Chương 7: Employee of the Month

Soren gripped that frame with both hands, his face no longer able to hide his look of admiration. Despite being plastic, it was designed to imitate wood, and at the top was engraved a MinouseMart crest that until today had never been used for anything at all. Employee of the Month. Soren Vonesdar. For the exemplary management of a crisis during a gas leak incident. MinouseMart, Shibuya. II've been here for three years. But... why on earth?

"It seems this is the first time they've noticed you, boy. Look, that's a reason to be happy, put a smile on that face." Yoshida shrugged with his whole body and sighed.

"It's about time you hung that somewhere, make this store look like a reputable place. You know headquarters loves to have their store well-kept."

"But boss, I'd like to take it home as a souvenir, do you think headquarters will mind?"

"Hmm, then leave it in the store at least for today, and after that, yes, you can take it. Look, consider it my thanks for last night." Boss Yoshida turned his back and returned to the inventory sheets; he was organizing the restocking of the Tamago Sando in the refrigerated section. Soren couldn't help but stare at the certificate; he was still looking at the final sentence on the employee of the month certificate. Exemplary crisis management for closing a dimensional fissure in 2. 2 seconds?

Yes, for doing something that should have required 20 minutes from a coordinated team of specialized adventurers, above level 50. And also for using a power that he himself swore to keep hidden. Soren couldn't hide his smile; from the looks of it, the bar for MinouseMart's employee of the month was pretty low. Hmm. Or else, a bit confused.

He ended up hanging the certificate, temporarily, behind the cash register, right next to the fire safety instructions; on the other side was an anti-theft poster, starring a cartoon raccoon. Soren, when he hung it, looked sideways at that raccoon; it actually had a look that seemed to disapprove of him. Fair enough. He admitted. 🍲 She was waiting at the bus stop when Soren finished his shift.

It was exactly 10: 30 PM; he walked out, no longer in his work uniform, wearing only a white t-shirt and dark pants, both bought at the same second-hand store, with his backpack on his shoulders and earphones in his ears listening to Mrs. GREEN APPLE.

His apron was already inside the backpack; the sky had darkened long ago, and the single streetlamp at the bus stop did the bare minimum, emitting a peculiar orange that made everyone look like they were about to receive bad news, and the shadows looked like a television flickering from a bad connection.

The bench was made of metal, that cold metal that pierced through clothing in two seconds; it was clearly designed by someone who had never waited for a bus in their life and definitely didn't know what it was like. Eva was sitting exactly in the middle of the bench, her feet dangling about 10 centimeters above the ground. She watched him walk out of the store, as if she had always known he would appear at that exact moment.

"It's you," said the girl with an air of enthusiasm.

"The gas leak man." Soren considered continuing to walk and ignoring this interaction with the kid, since his apartment was only a 15-minute walk from the store, and he clearly didn't need the bus. But this didn't add up; children capable of seeing inside fissures usually didn't wait alone at a bus stop at 10: 31 PM.

"That's me, yes," he replied without admitting anything, looking at the child who had her hands tucked between her legs and the metal of the bench.

"I know, the gas leak man." She smiled, with that kind of child's smile like someone who is about to eat their favorite ice cream.

"But that's not my name." Soren hinted that he wasn't really liking this casualness from the kid.

"I know." The kid looked at his nametag.

"Your nametag says Vonesdar." At the same time, she pointed her index finger at the MinouseMart badge still pinned to his chest. Soren immediately looked down at his chest. Damn it. I knew I had forgotten to take something off. He then removed the nametag and put it inside the pocket of his backpack.

"But the gas leak man is funnier, and I like it more." She went back to looking at her dangling feet, proud of her own joke.

"Look, tell me something, where are your parents? You shouldn't be here alone at this hour."

"My dad left me here, but my mom is coming to pick me up in a little bit, don't worry." The kid looked at her watch, which was clearly made for a wrist much larger than hers.

