Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: Something Seems to Be Going Wrong (1)
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They say that if you ever get to watch the live recording of a popular comedy show, you’ll find it unbelievably boring.
And that makes perfect sense.
A comedy show is the result of hours of footage, with only the best parts carefully selected and condensed. Naturally, the raw, unedited version would feel tedious.
Perhaps everything in life is like that.
You endure and wait for a long time for a few brief moments of joy and happiness.
It’s the ordinary, uneventful days that make the joyful moments all the more precious.
Why am I suddenly thinking about this?
For no other reason than my daily life at the Fixer Agency has been far more peaceful than I expected.
‘Seriously, what’s with the oversized fishbowl? Is it some kind of status symbol for mermen, like platform shoes?’
I was in the middle of mopping the flooded hallway of the office.
The cause was none other than the fishbowl helmet of a merman client.
If your head is small, you should wear a fitting, modest fishbowl.
Walking around while spilling water from the loose gaps in your helmet is just a nuisance.
Oh, by “fishbowl,” I’m referring to the round helmet that mermen wear on their heads.
It’s filled with oxygenated water for the mermen who feel intense discomfort on land.
Naturally, one is supposed to choose a size that fits their head.
But it seemed there was a trend among mermen these days that bigger is better. What a strange fashion sense.
Anyway, this extra work had me grunting as I pushed the mop with my frail, soft arms when I noticed something moving at the edge of my vision and looked out the window.
‘Snow.’
The sky was a gloomy gray, clouded over as far as the eye could see.
Beneath it, pure white snow was gently fluttering down like scattered sugar.
It was the first snow.
The first of the year, and the first I’d seen as Yuria.
I didn’t feel any grand emotion.
I wasn’t a child, so why would I be naively excited by the mere sight of snow falling in the city?
Still, perhaps because I’ve always been the type to enjoy blankly watching the rain or snow fall, the sight wasn’t so bad.
The view of snow settling over the dazzling city was quite nice.
“Oh my, it’s snowing.”
“Huh? So it is. Well, considering the date, it’s about time.”
Had Alice and Raven, who were wiping up the water that had seeped under the sofa, noticed it too?
They briefly set down the sofa they had lifted and gazed out the window, watching the first snow.
Well, unlike Alice, whose eyes sparkled faintly, Raven had a subtle expression that suggested this was just another nuisance.
Perhaps sensing Raven’s mood, Alice tilted her head in confusion and asked.
“Jin, why the long face? It’s the first snow of the season. Let’s at least be happy for a moment.”
“Snow is something you only like when you’re a kid, with either a pure heart or a simple mind. Once you’re an adult, everyone hates snow. Do you have any idea who has to shovel that?”
“Um… doesn’t it just melt on its own if you leave it?”
“If you leave it, it’ll half-melt and then freeze into a solid sheet of ice. Then you either have to break the ice or spread an annoying amount of dirt. It just doubles the work.”
Well, it doesn’t look like the kind of snow that’ll pile up.
Raven said as much, scratching the back of his head in annoyance.
Was this the perspective of an adult who had lost his innocence?
Considering he was once a soldier before becoming a Fixer, I could guess where that line of thinking came from.
Shoveling snow is a pain, after all.
As I silently nodded in agreement with his words, Raven, who had already grown tired of the snowy view, chided Alice.
“That’s enough. Alice, lift the sofa again. We’re not done wiping up the water.”
“Aww. Let’s watch a little longer. You’re so cynical, Jin. You have no romance in you.”
“Shut it. Are you going to take responsibility if mold grows on the floor? Do you have any idea what the monthly upkeep for this office costs? My wallet’s already thin this month from fixing the doorknob you broke, you hear me?”
“…Ugh. Fine, fine, I’m so sorry for breaking the doorknob! But if you’re really that worried about money, maybe you should stop gambling on dino-races all the time? The reason your wallet’s thin is because you throw all your money away!”
Those two are at it again.
I watched Alice and Raven, who had suddenly started bickering, with a look of disbelief before tuning them out and swishing the mop across the floor.
Today marked my first week working here.
This little spat was a daily occurrence.
I had no idea how they found so many things to fight about in this tiny office.
The other day, they argued for over an hour about toilet paper.
They’d make up soon enough anyway, and then they’d be as friendly as ever, as if nothing had happened.
After about the third day, I stopped trying to mediate. It just drained my own energy to worry about it.
“If money was that important to you, you should start by selling that thing you impulse-bought from the home shopping network….”
“That’s not fair! I’m stuck with two kids as employees, and you want to take away my only hobby….”
“Ha! I can understand calling Yuria a kid, but calling me one is just ridiculous! What part of me looks like a kid…!”
“…”
La la la, I can’t hear you.
On my way to wring out the water-logged mop, I slipped out the back door of the office.
The Crowley Fixer Agency occupied the entire second floor of an old building.
Perhaps because of that, the back door led to an external staircase connected to the outside.
In other words, stepping out the back door meant I could immediately experience the snow up close.
‘It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen snow.’
Seeing it through a window and seeing it right in front of me felt completely different.
I looked around, hugging the mop, which was nearly as tall as I was, tightly to my chest.
Then I stretched out my hand, letting the snowflakes from the sky fall onto my palm.
“…”
The snowflake that landed on my palm quickly melted from my body heat.
A single drop of water was all that remained on my palm.
I stared at the droplet for a moment before wiping it on my skirt and carefully descending the stairs.
