Chapter 300. My Birthday: Knowledge Test. (5/6)
Irene took Alicia and Rosa along and the trio returned to their seats in the waiting area while I stayed behind alone.
“What are you trying to pull here?”
I looked at the woman behind the counter and said, “If you don’t pass me, the video my girlfriend recorded will be published online. Your attempt to falsely accuse me of sexual harassment and your lies about me getting the letters incorrect to fail me will all come to light. I know for certain I got them right, if we zoom in on the video, your lies will immediately become apparent to everyone who sees it.”
“If I simply gave this video to your boss or anyone else above you in this shitty place, they probably wouldn’t care. They might give you a verbal warning and a slap on the wrist before sweeping it under the rug. However, if it leads to enough public outrage, upper management will have no choice but to deal with you and have your employment here terminated.”
“Choose. Which is more important to you? Your job? Or your stupid pride? Keep in mind, pride isn’t going to keep you fed or pay your bills.”
“You’re… blackmailing me?”
“Nothing of the sort. All I’m asking is for you to pass me on my vision test and let me do the class 6 knowledge test after this so I can get my class 6M license. It’s nothing difficult. You’re not even worth the time I’d expend to get you fired from here despite how easy it would be with that video.”
“Delete the video first.”
“Hahaha, do you really think you have any leverage to negotiate here? I’ll just have my girlfriend publish the video right here and now if that’s what you really want. Her best friend happens to be quite popular. It wouldn’t take very long for word to spread.”
“I get it. I just need to pass you on the vision test and you won’t release the video, right?”
“Don’t forget about letting me take the class 6 knowledge test without any problems.”
“Tsk. Okay, I get it. You’ll delete the video once those conditions are fulfilled?”
“Yes. You have my word.”
“Alright.”
When she accepted so easily, I couldn’t help but shake my head.
“Look, aren’t you being a bit naive? You’re an adult, right?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I only said you had my word that I would delete the video. You know, you’ve got to be more careful. You should add in the clause that I will not publish the video before I delete it.”
“Ah! You were planning to scam me?”
“No. If I was planning to scam you, I wouldn’t have told you this. But even if I did promise you that, that would only be my promise. If someone else goes and publishes the video, that’d be a different story altogether. The clause should really be that I will not let anyone publish the video and that it will be deleted.”
“Look, I really don’t have much interest in being petty to the point of getting someone fired just because they got a bit bitchy with me one day at work. Not only that, but you do realize it wouldn’t just get you fired, right?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’d become nearly unemployable in the future if you were fired for this sort of reason. Nobody would want to touch you after they find out from your past employer why you were fired. You’re just really lucky you didn’t run into the wrong person you know. You should be thankful that I’m not a complete irreconcilable asshole. Please be more mindful of your future.”
“Oh. Huh? Uh… that’s…” My sudden change in attitude completely caught her off guard.
“Sorry… I guess. I let my emotions run wild and did something stupid.” She lowered her head toward me apologetically.
“Tell me about it. Seriously, if you fixed that snappy side of yours, you probably wouldn’t have any difficulty getting a boyfriend. After all, it’s not like you’re ugly or anything.”
“Wha-” she scratched her cheek with a strange look on her face.
“Anyway, one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“Can you give me a piece of paper and a pen?”
“Uh… sure… here you go...” She slid a blank piece of paper over the counter and gave me her pen.
I started writing out an agreement to delete the video.
“What are you doing?”
“You should always get these sorts of things in writing, duh. I’m looking out for you here, you know.”
“Oh, a contract. You’re right, I didn’t consider that.”
“Exactly, with a contract, I can’t go back on my word, and neither can you. If I do, you can sue me. If you do, I can sue you too. There are still witnesses to this event. Your colleague being one for example. Lying under threat of perjury when I have three witnesses on my side, it’s unlikely he’d take your side and cover for you when he’s secretly watched everything from the sidelines and knows the truth.”
“Uh… thanks for not taking advantage of me… and being so tolerant of my inexcusable behavior toward you… and… I’m… sorry about before…”
“Don’t sweat it. Work can be stressful. I’m sure you deal with a lot of troublesome people here. I know what it’s like. I deal with irritating customers all the time at a crappy convenience store.”
“It’s not just that though. Haaaah… last year... I walked in on my boyfriend cheating on me and we had a horrible breakup. Since then… I haven’t been able to bounce back. There haven’t been any guys who’ve wanted to date me. These days, seeing happy couples flirting everywhere all the time gets under my skin. I guess your mother’s right, I am pretty ugly.”
