LIGHTNOVELSTORY “What will you do?”
“Hmm… Midori.”
“Eh!? Why me?!”
Midori, flustered by the commander’s choice.
She probably didn’t think she’d be suddenly picked.
“Quickly go buy some coffee beans.”
“B-but Lindera is here too!”
“What if she does her job better than you?”
“That’s!”
The reason Midori was given this errand was simple.
It was because there were no coffee beans in the office.
We could order online without any problem, but the issue was that we often drank coffee.
While working, coffee was the most consumed beverage, and we usually enjoyed it as well.
It wasn’t just for productivity; sometimes we drank it for fun too.
“You’re right…”
“While you’re at it, buy some snacks too. Use the corporate card.”
“Really!?”
“Yes, hurry up and go.”
“Yay!”
Midori quickly grabbed the card and dashed out.
Seeing Midori’s action, I thought it was a win-win.
Midori could enjoy some fresh air, and I could have my coffee.
Of course, it might take a bit longer for the coffee to arrive.
“Sigh… I’m sleepy.”
“There’s still plenty of work time left.”
“Didn’t we just have lunch? How about some understanding here?”
Well, post-lunch drowsiness was inevitable.
In fact, while working, I sometimes lost focus too.
“Would you like some candy?”
“Is there any?”
“Umm… just regular lemon flavor.”
It was roughly placed on the desk, but there was enough, so it wasn’t a problem.
Though it was meant for snack time, it wasn’t like I couldn’t share it at all.
Anyway, I passed a single candy to the commander.
Just one, to protect his teeth.
“Sigh… but when will we recruit other agents?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure. Are we… financially okay right now?”
“…….”
Being financially okay had various meanings.
There was money for recruiting agents, salary expenses, and other costs for feeding the agents on the ship and their personal utilities.
For now, there were no issues, but if the numbers grew…
“Hmm.”
“Hmm.”
So even though I wished for more people, I couldn’t jump to conclusions.
I also wanted to recruit more agents, but it might not be feasible.
It could take a bit more time, or maybe we could do it right away.
“If the operation is successful, we could get paid, but… it seems a bit tough right now.”
“I think so too.”
“Still, it would be nice to have a few more agents who can be active.”
I definitely wanted that.
This time, with the military support operation, we needed agents who could undertake non-operational activity.
It wasn’t like I could just pull the money out like in a gacha game; reality required actual payments, so I couldn’t just go nuts.
Though later on… if we had enough money, we could recruit freely.
“And… I really hope we can add more people to the office…”
“Are you really that tired? You seem more fatigued than usual.”
The commander indeed looked more tired than usual.
Although we had gone out to rest together before, he still seemed a bit worn.
“Work seems to have increased lately.”
“Ah…”
“That’s why it’s tough.”
As the commander mentioned, work had indeed increased.
For instance, there’s the support requests coming in, and gradually, we were getting busier since the last operation.
Therefore, I also wished for a few more agents.
But it wasn’t something I could easily do.
We couldn’t just take on operations anytime we wanted either.
“Commander.”
“What is it?”
“Um… how about we take on operations consecutively?”
“?”
He showed a puzzled reaction to my suggestion.
Well, until now, we hadn’t done that consecutively.
The only agents we could deploy right away were from the 2nd squad.
Besides, although there was an operation by the lake last time, we hadn’t just responded with agents for that unexpected entity.
Thus, the agents’ levels weren’t high enough yet, so they needed more training.
“Of course, I’m not talking about difficult operations like last time. I mean relatively easy missions multiple times to earn some cash.”
“Do you think that’s okay? Until now, we’ve had missions with breaks in between.”
“Well, that’s true… but don’t you want to earn money?”
“…….”
He couldn’t argue with that.
If we earned more money, we could hire more agents and upgrade the ship.
Of course, we were the ones requesting for more operations, and subsequently, the headquarters would provide them.
The catch was, if the headquarters thought we were lacking in capability, they might not give us anything.
“I mean, we’ll probably need to consult the agents too. Still… they would likely be pleased, right? They’d earn more salary.”
“True… the agents might be thinking positively about it.”
After all, it was a good time for agents to earn a significant amount.
When we received a bonus, we naturally had to share it with the agents as well.
Of course, we’d take more for ourselves, but…
*
“With that in mind, we’ve decided to add more personnel to the office.”
“Really!?”
“Yes, really.”
Midori returned from the cafe with the coffee beans and looked utterly shocked.
It seemed she just went to buy beans and returned with that news.
“Are you serious?!”
“Yes, I am.”
When she asked again, I confirmed.
In fact, it had been two months since there had been any increase in personnel for the office.
“So what was discussed?”
“Hmm… nothing much. The commander just complained about how hard it was to work.”
“…I see!”
Well, my workload wasn’t really different from usual, but the commander seemed to feel otherwise.
It was a fact that the amount of work was increasing, so I decided to go for it.
“Hmm…”
“Why do you look like that?”
“Oh, since we’re increasing the personnel in the office, I was pondering over how we would place them.”
It wasn’t anything special, just a normal thought.
There wasn’t any rush to figure it out, and it could be decided slowly.
But it was good to have some ideas on the table.
“How will we arrange the seats in the office?”
“Huh?”
“Right now, the commander is in the center, Midori is on the right, and I’m on the left, correct?”
That was roughly how we sat right now.
The commander should sit in the best position, while the rest could sit as they liked.
“So what should we do when the new agent comes? That’s what I was thinking about.”
It was genuinely just a thought.
I didn’t know who we’d bring on, but I’d planned to recruit someone anyway.
“What will you do?”
“Well, of course, the commander should sit in the center, right? Umm… what will we do?”
“I don’t know. We only have four people, so I’m not sure.”
I genuinely didn’t know.
When there were three people, it was easy to just have one in the middle and one on each side.
But now there were four; even if we placed the commander in the middle, the rest of the seating became a little tricky.
We also needed to rearrange the computers and prepare other things.
“Umm… I! I want to make a stand!”
Midori raised her hand while I was pondering.
Using such a grand term as “making a stand”!
Of course, I couldn’t help but pay attention to Midori’s words.
“Commander next to Lindera! And the new person takes Lindera’s old seat!”
“Eh?”
“Well… since Lindera does most of the work and talks with the commander a lot, and helps out the not-so-capable commander well, I thought that would be nice!”
“Um…”
I found Midori’s suggestion a bit strange, but I could kind of see her point.
After all, I did do a lot of work and often spoke with the commander regarding tasks.
But sitting next to him? That was a bit unexpected, and I didn’t know how to react.
“Uh… do we really have to do that?”
“Come on, it’s fine! We’re changing things anyway, so let’s just do it this way!”
“What does the commander think about this?”
Since I couldn’t decide alone, I asked the commander for his opinion.
No matter how the discussion went, the commander had the final say.
“Hmm… I think it’s fine. I don’t see any issues with it.”
“If the commander has no objections, then I’m okay with it.”
“And besides, Lindera is the vice commander, isn’t she? It’s not a problem, is it?”
“Oh.”
Hmm.
Now that I thought about it, that was true.
“Well, it’s not wrong to say you help out, so why is that a big deal?”
“Nothing, really.”
I just felt a bit odd about working next to a man.
But reflecting on it, I had already played games in the commander’s personal space.
“Well… considering I’ve shared time in the commander’s bed, I think it’s unnecessary to feel anything special about sitting next to him.”
“What!?”
“Sigh…”
Honestly, there was no reason to feel uncomfortable anymore.
The commander hadn’t done anything wrong to me; we were just sitting next to each other!