A chaotic daily life with people who were entertaining just to watch.
For some reason, I felt like all of it was like a snowflake—it would vanish if I tried to grasp it.
Well, snowflake or not.
As long as spring eventually comes, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
*
In a deserted spot, I secretly used my psychokinesis to wring the water out of the mop before returning to the office.
In my absence, the heat of their argument seemed to have subsided.
Raven and Alice were sitting at opposite ends of the same sofa, their heads turned away as they stared at their smartphone screens.
If they were going to do that, why sit on the same sofa?
I suppressed the laugh that was about to escape and nonchalantly squeezed myself into the space between them.
“Hey, hey, why are you sitting here? It’s crowded.”
“Y-Yuria? There are other seats….”
The sofa was a bit small for three people.
While my body was on the smaller side, this was clearly a two-seater.
It was an uncomfortable size for three.
But that was the point.
I glanced at their troubled faces one by one, then grabbed their hands and swiftly placed them on my thighs.
Their hands naturally touched, and Raven and Alice looked away awkwardly.
“Hey…”
“Ahem…”
Look at them. These fools.
They’d realized they’d gotten angry over something trivial, but now they didn’t know when to make up, did they?
I knew they might just let this drag on until they came to work tomorrow.
For the sake of peace in the office, I was prepared to sacrifice my own body.
If they fought over something silly, they could make up over something silly too.
“Stop…. Aish.”
“Um, well…”
I pressed down on the backs of their hands as they tried to pull away.
It was my own way of showing my firm resolve not to let go until they reconciled.
In the end, were they forced to surrender to my charismatic display?
They began to apologize to each other with awkward expressions.
“Sigh… Jin, I’m sorry about the doorknob. I should’ve been more careful.”
“No. If I’d just spent a little less on the dino-races, a broken doorknob would’ve been nothing. I’m at fault too. I’m sorry.”
Of course, I could let their words go in one ear and out the other.
Alice would probably break something else in the office today without even thinking about it.
And Raven would never be able to give up dino-racing, the most thrilling sport of this era.
But it didn’t matter.
All I wanted was for this awkward atmosphere to disappear before I went home.
I only had three weeks left working here anyway.
Whether their bad habits changed or not was their own business.
Alright, this should be enough of a reconciliation.
I nodded, looking at Alice and Raven one by one as if to say, “good job.”
It’s hard to stop a fight in the middle of it, but it’s not so hard to get them to make up afterward.
I felt a sense of pride in having successfully maintained the peace today.
‘I’m still as rational and reasonable as ever. Where else would you find a kid like me?’
I definitely wasn’t stung by Raven calling me a kid.
Truly, honestly, without a single shred of falsehood.
“No. In fact, maybe I should take this chance to get into dino-racing like you, Jin. I’m curious to see what’s so fun about it….”
“That’s a great idea. I’m not going to gamble anymore, but dino-racing is something everyone should see at least once in their life. Especially the leg strength of Andreas XI, the one I’m backing these days….”
Just as the office atmosphere returned to normal, as if the awkwardness had never existed, an all-too-familiar story came from the TV, which had been nothing but white noise.
[ …In our next story, Nemesis, a corporation specializing in prosthetics, has made headlines by developing the world's first prosthetic arm that can channel mana. The ABP-1137, recently unveiled by Nemesis, has achieved the integration of mana and machinery, a feat long considered impossible. By proving that mana can flow through an artificially designed prosthetic using their own special methods, they have written a new page in history… ]
Ah, that.
I knew about it from the original story.
Perhaps because I was leaning forward like a meerkat, my body angled toward the TV screen at the intriguing news, Raven and Alice, who had been laughing about dino-racing, also turned their attention to the screen I was watching.
“Mana in a prosthetic arm? Jin, is that even possible? I thought mana couldn’t flow through anything that wasn’t a part of the body.”
“Beats me. Well, if it’s on the news, I guess it’s possible, right? Don’t know much about it.”
“Wow… Then, does this mean metahumans with physical disabilities can now use prosthetics freely!”
Alice clapped her hands lightly, delighted by what she saw as a wonderful development.
After all, the main reason metahumans avoided prosthetics was because of the rejection caused by mana.
Just as she said, a new horizon of opportunity had opened for metahumans.
If it was actually true, that is.
“You interested in that?”
“Hmm, if you’re asking if I’m interested, I guess I am…”
“The part-timer too?”
“…”
Nod.
I nodded at Raven’s suggestion.
If this was the moment from the original story, I had a good idea of what he was about to propose.
“Then do you want to go to the party Nemesis is hosting? It’s in four days.”
“What? How did you get an invitation to something like that?”
“I got invited about a week ago. A few months back, one of my clients was a Nemesis employee.”
“That must’ve been… before I was here. I want to go! I’m so curious about the prosthetic arm Nemesis made!”
“Okay. Is the part-timer going too?”
“…!”
Beyond the Metafuture, the launch party hosted by Nemesis to commemorate their new mana-adaptive prosthetic arm.
Honestly, there was no reason to refuse.
A glamorous party hosted by the major corporation Nemesis, with all the delicious food you could eat? How could I resist?
And there was one more reason I couldn’t say no.
This party was…
‘I can’t miss the moment the Fixer Agency crew becomes complete!’
…the stage where the third member of the Fixer Agency would make their debut.
It’ll all work out fine even without me. I can just hide among the crowd and watch, right?
This is going to be fun! My heart was already pounding with anticipation.