Secretary Chloe (1)
The next morning.
Sergeant Klaus Müller visited my hospital room the moment daylight broke.
I had just choked down a hospital meal that registered as little more than texture, chewed a wet cloth for moisture, and was about to begin a perfect day as a frail, beautiful invalid when he appeared.
He carried a thick sheaf of documents in one hand, and the instant I saw them a foul premonition settled over me.
People acquire a handful of instincts over a lifetime, don’t they?
Old men whose knees ache before rain. Merchants who can smell a day when nothing will sell.
“Chloe Winterland.”
“Yes.”
“Orders have come down.”
“Pardon?”
“Your temporary assignment has been decided.”
…Assignment?
Why?
They were giving a post to a frail beauty already ruled unfit for combat? Putting me to work? Me?
Was the Kranz Empire’s army the sort of place that worked its soldiers the way Korea did?
Making a girl with her nails torn out and her leg ruined do labor…?
Because it’s the military.
Truly a magic phrase. One word and everything explained itself.
Müller raised the papers and began to read without further ceremony.
“Private Chloe Winterland, having been judged unfit for combat duty, is temporarily assigned as a clerk-private to the Office of Temporary Inspector and Administrative Officer Klaus Müller for the duration of her recovery and re-evaluation period. That is all.”
He lowered the documents again.
“…….”
“Any questions?”
“Yes.”
“One only.”
“Why me?”
“You can read and write, and you can do arithmetic. Correct?”
Damn it. Was it that man from the recruit reception center? Or Senior NCO Misty? Who talked?
Müller held the order sheet out in front of my face.
Thanks to that, I could read it without sitting up.
Unfit for combat duty. Recovery and re-evaluation. Temporary clerk-private…?
Getting off the front line was good. Escaping Lieutenant Mauer’s grasp was good. But a clerk-private?
The soul of an office worker who had collapsed from overwork while mainlining energy drinks began to scream inside me.
“Inability to use mana due to injury. Contamination of the internal mana circuits. That is your present condition.”
“…I see.”
“Until you can use magic again, you will serve under me.”
“Yes.”
“Until discharge you will learn the basic duties from your hospital bed. After discharge you will report to the Inspector’s Office.”
The Inspector’s Office?
Ah—he had mentioned that his post had changed from recruitment officer to inspector.
“What will the work be?”
“Copying orders, organizing draft reports, producing combat-log duplicates, filing inspection records, revising unit tables of organization, updating personnel rosters, compiling lists of the dead and wounded….”
“…….”
“Ah, and disciplinary and investigation records as well.”
“Sergeant.”
“What is it?”
“Are you trying to kill me?”
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
I was going to die of overwork in this life too.
“…….”
“Better than the front, is it not?”
I could not argue with that.
On the front line bullets and magic flew at you; paperwork, at worst, gave you a paper cut.
Ha.
I wanted to sigh.
.
.
.
I was discharged a few days later.
Two weeks in Lieutenant Mauer’s medical tent, one week in the rear military hospital. Roughly three weeks in total?
No matter how I looked at it, the recovery speed was absurd.
They called it discharge, but it was not the same as a full recovery.
In the army, the moment you could move on your own they stamped the release papers. How marvelous.
A brace clung to my right leg; every step required the cane.
My fingers were still swathed in bandages. It would be quite some time before the nails grew back.
As for the contaminated mana circuits… that was a little more complicated.
When I asked the military surgeon he spoke of “observing the course of things,” which roughly translated as:
We have no idea either.
He piled on any number of medically dignified phrases, but I stopped listening properly.
The gist felt like: We don’t know why you’re still alive. Let’s talk again when you’re dead.
At any rate, after a long stretch of time I finally reached the administrative building that housed the Inspector’s Office.
Gray walls, rectangular windows, two sentries standing by the entrance, the imperial crest hung above the door.
Ah. Boring.
It could at least have tried for something a little more ominous. Like real-world Germany, for instance.
Leaning on my cane, I made for the entrance.
A frail beauty hobbling toward a building on a cane made for a picture in its own right.
The moment I arrived the two sentries blocked my path.
“Pass.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Business?”
“Temporary assignment to the Inspector’s Office.”
“Papers.”
I drew from my coat the bundle of documents the surgeon and Sergeant Müller had given me.
Strength would not properly reach my fingers; the sheets fluttered limply.
A sentry snatched them up, scanned them, and jerked his chin toward the interior.
“Register at the reception desk.”
“…Yes.”
It was a little unpleasant.
Even in the army, to treat a beauty like this with such rudeness?
I went straight inside the administrative building.
The interior of the administrative building was thick with the smell of paper and ink. Mana lamps cast a soft blue glow that managed to feel rather eerie.
Ah. The office-worker male self of my previous life began screaming again from somewhere inside.
Overtime. Reports. Approvals. Rejections. Revisions. Re-revisions. The real last one. The real, real last one….
My head throbbed.
Reincarnated into a fantasy world only to listen to typewriters in an administrative building—it was far too grim.
“Next.”
The reception officer called me forward.
“Name.”
“Private Chloe Winterland.”
“Unit.”
“Pending temporary assignment to the Inspector’s Office.”
“Previous unit.”
“Reconnaissance platoon under direct command of Lieutenant Anke Mauer, the Hollow Star… formerly.”
Hm. I let the ending trail off because the reconnaissance platoon no longer existed.
Until Lieutenant Anke Mauer used the authority of her Star to rebuild it, that platoon would remain non-functional.
The reception officer flipped through the papers without particular reaction.
“Private Chloe Winterland. Unfit for combat duty. Mana-circuit contamination. Subject to recovery and re-evaluation. Temporary assignment to the Inspector’s Office.”
He wrote a few lines with his pen and entered my name in the ledger.
Name, rank, unit, status, purpose.
In the army a human being was sorted by five measures.
From this moment my purpose was temporary clerk-private.
“Your pass.”
He set a small metal plate in front of me.
Temporary Assignment, Inspector’s Office — Private Chloe Winterland.
Beneath it, stamped in red ink: Unfit for Combat Duty.
“Visitor and temporary-personnel registration complete. Unit-transfer record pending. After re-examination at the medical office you will be assigned billeting. First obtain confirmation of placement at the Inspector’s Office.”
“…I was only just discharged. Must I undergo re-examination?”
“The paperwork requires it.”
I nodded meekly.
The military surgeon examined my leg, my fingers, my pupils, and the area around my neck with particular care, then offered a single remark.
“Do not overexert yourself.”
“…Yes.”
A stamp landed on the form.
That was the end of it.
Only after finishing every last tedious procedure did I finally arrive before the Inspector’s Office.
Knock-knock.
I rapped twice; Sergeant Müller’s voice answered from within.
“Enter.”
I opened the door. Klaus Müller sat behind a desk.
Documents were stacked upon it like a mountain, and the moment I saw that landscape I seriously considered closing the door and fleeing.
If my legs had been sound I might actually have run.
Unfortunately my legs were not sound, and flight was impossible.
“You’re late.”
“…I apologize. I am not yet familiar with the geography of the imperial capital.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes.”
“Well. You found your way, so that will do.”
Müller checked my papers one by one and pressed a stamp down hard.
A red seal bit into one corner of the document.
And so I became, officially, temporary clerk-private under Inspector and Administrative Officer Klaus Müller.
“From today you learn the work.”
“Starting today?”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
Thud!
Müller dropped a thick ledger onto the desk in front of me.
Ah. I sincerely wanted to die.