Even at night, the Guild was busy.
No—perhaps it was precisely because it was night that it was busy.
Receptionists gathered information from those who finished their work in the evening and submitted that information as documents. Naturally, the Guild Staff Members who checked those documents would become busy from evening onward.
If this were a Guild in any other location, they could simply push the work to the next day. But this was Gilm, currently in the midst of the Expansion Construction. Tomorrow would bring its own massive influx of new work. If today's work remained unfinished, the pile of documents would just keep stacking up.
Given that, the only option was to finish the work within the day, but...
"A promotion exam to A-Rank, you say?"
Looking at the letter and documents from the Lord's Manor—no, from Daskar—Guild Master Worker muttered with a troubled expression.
The letter stated his recommendation that Rei be permitted to take the promotion exam to become an A-Rank Adventurer. Not only that, but it firmly declared that recommendations would be obtained from other nobles as well.
Normally, even coming from a noble, one wouldn't take such a claim at face value until the recommendation was actually in hand. But the one making the declaration this time was Daskar.
Not only the Neutral Faction nobles, but even within the King's Faction and the Noble's Faction, there were those who admired Daskar. Whether they could afford to show that publicly was another matter entirely. In that sense, Worker could easily predict that the recommendations would likely come from nobles of the same Neutral Faction as Daskar.
"A bit later... at least in winter, it would have been easier on our end."
In winter, the Expansion Construction would be on hold, and the Guild wouldn't be nearly as busy. In that sense, holding the promotion exam in winter would be the ideal option—but naturally, conducting a promotion exam required assessing Rei's ability.
In practice, given that he was an Alias Holder, his accumulated achievements, and above all the fact that he had defeated the A-Rank Adventurer Antelme just days ago, it was clear he possessed ability more than worthy of A-Rank. Still, as a formality, his combat prowess needed to be evaluated.
However, even that assessment would become extremely harsh in winter. Simply being in the snow would be a negative factor for Rei.
That said, fighting in adverse conditions was not particularly unusual for an adventurer. In that sense, conducting a battle in the snow wouldn't be unreasonable—but in that case, the problem would be the examiner.
Since they were evaluating whether he had the ability to become an A-Rank Adventurer, naturally they couldn't just have him fight some random Goblin. They would need him to fight a monster worthy of an A-Rank Adventurer, and the trouble was that finding such a monster was no simple matter.
In other words, in winter—at worst, in the middle of a snowfall—they would need to travel to a location far from Gilm. The examiner would also possess considerable strength, but even so, they would hardly want to battle frontier monsters in the snow.
Furthermore... there was another reason they couldn't afford to take Rei away for an extended period in winter.
"The Gigant Turtle dissection... we need to have that done again, same as last year."
For the Slum District residents to obtain sustenance to survive the winter, and for the Guild to acquire information and materials from an extraordinarily rare monster like the Gigant Turtle—both held tremendous significance. They couldn't deliberately pass up such an opportunity.
Moreover, some of those who participated in the dissection work would sell the meat and materials they earned back to the Guild, making it all the more important. The Guild was not a charity; it needed to earn profits where it could. Of course, as a Guild situated in the frontier of Gilm, it enjoyed many advantages over other Guilds when it came to turning a profit.
"If the promotion exam could be wrapped up in a short time, we wouldn't have to worry about the Gigant Turtle dissection either... but the problem is that more people would freeze to death during that brief window."
Winter in Gilm could easily bring about death by freezing. Even during the few days Rei would be away taking the promotion exam, there would undoubtedly be those who froze to death.
If this were before the Gigant Turtle dissection had been carried out last year, it wouldn't have been such a concern. But the dissection had proven that those who worked diligently could survive. Given that, if people died during those few days, there would certainly be those who blamed Rei—and Rei himself would likely be troubled by the thought that he could have saved them but hadn't been there to do so.
"In that case, winter is out after all. Which means autumn... perhaps late autumn, as winter approaches?"
As winter drew closer, those currently working in Gilm would gradually start leaving, so the workload would decrease compared to now. Also, since it wouldn't yet be fully winter, there would be fewer people freezing to death.
In that sense, autumn—specifically late autumn—would be perfect for the exam. But the letter stated to do it as soon as possible.
That "as soon as possible" was the problem.
"What to do about this, I wonder."
Even as he said it, a smile rested on Worker's face.
Worker had always wanted Rei to become an A-Rank Adventurer. But Rei had never desired it, and as a result had remained a B-Rank Adventurer. For that same Rei to now say he would become an A-Rank Adventurer—there was no way Worker wouldn't welcome it.
Above all, even for an Alias Holder, the influence one commanded at A-Rank versus B-Rank was simply different. In that sense, this development was exactly what he had been hoping for.
...Though the fact that it was the dead of summer was certainly a problem.
"It might actually be a good idea to have him fight an A-Rank Adventurer to demonstrate his ability. In any case, there's no doubt he's well within passing range in terms of sheer competence. The real concern, as expected, would be etiquette."
If Rei were to fail the promotion exam, the reason would undoubtedly be etiquette. Worker was well aware that such things were not exactly Rei's strong suit.
However, Rei had Elena, Marina, Vihera, Ara, and others well-versed in etiquette on his side. It should be entirely possible for him to receive instruction from them. And given Rei's ability, it might end up feeling like a last-minute cram session, but even so, he should be able to manage something when it came to etiquette.
