CH 188

Episode 188 – Laudungeon Company

Author’s Note: Back to Lewin’s POV.

In order to get to the Laudungeon Company, I asked around on Main Street and eventually ended up in a deserted bar district on the outskirts of the city. For a company that published books and newspapers about the city’s most popular form of entertainment, I thought for sure that it would be in a prime location on Main Street, but…

Apparently, this long, narrow two-storied building sandwiched between two bars was the headquarters of the Laudungeon Company. I knew that this industry was supposed to be quite profitable, since the Dungeon Pendant Company, a competitor in the same industry, was situated in one of the most affluent places in Landaust. Tobias himself said that the Dungeon industry alone was running the economy of Landaust.

In other words, it was simply the fault of the Laudungeon Company then…

As far as I could tell, there was nothing particularly wrong with the publications of the Laudungeon Company compared to other companies. I even felt that their newspapers and books were the easiest to read, and the information was accurate and concisely written. Well, no matter how much I ponder this, I guess I’ll never know.

Profitable as it was, there was always the possibility that they were purposely set up in this building. I was a bit hesitant to enter from the atmosphere the building gave off, but after my thoughts reached this point, I decided to go in.

As soon as I entered the building, I saw a room with a huge amount of documents and various equipment strewn about in disarray. For a moment, I thought I had entered the wrong building, but it seemed that the first floor was just something like a storehouse. There was a staircase in the back of the room.

If I went up those stairs, I figured I would probably find the office of the Laudungeon Company. I made my way through the storehouse while taking care not to step on any of the clutter littered everywhere and walked up the staircase that looked like it would crumble at any moment.

There was a door at the top of the stairs, along with signs of several presences within. I knocked before opening the door slowly, only to find a filthy office with several reporters inside. All of them except for one were hunched over their desks, and they didn’t even seem to have noticed me knocking.

“……This is a newspaper office. If you’ve lost your way, I’m afraid we’re short of hands here, so unfortunately you’ll have to go to the bar next door,” the only woman who wasn’t hunched over her desk told me in a tired voice after she noticed my entrance.

This woman had an incredibly somber and gloomy air to her. Paired with her thoroughly bloodshot eyes rimmed with dark circles and bloodless pale blue lips, it looked like she was in danger of passing away at any moment.

…Wait, nonono. Rather than worrying about this person I’ve never met before, I should hurry up and say that I didn’t come here because I was lost.

“I’m sorry for barging in like this. Actually, I didn’t come in here because I was lost. I was looking for someone named Tobias-san… Is he an employee at this company?” (Lewin)

When I asked the woman this, she gave me a terribly unpleasant look and then stood up slowly. Then, she proceeded to walk over to a person sleeping face-down on his desk and slapped him hard on the back of the head.

“―Ngahhh?!! ……Juno? What’s wrong, did something happen?” (Tobias)

I was startled by the woman’s actions, but the man who had just gotten knocked upside the head and woken up was actually Tobias. Because he was sleeping at his desk, I didn’t notice Tobias was here at all.

“You have a guest. Go and handle it.” (Juno)

“….For me? I don’t recall having a guest, but…” (Tobias)

After muttering that, Tobias slowly turned towards me. Perhaps because he had just woken up, his eyes looked droopy and tired, but the moment he saw me, his eyes immediately flew wide open.

“―Lewin! By any chance, were you ready to let me write an article about you?!” (Tobias)

Tobias stood up messily in a rush and made his way over to me with haste. Come to think of it, four days ago when we had last met, he had asked me to let him write an article about me for the Laudungeon Company.

“N-no. I’m sorry, but I didn’t come here because I wanted you to write about me or anything like that.” (Lewin)

Tobias looked very excited even though he had just woken up, so I felt a bit apologetic telling him this. But surprisingly, his excitement didn’t drop one bit after hearing these words.

“I see, I see. That’s unfortunate, but I’m glad you’ve come to see me again. Wait here just a moment. I’ll go clean up the reception room real quick so we can have a place to talk.” (Tobias)

With that, Tobias patted me on the shoulder with a smile before heading off to the room next to the office.

…I wonder why he’s welcoming me so warmly?

Tobias might just be treating me, who was just an acquaintance, kindly because he was a nice person, but his excitement felt a bit off.

As I was pondering my doubts about Tobias’s welcoming attitude, the gloomy looking woman called Juno walked up to me, mimicking me by tilting her head in a similar fashion. Since she was staring at the reception room that Tobias had just entered, she seemed to be having her own doubts about Tobias’ attitude.

“……So you really were Tobias’s guest, huh? I’ve never seen Tobias so excited in my life. Just who in the world are you?” (Juno)

“I’m nobody. I only happened to get to know Tobias-san, and he’s just been one-sidedly good to me.” (Lewin)

“Tobias doesn’t have the personality to be good to someone who isn’t beneficial to him in some sort of way. He was so delighted in his sleep too… I wonder what he’s hiding?” (Juno)

Juno suddenly scrutinized me intensely, making a complete turnaround from her usual sluggish and languid demeanor.

The only thing that I could think of as being an advantage for him was for him to write an article about me like he wanted… But I didn’t even think that was that big of an advantage, and I thought that he was simply being nice to me.

“I’m not really hiding anything th—” (Lewin)

“Hey, Lewin! I’ve finished tidying up, so you can come on in!” (Tobias)

“Oh, okay! Coming!” (Lewin)

Before I could reply to Juno, Tobias, who had finished cleaning up, called for me. I gave a slight bow to Juno, who still looked totally unconvinced, and entered the reception room that Tobias had disappeared into. I was a bit reluctant, but I decided it was time to change the focus of my thoughts to the Dungeon-related information that I had come here for.