“I see, your situation sounds quite awful.” Not that I give a damn. I just don’t want any more problems and I’d really like to get this stupid license already.
“It was awful.” Her shoulders slumped down.
“Look, there’s no need to beat yourself up over it, it happens to the best of us, jealousy.”
“Haaaah. I feel depressed that I’m actually getting consoled by a kid and that it’s even making me feel better.”
“Well, just forget about it. It’s not a big deal. Anyway, here’s the contract. I’ll read it out to ensure we both understand what we’re signing.”
I turned it toward her and read it upside down. She didn’t read it though and simply listened to me recite it out loud to her.
When I got to the end, I asked her, “Does the agreement sound good to you?”
“Yeah.”
I put my index finger down on the bottom right corner of the page and said, “Then, please sign on the dotted line.”
“Haaaaah. Sure.”
As soon as she signed it, I tasted something sweet at the back of my mouth. I experienced the symptoms I would when someone sold their soul to me without setting the condition that they would stop aging.
Hahaha. Why did that happen? Well, naturally, I scammed her of course. I went to all that effort to gain her trust so she would let her guard down and not bother to read the entire contract which had some fine print at the very bottom about her selling her soul to me in return for deleting the video and ensuring it was not published by anyone.
I may not be petty enough to have you fired over this, but I certainly was petty enough to scam you out of your soul.
I may not know what the benefits of acquiring souls are, but it can’t be a bad thing to have more, right? At least, when I’m not offering up the aging condition.
That was what my gut instincts told me. After a lot of thought, I’d come up with a hypothesis using conservation of energy as a basis. If life span was treated as a form of energy then there must be a total pool of lifespan I can tap into. Forming contracts where people stopped aging could potentially be cutting my lifespan short.
However, if I didn’t offer the aging condition in the contract, a portion of a person’s lifespan would become part of my cumulative lifespan which I could use to live longer. The longer I lived, the longer the contract would remain in place and those contracted to me with the aging condition would also be able to live longer. The more people contracted with the aging condition, the faster my lifespan would be depleted.
If that was truly the case, if I didn’t want to significantly reduce other people’s lifespan who weren’t offered the aging condition, I had to reap as many souls as possible without the aging condition.
That was the worst case where I assumed that the depletion of lifespan was a linear relationship and was independent of the cumulative lifespan gathered. If it was dependent on the cumulative lifespan and not linear, it’s possible the more lifespan I gathered, the longer lasted compared to when the same amount of lifespan was held separately.
This could be modeled by surface area. Two separate spheres when volumes added together would have a lower combined surface area than the individual separated spheres. If the reduction of lifespan was proportional to the exposed surface area of the combined spheres of lifespan, then it would degrade slower this way.
Well, it was all speculation. I still had to prove this to be the case.
“Alright, now that you’ve signed the contract I’ll delete the video.”
I looked over to the waiting area, locked eyes with Rosa, and motioned for her to come over.
She stood up, approached me, and hugged me from behind with a smile before she asked, “What is it? Did you miss me~?”
“Yeah. I missed you so much. Let me borrow your phone.”
“What? It doesn’t sound like you missed me at all. It sounds like my phone is more important to you than me.”
The woman across the counter looked at us with a deadpan expression.
‘Go die, you stupid couple.’ Those were the words her eyes conveyed.
“I just need your phone for a second. I’ll give it right back, I promise.”
“Hmmm~ what should I do? Should I give it to you so easily? The world operates on a give and take basis you know. What do I get for letting you use my phone?”
I hadn’t accounted for Rosa being difficult.
“My eternal gratitude.”
“I already have that.”
Damn. She was right. The rooftop incident where she saved my life.
“Is there something in particular you want?”
“Hmmm… yeah, there is actually.”
“Oh? And what is it?”
“I want to be the first one who rides with you on your motorcycle when you get it.”
“Huh? That’s it?”
“Yeah. Is there something wrong with that?”
“No… I just thought it was pretty tame. Usually you’d ask for something more unreasonable.”
She affectionately rubbed her cheek up against my back with her eyes closed and said with a peaceful smile, “I just want a bit of attention from my boyfriend who’s been busy lately.”
The lips of the woman behind the counter were visibly twitching as she did her best to keep her mouth shut.
“Then I promise you’ll be the first to ride with me when I get it.”
“Alright, it’s a deal then. Here you go.”
She held her unlocked phone up in front of me. I held onto her left hand with my left hand and her phone in my right hand. I located the most recent video, turned the screen toward the woman, and permanently deleted it in front of her.
