fetish for me? Now that he said it, I realized the guy had seemed to be of a rather high position. “Is that man a big deal or something?”

“He’s the branch manager. And of course he’s a big deal; he’s Paisley Company. The average merchant won’t ever reach such a position. I believe he’s also from the Kinas territory, where the main branch is located.”

Hmm…Kinas, huh? Well, whatever. That branch manager seemed to have a variety of dangerous qualities, so there was nothing better to do than to forget the whole thing. I was a man known for his strategic memory loss. “Well, I don’t really care. More importantly, how about we all go and eat a baked sempiol?”

“What?! You don’t care? You’re the one who asked!” Mr. Chotos was back to his normal self, sighing with an astonished face, but he suddenly looked shocked. “Ah! Now that you mention it, yeah. We haven’t had breakfast yet. I was so nervous that it completely slipped my mind.”

“You just realized it now?! You’re so slow, mister!”

As we yapped at each other, we headed to a cozy hole-in-the-wall by the street. In all that time, the sleeping lady in my arms hadn’t opened her eyes. My arms were starting to lose feeling.