It Was Rare for Aden to Agree.

Lennox, who was on the other end of the communication device, brightened.

—Exactly! Anyway, I’ll stay in this village a little longer and gather more clues. Ah! The mailman is coming! I wonder who sent a letter here. I’ll casually try to fish for some information—

“Let’s end the call here. Contact me if you make any progress.”

Without the slightest hesitation, Aden ended the communication and turned his attention back to the recorded footage.

Despite claiming she had never studied martial arts, she had defended herself by making clever use of her surroundings before delivering a decisive blow.

Her excessively calm responses, and her claim that she had uncovered corruption in just one day through nothing but her powers of observation, without any prior information.

[If you’re going to pull something like this, shouldn’t you at least be more careful about who you pick a fight with?]

Aden stared at Ilian on the screen as she muttered those words. When the footage reached the moment Jeremy hesitated just before lunging at her, he paused the magical device.

“I suppose I have no choice but to acknowledge it, Miss Gracia. I don’t know who sent you here, but…”

Aden recalled Ilian’s sparkling turquoise eyes and continued.

Those eyes he had seen through the glasses with the bent frames.

“That person’s judgment is rather… impressive.”

Aden failed to notice that the corners of his lips had lifted ever so slightly.

I was forcibly sent home early.

As I left La Mar and trudged along unsteadily, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Why are you following me, Mr. Luther?”

Luther, however, seemed even more bewildered than I was.

“After everything that happened, you think I’d just let the secretary go home alone?”

“Um, yes. Actually, I’m not injured or anything…”

“Good grief. Even if you’re not physically hurt, exhaustion and psychological shock can hit you later. I don’t want to hear that a La Mar employee collapsed in the middle of the street!”

Come to think of it, Luther had always been a pretty decent person in the original story.

In fact, I had wondered more than once why someone like him had stayed by the side of the mastermind until the very end.

In any case, now that I understood this was his way of showing kindness, I decided to accept it gratefully. Besides, there was no point in hiding where I lived when I’d already written my address on my résumé.

Still, ‘Secretary’? That’s more of a psychological shock than anything else, Mr. Luther.

A little earlier, when Aden had shoved the employment contract in front of me…

After quickly pulling myself together, I had immediately begun thinking of an excuse to quit.

Something along the lines of being too frightened to continue working there, perhaps.

But before I could even open my mouth, the mastermind beat me to it.

“Didn’t you tell me yesterday? That your motivation for applying was money.”

“I don’t believe I ever put it quite so bluntly…”

“If that’s true, there should be no reason for you to hesitate. Why are you wavering?”

Only then did I realize my mistake.

If I had wanted to make an excuse like, I’m simply too scared to keep working for this company, I should have burst into tears and made a scene right from the start.

I’d answered every question he threw at me without hesitation. There was no way that suspicious man would let me off easily if I suddenly started begging to resign.

As he stared at me, frozen stiff, Aden drove the final nail into the coffin.

“You’re acting as though you have another motive you haven’t told me about.”

And so, I…

“Anyway, congratulations. Getting promoted from probationary employee to full-time staff in just one day is probably a first and last in La Mar’s history. Hahaha!”

Just as Luther had said, I had been promoted from probationary employee to full-time staff in a single day.

Honestly, I couldn’t really blame anyone else. After all, I was the one who had created the vacancy by quite literally sending my senior flying.

I wanted to cry.

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again before asking,

“Then what will happen to Mr. Jeremy?”

“Huh? Oh, well… It’s probably better if you don’t know.”

“…”

“He’ll be dealt with according to company regulations! Yes, something like that. New employees don’t need to worry about company regulations yet. It’s a headache.”

He had placed a rather peculiar emphasis on the word dealt with, and I was certain it wasn’t my imagination.

Could it be that Luther hadn’t followed me out of concern for my well-being, but rather to give Aden some privacy so he could do whatever he pleased with Jeremy…?

As I pondered this, Luther spoke up in a somewhat exaggeratedly cheerful tone.

“You might feel a little overwhelmed right now, but there are plenty of benefits to becoming a permanent employee. Not only will your salary increase, but you’ll also be eligible for additional training and even company loans if you need them…”

Of course, those benefits were far ahead of their time. But considering that the company’s owner was none other than Aden, I couldn’t exactly take them at face value.

A company loan? You mean I’d have to go into debt to Aden?

Wasn’t that just another way of putting a financial collar around my neck?

Oblivious to my thoughts, Luther continued listing the advantages of permanent employment before flashing me a cheerful smile.

