On My First Day Undercover, the Organization Collapsed - Chapter 425

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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 425
Security Guard Selection Trial (3)
The Security Guard Selection Trial continued.
The third test was none other than combat against Magic Dolls!
Thanks to the abundant materials and magical resources provided by each Noble House, Zephyros had constructed Magic Dolls in mere days.
These were the workers’ opponents.
“That’s a Magic Doll?”
“I’ve never seen one before. It looks human, doesn’t it?”
“A doll? They want us to fight a doll?”
“I heard Magic Dolls are incredibly expensive things……”
Naturally, those not born to Noble Houses were seeing a Magic Doll for the first time. They’d heard of them, but had no way of knowing exactly what they were.
So they took the brunt of it from the start.
“Ugh, ugh!”
“Ah, it hurts! It really hurts!”
They were beaten mercilessly.
Truth be told, even if they’d known what to expect, they’d have been beaten anyway.
“Tsk tsk, can’t even endure this level of output.”
Zephyros clicked his tongue today as well. Yet his expression looked remarkably satisfied.
The Magic Doll he’d knocked together in just a few days was working absolutely beautifully!
The appearance left something to be desired, but still—respectable performance at this level!
“Zephyros, maintain the output.”
“Should I just raise it higher?”
“If you raise it, a couple of them die. That would be wasteful.”
Ziel kept the output steady without mercy.
The Instructors supervised the Magic Doll test with rigid formality.
“Next! You there, clear away the collapsed one!”
“Yes, sir!”
They followed orders remarkably well.
Despite taking commands from students barely out of their youth, the workers moved in perfect order.
The reason was simple.
They wanted to become Security Guards!
“About ten should remain.”
Ziel’s prediction was precise.
When the Magic Doll test ended, only ten remained—Rob O’Connor among them.
“Head Butler Gibson.”
“Yes, Master!”
“Use those who just failed for Mansion maintenance going forward.”
“Understood! Since they’re unremarkable, I’ll have them do menial work!”
“Good. Efficient allocation of labor.”
The dropouts returned to their old work as general laborers.
They may have been fortunate to end up doing chores around the Mansion, but either way, they would not become Security Guards.
“Now only the final test remains!”
The fourth trial then began.
Remarkably, the fourth test granted a break.
“Rest for thirty minutes, then we move out.”
“B-but, sir! A break? We only ever got five minutes!”
“Student Maris Sopen, yours was for educational and training purposes. Thirty minutes of rest would have been inefficient.”
“Ah, so that’s why thirty minutes!”
So thirty minutes, then.
He needed three hours—no, three days of rest given the exhaustion piling up!
But no one objected.
Because they wanted to become Security Guards.
“But what happens to anyone among us who fails?”
“No idea. After the cooks came the general laborers, so maybe farmers next?”
“Even that would be something.”
“But they can’t settle in, can they? The cooks and laborers are locked in the Dormitory, aren’t they?”
“Surely not……”
The ten survivors, Rob at their head, steeled their resolve.
“Captain—no, former captain.”
“Who’s calling me former captain! I’m still the captain.”
“If you drop out, you won’t be captain anyway. Let’s just focus on surviving.”
For the record, among these ten survivors were Slinick and Aleksei, both broken by Gilbert and Kelvin respectively.
They hadn’t expected this.
Men who’d been renowned mercenaries before turning to banditry, now scrounging for a security guard position of all things!
But they had to survive.
The moment they stepped outside Steelheart Territory without solid protection…….
‘The three of us are dead. Absolutely dead.’
Never mind the small-timers—these three, the core of the core, would be hunted down and killed without question.
The only option, if any, was to flee into the Western Desert.
But if the nomads who lived there caught them, their end might be even more horrific.
“We’ll begin the final trial now. Each of you will head into the Magical Beast Habitat Zone and bring back one magical beast!”
“……!”
That’s exactly when he thought fleeing into the Western Desert might actually be better.
“M-magical beasts? What do you mean, magical beasts?”
“Mid-rank or higher!”
“This is insane…….”
The curse slipped out unbidden.
Everyone knows it.
Low-rank magical beasts can be handled by a standard mercenary company.
But when facing mid-rank magical beasts, there absolutely must be someone in that mercenary unit who can use mana.
Otherwise more of them die.
And as for high-grade beasts like Ruinbark…….
You run.
“One per person. Move out!”
The ten survivors suddenly remembered something.
This trial.
Wasn’t it a trap designed to execute them?
‘Wait—we have a captain, don’t we?’
Slinick carefully shifted his form of address.
“Um, Captain.”
“Didn’t you say you used to be captain?”
“Well, once a captain, always a captain, right?”
“What’s your point?”
“Couldn’t you use your Secret Arts to catch them all at once and make one for each of us?”
Rob glanced toward the instructors.
He caught sight of their cold, piercing stares and looked away again.
“Will that work?”
“Ah…….”
Those eyes made it clear they would tolerate no shortcuts whatsoever.
“Now that we’ve arrived, I’ll explain the rules. Anyone who wants to give up should shout ‘I give up’ right where you stand. That way, you’ll at least save your life.”
Exactly how one’s life could be saved remained unclear, but they prepared themselves anyway.
“But isn’t mid-rank magical beasts too much?”
“Don’t know. Teacher approved it, so it’ll work out somehow.”
“Mid-rank beasts—you’d need to be Expert Grade just to handle them, I’d think…….”
“Ah, come on. Nobody’s going to die. Half of us will pass, at least.”
The instructors were remarkably at ease.
This, too, was a lesson learned.
As long as Teacher Ziel was here, there was no risk of anyone dying.
And now, they themselves were present.
“Real combat, like this—it’s nerve-wracking, isn’t it?”
