Early the next morning.
Percy moved his neck from side to side to loosen his stiff body after a night’s sleep and opened the door to Eclise’s office.
Cleaning Eclise’s office early every morning before he came to work was how Percy started his workday.
But Percy’s eyes widened when he saw someone in what should have been an empty space.
“Oh? You’re already here?”
He was surprised to see Eclise already at work, occupying his desk.
“Yeah.”
Eclise casually flicked his hand and returned his focus to his documents.
Percy bowed his head as he entered.
Then he moved quickly to tidy up the surroundings without being disruptive.
Occasionally, Eclise would come to work at night or dawn to handle business.
For Percy, it was concerning to see Eclise arrive at dawn like this, especially since there were many days when Eclise left work later than himself.
While busily tidying up, Percy glanced at him.
“Are you getting any sleep? You’ve been pushing yourself too hard lately.”
Although he had monstrous stamina, he was still human after all.
Moreover, with recent family matters overlapping, even Percy, who normally wouldn’t make a fuss, expressed his concern.
“Sleep.”
Eclise held a document in one hand and dropped it onto his leg.
With his gaze fixed arbitrarily forward, resembling someone throwing it into empty space, he chuckled, causing Percy’s body to freeze.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Then perhaps you were working all night.”
“A mouse invaded my room last night.”
“Pardon? A mouse?”
As Percy looked on in confusion, Eclise shook his head.
“Yeah. One bold little mouse.”
It’s quite annoying.
It would still be occupying Eclise’s bed right now, just as it had last night.
Still unable to catch his meaning, Percy became very alert.
“I’ll instruct them to maintain cleanliness.”
Eclise snickered.
“You won’t be able to catch it.”
Unless it deliberately allows itself to be caught.
Brodi had been staying here for several weeks now.
By this point, he had a pretty good idea of what kind of kid Rodi was.
Someone who had no education and couldn’t read a single character that even younger children could recite fluently, someone whose moral standards seemed more ambiguous than others her age, but also someone who knew her own path more clearly than anyone.
Someone who knew when to be afraid and when to charge ahead.
Well, quite cute for a whiny age, perhaps?
And perhaps the human whose future he was most curious about among all the people he had seen so far.
The more Eclise smiled while thinking about Rodi, the more fear and questions accumulated in Percy’s eyes.
After all, he was smiling from the morning rather than being disgusted while talking about a mouse.
It was already strange that Eclise had been playing pranks often lately, perhaps because of the new rookie, but his inexplicable morning smile was downright creepy.
He should have been at his lowest mood in the morning.
Eclise had extremely little sleep.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t sleep, but rather that he chose not to.
When his mind was at ease, he would sleep deeply for quite a while.
Since he inherently distrusted others and often found their work unsatisfactory, he checked everything himself, simply reducing what he considered the most unnecessary part for himself.
These days, he had reduced even that small amount of time to the extreme, so he should normally be in a bad mood, but he wasn’t, which was terrifying.
Shivering with goosebumps, Percy hurriedly finished the remaining tidying up.
“I’ll bring you a simple meal.”
“Don’t bother with that, just make the coffee strong.”
That’s more like it. Percy nodded, thinking he knew it would be so.
“Yes, understood.”
After Percy left, Eclise put down the document he was looking at and placed his hand on the ledger beside it.
He raised an eyebrow as he removed a memo attached to the ledger cover.
It was a brief memo saying he would finish organizing the materials related to Branch 1 by today.
Recently, Padrid, who had noticed something strange in the ledgers coming up from Branch 1, had come up personally to report it.
Since people can make mistakes, it would be natural to overlook one or two instances.
But someone from Branch 1 had been siphoning off small amounts of funds for some time now.
Who was supervising Branch 1 again?
As Eclise mentally went through the executives of Cheiles, one of his eyebrows shot up.
That guy would definitely bring someone along…
“The little one has got a job to do.”
He could already picture her puffing out her chest like a baby chick and getting all proud.
*** 
“Ready to graduate now?”
“I practiced a lot!”
“By yourself?”
“Yes!”
“Wow, our rookie is a total genius, isn’t she~?”
