"Aww, what the heck. The building’s so weak. No fun at all."
Ruby, who had been all fired up while letting out her violent urges, deflated in disappointment and started to sulk. But it couldn’t be helped. Even if the building had held up, the shrapnel from the explosion could have flown right at Audrey and me.
"So, Manager," Audrey said. "What’s the result of observing our tes"ts?"
"Yeah, what do you think?" Ruby chimed in. "We’re totally strong, right? We can go raid an S-rank gate just like this, right?"
"First of all, judging by your conditions..."
"Judging by what?"
Even Audrey was watching me with clear curiosity. I lowered my voice and made my declaration.
"Right now, even if I’m being generous, you’re only at the upper ranks of A-rank at best. That’s all."
There was no way they could raid an S-rank gate like this.
As hunters, the abilities Audrey and Ruby were showing were upper A-rank at best. But considering their absolutely hopeless teamwork, their actual performance in a gate raid would probably be much lower than that.
So, for now, we decided they should do self-training to get back the sense they’d lost during their long imprisonment, while also doing some basic joint training to work on their coordination.
"Hey! What do you think you’re doing, shooting there? I almost got hit!"
"Ruby, you’re the one who suddenly jumped right into my line of fire. What was I supposed to do?"
"Then you should just dodge and shoot around me!"
"Right back at you."
"Madness, you...!"
"...Alright, let’s call it a day here."
Naturally, all I saw was teamwork that wasn’t just bad—it was actively making things worse.
And so, days of shuffling between the inn and the training room went by without any real results.
Now, about two weeks had passed since I started living with the Convict Unit.
"Manager, give me food!"
"I wish to taste today’s culinary art posthaste, Manager."
"It’s almost done, just wait a bit."
"There’s no... meat side dish!"
"...Today’s table is sorely lacking in aesthetics."
"If it’s protein you want, there’s pan-fried tofu with egg right there. It’s delicious."
"What I want isn’t protein, it’s meat! Meat! M-E-A-T!"
For breakfast, I’d set out a simple stew, some seasoned vegetables, kimchi, and pan-fried tofu with egg—easy morning food.
Audrey was silently picking at only her white rice, clearly showing her displeasure. Ruby had put down her chopsticks entirely and was sitting there in utter despair.
"In the first place, if you simply needed protein rather than meat, the Manager’s— Mmph!"
"Don’t say weird things and just try eating it."
I popped a piece of the ketchup-dipped tofu and egg into Ruby’s mouth just as she was about to spout nonsense. Her lips pouted, like she was ready to complain again, but she slowly fell quiet.
She chewed, tasting it.
......
She quietly picked up her chopsticks again, grabbed several pieces of the tofu and egg at once, and put them on top of her rice.
Then Audrey, who had been trying to protect the table’s aesthetics, sneakily watched before following Ruby’s lead and trying a piece herself.
Suddenly, she started working her chopsticks busily too.
Sigh... What are they, little kids?
Watching them glare at each other and fight a battle of strength with their chopsticks just to grab one more piece of side dish was such a contrast to the glimpses of madness they’d shown me before that I could only laugh in disbelief.
Well, this was a hundred times better than how they were back then.
So I’d have to keep working hard to make sure this version of them could stick around as much as possible.
...Was this for my sake, or for theirs?
"If you’re nearly done eating, shall I clear the table?"
"Wait, just let me finish this... nom nom."
"Eating with such a lack of decorum is a manner of dining utterly devoid of aesthetics."
"...Says the one who happily ate the egg fry I’d already touched with my saliva."
"Th-that was purely because I couldn’t bring myself to waste perfectly good food...!"
Leaving the two of them to bicker until the very end, I silently cleared the table by myself.
When would my situation ever get better?
I’d like to hire at least one housekeeper with the support funds I got, but where we’re living is kind of a secret, so that’s not an option.
"Oh right, Manager! Let’s go on a date, a date!"
"...What date?"
"You know... you said if we trained hard, you’d give us a day off and go on a date. Don’t you remember?"
Ruby scurried over to my side as I was getting ready to do the dishes, staring up at me with her ruby-colored eyes sparkling.
Well, after seeing the state of their first teamwork attempt, I had casually mentioned something like that to boost their motivation.
As I’d explained to Ruby and Audrey before, I had no intention of controlling them strictly like in prison. But since I’d been sticking to a training schedule to help recover their collapsed senses—which were worse than I thought—I’d naturally avoided any fun outings, with a general vibe of ’You expect me to sleep with skills like that?’
"Hmm... what should I do."
"Manager, I really worked hard. You know I hate boring stuff, right? But I endured it, the tear-jerking hell training..."
...She’d been caught by me several times, snoozing away in the personal training room, and she had the nerve to say that.
Still, it was about time to loosen the reins a bit. Keeping them too tightly wound would only backfire.
"Fine, I’ll work out a schedule soon."
"Not soon, tomorrow!"
"Yeah, yeah. Tomorrow."
...Alright. Then while we’re out, maybe I can try to close the distance between these two a little.