“Let’s show what the Break Training Club has accomplished!”
“But Teacher said we hadn’t accomplished much…….”
“Oh, that’s right…….”
In any case, everyone had entered high-level Worker grade, and Celia was practically at Expert Grade already—no exaggeration. Maris, the selection instructor, possessed skill on par with Celia’s.
And since they had faced magical beasts several times before, there was no major concern.
“But what magical beasts are supposed to be here? The same ones we fought on the way to the Koers Ruins back in first year?”
Those first-year practical training days already felt distant as a dream!
“It won’t be Tepiks or Peckworms, at least.”
“Ugh, just thinking about Peckworms brings back the stench glands.”
“Blech. I’m gonna throw up.”
The memory of disguising myself as a scent gland came back to me.
How had Teacher Ziel managed to remove it so calmly?
The Stone Crook, whose entire body was hard as rock, and the Swordbird with its blade-sharp feathers also came to mind.
“Memories, right?”
“Yeah, memories. We could probably handle them on our own now?”
“They’ll become memories for the workers too.”
Of course, right now it was hell.
“Come on, grab it! Grab it from behind!”
“Stab! Now!”
The ten survivors began to hunt the magical beasts in a rush. But it wasn’t easy.
This place was one where magical beasts gathered endlessly no matter how many times you cleared them.
Though Ziel, Gilbert, and Kelvin had already swept through here once, different magical beasts had filled their place as if nothing had happened.
The Big Hand, attacking with enormous, hard, armored hands!
“Kuooooooo!”
“Oh, it’s coming! Dodge!”
The Changer, shifting its color to match the surroundings before ambushing!
“Argh! It’s a Changer!”
“It appeared from behind!”
Mid-rank magical beasts mercilessly drove the survivors back.
Even low-rank magical beasts like the Swordbird and Peckworm, troublesome opponents in their own right, appeared.
‘Damn it, if only I had my secret arts!’
Rob faced off with sword and spear, just like the other survivors.
Ziel had imposed a penalty.
If Rob used his secret arts, the other survivors wouldn’t get a chance to shine, so he’d been told not to use them at all.
He’d thought about sneaking in a little use, but it seemed like he’d be caught if he did.
His opponent was a man who could slice an entire mansion in half!
And a person with such an enormous entity as a subordinate—one who could move that halved mansion wholesale.
There was no point in trying to deceive him.
You could end up dead.
“Uaaaaaaah!”
“The captain’s moving! Support from behind!”
“The captain’s drawing their attention!”
Rob charged forward, driven by frustration!
The other survivors followed in his wake!
“Hmm. Rob has the makings of a leader.”
“He was already a captain, after all.”
Ziel and Gilbert, watching, both nodded.
The trial left to the Instructors seemed to be proceeding in quite a satisfactory direction.
Thus, one hour passed.
“Gasp, wheeze.”
“We… we made it.”
“We did it!”
At last, the ten survivors returned with ten corpses of mid-rank magical beasts.
They were all in terrible condition.
They bore countless minor wounds as standard, and more than a few injuries serious enough to require immediate medical attention, if not critical.
“Instructors, begin treatment.”
“Yes, Teacher!”
The Instructors treated the workers’ wounds as Ziel had taught them!
The workers, exhausted to their limit, lay sprawled out where they’d collapsed.
“On your feet!”
“Up, up!”
Of course, at Maris’s word, they all sprang to their feet and held attention.
Maris smiled with satisfaction, then looked toward Ziel.
“Teacher Ziel, I am reporting that all trial procedures have been completed!”
“I know. Student Maris Sopen. Why bother reporting what you and I both witnessed?”
“Ah.”
The instructor role-play ended here.
Ziel looked at the magical beast corpses and the ten survivors—candidates for his territory’s security force and former members of a bandit organization.
“As of this moment, you are qualified to serve as my territory’s security guards.”
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
Cheers and howls tangled together.
There were survivors weeping—and yes, even Security Guards tearing up.
Finally!
‘At last!’
Rop wiped away his welling tears.
It hadn’t been five years of shame, but he’d labored long enough as a common worker—and now that dark season had passed, now he stood proudly selected as a Security Guard of the Steelheart Territory itself!
“From this moment on, you are Security Guards.”
“Yes! We made it!”
“Security Guards for life.”
“…….”
For a moment an ill-omened phrase hung in the air, but what did it matter?
Outside, they died.
Simply being recognized here and alive was happiness itself.
“Better to live in a dung heap than die out there!”
“Damn right!”
What did the Security Guard ranks matter?
“Think about it—we’re already leagues better off than we were with the bandits?”
“True. We never knew if we’d see tomorrow!”
“Better to settle down here!”
There was one crucial reason these men had managed to become Security Guards at all.
They had not laid a hand on the people of Steelheart Territory.
If they had, no title would have saved them—Ziel would have swept them away or sent them to the Execution Platform.
Of course, they’d never bothered anyone but the nobles anyway.
“Security Captain: Rop O’Connor. That’s you.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Crack!
Rop immediately dropped to one knee.
A gesture of respect and loyalty.
“Did he break his kneecap?”
“Sounds like something popped…….”
“That was incredibly loud.”
The Instructors’ murmurs barely registered.
‘Just—just a little sore…….’
A knee was nothing—he’d get it treated back at the Dormitory!
The Selection Trial was over anyway, so now everything was perfect—
“Then I’ll now assign your Security Guard unit its first mission.”
That was when Ziel dropped a thunderbolt into the silence.
“You will eliminate the Magical Beast Habitat Zone half a day’s march from here.”
“…….”
Rop stared blankly, struggling to process.
“I’m sorry—did I hear that right……?”

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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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