/
I hurriedly followed right behind Emily as she rushed forward first. Then, Leticia’s sharp voice could be heard through one slightly opened kitchen window.
“Delores! What on earth have you been doing all morning! Augh, look at all the plates. Everything’s just… haa.”
“I-I’m sorry, Miss Leticia…”
“Just how many plates do you think you broke! It’s not enough that you were dozing off, but you’ve actually lost your mind! I saw you doze off while standing several times and I just pretended not to know, but then you do this?!”
She pretended not to notice that one of her employees was dozing off? Leticia’s actually a pretty kind boss, huh.
If a department head were to see a team member dozing off at the desk, lunch break would be plagued with the passive-aggressive attacks of, ‘I guess you’re not getting a lot of work these days, huh, Miss/Mister this or that? Or did you finish early because of your amazing skills? Wow, you can go ahead and start a business for yourself. Huh? Oh, no no, you have to eat a lot—hurry now, go ahead and eat. Eat comfortably.’
Anyone caught dozing off would immediately get chewed up, and you’d inevitably go back upstairs with a stomach ache.
“I’m sorry Miss Leticia. I-It’s because, because I didn’t sleep well…”
“Why couldn’t you sleep! You’re given proper accommodation and you finish work on time anyway, so what reason is there for you not to sleep?!”
Emily had already entered the kitchen and started to help clean up the broken plates. I was wondering who Delores was, then I remembered that she was one of the people who called me out to the backyard before—one of the bullies with a pixelated name.
Hands on her waist, Leticia was practically fuming with her face all blue. Delores just had her hands clasped together, wondering what she should do. After a while, she spoke in a sobbing voice.
“Because my pillow, hiic, suddenly disappeared…”
So. Delores was the owner of my new pillow and the female lead of those evening trysts outside my window.
I crouched down to help Emily get all the shards. Even though it was just the simple task of picking up the pieces, there were several times that Critical Hit! popped out, and I steadily accumulated EXP. Emily watched me with a slight look of admiration. Aha, this game is starting to grow on me.
“What? Your pillow’s gone, that’s why you couldn’t sleep?! Where did you leave your pillow, huh? You can’t even keep it properly!”
“I really don’t know. I went out of my room for a little while last night, and when I came back, it was already gone. That’s why I couldn’t sleep at all, and I was really tired…”
Apart from the set-up of not being able to sleep without a pillow, it seemed like the fatigue system was also being applied to the other characters in the game. Seriously. Was the developer of this game a ghost who died in their sleep because they didn’t have a pillow? Why else would there be so much riding on a mere pillow?
Leticia let out a long-drawn sigh and shook her head. In other words, this was practically saying to Delores, ‘What’s the point?’
“Um, Miss Leticia. Someone must have stolen my pillow. They’re sabotaging me! If you can just help me find who it is—!”
“Shut up! You couldn’t even do your work properly and now you’re kicking up a fuss! Why are you trying to shift the blame when it’s you who didn’t take care of your belongings!”
“Miss Leticia!”
“I said shut it! Are you expecting me to clean up the plates you broke, too?!”
Delores couldn’t win Leticia over at all as the older woman was quite literally fuming as she stomped away. Delores could only shed a few tears as if she was feeling unfair, then with a huff, she soon turned around.
To be exact, she looked in this direction, so when our eyes met, I felt a little guilty.
“You did it!”
Delores shouted with such resentment that it felt like she was going to beat me to death. This time, I was the one who got flustered.
How did you know I did it?
“What are you talking about, Delores! How can you suspect someone so suddenly, and without any evidence, too! Our Hilda isn’t like that!”
Um, it really was me though, Emily.
“You’ll see.”
Crunch, crunch. With the clearly audible gritting of her teeth, Delores ran straight out of the kitchen. You’re leaving without even cleaning up these plates?
“Don’t mind what Delores is saying, Hilda. She’s just doing that because her conscience is getting prickled.”
“Huh? Conscience?”
“That girl, she used to take your pillow and hide it whenever she found the chance.”
What? What did you just say?
“Hilda… You, seriously. How can you forget when you were so angry about it?”
“No. I recalled what happened before and I felt my anger shooting up, but I’m trying to keep calm.”
“Really? Sorry. Well, don’t mind her. She’s just getting her karma.”
Emily patted me on the back and gently soothed me. Maybe she’s wondering if I’d really get upset.
Pretending to hold in my anger, I let out a long exhale and went back to picking up the shards.
Indeed, it made sense now why Leticia said that I used to make a lot of mistakes at work before. Hilda had strong attributes and she didn’t seem like she was easily fatigued, so I was wondering why she made so many mistakes in the past.
I know what the cause had been now—and this meant that Hilda had, many a time, gone through what Delores was experiencing right now.
I guess you could say we swapped places for the day. However, if it was just based on that, the look in Delores’ eyes was much too fiery.
This game was already difficult enough. I couldn’t even gain allies that much, and there’s no need to raise the difficulty by gaining enemies here.
What should I do.
“Hilda, let’s go get our lunch.”
Aight. Let’s eat first, and then let’s think about it later.