Ekision, who had styled his hair neatly today, patted Rodi’s head.
“Did you do your subtraction homework?”
“Ugh! What the-?”
Rodi, who had been chatting with Ekision, turned her head abruptly at the sudden intrusion.
Upon recognizing who it was, Rodi’s eyes narrowed.
The traitor who had betrayed her trust in an instant after she had shared a huge secret with him as a trusted colleague had appeared.
Horas chuckled and flicked his wet hands at Rodi.
“It’s cold!”
“Judging by that bulging belly, you had another hearty breakfast today, huh?”
“N-no, I didn’t!”
In truth, she had eaten two palm-sized pieces of meat since morning.
Rodi sucked in her stomach. Then, lifting her chin proudly, she boasted.
“And I finished all my homework yesterday. The subtraction homework too!”
“How much?”
“This-s-s much!”
When she followed up by showing all ten fingers to indicate a perfect score, Horas sat down beside her and grinned.
“Oh, such a model student.”
With shoulders puffed up, Rodi’s face grew even more shameless.
Her chubby cheeks inflated, and her round nose seemed about to point skyward.
“And yesterday I went to the boss’s room and patted him because I was worried he might be scared.”
“What’s ‘patting’?”
“It’s when you pat someone like this to help them sleep well.”
When Rodi demonstrated the motion, Horas squinted one eye, looking like someone who had heard something bizarre.
“Who did what to whom…?”
“I did it to the boss.”
“You weren’t dreaming, were you?”
Beside them, Ekision wore the same expression as Horas, unable to believe it.
“It’s true. I even got this!”
Rodi pulled out a shiny gold coin.
Actually, yesterday she had returned the gold coin to the boss without accepting it, but when she woke up in the morning, there was a gold coin stuck to her forehead.
More precisely, the gold coin that had been placed on her forehead fell off when she got up.
It must have been there for quite some time, as when she looked in the mirror, there was a faint mark on her forehead in the shape of the Libra symbol.
The boss had disappeared, and she didn’t know when he had gotten up and left.
“…1 Libra?”
“Yes! I’m rich now.”
At that, Horas, Ekision, and Padrid’s mouths fell open.
Not only was it a large sum, but what surprised them most was that Eclise had personally taken care of someone.
And he gave pocket money?!
“Rookie, that’s a bit too much money for you to be holding onto. Do you even know how much this is worth?”
It was pure gold currency that high nobles or people here handled quite frequently, but ordinary people would never encounter it.
Horas asked, somewhat concerned.
Rodi nodded.
“Yes. With a few of these, you could buy a house, right?”
She might not know much else, but she was quite knowledgeable about money.
Even if it was difficult to count large amounts accurately.
“You’re smart. Still, be careful not to lose it. Don’t come crying later if it disappears.”
Horas’s expression finally relaxed, seemingly reassured.
After all, the reason Rodi had entered this place was because she had opened a safe worth 11 billion Libra, so in comparison, this was just a drop in the bucket.
Rodi tucked it back into her pocket.
“I’ll spend it wisely.”
“That’s interesting. So special recruits really are different?”
Horas looked alternately at Rodi and the small pouch containing the gold coin with his arms crossed.
“It’s her cuteness that worked. Right?”
Ekision grinned as he gently pinched both of Rodi’s cheeks.
“Come on. Of course.”
“Horas. Where’s Gemvil?”
Rodi slipped away from Ekision.
“He’s long gone. He’s the most diligent one around here. It’s actually better these days; he used to be hard to spot even when the sun was up.”
“Ah.”
Rodi immediately nodded in understanding.
Even if she got up early, seeing Gemvil in the morning was rare.
But he said that things were much more relaxed now compared to before, when he would leave very early and return late at night.
Come to think of it, Rodi had spent the most time with Gemvil when she visited Jin.
“Well, shall we go? Let’s finish our work quickly and go eat something delicious.”
Ekision stretched his neck from side to side as he got up from his seat.
Rodi followed suit, also stretching her neck from side to side to loosen up.
Horas blinked his eyes.
“Are you two going out together today?”