Does That Skill Put You to Sleep?
The abilities Audrey and Calathea were currently displaying as hunters would, at best, place them in the upper tier of A-Class. But when you factored in how disastrously their teamwork failed to sync, and considered their actual gate-clearing records, they were far worse than that. For that reason, I had decided they would spend the foreseeable future doing self-training to regain the instincts they’d lost during their long imprisonment, while simultaneously running basic joint exercises to build some semblance of coordination.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing shooting a gun from there? I almost got hit!”
“Calathea, you’re the one who suddenly jumped into my line of fire. What am I supposed to do?”
“Then you should’ve aimed better and dodged me, obviously!”
“I could say the exact same thing to you.”
“Madness, you…!”
“…Alright, that’s enough for today.”
As expected, the only thing that emerged was a catastrophic synergy so terrible it actually subtracted from their individual strengths. And so, with no noticeable progress, the days blurred together between the dorm and the training room…
It had now been roughly two weeks since I began living with the prisoner corps.
“Manager, food!”
“I’m quite eager to sample today’s culinary offering, Manager.”
“It’s ready, just wait a second.”
I had somehow become their manager, warden, housekeeper, and maid all rolled into one.
“There’s no meat side dish!”
“…Today’s table is severely lacking in aesthetic appeal.”
“There’s protein in the tofu egg pancake. It’s delicious.”
“What I want isn’t protein, it’s meat! Meat! M-E-A-T!”
I had prepared a simple breakfast of stew, seasoned vegetables, kimchi, and tofu egg pancakes—easy to eat in the morning. Yet Audrey was sullenly picking at her rice as if to spite me, while Calathea had already set her chopsticks down in utter despair.
“If all you needed was protein from the start, then instead of meat, you could just have the Manager’s—mmph!”
“Stop talking nonsense and just try eating it.”
I shoved a piece of ketchup-dipped tofu egg pancake into Calathea’s mouth before she could finish her vulgar remark. She pouted, clearly about to complain again, but gradually fell silent. She chewed slowly, tasting it, and then…
“……….”
She quietly picked her chopsticks back up, grabbed several pieces of the pancake at once, and piled them onto her rice bowl. Seeing this, Audrey—who had been fiercely guarding the table’s “aesthetics”—sneaked a glance, followed suit by picking one up, and suddenly began moving her chopsticks with frantic speed.
Sigh… They’re not even kids.
Watching them glare at each other while battling with their chopsticks over the last piece was such a stark contrast to the madness they had shown me before that I nearly burst out laughing.
Well, this version of them is a hundred times better than back then.
So I had to work hard to make sure this current state could be maintained. …Was this for my sake, or for theirs? Audrey’s question suddenly floated through my mind again, but I still couldn’t find a clear answer.
“If you’re mostly done, I’ll clear the table?”
“Wait, just let me finish this one… nom nom.”
“Eating so disgracefully… truly a complete absence of aesthetic in your dining etiquette.”
“…You’re one to talk, after you devoured the egg pancake I drooled on.”
“T-that was only because I couldn’t possibly waste perfectly good food…!”
Leaving the two of them to bicker until the very last bite, I quietly cleared the table by myself.
When is my life going to get any better…?
I wanted to use the support funds to hire at least one housekeeper, but the place we were staying was classified, so that wasn’t an option.
“Oh right, Manager! Let’s go on a date! A date!”
“…What date?”
“You know… you said if we trained hard, you’d give us a day off for a date. Don’t you remember?”
Calathea trotted over to my side as I was preparing to wash the dishes and stared up at me with eyes sparkling like rubies.
Well, it’s true that after seeing the mess they made trying to coordinate at the beginning, I casually mentioned it to motivate them.
As I had explained to Calathea and Audrey before, I had no intention of controlling them as strictly as they had been in prison. However, because their deteriorated senses were worse than expected, I had been running a tight training schedule. Naturally, that had led me to avoid letting them go out for fun—feeling like, Does that tier even let you sleep?
“Hmm… what should I do?”
“Manager, I really worked hard. You know I hate boring things, right? But I endured it and went through that tear-jerking hell training…”
…She was saying that shamelessly after I had caught her napping several times in the personal training room. Still, it was probably time to loosen the reins a little. Tightening them too much would only backfire.
