Published: February 1, 2026
Judge’s shop has a lunch break.
The休 break made solely for lunch isn’t very long, and it’s set for the time when there are the fewest customers—namely, when the most common customers, adventurers, are out on requests.
Around noon, when the sun reaches its peak, most adventurers are away working, so the shop, which was never that busy to begin with, pretty much stops seeing customers.
That said, even during break time, if a customer came, Judge would normally serve them anyway.
But recently, during that break, he really has been closing the shop.
“Sigh…”
Letting out a weak sigh, Judge locked the shop door and hung up a sign that read, “Out on business.”
Today again he was heading to the Commerce Guild, where nobody would listen to him properly. It was no wonder his mood was heavy.
Just sensing that everyone there found him troublesome, a nuisance, that kind of atmosphere alone made him shrink back.
But this wasn’t a problem he could just swallow and accept, nor was it something he could ever be satisfied with.
Besides, there was no guarantee Lizel wouldn’t someday want the items that had been stolen. With that thought, he pulled himself together.
“Alright…!”
However, that surge of resolve flew off somewhere almost as soon as he started walking.
Not in a bad way, but he couldn’t say it was good either.
As he approached the Commerce Guild, the stares directed at him and the conversations he overheard completely scrambled his thoughts.
“The Commerce Guild’s really fallen… Look, it’s him, isn’t it? The one who noticed he’d been robbed.”
“Yeah, he’s the one who’s been filing complaints with the guild lately. Good thing he noticed.”
“Who would’ve thought it was a senior staffer… And apparently the guild tried to cover it up too.”
Huh? This feels… kind of already resolved.
With figurative question marks popping above his head, Judge hesitantly continued toward the guild.
Wondering what on earth had happened, he nervously opened the door—and found utter chaos on the other side.
Merchants crowding and pressing in, staff running around trying to handle them and bowing their heads, the inside of the guild was so frantic it made him want to turn around and go home.
Unsure what to do, he cautiously approached the staffer he’d been repeatedly appealing to about the theft, only to be brushed off each time.
“Um—”
“Yes! Just a moment…!”
The staffer, who had been flipping through some papers, raised his face—and went deathly pale.
He shot to his feet so fast he nearly kicked his chair over and bowed his head at a perfect right angle. It was obviously an attitude of apology.
The stark contrast with the previous cold treatment made Judge lower his brows and glance around in confusion.
Under the weight of all the stares focusing on him, he immediately regretted looking around at all, but it was too late.
“We sincerely apologize for the matter this time! We have recovered the stolen goods from your store and will return them to you immediately. A formal apology will be issued by the guild master personally—!”
“U-um…”
For Judge, as long as he got the stolen items back and nothing like this ever happened again, that would be enough.
Around him, voices were flying: “Bring out the staff member who did it!” “He’s been in my store too, what are you going to do about that?” and so on.
Normally, the name of the staff involved wouldn’t be made public, but apparently it had already spread everywhere.
The guild would never go out of its way to spread that name itself, so how had it happened? While he was thinking that, he was hurried along and taken to another room.
The guild had probably decided it would be bad to let everyone keep overhearing the conversation with Judge, one of the central parties.
Guided into a separate room, Judge sat down hesitantly on the sofa he was offered and accepted the recovered stolen goods the staff brought.
They’d been wrapped almost excessively. When he checked inside, he saw they were indeed the four dungeon items that had disappeared from his shop.