“By now, word that we’ve hired someone new has probably spread all over the place. Everyone will be curious about you. Quite a few people are away at the moment, but they’re all good-natured folks, so don’t worry. There’s really no one like Jeremy!”

I understood that he was trying to reassure me, but I couldn’t take those words at face value either.

It seemed my personal information had already been sold all across the Empire.

This was a disaster.

I gave him a perfunctory answer and continued walking ahead. Then Luther’s voice drew a little closer.

“Which reminds me…”

When I looked up, I saw him scratching the back of his neck before asking cautiously,

“Being a spy must come with its own set of hardships, right?”

“I… suppose so?”

“And you probably have your own circumstances as well.”

“Most likely?”

He wasn’t wrong, but why was he bringing this up with me?

Was he close to Jeremy?

Still, I couldn’t imagine someone like Jeremy having any particularly sympathetic circumstances.

I tilted my head in confusion. Luther seemed to be gathering his resolve, as though he was about to say something important, when—

“Oh, this is my house. Thank you for walking me home.”

Luther’s mouth fell open.

“Your house is here, Secretary?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure this is all right?”

“Yes, well… It’s a little old, but considering how hurriedly I had to find a place, it’s not bad.”

My house was halfway up a mountain. In truth, it looked more like a cabin than an actual home.

Of course, I would have preferred to live somewhere more presentable, but there weren’t many places in the capital that I could afford on my budget.

Still, although the exterior was rather shabby, the inside was quite cozy.

But then…

“…So that’s why. You had circumstances like that…”

Luther’s eyes grew suspiciously moist as he looked back and forth between me and my house.

“What’s wrong?”

“N-Nothing! Well, I’ll be going now, so get some good rest!”

He had the expression of someone who had come to a rather strange misunderstanding, though I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I watched Luther hurry away with a puzzled expression before finally going inside.

“Luther was right.”

Even though I’d only spent a single day here, my body already recognized this place as home. The moment I stepped into the safety of my own space, exhaustion came crashing down on me.

I didn’t even make it to the bed. I simply collapsed face-first onto the floor and mumbled to myself.

“Should I just run away in the middle of the night? No, I can’t. Should I restart my project of becoming the worst employee imaginable? No, I’ve already done too much today for that. Or maybe I could embezzle money like Jeremy, but just a tiny bit… No, what am I even saying…?”

As I continued rambling, I caught sight of the employment contract sticking out of my discarded bag.

According to the document, my monthly salary, including the base pay and various other allowances, amounted to a whopping six million gold.

It was enough to gradually pay off my debts without having to juggle two or even three jobs.

“Actually, the conditions aren’t bad at all. The pay is great, and the benefits are good, too. Why does that man, Aden, have to be a villain of all things? With that much money, he could just enjoy spending it!”

As an ordinary citizen constantly struggling under the weight of debt, I couldn’t help but be tempted by that amount of money.

If only Aden weren’t involved, La Mar would be the perfect workplace!

“…Well, technically speaking, he hasn’t become a ‘villain’ just yet.”

After repeating those words to myself, I tilted my head.

Come to think of it, as frightening as Aden was right now, he hadn’t yet become the worst villain in the entire story.

He only completely lost his mind after meeting the original female protagonist. And if I remembered correctly, that wouldn’t happen for another few months.

“Oh?”

In that case…

“Couldn’t I just make sure they never meet?”

I blinked several times while lying on the floor before suddenly shooting upright.

Come to think of it, wasn’t I his secretary?

“I could arrange Aden’s schedule so that he never even gets to see the female lead’s face! Then he won’t go crazy, and he won’t become the mastermind behind everything!”

And more importantly…

“I won’t get arrested just because I worked at La Mar!”

I silently cheered at the prospect of having found a way out. But then I suddenly froze.

I’d just remembered one enormous obstacle standing in the way of my simple and brilliant plan.

“…But to do that, I’d have to earn Aden’s trust first.”

The fact that Aden wasn’t particularly fond of me was actually the least of my problems.

My predecessor, Jeremy, had technically held the title of secretary, but in the six months he’d worked there, he hadn’t been entrusted with any major duties.

And yet, even with those limited privileges, he’d managed to embezzle three hundred million gold.

“Won’t he start suspecting me just for going to get a glass of water when I show up at work tomorrow…?”

Honestly, what a useless man!

Groaning, I clenched my fist and thought to myself:

I really should’ve hit that bastard Jeremy one more time.