When she confirmed it was deleted she let out a sigh of relief.
“Then, as agreed upon, I've marked off your vision test as passed. You can start the class 6 knowledge test now. I’ll get your temporary paper class 5L learner’s permit printed out in the meantime. The permanent license will be sent out to you in the mail, you should receive it within the next 5-10 business days.”
“Oh, thanks.”
She exited from behind the counter and headed over to the station to set me up for the class 6 knowledge test. While she did that I folded up the contract I had her sign and stuffed it in my pocket.
When she set it up, she turned to us and spoke to Rosa who’d glued herself to me in a monotone voice, “Ms. Clingy Girlfriend, do you mind returning to the waiting area while your boyfriend completes the test.”
“Sure, I don’t mind, Ms. No Boyfriend.” Sparks flew between the two of them.
I ripped Rosa’s arms off me and escaped to my seat in front of the station. When the woman left, Rosa followed along close by her side. I didn’t know what was said between them after that, but it was no doubt scary and something I didn’t want to be caught between.
Catfights were vicious and scary things men should stay far away from. Rosa had definitely put up that overly affectionate act intentionally to get under that woman’s skin.
Well, Rosa not getting along well with other women wasn’t anything unusual. There had only been a few exceptions to that.
Chapter 300. My Birthday: Knowledge Test. (5/6)
Irene took Alicia and Rosa along and the trio returned to their seats in the waiting area while I stayed behind alone.
“What are you trying to pull here?”
I looked at the woman behind the counter and said, “If you don’t pass me, the video my girlfriend recorded will be published online. Your attempt to falsely accuse me of sexual harassment and your lies about me getting the letters incorrect to fail me will all come to light. I know for certain I got them right, if we zoom in on the video, your lies will immediately become apparent to everyone who sees it.”
“If I simply gave this video to your boss or anyone else above you in this shitty place, they probably wouldn’t care. They might give you a verbal warning and a slap on the wrist before sweeping it under the rug. However, if it leads to enough public outrage, upper management will have no choice but to deal with you and have your employment here terminated.”
“Choose. Which is more important to you? Your job? Or your stupid pride? Keep in mind, pride isn’t going to keep you fed or pay your bills.”
“You’re… blackmailing me?”
“Nothing of the sort. All I’m asking is for you to pass me on my vision test and let me do the class 6 knowledge test after this so I can get my class 6M license. It’s nothing difficult. You’re not even worth the time I’d expend to get you fired from here despite how easy it would be with that video.”
“Delete the video first.”
“Hahaha, do you really think you have any leverage to negotiate here? I’ll just have my girlfriend publish the video right here and now if that’s what you really want. Her best friend happens to be quite popular. It wouldn’t take very long for word to spread.”
“I get it. I just need to pass you on the vision test and you won’t release the video, right?”
“Don’t forget about letting me take the class 6 knowledge test without any problems.”
“Tsk. Okay, I get it. You’ll delete the video once those conditions are fulfilled?”
“Yes. You have my word.”
“Alright.”
When she accepted so easily, I couldn’t help but shake my head.
“Look, aren’t you being a bit naive? You’re an adult, right?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I only said you had my word that I would delete the video. You know, you’ve got to be more careful. You should add in the clause that I will not publish the video before I delete it.”
“Ah! You were planning to scam me?”
“No. If I was planning to scam you, I wouldn’t have told you this. But even if I did promise you that, that would only be my promise. If someone else goes and publishes the video, that’d be a different story altogether. The clause should really be that I will not let anyone publish the video and that it will be deleted.”
“Look, I really don’t have much interest in being petty to the point of getting someone fired just because they got a bit bitchy with me one day at work. Not only that, but you do realize it wouldn’t just get you fired, right?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’d become nearly unemployable in the future if you were fired for this sort of reason. Nobody would want to touch you after they find out from your past employer why you were fired. You’re just really lucky you didn’t run into the wrong person you know. You should be thankful that I’m not a complete irreconcilable asshole. Please be more mindful of your future.”
“Oh. Huh? Uh… that’s…” My sudden change in attitude completely caught her off guard.
“Sorry… I guess. I let my emotions run wild and did something stupid.” She lowered her head toward me apologetically.
“Tell me about it. Seriously, if you fixed that snappy side of yours, you probably wouldn’t have any difficulty getting a boyfriend. After all, it’s not like you’re ugly or anything.”
“Wha-” she scratched her cheek with a strange look on her face.
“Anyway, one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“Can you give me a piece of paper and a pen?”