"Oh, right. She's a little late." She looked down the street and sighed.

"She's always late, it's normal by now." Soren should have walked away at that very moment, because it was exactly these types of complications that gave rise to even bigger complications. Because, the truth was that a child with unusual abilities was a WID problem, and not his. But he pondered it as he looked at the asphalt; even so, he sat down and paused for five seconds; half a meter of distance between the two of them was certainly an appropriate distance.

He rested his right hand on the edge of the bench, precisely where the metal was thickest.

"That wasn't a gas leak," Eva said, now with a much more serious tone.

"Yes, it was." Soren sounded exactly like a chemistry teacher trying to convince his students that everything around us is made of matter. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"But gas leaks don't have ugly, sharp teeth, Mr. Vonesdar."

"But some of them cause hallucinations; maybe you didn't know that. Don't worry, it's normal, that must have been why some people are confused."

"Sure, sure, keep trying to convince me. I've heard better-crafted excuses from friends my age." The kid looked at him with that particular intensity of children, before they learn that adults prefer you to look away during certain types of awkward conversations.

"I know you don't believe it either," the kid said with maximum bluntness.

"I do believe it; I went and did some research, and then I went to speak with an engineer from Tokyo Gas," Soren justified himself too quickly. But the girl was like the player Shingo Aoi, from the manga series Captain Tsubasa, as she didn't stop pressing him.

"Research on what? On the gas leak? Or on the dimensional fissures and the System? I don't think that engineer took a course for those subjects." Who is teaching her these things?!

"My mom says I'm still too young to understand what awakening is. But, you know, I can read about those things." Soren completely changed his facial expression upon hearing her words. He was now looking at the kid in concern.

"But what exactly did you discover?"

"You know, I discovered that the fissures are classified by letters, where S is the worst, the most catastrophic, and D is almost harmless; WID intern adventurers were enough to close them, they wouldn't even hurt a fly." The kid explained without reading from any cheat sheet.

"And yesterday's was class B." Eva presented that like someone presenting a school project, clearly prepared to get the highest grade.

"I know that closing class B fissures requires teams of adventurers above level 50, meaning it involves Elite adventurers with a considerable level of practical experience. And the average time to close them is 20 to 30 minutes, assuming the team is working in a coordinated manner." Soren nodded.

"I see you did your homework well."

"But I have questions." The kid put her hand in her pocket and pulled a small notebook from her jacket; the notebook had a cartoon cat on the cover, sitting in a pose like it was about to receive wet food; unlike Mrs. Sachiko's watering can frog, this cat was not smiling.

"You closed the Fissure in two seconds."

"2. 2," Soren corrected. He ended up correcting her purely on instinct. Damn it! Of course, immediately afterward, he completely regretted that correction. Eva was writing something down in her notebook.

"Look, the System says you are level error." Soren widened his eyes upon hearing the kid's intrusive words.

"I had never seen a level error before." He stood completely still; even his breath caught for an instant.

"Wait, you can see the System's information?"

"Yes, everyone can, Mr. Vonesdar." No, this kid isn't real; that's practically impossible.

"That can't be true." The kid frowned and said to him, "What do you mean? I look at a person and that little box appears next to their head, saying their age, level, class, and whether they've awakened or not. It's always been like that," the kid concluded. Unusual perceptive sensitivity. Soren remembered, as the System had already flagged it, but this was much more than simple unusual sensitivity; it was basically unauthorized access to System functions that should remain locked until awakening.

A twelve-year-old kid couldn't have access to this, as that kind of information required highly specialized skills, and most adults went their whole lives without getting there. This was clearly going to become a problem, and Soren didn't think twice; he used one of his superpowers. Absolute Appraisal Target: [Eva Sato.] Age: [12 years old.] Level: [3: Unawakened.] Class: [Pending. Age 19.] Potential: [Rather high.] Latent abilities: [System Vision: Unauthorized.] [Dimensional perception: partial.] Note: [Manifestation seven years early.] Cause: [Unknown.] [Immediate maximum surveillance recommended.] Warning: [This kid sees too much.] This warning from the System lingered in his consciousness like a splinter. This kid sees too much.

