The Special Affairs Officer Moves the Negotiations Forward

“Then, John-san, next, regarding the land rent......”

“Hm, if you'll accept the earlier conditions......”

“I see, then on our side......”

“No, in that case......”

Right in front of Yuju, the person she was guarding, Special Affairs Officer Taiche, was carrying on some complicated negotiation with the villain-faced man John.

Standing behind Taiche, Yuju watched them without a care.

The job she had taken this time was guarding Special Affairs Officer Taiche.

And right now, the person she was guarding was in a meeting room inside the base, with no danger from monsters at all.

The person they were negotiating with, though he looked evil, seemed to be an ordinary civilian who wasn't very strong.

And so Yuju ordinarily relaxed, taking a break while pretending to stand guard.

“Regarding that......”

“Well, well, my! Taiche-dono, you do have a way with a joke.”

“Oh no, not as well as you, John-san! Hahahahahaha!”

““Hahahahahaha!””

Ah, they're laughing about something.

(Wow, I'm glad they seem to be having fun!)

Letting the complicated words go in one ear and out the other, Yuju smiled without a care.

She happened to glance out the window.

Was that burning off a field?

Several thin trails of smoke were rising into the sky from the fields inside the base.

The peaceful sight soothed her soul......

A brief moment of rest, snatched between the grueling days of adventuring.

Yuju was ordinarily enjoying it to the full.

Meanwhile, though, the two desk workers, Taiche and Giovanno, were throwing everything they had into the negotiations, fraying their nerves and wearing down their spirits while Yuju lazed behind them!

The words they tossed at each other with smiles were like fastballs with blades hidden inside.

Every word carried double and triple meanings; catch one carelessly and a serious injury was guaranteed!

They were not having a pleasant chat at all, you know!

Still, the goals they were aiming for weren't that far apart, so although they wrangled a bit over the fine details, this negotiation could be said to have landed at a point both could live with.

First, the Adventurers' Guild recognized the villain-faced man John's rights to the land, and further promised him its protection.

To begin with, the Adventurers' Guild was not an organization that would do anything as ungrateful as kicking out the pioneer of a land, and it rated highly this man's rare talent for growing demon-realm plants, as well as his leadership here.

Eh, a great sinner banished to this forest?

Someone like that must have died ages ago, obviously?

Use some common sense, okay?

Well, that was how it was settled.

Next, it was settled that Patchino and the rest of “Brown Dragon's Heel” would from now on work as adventurers out of this Zamago Forest branch office, and go on compensating the victims of their hero fraud.

What's more, they would finally be paid wages for all the work they had put into building up the base, starting with the road.

And Earthcell, just as he had hoped, would stay on here as branch chief.

Giovanno had negotiated even the treatment of “Brown Dragon's Heel,” and of Earthcell, who was on the Adventurers' Guild's side to begin with.

He did it with an eye to making life at the base easier for himself and Emi from here on, because he had come to feel for Earthcell and the others as comrades, and, to begin with, because Giovanno simply loved haggling this way and that.

“......Well then, I look forward to working with you from here on.”

“Likewise.”

The two exchanged signatures, the smiling masks glued to their faces never slipping to the very end, and the talks closed amicably.

“Foooh~~~...... I'm tired!”

“Come on, Gio...... John-san did practically all the talking. Where in that was there anything to tire out a perverted old geezer......”

“Patchino, you're worn out too, aren't you! Talk like that is tiring just to listen to!”

Beside Taiche and Giovanno as they shook hands, Earthcell and Patchino sprawled lazily back in their chairs.

Patchino called Giovanno John, but not because he understood why he had to.

He just sort of read the room.

“Wow, Taiche-san, good work!”

The handshake over, Taiche sat back down and took little sips of what really was the last of her vinegar-ivy water, and Yuju spoke to her breezily and ordinarily.

The words were kindly meant, but they surely showed no grasp at all of how mentally drained she was, and in spite of herself Taiche furrowed her brow and glared at Yuju through half-closed eyes.

But it was true that this job was “almost” safely over.

Taiche decided to let her irritation toward Yuju go with a single sigh.

“......Thanks. But my work isn't done yet, you know.”

And, without meaning to, she let that slip in a murmur.

“Ah, there's still the detailed inspection left, right?”

“That's not all. There's one more...... a job that weighs on me.”

“A job that weighs on you? What might that be?”

The one who spoke was not Yuju, but the villain-faced man sitting opposite her across the desk.

Yuju had ordinarily missed that quiet little murmur, but this man's sharp ears had caught it.

