Operation: Company Bathroom
Susanna's face finally lit up with realization.
"That's the spot, isn't it!"
"Yes, that's right."
"We'll have to go around sticking them up everywhere, then!"
"Yep."
Just as it seemed only Susanna had figured it out, Cedric asked in confusion, "That place is... where, exactly?"
The answer spilled from Susanna's mouth and mine at the same time.
"The company bathroom!"
"...!"
"Our guild's recently built bathroom is absolutely blissful! Whenever I don't feel like working, I just hole up in there."
"Same here."
"...."
Cedric's face went through what could only be described as culture shock. Well, at a 'family-like company' — a black company even worse than ours — even going to the bathroom probably meant having to read the room first.
"Anyway, we're going to infiltrate various company bathrooms and put up these posters."
"Most bathrooms aren't locked, after all!"
A few days later, Cedric and I were walking down the street, our arms loaded with stacks of photocopied posters.
"We each go into the men's and women's bathrooms, stick them up, and come out."
The Guild Master had left at lunchtime yet again, claiming he had an appointment, so it was a given he wouldn't be back for a good long while. Just in case, we'd agreed that Susanna would stay behind at the office and cover for us if some emergency situation arose where he came back early.
"Oh, this is a famous trading company's building. Let's start here."
"Yes, ma'am..."
Making the promotional posters lately seemed to have triggered an intense crisis of self in Cedric about what exactly he'd been doing with his life. But what could he do? He was a fresh-faced graduate with nowhere else to go...
We'd been walking and posting for a while when Cedric spoke up first.
"May I ask you something?"
"Of course, go ahead."
"I overheard Senior Associate Susanna mention that this guild is a subcontractor for some... organization."
"Ah, yes, we are."
"But not an ordinary subcontractor. I heard there are financial entanglements involved, and the hierarchy between the parties is extremely pronounced."
"That's correct."
"Who, exactly, is this parent company?"
At that, I stared straight at Cedric.
Hmm. Honestly, Cedric was talent I'd wanted to keep on even after taking control of this guild. His work skills were decent, but his judgment was shaky — which meant he was likely to fit right in with this guild's particular brand of absurdity.
Come to think of it, whenever the guild brings in new talent, we're supposed to file a report with the Temple.
The last assistant manager's dismissal had probably gone up in a report too. Not that it mattered much — the man knew nothing whatsoever about the Temple, so there was no risk of leaks. In any case, the fact that Cedric was still showing up to work here meant the Temple had signed off on him.
"Employee Cedric, did you ever have an interview with the Guild Master when you joined?"
"Once, yes..."
"I imagine he brought up some weakness of yours, then?"
"That..."
Cedric hesitated before answering. "It hardly matters at this point, so I'll tell you. There was a problem with my birth registration, so I was never able to attend a mandatory education institution."
"Oh dear."
"Which means I have few prospects for employment anywhere else. The Guild Master has mentioned my circumstances before — he told me that if I wanted to stay with this guild long-term, I'd better conduct myself accordingly."
"Without a mandatory education credential, getting hired anywhere would've been an uphill battle. But your previous company..."
"...They didn't care."
"Good grief. Sounds like quite the establishment in its own right."
I nodded, then decided it was safe to tell Cedric about our 'parent organization.'
"You'll find out soon enough anyway, so here it is. We're a subcontracted guild of the Temple."
"Pardon? Then are you a follower of the Temple as well, Assistant Manager Audrette?"
"What are you talking about? I just work there because I had nowhere else to go."
"...I see."
Even so, he kept darting glances at me.
"What kind of work does the Temple assign us?"
"We're an information guild, so investigative work. Though it's almost never anything important. Think of it as being treated as the dumping ground for every menial errand they don't want to touch."
"In other words, there's no way to access the Temple's important information?"
"It's not that there's none at all..."
I murmured, recalling the overtime I'd been dragged into at the Temple recently. Come to think of it, that overtime had been an opportunity to glean information from the Temple too.
"Well, effectively none, anyway."
Cedric seemed intensely curious about the Temple.
"I heard the Temple is an extremely conservative and closed organization that rarely takes on new people. I never imagined I'd end up employed at one of its subcontracted guilds."
"Tell me about it. I never expected my life to flow in this direction either..."
A sigh escaped me of its own accord.
"By any chance, do you worship the Prophet too, Employee Cedric?"
Unlike other romances, this world's Temple was peculiar — it worshipped not a 'chief god' or anything of the sort, but a 'Prophet.' worshipping a human who came before us rather than a deity gave the whole thing a somewhat novel flavor, honestly.
"Absolutely not."
Cedric's face hardened to the point of severity.
"Ah, young people these days don't tend to be religious. I get it. I don't have any interest in religion either..."
The way the Prophet was worshipped in the original story was a bit unusual as well.
One day, a 'Holy Scripture' containing the divine doctrine had supposedly fallen from the sky, and by following that scripture, the Temple had been able to grow its power. The Grand Priest inherited his ability through a lineage, and the scripture supposedly contained the most effective methods for wielding such abilities.
Which meant the Grand Priest's ability was...
"A Miracle?"
"Pardon?"
"The Grand Priest's ability is a Miracle. I've never seen it myself, so I wouldn't know — but everyone who has seen it ends up worshipping the Temple."
"Ha."
Something like scorn colored Cedric's voice.
"Even if I saw it, I don't imagine it would make me believe in the Temple."
"Oh, very much a young person of the times..."
"Th-that's not—!"
Cedric started to protest, but I ignored him and ducked into the bathroom to put up a flyer. Whether the lowest-ranking employee believed in a religion or not was beside the point — my only job was to save my own skin.
"Suspicious as ever."
Back in the Crown Prince's palace, Cedric deactivated his disguise item, and beneath the black hair, ashen gray eyes emerged.
"Having worked there myself, I can say with certainty that accessing the Temple's information through that guild is next to impossible. So how did Audrette Lavendel extract it?"
While his eyes burned with the determination to uncover Audrette Lavendel's secret no matter what it took, Eric, standing beside him, asked in a distinctly half-hearted tone:
"And how is the working-double-life treating you, Your Highness?"
"It was truly dreadful. I finally understand the joys and sorrows of the common people. Earning money through honest labor is a most noble and tremendous undertaking."
"Had I known you'd transform like this, I would have recommended moonlighting ages ago. Are you suddenly empathizing with my plight?"
"Still, I'm better than Audrette Lavendel and that Guild Master of hers."
"I see..."
"What?"
"Nothing at all, Your Highness."
In the middle of this exchange, Eric, apparently having something to report, cleared his throat.
"By the way, Your Highness — for reasons unknown, Duke Haindel is coming up to the capital."
"Duke Haindel is? Why?"
"I'm afraid I don't know either. There are rumors among the people, however, that something has gone wrong between the Duke and his wife."
"What could possibly be wrong? It was an arranged marriage, and doesn't the Duke treat that woman like a stone he's been forced to carry?"
"Well, lately he's stopped eating, stopped sleeping, and buried himself in his work — and they say he looks exactly like a man freshly abandoned. What's more, no one has laid eyes on the Duchess recently, so there's talk that she has departed, and that Duke Haindel has gone half mad with grief."
"Surely it's nothing. You can't seriously believe that Duke capable of love? And frankly, my life is more urgent than some elite aristocrat's melodrama."
"You are an elite royal yourself, Your Highness..."
"You've grown rather talkative lately."
"My apologies."
Brushing past the rest of Eric's report, Cedric resolved to focus on his own affairs. He wanted nothing more than to unearth information about the Temple as quickly as possible — and then leave this guild behind...