"But, look here, what do you see when you look at me?" Soren asked without masking his curiosity. Eva tilted her head slightly and looked at the notification box.

"I see Soren Vonesdar, age 32, level error, class error." There was a pause between them.

"The rest is just statistics, nothing else." I am 32 years old; that wasn't a lie, 32 when everything had changed, the following centuries were just a technical detail.

"The System thinks you're lying."

"You know, the System thinks a lot of things. That's normal."

"Look, but it also says in red letters not to attack or be aggressive toward the entity." She wrote another line in her notebook and, as she wrote, she asked, "Why does it say that?"

"You know, because the System is quite cautious." When the kid finished writing, she looked at him and asked, "Are you dangerous?" The question hung between them, and in that moment it was only possible to hear the whirring of a vending machine down the street, and beneath the bench, the metal let out a sigh of fracture. It was an honest, direct question, typical of a kid her age, in other words, the kind of question adults learned never to ask so as not to bother someone. Soren replied, "Sometimes."

The kid took a deep breath and thought for a few seconds.

"But not to me, right?"

"No." His voice softened, so much so it was almost imperceptible.

"Not to you, no."

"Hmm, but how do I know you're not lying?"

"Actually, you don't; that's called having trust." Eva wrote that phrase in her notebook too; she seemed to have liked it. Down the street a bus appeared, heading toward the stop, however this wasn't hers; it ran another route in Shibuya, and for a few moments they were more illuminated by its headlights. The light passed over them in slow motion, and Eva looked younger than her twelve years and at the same time much older than she appeared to be.

"Look, my mom should be arriving; a little bit longer and she'll be here."

"Alright," Soren replied.

"But I still have a lot of questions."

"I believe so." He looked sideways at her, already expecting at least one to come out.

"Will you answer them later? I'd really like that." Soren already knew; that child with all those complex abilities she had developed who knows how, walked around with a notebook full of questions about things kids should never know about, and what's more, she had peculiar interests, instead of playing with friends, or playing console games. In truth, he should immediately put an end to the conversation, tell the kid no, and then walk away, because he needed to stick to his routine.

But distance meant safety, and involvement meant increasing the probability of risk.

"Maybe," he replied. Eva immediately smiled at him; it was a smile of happiness she expressed, true and genuine, as if he had given her a beautiful Christmas present.

"Great, that's not a no." Soren fired back, "That's not a yes either."

"I know." She put the notebook away in her jacket pocket, and added, "But it's also not a no." Children have one characteristic in common: they always love to have the last word, and yet, she looked him straight in the eye.

"I'm going to find out who you are; I'm going to find out who the gas leak man is, the one the System says is an error." Soren shrugged his shoulders, and looked at the path he still had to take home.

"Mr. Vonesdar is the most interesting thing I have ever seen." A car approached the stop, and it now came to a halt. A Toyota Corolla; at the wheel was a tired-looking woman, with the expression of someone who worked too many nursing shifts and spent too much time apologizing for not dedicating more time to her family. It was Eva's mother. The girl hopped off the bench and turned to Soren.

"Goodbye, Soren Vonesdar."

"Goodbye, Eva." The kid opened the door and stood by the car. She looked back one last time.

"You should be more careful," she said with a worried look as she paused briefly.

"Look, people are going to start noticing you." The kid got into the car and closed the door. The car pulled away and the taillights disappeared around the corner ahead. Soren remained seated on the metal bench at the stop; the light kept flickering, projecting its degrading illumination. Then he stood up, adjusted the backpack on his shoulder, and began walking toward home. People are going to start noticing you. Too late for that.

Behind Soren, the stop was left empty, and on the edge of the bench remained exactly the deep imprint of five fingers.