On My First Day Undercover, the Organization Collapsed - Chapter 424

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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First Day of Infiltration, The Organization Was Destroyed — Episode 424
Security Guard Selection Exam (2)
“Everyone move out, begin!”
“……What’s with that one?”
“Didn’t you hear? Begin!”
“Y-yes, beginning…….”
To become a security guard, one had to follow orders without question.
There was no room for objection!
And so the students’ instructor activities proceeded smoothly from the start.
“This feels pretty good, actually. Is this my calling?”
“You’re just having fun taking out stress, aren’t you?”
Maris Sopen, whose selection proposal had been approved, was ecstatic. She’d even earned her instructor credentials from Ziel.
“Maris Sopen. See that only qualifiers are selected according to strict standards. Dropouts will be demoted back to workers.”
“Yes, Teacher!”
Demoted to worker status!
Though they were grateful not to be cast out entirely, the former bandits—now workers—began to grow tense at the thought of losing the opportunity they’d barely grasped.
After all, who would want to spend their life as a mere worker?
‘I’ll become a security guard no matter what. I’ll make it.’
‘Once I’m a guard, I can stay here and get paid and earn bonuses too…….’
‘Maybe they’ll even arrange a marriage for me?’
Everyone faced their first trial brimming with hopes and dreams.
“Now then, I’ll announce the first trial… I mean, the first exam!”
Maris strode forward with a ringing voice and pointed to sandbags stacked high as a mountain.
“Everyone, put them on!”
The workers grunted and struggled into their sandbags. Despite being former bandits, they found the weight quite uncomfortable.
‘Hmph, it’s nothing.’
A handful of them who could use Magic initially felt confident, but that crumbled in an instant.
“Next, put on these bracelets as well!”
Mana Blocking Bracelets!
From the beginning of their studies, back when they were first-year freshmen.
The Long-Distance Running class they’d taken from Ziel.
That nightmare had now become someone else’s suffering.
“W-wait, what is this? What on earth is this?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t use my Magic…….”
Those at Walker Rank, or close to it, who still retained partial Magic use, began to panic.
The bracelets were, incidentally, something Zephyros had knocked out on the spot.
“Hmm. I never imagined mass-production research would be used like this.”
If other Mages had seen it, they would have been astounded by the skill, but unfortunately that wasn’t the pressing concern at the moment.
“Everyone runs under the same conditions. Begin!”
“N-now? We’re supposed to run now?”
“So you’d rather drop out? If you don’t want to do this, step aside!”
Maris’s sharp rebuke made them flinch, but they soon began to run.
This place was the Steelheart Territory, still under reconstruction.
So there were still plenty of open grounds, and they stretched wide.
“Everyone runs in time with my count: one, two, one, two, one, two!”
Maris was merciless.
Even the watching students clicked their tongues in admiration.
“That one’s actually got a real gift for this, doesn’t she? She’s doing amazingly.”
“Wait, look at that—she’s wearing the same sandbags and bracelets they are?”
Indeed.
Maris had simply copied exactly what she’d learned from Ziel.
Just as Ziel had run alongside them back then, Maris was now wearing sandbags and Mana Blocking Bracelets and running with them in step.
Of course, Maris had the advantage in stamina.
After two years of training under Ziel, her level surpassed not just ordinary mercenaries, but even the more formidable ones of that grade!
It was the fruit of Ziel’s systematic method of instruction.
“One, two, one, two, one, two, keep up! You’re falling behind!”
And she had also inherited that cruel aspect of Ziel’s teaching method.
Namely: an endless stretch of hellish time with no end in sight!
“Huff, puff. H-how many more laps do we have to run?!”
“Keep running!”
“Huff!”
The first Long-Distance Running class had been exactly the same.
They simply ran.
Until everyone collapsed from exhaustion.
That was how performance was measured.
Thump, thump.
Finally, the workers began dropping one by one.
“You, you—dropout!”
“Please, just one more chance!”
“My legs got tangled!”
“Drag all the dropouts outside!”
Assistant Instructors moved in and hauled away the struggling failures.
“Please, just one more moment……!”