That such optimistic thoughts came to mind was likely a testament to how well he knew the person Rei was.
"In any case, given that the letter says 'as soon as possible'... it seems I'll need to temporarily delegate the Expansion Construction duties to someone else."
Compared to the Gigant Turtle dissection conducted in winter, delegating the Expansion Construction to others would be the lesser concern. Having made that judgment, Worker immediately set to thinking through the details of the promotion exam.
"Hey, Lenora. That part there is a little off."
"Eh? ...Oh, you're right. Thanks, Kenny."
Around the time Worker was mulling over Rei's exam on the second floor, the Guild Staff Members on the first floor were hard at work. The Receptionists Lenora and Kenny were likewise busy with paperwork.
Many of the documents handed up to Worker were whittled down as they passed through multiple checkpoints, sorted into necessary and unnecessary files. But that meant the place where the documents were initially organized had to process an enormous volume of paperwork—and the Receptionists were the first stop in that process.
There were a considerable number of Receptionists, but even so, those on duty were stretched to their limits.
"Wait, those documents go here."
"Ah, sorry about that."
"The request intake forms should look like this, right? I just came to Gilm, and it's a bit different from Abuelo."
Like that, numerous Receptionists were working hard. The ones particularly struggling were the Receptionists who had come to help from places like Abuelo and Sablusta.
Fundamentally, adventurers would relocate to another town if something came up, but Receptionists making similar moves was far less common. Because of that, the way work was done and documents were formatted could differ subtly depending on the Guild.
Of course, since they were all part of a single organization called the Adventurer's Guild, the work itself was the same. But even that same work could shift subtly depending on the location—what might be called localization was not uncommon.
The Receptionists and Guild Staff Members processed paperwork in a smooth, flowing manner, but since they had to use Gilm's forms rather than the ones they were accustomed to, they couldn't work quite as efficiently as they had at their home branches.
Among them were some who had quickly adapted to the format upon arriving in Gilm, and others who had come early enough to gain a reasonable amount of experience with Gilm's system and grow comfortable with it. But there were also those who still couldn't work quite as smoothly.
Presumably, being dispatched to Gilm meant they were regarded as fairly outstanding staff at their home branches. But unfortunately, since everyone assembled here was outstanding, those who were excellent locally might only demonstrate average ability in Gilm.
In that sense, Lenora and Kenny, who had been working in Gilm from the very beginning, possessed top-class ability among the entire group.
The earnest Lenora went without saying, but even Kenny, who usually appeared to do nothing but play, had been entrusted with a Receptionist's role for good reason—her document organization skills were genuinely sharp.
...The real issue was her own motivation.
Even so, as long as she understood that she too needed to work diligently now, Kenny was completing her tasks in earnest.
"Kenny-san, I've finished these documents."
"Thanks. The next batch is over there."
"Understood."
Directed by Kenny, a Receptionist turned to sorting through another set of documents.
What Kenny hadn't expected was that, for some reason, she had been saddled with a sort of coordinator role over the Receptionists who had arrived from other towns and villages.
That said, Kenny was never particularly bad at looking after those under her. No—if it came down to sheer popularity among subordinates, the lighthearted Kenny actually outranked the straitlaced Lenora.
...Then again, even if they were placed under Kenny, a Receptionist was still a Receptionist. At the Guild branches where they had previously worked, they had naturally been propositioned by any number of adventurers, and many of them were quite attractive. In other words, a fair number of them had considerable confidence in their own beauty, and since they believed they were by no means inferior to Kenny or Lenora in that regard, there had been some rather catty exchanges between the women at first. But seeing them now working honestly under Kenny and Lenora, one needn't think hard to guess how that had turned out.
The sheer volume of work between their home branches and Gilm was fundamentally different. Given that, there was no way Lenora and Kenny, who had been serving as Receptionists at the notoriously busy Gilm Guild for a considerable period, would lose to such challengers.
"Lenora-san, could you check these documents?"
"There's a mistake here. And this one has a slight calculation error."
At Lenora's words, a recently arrived Receptionist bowed and returned to correcting her documents.
"Ahh, I miss Rei-kun. I haven't seen him lately—I wonder if he's doing well?"
While working through her paperwork, Kenny muttered.
In reality, the time since Rei had last visited the Guild wasn't all that long. But in the midst of such hectic days, she couldn't help wondering when exactly she had last seen him.
That was how relentless the busy stretch had been. It wasn't uncommon for work to begin in the morning and, before she knew it, find that it was already the middle of the night.
In a way, these might be deeply fulfilling days—but having them continue like this was something she could by no means welcome.
"Rei-san has a great deal on his plate, so complaining about it here won't accomplish anything. For that matter, depending on how things go, rumors that Kenny isn't pulling her weight might reach Rei-san's ears, you know?"
"Ugh! I'm working this hard and that's just unfair."
"That's just how it is—your day-to-day conduct matters. In that sense, there's no way rumors like that would reach Rei-san about me."
For Lenora as well, Rei was someone she held dear. However, her affection was not romantic, but rather what one might feel toward a younger brother. In that sense, she was no romantic rival to Kenny.
...Though when it came to romantic rivals, Kenny had plenty of formidable opponents elsewhere.
"Rei-kun, when I get some free time, let's go out for a meal together."
Saying that, Kenny continued to clear through the paperwork, one document after another.