This was the reward Rashak had given me yesterday.
‘From now on, Hiel will be in charge of managing Sterling Merchant Company.’
The corners of my mouth couldn’t help twitching. After all, that meant Patrick Rohan would be included among the people under my ‘management.’
If I could make that bastard suffer the way he had made me suffer, I figured it would be more than enough of a reward.
But when I actually started reviewing the reports…
“Mr. Patrick? What is this?”
“Can’t you tell by looking? It’s a ledger. A ledger.”
“There are far too many gaps for this to be called a ledger. And these amounts have been broken down into excessively small figures.”
Patrick grinned.
“You may not know this, but this is how things have always been done at Sterling. You could call it company tradition.”
“…Calling it tradition doesn’t make it any less inefficient. Do it again.”
“Pardon? But everyone else has been submitting their reports this way, too.”
I was at a loss for words.
Because he was telling the truth.
I had spent the entire morning reviewing reports from the other middle managers besides Patrick, but not a single ledger was in decent shape.
There were far too many blank spaces, and the formatting was such a complete mess that it made my head spin.
Even when I ordered them to redo their reports, they stubbornly insisted that it was ‘company tradition.’ Just like Patrick was doing now.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little too picky with me? Is this because you have something personal against me?”
“……”
“Tsk. Well, I suppose you can treat me however you like, but the others are bound to be disappointed. How can anyone trust a manager who lets personal feelings get in the way of work?”
In his words, I heard snickering from several directions.
Even when I turned my cold gaze toward them, the employees continued to sneer.
Ah, I see. So you’re all in this together?
“Well, I’ll be off, then. I’m terribly busy with work, you see.”
With that, Patrick left without even waiting for my reply. Several employees followed him out.
It hadn’t even been long since lunch ended, yet they were taking breaks whenever they pleased.
Without permission from me, their manager.
This place is an absolute disaster.
I let out a long sigh and stood up.
Then I headed for the office of Sterling’s owner. I wanted to find out whether this so-called ‘company tradition’ was actually real.
I knocked and opened the office door, only to find…
“Mr. Kevin, I wanted to ask you something… Where are you?”
“H-here! I’m over here, Ms. Hiel!”
I froze in bewilderment, and then Kevin emerged from behind a mountain of documents.
He looked utterly exhausted.
“What… were you doing?”
“Oh, um… working on an assignment…”
“An assignment?”
Kevin hesitated before answering.
“Mr. Patrick said that… if I wanted to learn how to do the job properly, I had to study Sterling’s history first…”
Puzzled, I picked up a document from the floor. What was written on it was, quite literally, history.
It contained a detailed list of the goods Sterling Merchant Company had begun selling when it was founded forty years ago.
“I’ve memorized all the items on the list, but… I keep getting the names of the merchant companies we traded with mixed up. Was it Scavin or Scuvin…?”
I hurriedly searched through the other documents.
Here it was. Scavin. A merchant company that distributed textiles and had gone bankrupt a full ten years ago.
It was nothing more than a small, unremarkable company…
“You were told you had to memorize all this… before they would teach you how to do the job?”
“Yes…”
“Um, if you don’t mind me asking… How old are you, Kevin?”
“I turned eighteen a little while ago…”
Suddenly, I remembered the information Pierce had told me about Sterling.
It was about the young man standing right in front of me, Sterling’s new owner.
He had been a sheltered young master who had always gotten everything he wanted.
Then his father had suddenly passed away, leaving him without a proper understanding of how to run the business.
…So Patrick had been manipulating Kevin however he pleased.
That explained why Patrick had been so brazen even in front of me.
He considered himself the real power behind the company.
No wonder the other employees had rushed out after him the moment he left.
“Um… Ms. Hiel?”
“What kind of reward is this…! I’m going to make that bastard pay…!”
“Who will pay?”
At the voice from behind me, my shoulders stiffened at the start.
Rashak had somehow entered the office without me noticing. He looked at me with a crooked grin.
“Sounds like you were talking about me.”
“N-no, I wasn’t…”
It was an obvious lie, but Rashak chuckled softly, seeming more amused than offended. Then he plopped down on the sofa beside me.
He gestured toward me with his chin.
“Report.”
I glanced at Kevin before continuing.
“There are more problems than I can count. The ledgers are a mess, and so is the employees’ work ethic. But the biggest problem is that no one listens to me.”
Kevin didn’t seem surprised. He simply lowered his head as though he were guilty of something.
Apparently, he already knew these problems existed.
But no one had probably listened to him.
It was easier to follow Patrick, the man who actually held the power, than to side with a young company owner who knew nothing about running a business.
“What’s your solution?”
“Patrick Rohan. We need to kick him out of the company.”
My heart pounded hard for a moment.
I had never made a declaration like that before.
But I was certain of one thing: as long as Patrick remained at Sterling, it would be difficult to improve anything.