“I want to be a Security Guard……!”
The cries that drifted over were truly pitiful.
“The kids are doing pretty well, aren’t they?”
Gilbert marveled at the sight.
“Yes, equally relentless, just as expected.”
Kelvin nodded absently.
“Good. They remember my teachings well.”
Ziel was thoroughly satisfied.
Evaluations must be strict and impartial.
Especially when selecting security guards responsible for the Territory’s public safety—they had to meet minimum standards.
“I could have them serve as Teaching Assistants later.”
Flinch!
“B-Boss, I’m a Teaching Assistant too!”
“I know.”
Gilbert felt a flutter of hope.
‘By that point, I won’t be a Teaching Assistant anymore, will I?’
By then, he’d almost certainly have taken on some important role in the Steelheart Territory.
While Gilbert indulged in pleasant daydreams, Ziel was thinking.
‘With three Teaching Assistants—Maris Sopen, Lenoa Nihalis, and Gilbert—operations would run far more efficiently.’
In any case, as several hundred ran, roughly half had already dropped out.
The moment their lap counts were recorded, the dropouts were dragged away by the Assistant Instructors.
Now the real evaluation began.
‘They’ve all surpassed fifty laps, so now I just need to measure their records.’
Maris swept her sharp gaze across the survivors still running.
One figure stood out unmistakably: Rob O’Connor.
Former bandit leader, now the most diligent and devoted of all the workers!
Though the Mana Blocking Bracelet prevented him from using Secret Arts, the physical stamina he’d trained for those arts remained intact.
Had he relied only on Secret Arts, those hundreds of bandits would never have followed him.
In other words.
“He has the makings of a Security Captain.”
Clearly, he deserved selection as the finest candidate.
“How does it look, Maris?”
Maris was the Selection Instructor.
Lenoa, who’d been designated as Training Instructor, happened to pass by and asked casually.
“They’re about to start hell soon.”
“Right. Though they’re running better than we did. When we first started, we couldn’t even manage a few laps.”
“True enough. Well, they’re adults, after all.”
The First Year freshmen from back then had possessed embarrassingly poor stamina by comparison.
Though some students had come trained by their Noble Families, Ziel saw little difference between them.
That didn’t mean the current workers were holding up well either.
“The dropout rate’s accelerating.”
“I’ll record it.”
Dropouts were appearing far more frequently now, and some workers were being dragged out completely exhausted.
They no longer had strength left even to cry out pitifully.
“I need to… be a Security Guard……”
“I… want to… settle down……”
And so only one remained.
Rob.
He endured to the last with everything he had before collapsing.
“Well done. This concludes the first round of the examination.”
Rob, who ultimately ran 103 laps, recorded first place.
And at this point, they cut down to fifty from the top.
“In the end, even with fifty selected, the number seems too few, doesn’t it, Boss?”
“It doesn’t matter. Mediocre skill has no place among Security Guards.”
“I see.”
In other words, he meant to select only a promising few and put them through their paces.
Since they selected fifty in the first round, the second, third, and fourth rounds would pare down the numbers even further.
It was then that Ziel stepped forward.
“What… what is this?”
“My body suddenly feels… energized……”
“I thought I’d just passed out……”
That was right.
Ziel had revived all fifty survivors by poking each of them with his finger.
He’d temporarily activated their Mana, but it was sufficient.
“Get up. We proceed to the next test.”
“Ah……”
The reason was naturally one of efficiency.
Letting them rest for a few hours before the next examination would be hideously inefficient.
“We will now conduct the second round! Everyone assemble!”
“A-assemble!”
The workers gathered in perfect order.
Something felt wrong.
The first test was one thing, but now their bodies had regained their vigor.
Generally speaking, such a thing was unthinkable.
So everyone assembled without complaint.
“The second test is Counter-Attack in Darkness!”
And before anyone could even react to this absurd test, darkness enveloped the survivors.
It was naturally Zephyros’s work.
“Wow, you can do this too, sir?”
“Amazing. That must be a really advanced magic!”
“Didn’t you say he was the Teacher’s subordinate?”
