Chapter 146.


    <strong>Chapter 146. An Assassin’s and Friend’s First Interview for a Job (6/8)</strong>


    <span style="font-weight:400">Know your limits, I didn’t know them in the past so I went to university thinking things would work out better that way even with my social ineptitude. I was wrong though. Working hard academically wasn’t all there was to university. The biggest and most important part had never had anything to do with your academics. It was who you knew, your ability to form connections there that mattered.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was a ce to open up a door where you would meet people who were already sessful that you normally would never have had the chance to interact with. People who’d already climbed thedder and could pull you up too if you got in their good books.


    <span style="font-weight:400">That was the true purpose of university. Academics were in fact secondary there. Even if you were an idiot, as long as you were a likable idiot, you could still grab hold of a future there. I’d seen it happen firsthand with my own eyes. People who didn’t do very well from an academic standpoint would still manage to get jobs in their field simply because they met the right people at the right time. They were social and likable.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Unlike me.


    <span style="font-weight:400">If I’d understood that reality sooner, I definitely would have thrown away the foolish idea of going to university. I didn’t belong or fit in there. People were mistaken when they thought university was where smart people gathered and prospered. It was actually where the socially adept ones prospered the most. They thrived in university. The ones who could manipte others to act in a manner favorable to themselves -- they were the ones who found the greatest sess in that environment.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… it’s a surprise to hear your ns, but… it still doesn’t change the fact I’m going to make you take an interview when you turn sixteen. Anyway, we’ve kept thest interviewee waiting for long enough.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, right. I should take my leave now.” I stood up prepared to return to work but was stopped.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Did I say you could leave? You’re staying for this one too.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What for?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Because I don’t intend to hire the girl Yuna rmended.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why not? You haven’t even talked to her yet.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, she seems too nervous.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You haven’t even seen her yet.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I can smell fear.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Are you some kind of monster?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Not at all. But I don’t n to go easy on this girl if she’s aplete pushover without a backbone. Your girlfriend is quite good. She’s got spunk and a lot of qualities I appreciate. I don’t know much about this girl, but I at least remember she’s the one who dragged along some useless punk into my store which resulted in you having to step in and get punched.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“She couldn’t even handle that situation on her own. If she can’t do something simple like speak up and shoo away a nuisance like him, she’s as good as useless in my eyes. I don’t care how good a girl she is or how friendly she is, she needs to be more than just a good girl. Hmph! What use is someone who can’t say no to someone?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What purpose does having me here serve? I don’t get it. It’s not like it changes anything if I’m here. You’ve already formted an impression of her in your mind.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Perhaps, but… the outburst I heard outside my office earlier was strange. I didn’t see it, but you stepped in to stop it for some reason. Why would you of all people do that? It doesn’t make any sense to me. From my understanding of you, you’re not the type to do something like that at all. Why wouldn’t you take your girlfriend’s side and instead step in to take that girl''s side? Even if she’s your girlfriend’s friend it’s something the you I know would never do.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You haven’t seen me in a long time. Isn’t it just possible that I’ve changed a bit?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I suppose that’s one possibility. However… Ran… it couldn’t be that you’re really… two-timing, are you?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m not two-timing.” It’s not a lie… I’m three-timing.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m naturally not going to just blindly take your word for it. But anyway, if it did turn out that you’re two-timing, it’s even more of a reason for me to not hire her. I love gossip and juicy material, but this is a business I’m running at the end of the day. If something happened, it could be a situation where both of them or even all three of you do not show up to work. I’d have to scramble to cover for three people at once which would be a nightmare. In terms of risk, it wouldn’t be wise for me to hire this girl.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It wasn’t wise for you to hire Rosa either. If you ask me, there’s plenty of risks there too. If we get into a fight, what then?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, I can take on a certain degree of risk. Besides~ it’d be quite amusing to watch the security footage of you and your girlfriend working together~ I’m sure of that~ She also seems like she can keep work and your rtionship separate with the nonchnt way she joked about it.” The serious tone she had suddenly turned yful again.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was always hard for me to converse with this troublesome woman because of how randomly she’d switch between being serious and yful.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Anyway. Let’s get this over with.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Can the next interviewee please enter now?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">A minuteter, Alicia slowly opened the door. When she entered the room, she looked anxious. It was her first interview. She was apletely normal high school girlpared to Rosa who’d been raised with an assassin’s mindset to remain calm andposed when under pressure.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“H-Hello, I’m Alicia Sorayuki. It’s-”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sit.” The Owner rudely interrupted Alicia’s greeting and didn’t even bother to introduce herself to Alicia the way she had with Rosa. The difference in treatment was like night and day.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Alicia had been so tense when she entered that she hadn’t even noticed that I was still in the room.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Things were already off to a very bad start. The Owner wasn’t kidding when she said she wouldn’t go easy on her. This was honestly unexpected. You’d think Alicia, a social butterfly, would be much better at handling this sort of situation, but at the end of the day, shecked real-world experience.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Unless something changed, this interview was over. Alicia would not be hired. She wouldn’t be able to help support her mother.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Alicia, what’s your avability like?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… I’m in high school, so it’d be after 4:00 PM. Preferably until 9:00 PM.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Are you able to work weekends?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’d like to at least have Sunday off. Saturday during the same time would be ideal.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. Well, I do have one more position avable for that time slot that I’m still undecided about. So you’re in a bit of luck I suppose.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Alicia, can you tell me a bit about yourself?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uhm… I’m in my second year of high school right now and I n to go to university in the future.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh? What do you want to do in university?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m… currently undecided on what specifically. I figured I’d take the general university 1 courses that everyone has to take and figure out what I enjoy the most after that.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Haaaaah. This was bad. So she was lost like many other students in high school that didn’t know what they wanted to do with their life.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s quite vague. To not even have a general idea of your career path by now isn’t a good sign. You’re almost in your third year and you should be thinking about such matters more seriously.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I… know.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“If you know, why haven’t you done so?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. I just don’t know what I like that I’d want to dedicate the rest of my life to.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, forget it. This is an interview, I’m not a guidance counselor.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I kept silent.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So, why do you want to work here, Alicia?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why? That is…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You don’t even have a reason?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No. I have a reason.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then out with it. I’m a busy woman.”