Published: August 25, 2025
Today, five chapters posted simultaneously.
This is the second chapter of this story.
“This is... the nearest station to the company?”
This must be a hallucination. Yet the door that just closed to grab my attention has transformed into a familiar station. I hear a man arguing on the phone as if waiting for someone, and the air smells faintly of exhaust fumes... The information from sight, hearing, and smell is indistinguishable from reality.
“I can’t afford to dawdle...”
“Chief!”
“!?”
Just as I refocus my energy, a familiar voice calls from the right. Reflexively, I turn my body and sword toward it, but in that hand is a worn-out business bag. Moreover, the whole body gripping it has returned to the form of my pre-reincarnation self, Ryoma Takebayashi.
“Sorry to keep you waiting... What are you doing?”
“Tabuchi-kun.”
At least in the visible range before my eyes, the person in front of me shows no sign of attacking. The slightly chubby man in a suit looks at me with a puzzled expression, speaking in the exact voice I remember.
“I don’t really understand, but since we’ve managed to meet up, let’s go.”
“...Where to?”
“Where else? It’s obviously the retirement farewell party!”
“Retire...?”
“Anyway, let’s go. We can talk while walking.”
I wondered what he was saying, but there’s no sign of attack. For now, I follow behind.
“Wow, it feels weird to walk outside in the daytime for something other than work. It’s been a while.”
“...Really? Well, maybe it is.”
I did feel that way shortly after reincarnation.
“You’re already used to it since the chief quit earlier, huh? Honestly, things got really tough after chief left.”
“Tough?”
“Well, our company went under, you know.”
“Went under...?”
“Today, the cleanup finishes, and everything’s completely over. So everyone decided to have a farewell party. We thought we’d invite the chief, too, and have a big blast.
By the way, it’s a little early, but congratulations on your new job!”
“New job...?”
“You said it on the phone, right? A laundry service? The industry is totally different from before, but there’s no overtime, and the people you work with are worlds apart from the previous lot, like the manager and others.”
Ah, that’s true. The manager and the laundry service folks aren’t even comparable.
“By the way, did you know the manager was hospitalized?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“After the chief left, it was chaos. All the work that had been dumped on the chief piled up, and at first, the manager yelled at you all to divide and do it! But gradually, it became impossible, and after a little effort, he broke down and collapsed.
Incidentally, before he collapsed, he was even more irritable than usual because of the extra workload, but when he took it out on us, work stalled, so he started venting on the people who got in through connections.
Those guys still hardly worked and just complained. They’d been spared the manager’s unreasonable rants before because of their connections, so they took it lightly. When the manager suddenly snapped and started lashing out, they quickly gave up and ran away.”
“...I feel a bit sorry about that.”
I couldn’t help but say this, thinking about how the work I was responsible for probably had to be split between the rest. But Tabuchi-kun shook his head.
“There’s no need to feel sorry. The manager and the connected hires simply paid the price for dumping work on the chief and pretending not to know. The problem was letting one person do such an impossible amount. ...Well, that goes for me and everyone at the company, too.
...Everyone said they wanted to apologize to the chief. It was a black company with routine unpaid overtime, but the reason things kept running was the chief.”
“They said that about me?”
“Yes. Actually, everyone knew it all along. The chief relied on his ridiculous stamina to cover not only his own work but also help others. That’s why everyone was saved. It’s not like they only realized after you left.