“Judging by the state of the ledgers, he may have even embezzled money. If we gather the evidence and confront him with it, he won’t have anything to say. I think we could use that as grounds to get rid of him…”
I finished speaking cautiously and looked at Rashak with a serious expression.
How long did we remain like that?
“Fine. Do whatever you want.”
“R-really?”
“I’ll provide as much support as you need. If necessary, you can use my people, too.”
Rashak stood up.
I thought he would leave the office right away, but—
“Hiel.”
“Yes? Yes.”
“We’re not running a charity. Keep that in mind.”
“……”
“I mean, sometimes you don’t need to be so concerned about following every procedure.”
That was all he said.
The way he walked away without a second thought made it seem as though he trusted my judgment completely.
That trust drew me into deeper contemplation.
We’re not running a charity…
There’s no need to be so concerned about following every procedure…
“Ms. Hiel…?”
At that moment, an idea struck me.
Without hesitating any longer, I hurried after Rashak and called out,
“Boss! Please lend me some people!”
He stopped, chuckled, and turned to look at me.
“How many?”
***
Patrick Rohan considered himself a lucky man.
He had never experienced any real hardship in his life.
Two years ago, when he was fired from the merchant company he had worked at for a long time, he had been taken aback. But he had soon found another comfortable job at Sterling.
So what if it was a little smaller than his previous workplace?
There were far more opportunities to line his own pockets here. It wasn’t even a competition.
Even if that obnoxious woman, Hiel, showed up, nothing would change.
And so, the next day, Patrick arrived at work just as cheerfully as ever.
But when he entered the office—
“Oh, you’re finally here.”
Seeing Hiel standing in the middle of the office, Patrick frowned.
However, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, because several men dressed entirely in black were standing beside her.
The men had such intimidating, rough appearances that Patrick swallowed nervously.
Then Hiel’s dry voice reached his ears.
“Arriving at work at two-thirty in the afternoon. That takes some nerve, Mr. Patrick.”
The moment he heard her, Patrick let out a derisive laugh.
Look at her acting all high and mighty just because she brought a few of her people along.
She’ll cower the moment I give her a dirty look anyway.
Anyone who had worked with Hiel knew what she was like.
They knew what a coward she was and how much she worried about what other people thought of her.
So even when Hiel looked at him with an icy gaze, Patrick wasn’t the least bit intimidated.
Instead, he merely shrugged.
“That’s Sterling’s tradition, too. Do you have a problem with that?”
But this time, Hiel didn’t back down.
Rather than avoiding Patrick’s gaze, she even took a step closer.
“Yes. I do have a problem with it.”
Regardless of how deeply Patrick furrowed his brow, she continued.
“I abolished that tradition as of today.”
“Hah! Who gave you the right to—”
“I did.”
Hiel’s voice dropped even lower.
“I did, as the manager appointed by the Boss of the Barsen organization.”
At the mention of the Barsen Boss, Patrick couldn’t help but harden his expression.
He recalled what had happened a few days ago.
Hiel pointed out the marks inside the boxes, and the imposing man standing beside her.
Patrick had known that Hiel was one of his subordinates. He just hadn’t expected her to invoke the man’s authority so openly.
As I said, Hiel was a terrible coward.
Patrick had assumed that even if something went wrong at Sterling, she would be too afraid of being reprimanded by the Barsen Boss to report it properly. She would probably just suffer in silence.
So she intends to invoke the Boss’s authority directly. Perhaps she’s closer to him than I thought.
If that was the case, picking another fight with her would only put Patrick at a disadvantage.
He gave a casual nod.
“Well, all right. If that’s how it’s going to be.”
He started to return to his desk, but—
“I haven’t told you to sit down yet.”
At Hiel’s voice, Patrick stopped in his tracks.
She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I reviewed the ledgers you’ve been keeping. There are signs of embezzlement.”
“E-embezzlement?”
Patrick continued speaking shamelessly.
“As I told you yesterday… I’ve simply been following Sterling’s traditions. Yes, well, I understand that the blank spaces might look suspicious. If you give me some time, I can fill them in…”
“There’s no need.”
Hiel replied firmly.
“Mr. Patrick Rohan, you are fired, effective immediately.”
“…Excuse me?”
“And we’ll begin an investigation into the embezzlement right now.”
“A-an investigation?! But these people aren’t even knights from the city guard!”
“Why would we need knights? We’re not running a public institution. An internal investigation is more than sufficient.”
At her gesture, the men moved to either side of Patrick and grabbed his arms.
Patrick struggled and shouted,
“You can’t do this based on mere suspicion! If you’re doing this because of some personal grudge…”
“Yes, I am. I have a personal grudge against you.”
Hiel looked at him and spoke calmly.
“If you knew I held a grudge against you… you should have watched your behavior, Mr. Patrick Rohan.”
As she finished speaking, she knew it instinctively.
From this day forward, no one in this office would ignore her orders again.
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