“The Teacher is even higher, so there’s nothing odd about a 6th Circle Mage being his subordinate, is there?”
Zephyros, ignoring the chatter, wore a sinister smile as he wove several spells into the darkness.
‘This will be quite something.’
Maintaining one spell while overlaying another required at least early 5th Tier ability.
Zephyros then cast two more spells on top of that.
The first one.
“What is this? Is anyone there? Can you hear me?”
He’d blocked out sound.
And then the second.
‘My hair’s standing on end……”
‘What’s wrong with me? Why does my heartbeat……”
He’d heightened the survivors’ senses.
And through this gap—
“Shall we try?”
“We get to do this now!”
The Assistant Instructors leaped in.
They were ecstatic, beside themselves with excitement.
To think they’d switched from being on the receiving end to the attacking end!
For reference, the Assistant Instructors had received Magical Tools from Zephyros so they could discern objects in the darkness.
“Let’s go!”
“Take them down!”
They looked just like they were going out to strike down enemies.
One person watching this scene suddenly tilted his head in confusion.
“But… can any survivors even remain if things go like that?”
The one person here who alone believed himself to be the only sane one.
The Head Chef, Teo.
He’d been worried about who would staff the kitchen if all the prospects were scouted for security duty.
“No matter how I look at it, they all seem destined to fail…….”
Watching a scene resembling the student training sessions he occasionally observed, Teo gazed on with equal parts concern and relief.
And sure enough.
“Huh……?”
“Wh—what……?”
As the darkness lifted, the Assistant Instructors standing outside were bewildered.
The only people still standing were the Assistant Instructors who’d gone inside!
“Nnnngh…….”
“Ah, it hurts…….”
“My head…….”
Every worker had failed.
……
“……Well, that’s rough.”
Maris tilted her head in bewilderment.
“That’s strange. We all managed it…….”
“So that means…….”
Renoa chimed in from beside her.
Ziel nodded in agreement.
“The security candidates are weak.”
“Just as I thought! So that was it, wasn’t it, sir!”
“Unfortunately, I’ll lower the difficulty slightly.”
The men who were workers, security candidates, and former members of a bandit organization had to taste hell all over again.
“P-please, spare us.”
“We don’t need stamina for this…….”
After Ziel poked them awake again with his fingers and reduced the intensity, he conducted a retest!
“Zephyros. Cast only the magic that sharpens their senses.”
“Very good, Boss. Tch-tch, what weaklings…….”
Watching this, Teo shook his head side to side.
“They’re all out of their minds.”
And so, the retest produced merely twenty survivors!
Those who dodged attacks reasonably well and even succeeded in counterattacking, enduring to the very end.
In the first round, none of them could withstand it at all, but in the second round, they managed tolerably enough, gritting their teeth through it!
“W-we made it.”
“We passed!”
“Yes! I can see the security officer badge now!”
The survivors cheered, while those who failed despaired.
“I spent years as a mercenary, and now I can’t even be a security guard!”
“I’m ruined!”
But a plan was already in place for them.
“Chef Teo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The current dropouts possess at least the minimum physical strength and reflexes.”
“Well, I suppose that’s…… true?”
“Yes. So I believe they would work well as cooks for the Territory.”
“Oh! So these men will just be cooking from now on?”
“Yes. Their positions have been assigned.”
“Hooray! Thank you so much!”
Ziel was an efficient man.
He never simply discarded those who failed yet showed promise.
Going through the process of selecting cooks anew would itself be inefficient!
“Listen up! From now on, you’ll learn cooking under me!”
“Nooo!”
“I’m doomed!”
“Ha ha! I’ve got subordinates now!”
Teo beamed with joy.
“All right, on to the third round!”
“The third round will be even harder, so brace yourselves!”
“Being an instructor is so thrilling!”
Not far from where they stood.
Darren Rihart, who had lingered in the territory for some time because Celia was here, made a careful observation.
‘Has some spell been cast on this place… one that drives everyone mad the moment they arrive?’
The sharp western sunlight, no less fierce than the height of summer, licked clearly across the Steelheart Territory.
It was autumn.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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