Home/How to Survive in a Good Small Guild/ch 18

Chapter 18

"Excuse me?"

"What?!"

"What did you just say?"

It was shocking enough that all three of us—me, Susanna, and Cedric—reacted at once. He was saying he'd take even more money from our already pitiful salaries?

According to Odrette Lavendel's memories, just last month we'd been forced to cough up money for the Guild Master's birthday, and now he was saying we'd be paying every month?

"This is truly unjust."

Cedric said that, but this time I didn't even feel like stopping him. No, if they took more money from this salary, what were we supposed to do...?

"Guild Master, what kind of training is it?"

I calmed myself down and asked, and he replied in a pleased voice.

"It's training to eliminate the stress that information guild workers experience."

"Excuse me?"

"I've already arranged for someone to come tomorrow."

Stress elimination training? Could that even be considered training?

As soon as the Guild Master dropped that bombshell and left for his meal, the three of us, united for the first time in a while, began talking.

"This is truly unjust."

"I agree with Cedric! How are we supposed to survive if they take even more money from us?"

"This is absolutely ridiculous..."

"Assistant Manager Odrette, isn't there a way? You're good at scheming!"

"Scheming?"

"I-I mean, you're smart."

Even while stammering, Susanna added.

"If it's you, I know you can do it!"

"Don't shift the responsibility onto me, haah..."

Even I couldn't come up with a solution this time, so I let out a sigh.

"Let's hear what this 'training' is tomorrow and think about it then."

---

The next day, as the Guild Master had said, a young man came to the guild. With a naive-looking face, he began speaking in front of us.

"Now, let's begin liberation training to eliminate the stress in your minds."

What on earth was that?

"Now, follow me. Breathe in, and out..."

"......"

Our faces twisted further at the training content that seemed utterly useless in life. But since the Guild Master was watching us from behind with a pleased expression, we had no choice but to force ourselves to follow along.

"Now, this breathing is circulating the stress in your minds. Next, we'll release it outward. Please take one balloon each."

The man handed each of us an uninflated balloon.

"We'll fill them with stress and create stress balloons."

"......?"

"Blow your stress into the balloon!"

No, your very existence is what stresses us out...

After even Cedric had blown into his balloon with a grim expression, the man gestured grandly and shouted.

"Now, pop the balloons! That will make the stress fly away! Follow along—Stress, fly away~"

"Oh my, my nephew is doing so well!"

The Guild Master clapped and made a fuss.

And at that moment, I came to a conclusion.

Originally, I'd planned to make the Guild Master a figurehead and control him from behind, but that plan was scrapped.

I couldn't take it anymore.

I had to become the Guild Master myself.

---

That day, after the Guild Master left chatting cheerfully with his nephew, I immediately looked into the procedures for replacing the Guild Master.

In this world, workplaces with fewer than five employees were registered as self-governing, for-profit associations, with one Guild Master as the operator and the rest of us recorded as association members.

To replace the Guild Master, we needed the agreement of at least three people. If I, Susanna, and Cedric agreed, it wouldn't be difficult.

However, as a protective measure for the Guild Master, we couldn't replace him without just cause. Typically, he could be replaced if he violated the guild's regulations—examples included embezzlement, mission failure and damage to the guild's reputation, or threats to member safety.

That meant we needed to find evidence that the Guild Master had committed wrongdoing.

Of course, we'd also have to report it to the Temple afterward. The Temple would be angry if they found out we'd ousted one of their people without cause, so we had to prove that the Guild Master's misconduct had harmed the Temple.

And since the Temple would need a trustworthy new Guild Master... I also had to think of ways to raise my reputation with them, since my current standing wasn't good.

"So, I'd like to become the new Guild Master."

When I gathered Susanna and Cedric and said that, their expressions changed.

Cedric seemed to think for a moment before nodding, but Susanna's face turned pale.

"Eek, you're going to use my weakness to turn me into a slave!"

"I can't promise much when I become Guild Master, but I can promise you one thing: work may be hard. You may dislike me. But I will not touch your salaries."

"......!"

"I'll even raise your salaries by 7% from what they are now."

"Alright, I'll support Assistant Manager Odrette!"

Susanna, who'd changed her tune instantly at the mention of salary, became a good little sheep.

"So what do we need to do?"

"We need to find evidence of the Guild Master's wrongdoing."

"Wouldn't using company funds for his nephew like today count?"

"...That's not enough to be recognized. It's too common a practice."

Cedric said in a calm voice.

"Cedric, you seem to know a bit about the law too?"

"Yes, I learned some at my previous company."

"Why would you... Ah."

Perhaps he'd learned it through reporting the company's unfair practices. My gaze toward Cedric grew even more pitying.

"Honestly, if we look hard enough, there's bound to be some embezzlement."

"I think so too."

"It would be best to start by examining the accounting books."

"Let's do as Cedric says."

And so, our plan to remove the Guild Master began.

At our guild, the accounting books were usually managed by Susanna. That was why she always did calculations without a calculator.

Normally, the Guild Master would keep and hide accounting books himself, but since our guild was such a trash company, we'd been handling them ourselves.

"Look, there's nothing really wrong..."

The accounting book Susanna showed us was clean. Impeccably so.

"There's no suspicious spending, and our compensation matches the contract..."

"It's annoying that the Guild Master spent 200,000 pesos on a nameplate for himself, but that's not an issue."

As we were looking through the accounting book and pondering, Cedric, who'd been silently observing from behind, interjected.

"By any chance, is this total income really correct?"

"Yes, that's right. There were only five commissions this month."

"That's strange..."

"What's strange, Cedric?"

"It's odd that the Guild Master can maintain the guild with only this much revenue. He's a greedy person—I don't think he'd run a guild just to earn an ordinary salary."

"Originally, I heard the Temple provides subsidies, but now that you mention it, even that doesn't seem like enough."

"Then could the Guild Master be taking commissions behind our backs?"

Susanna asked, and I shook my head.

"That can't be. There's no way the Guild Master would bother handling commissions alone."

"Then what is it?"

"Perhaps he's getting under-the-table money using this guild."

Cedric suggested, and though we still didn't have a clear lead, we decided to dig deeper into the accounting.

"In stories, there are always two sets of books..."

Muttering that, I searched through the Guild Master's desk. Then, I noticed that the drawer under his desk was locked and tilted my head.

"Huh? What's so important that it's locked?"

"Can't we open it?"

"It's locked, so I can't open it..."

Unless we had the Crown Prince from the other day, none of us had the skills to pick a lock secretly.

Just then, Cedric approached.

"I can open it."

"You can, Cedric?"

Then, taking a sharp pen from Susanna, he began carefully fiddling with the keyhole.

Soon, the lock clicked open.

"I learned it at my previous company."

"At your previous company?"

"Th-they used to lock us in for overtime... so I learned to open it and go home."

"What the hell, that company really should be reported."

If our company was pure evil, that company was chaotic evil. As Susanna and I looked at him with even more pity, Cedric pulled out a black notebook from inside the drawer.

"Isn't this an accounting book?"

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