[CH.38] Forced vacation
On Sunday morning at ten o'clock, the auditor arrived as scheduled. Alice stayed in the room while the others stood at the door to welcome her.
The visitor was a career woman dressed in a suit and a short skirt, with black leggings that clung to her legs and a pair of red high heels.
Chen Guo, 24 years old, an employee of the Magical Girl Headquarter. Even though it was a Sunday, she stood in front of the others, tapping the floor impatiently.
Kate asked, "Are you the only one here?"
"What's the matter? Is one person not enough? Let's not waste any more time with small talk, let's get started."
Chen Guo requested the magical girl contracts of Alice and Lillian and inspected their contents. She then asked the two of them for details.
She didn't notice any discrepancies in the contracts, but she kept eyeing Susan.
"Are you Alice herself?"
"Yes. Why are you staring at me? Do you like me or something?"
Chen Guo ignored Susan and continued, "Has Kate provided you with insurance?"
"Insurance? What's that?" Susan bit her finger.
"Hey, we provide all of you with comprehensive benefits!"
Kate tried to interject, but Chen Guo stopped her and continued, "Has Kate confirmed the minimum wage for you? Do you have fixed rest days each week? Is there a maximum working hours limit?"
A series of questions left Susan bewildered, and she couldn't utter a word for a while. When she was a contract spirit, she didn't have to deal with so many complicated matters.
"If you don't know any of these, then I just have one last question."
Chen Guo stared at Susan, who had transformed into Han Huayang.
"Have you made any additional deals with the spirits?"
"Deals? Isn't it just exchanging your soul for magic? Are there other options?"
Upon hearing this answer, Chen Guo relaxed slightly.
"That's good. You can change your clothes in the next room, and I'll just need to do a quick check."
Chen Guo then spoke with Li Meiting for a while, took out some documents from her bag for Kate to sign, and briefly examined Susan in front of her to confirm that there were no injuries on her body, just as Alice had imagined. There were no detailed inspections as she had expected.
Clearly, Chen Guo had no intention of wasting time on these matters.
"Oh, Alice, there was a pink light rain near the park on Wednesday night. Was that your doing? Some people said they saw a silver-haired girl in a sailor suit and knee-high socks, which should be you."
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
Susan had no idea what the other person was referring to, and she had never heard of light rain or magic.
"Well, let's move on. Lillian, did you have a little clash with Mercury? Did you snatch her monster?"
"I can't deny it..."
"Very well, our time is up. The results will be communicated separately later. Please check your emails promptly."
Chen Guo collected her documents and left quickly.
Kate, who had been tense the whole time, finally relaxed and hugged Susan.
"Wow! Chen Guo is such a nice person, she didn't give us a hard time at all. If it were someone else, we would have been questioned for sure. This is great, just great..."
Kate was relieved to have passed this ordeal, and Chen Guo's expression seemed natural, so the review must have gone smoothly.
It should have gone smoothly...
---
Kate thought, but before nightfall, the Headquarter sent an email.
Audit result: Failed!
"Damn it! Why did we fail?"
By this time, Susan had already left, leaving only Kate, Alice, and Li Meiting in the office.
As an internal meeting of the agency, the expressions of the three were tense. Kate banged the table with her tail, clearly unhappy with the result. Alice kept her head down, looking to the left to avoid her senior's gaze. As for Li Meiting, she discreetly moved her fingers, trying to hold Alice's hand.
Whenever their fingers touched, Alice recoiled as if shocked. Although she didn't pull away far, this small distance made her senior feel dejected.
Gee... She was so close to me earlier, and now she won't even let me hold her hand. She avoided me during the day and said she was shy, but this is too much!
Li Meiting stopped being discreet and grabbed Alice's hand. Alice was startled and tried to pull her hand away. She struggled a couple of times but eventually let her senior hold it.
"You seemed to be avoiding me all day today."
"It's not like that..."
"You little liar."
"Hey hey hey! What are you two doing? I'm trying to talk to you!"
Kate tapped the table with her cat paw.
"The audit result is that we failed! Do you understand how serious this is?"
Chen Guo gave three reasons for the failure: no onboarding training for magical girls, no clear scope for their work, and no designated vacation time. In addition, Kate received two notifications from the Magical Girl Headquarter.
One was about Alice's magical phenomenon on Wednesday night, which affected a large area. The other was about Lillian's altercation with the magical girl Mercury over the same monster on Thursday night.
For Alice's behavior, the Headquarter issued a warning. If she caused another large-scale magical phenomenon, she would face punishment. As for the senior's performance, the Headquarter ordered her to stop activities for two weeks.
"It was because that Mercury couldn't defeat the monster, and the senior had no choice but to step in!"
"Enough said. Even without this punishment, you and Meiting can't continue your activities. For the next two weeks, our agency is mandating a vacation. The agency needs to lock its doors, and no one can enter here."
A mandatory vacation was not a good thing for Alice.
Previously, Kate had commanded her to stay in Alice's form within the agency. She had been using this excuse to transform. While Alice always emphasized that she chose to transform because of her senior's command, the real reason was that she wanted to be with her senior. Kate's command was just an excuse to make sure she didn't feel too awkward.
After all, her senior had been living in the agency, and as long as she was in the agency, Alice could be with her.
Wait a minute... if there's a vacation, does that mean I won't be able to see my senior? Does my senior have another place to stay?
The thought of her senior possibly sleeping on the streets made Alice worried. Would her senior catch a cold if she slept outside? Would she be in danger if she encountered bad people?
Alice tightened her grip on her senior's hand.
Feeling the pressure on her fingertips, her senior squeezed Alice's hand back.
"What's wrong? Worried that I won't have a place to stay? Don't worry, my family bought a house for me a long time ago... Oh, by the way, it's quite spacious. You can come and visit, or better yet, you can stay there."
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