Taiche furrowed her brow again and sighed once more.

“......My apologies; that was truly a slip of the tongue. I would be grateful if you'd forget it.”

“What's this? What's this? Taiche, some trouble!? You can talk to your grandpa about anything!”

Over to Taiche, her shoulders slumped with fatigue, came Earthcell, bouncing merrily.

He was humming, wiggling his hips to the tune as he walked.

This old geezer, he's full of pep now that the hard talk is over, huh!

“Yes, of course.”

“Foh!!?”

Then Taiche's face flipped to a sunny smile, but with a vein bulging on her forehead, she grabbed the old geezer by the mustache!

“Naturally, you'll be dealing with this together with me, Earthcell! I mean, OLD GEEZER! You should've noticed first! Back when you were branch chief, the information should've been going around! The one the Adventurers' Guild has been searching for, for ages and ages, is here! RIGHT HERE, DAMN IT!!”

“FOOOH~~~!!? Ow ow, it's coming out, it's coming out!! MY WHISKERS ARE COMING OUUT~~~!!!”

With a face like a demon, Taiche yanked and yanked on the old geezer's mustache!

But the old geezer was a former special-grade adventurer, too!

His body, toughened by repeated mana transmutation, was sturdy, and his mustache wouldn't come out easily!

Which only made it hurt more!

“......What do you mean?”

It was the villain-faced man who asked, eyeing with suspicion the violent grandfather-granddaughter roughhousing that had suddenly broken out across the desk.

Whatever it was, it seemed this Special Affairs Officer-dono had other business at this base too.

She was the one he had just been locking horns with so fiercely.

Naturally, his guard went up.

“Pardon me, I lost my composure...... It's not that I have anything to hide, no. It will all come out soon anyway, so I'll explain now. John-san, you could be called an interested party now, after all, yes.”

Taiche cleared her throat once before speaking.

“Before that, one thing to confirm: the girl whose name came up during the negotiations...... Emi. This child has black hair and black eyes. Correct?”

“What of it?”

......Realizing his voice had come out colder than he meant, Giovanno felt a cold jolt of alarm inside.

In a negotiation, letting the other side read your feelings was a bad move.

But it couldn't be helped.

After all, it seemed the woman opposite him had business with Emi.

Emi was strong.

So strong that at times he couldn't believe she was the same kind of human as him.

But still, that was only if you looked at her fighting ability alone.

Emi, to put it oddly, was absurdly strong as a living creature, but very weak as a person.

Not in terms of her mind, but in terms of her place in society.

After all, until she came here, she had been a vagrant without a home, and above all, she was a cursed child with black hair and black eyes.

In the “ordinary society” of this world, she was someone despised and met with malice for no particular reason, and who yet would never be saved.

The rough behavior Emi occasionally showed.

Violence, cruelty, savagery.

But that was only one side of her.

Emi was certainly coarse, violent, and lacked common sense, but she seemed to value the comrades of the base in her own way, and she was happy when her birthday was celebrated.

Her heart was a human heart.

And without realizing it, she longed for bonds with other people.

She was no monster dozing atop corpses.

At least, not now.

Absolutely not.

That being so.

He would protect her, as an adult.

That was his job, Giovanno had decided, presumptuous as it was.

Because to Giovanno, Emi was now the one who had saved his life, a companion who had shared his hardships and joys, and almost like his own......

“......Please don't be so on guard.”

Sensing from the villain-faced man a force of a different kind from anything in the negotiations, Taiche hurried to speak up.

“That question was by no means meant to demean the girl. I was simply matching physical features. And there is probably no mistake. We of the Adventurers' Guild, to that girl......”

“Heeey, perverted old geezer! I brought her.”

It was then.

That the meeting room door opened without a knock and a grubby-looking man came in.

No, the man wasn't the only one who entered.

He had a child with him, hood pulled low.

The child had been masking all presence and walking without a sound, so at first Taiche hadn't even noticed anyone was there.

By the time Taiche was able to notice the child.

The child had already.

Toward the two strange women in the meeting room, Taiche and Yuju.

......begun to give off an intense 【Intimidation】!

Ah! Emi-chan, doing her ‘Opening Move: 【Intimidation】’ again!

Shy around strangers, maybe?

Sorry the conversation ran long, but the negotiation part is, any way you look at it, an important chance for the bureaucrat-type old man to shine, so please bear with me.

And yet, since this author is an idiot and can't write smart-sounding conversation, the all-important negotiation got cut wholesale!

Sorry, old man!