“Fine. I’ll put together a schedule soon.”
“Not soon—tomorrow!”
“Yeah, yeah. Tomorrow.”
…Good. Then I might as well use this outing to close the distance between the two of them. Honestly, what needed urgent improvement right now wasn’t their individual skills, but their teamwork.
“Let’s see…”
I quickly finished the dishes and slipped out to the veranda with my phone. There was one person I could ask for help in times like this.
[Boss?]
“Yeah, it’s me. Actually, I wanted to ask you something…”
[Boss——!!]
From the other end of the line, Secretary Baek Soyun’s booming voice assaulted my eardrums.
“Ugh, so loud. What’s with you all of a sudden?”
[What about you, Boss? You haven’t made me come to work or given me any tasks. Does that mean you don’t need me anymore…?!]
Because I was in charge of the prisoner corps, I had essentially been placed on indefinite remote work. Naturally, that meant my secretary didn’t have to come in either. But Baek Soyun seemed to have interpreted it as me abandoning her, and she was complaining quite pathetically.
“It’s not that I don’t need you—wait, you already know I can’t function without you, right?”
[You say that, but you haven’t contacted me once in two whole weeks—]
“What is it, Manager? Talking to your girlfriend?”
“……Huh?”
[Who was that voice just now, Boss?]
The moment I heard Calathea’s voice by my ear, I quickly covered the receiver with my palm and turned around. Sure enough, the blonde madwoman was standing right behind me, her eyes gleaming ominously.
“Judging by the eyes of this professional counselor Calathea, it seems Manager’s relationship is in serious crisis. Am I right?”
“There isn’t a single thing you said that’s correct from start to finish, you know?”
“Well, living under the same roof as a smoking-hot, ultra-beautiful woman like me… how could any girlfriend even register? I totally understand if you want to dump her and try something with me.”
“What are you even—ah, hey!”
“It’s okay, Manager♡ I’ll take care of everything for you…♬”
She swiftly snatched the phone from my hand. With the happiest expression imaginable, Calathea brought it to her ear.
“Hello♪ I’m your boyfriend’s new wom—”
Then she froze mid-laugh. She blinked blankly, stood there motionless for a long while still holding the phone, and finally creaked her arm around to hand it back to me.
“…He wants to talk to you.”
“Uh, okay…”
Calathea, whose complexion had turned strange, didn’t tease me any further. She simply scurried out of the veranda. What the hell did she say to make her react like that?
“Hello? Soyun, what did you just say to Calathea—”
[Boss…. You’re not going to abandon me, right…?]
“No, of course not. I won’t abandon you.”
[I know you’re lying….]
“I’m not lying.”
Before I could even ask what she had said to Calathea, Baek Soyun began complaining again, her voice thick with tears. …Well, she probably didn’t say anything too bad. She was the gloomy woman with a timid heart despite her enormous chest—the same one who had been so terrified she nearly fainted when we reached the hotel room where they were staying, clinging desperately to my arm with all her strength.
I shook my head with a helpless smile.
“You idiot. Even if I were to abandon someone, it wouldn’t be me abandoning you. It would be you abandoning m—”
[That will never happen.]
“Huh? Uh, well… that’s what I meant.”
Her tone sounded a little different from usual… or was it just my imagination?
“Anyway, I would never cast you aside like that. Without you, I wouldn’t even know the association contact numbers.”
[Ehehe… right? As expected, Boss can’t do anything without me….]
“Yeah, yeah. I really can’t do anything without you, Soyun.”
After repeating several times that I couldn’t function without her, I was finally able to move on to the main topic.
“More importantly, I wanted you to recommend an outing course where I can get closer to some women. Um… are you listening?”
[…Why would you want to know something like that, Boss?]
“Because it would be good if we could get a little closer. There are things I want to try once we’re on friendlier terms.”
[……….]
Suddenly silent, Baek Soyun made a strange grinding noise for a moment, followed by the rapid tapping of a keyboard. Was she searching for something?
[I’ll plan the entire course and make all the reservations. Just follow it exactly.]
“Is that really okay?”
[Of course. Because Boss only has ‘me’.]
Hearing Baek Soyun’s voice, which somehow sounded like she was smiling, I let out a sigh of relief. Good. I’d just trust her on this. The power of a secretary who gets things done when it counts.