Once Alina returned to her desk, she was fixed with piercing stares.
“A-Alina…,” Laila addressed her timidly. She must have gotten the gist about what the counter chief had talked to Alina about.
Like a creaking machine, Alina stiffly and awkwardly turned to Laila. “What…?”
“Yeep! Your face is like a mummy’s…!” That expression must have sealed it for her, as Laila gulped. “So you got put in charge of it after all…”
“He says I’m on tournament duty, yeah…”
“…That happened incredibly quickly after being foreshadowed…” Laila must have had nothing else to say, as she lowered her eyes as if mourning the dead.
“…Why?” Despair seized Alina’s heart, eventually giving way to anger.
“Whyyy am I on fighting tournament dutyyyyyyyyy?!” she cried, holding her head in her hands. “Where… Where do I even start?! I don’t know the first thing about the fighting tournament…! The woman in charge of it previously has already left the office, so there’s no one to teach me!”
While the others around watched what was going on with Alina, they seemed unsure of how to talk to her.
Despite things growing uncomfortable, a certain individual called out cheerily for Alina. “Oh yes, Alina.”
It was the counter chief. Alina was no longer hiding her anger, her eyebrows pointing downward and her eyes flashing as she turned around. “What is it?!”
“I forgot to give you these. They’re explanations on taking over tournament duties, which your predecessor left behind. The forms that were written up for the tournament four years ago are in the basement storage room, so check those for reference.”
The takeover documentation. Those were notes that her predecessor had written for the next person in charge, covering all the essentials of handling the tournament, from how to do the work to things to watch out for. Their mere existence dramatically decreased the burden on whoever was handling the tournament. No, it would be more accurate to say that anyone on tournament duty would be dead without them. The presence or absence of that documentation would decide whether the new person in charge would live or die.
“G-god…!”
There was still hope. Alina leaped on the piece of paper that the counter chief had handed her. She quickly opened the carefully folded document—
And what was written therein struck Alina speechless.
Fighting Tournament Application Workflow:
Have them fill out the application form.
Submit the application numbers to headquarters.
Go for it and do your best!
“Th-three lines …………………………………………………………………………………?”
“…Huh, is this the takeover documentation…?!”
Laila, peering in from the side, was also speechless in the face of this far too light “documentation,” which concluded in only three lines.
“Don’t give me just three liiiiiiiiiiines!!” Alina howled at the heavens, squinting in anger. “And with that pointless encouragement at the end?! Functionally, there are only two lines that reference the actual work!!”
“Th-this really is rather…”
“No, wait! There’s still hope…the manual!”
No sooner had Alina said that than she was grabbing a key hanging off the wall and unlocking a door that was normally tightly closed.
Beyond the door were stairs leading to the basement. She shot down the stairs to arrive at a little record room. This was where past documents from Iffole Counter were stored, packed in orderly rows of shelves. Alina clung to a shelf from the edge and traced the spines.
“A-Alina, what’s gotten into you…?!” Laila followed after Alina and headed into the storage room.
“I’m looking for the manual. When a receptionist is put in charge of something, she writes a last testament about it for future receptionists in preparation for her departure…um, rather! It’s a booklet explaining the general workflow and ins and outs of a task that gives you past examples and stuff…! Even though that tournament only comes around once every four years, there’s gotta be an old manual on it in here—there it is!”
Alina’s bloodshot eyes locked onto a spine that had FIGHTING TOURNAMENT MANUAL written on it.
“If I read this, most of this stuff will…”
Opening it up at a random spot, she flipped through the pages with practiced hands. But no matter how much she flipped and flipped, the manual was totally blank.
“Wh-why? Why?!”
Alina panicked and flipped backward through the book. Eventually, she came across some handwriting at the top of the very first page. There, in half-faded characters, the following was written:
“I’m too busy, and I don’t have the energy to make a manual. Go for it and do your best…”
“Like I saaaaaaaaaaid!!” Alina slammed the book onto the floor in a rage. “If you can’t make anything, then don’t leave behind documents with overcomplicated titles!! If I could just go for it and do my best, then I wouldn’t have a problem here!”
“A-Alina, please contain yourself…!”
In the end, all Alina could do was pull out every last document related to the past fighting tournaments, as a flustered Laila watched.
Things happened, and a few hours later—
A mountain of past documents that they had pulled up from the basement stacks as reference had formed around Alina’s desk. It had the imposing aura of a fortress of books.
Upon seeing this, the other receptionists said, “A-ask me for anything if you’re in trouble, Alina” and “Do you want a snack, Alina?”
The senior receptionists normally hated getting involved in trouble and never butted in on other people’s work, but now they were unnaturally kind. They placed snacks on her desk one after the other, as if laying out offerings to appease a deity. Ultimately, even Sulie, Alina’s enemy-number-one, said, “Miss Clover… I’ll take over totaling the quest forms for the time being.”
“Why…? Why did I wind up assigned to tournament duty…?” Alina sobbed.
And this was how Alina’s hell began.