“Uh… sure… here you go...” She slid a blank piece of paper over the counter and gave me her pen.
I started writing out an agreement to delete the video.
“What are you doing?”
“You should always get these sorts of things in writing, duh. I’m looking out for you here, you know.”
“Oh, a contract. You’re right, I didn’t consider that.”
“Exactly, with a contract, I can’t go back on my word, and neither can you. If I do, you can sue me. If you do, I can sue you too. There are still witnesses to this event. Your colleague being one for example. Lying under threat of perjury when I have three witnesses on my side, it’s unlikely he’d take your side and cover for you when he’s secretly watched everything from the sidelines and knows the truth.”
“Uh… thanks for not taking advantage of me… and being so tolerant of my inexcusable behavior toward you… and… I’m… sorry about before…”
“Don’t sweat it. Work can be stressful. I’m sure you deal with a lot of troublesome people here. I know what it’s like. I deal with irritating customers all the time at a crappy convenience store.”
“It’s not just that though. Haaaah… last year... I walked in on my boyfriend cheating on me and we had a horrible breakup. Since then… I haven’t been able to bounce back. There haven’t been any guys who’ve wanted to date me. These days, seeing happy couples flirting everywhere all the time gets under my skin. I guess your mother’s right, I am pretty ugly.”
“I see, your situation sounds quite awful.” Not that I give a damn. I just don’t want any more problems and I’d really like to get this stupid license already.
“It was awful.” Her shoulders slumped down.
“Look, there’s no need to beat yourself up over it, it happens to the best of us, jealousy.”
“Haaaah. I feel depressed that I’m actually getting consoled by a kid and that it’s even making me feel better.”
“Well, just forget about it. It’s not a big deal. Anyway, here’s the contract. I’ll read it out to ensure we both understand what we’re signing.”
I turned it toward her and read it upside down. She didn’t read it though and simply listened to me recite it out loud to her.
When I got to the end, I asked her, “Does the agreement sound good to you?”
“Yeah.”
I put my index finger down on the bottom right corner of the page and said, “Then, please sign on the dotted line.”
“Haaaaah. Sure.”
As soon as she signed it, I tasted something sweet at the back of my mouth. I experienced the symptoms I would when someone sold their soul to me without setting the condition that they would stop aging.
Hahaha. Why did that happen? Well, naturally, I scammed her of course. I went to all that effort to gain her trust so she would let her guard down and not bother to read the entire contract which had some fine print at the very bottom about her selling her soul to me in return for deleting the video and ensuring it was not published by anyone.
I may not be petty enough to have you fired over this, but I certainly was petty enough to scam you out of your soul.
I may not know what the benefits of acquiring souls are, but it can’t be a bad thing to have more, right? At least, when I’m not offering up the aging condition.
That was what my gut instincts told me. After a lot of thought, I’d come up with a hypothesis using conservation of energy as a basis. If life span was treated as a form of energy then there must be a total pool of lifespan I can tap into. Forming contracts where people stopped aging could potentially be cutting my lifespan short.
However, if I didn’t offer the aging condition in the contract, a portion of a person’s lifespan would become part of my cumulative lifespan which I could use to live longer. The longer I lived, the longer the contract would remain in place and those contracted to me with the aging condition would also be able to live longer. The more people contracted with the aging condition, the faster my lifespan would be depleted.
If that was truly the case, if I didn’t want to significantly reduce other people’s lifespan who weren’t offered the aging condition, I had to reap as many souls as possible without the aging condition.
That was the worst case where I assumed that the depletion of lifespan was a linear relationship and was independent of the cumulative lifespan gathered. If it was dependent on the cumulative lifespan and not linear, it’s possible the more lifespan I gathered, the longer lasted compared to when the same amount of lifespan was held separately.
This could be modeled by surface area. Two separate spheres when volumes added together would have a lower combined surface area than the individual separated spheres. If the reduction of lifespan was proportional to the exposed surface area of the combined spheres of lifespan, then it would degrade slower this way.
Well, it was all speculation. I still had to prove this to be the case.
“Alright, now that you’ve signed the contract I’ll delete the video.”
I looked over to the waiting area, locked eyes with Rosa, and motioned for her to come over.
She stood up, approached me, and hugged me from behind with a smile before she asked, “What is it? Did you miss me~?”
“Yeah. I missed you so much. Let me borrow your phone.”
“What? It doesn’t sound like you missed me at all. It sounds like my phone is more important to you than me.”
The woman across the counter looked at us with a deadpan expression.
‘Go die, you stupid couple.’ Those were the words her eyes conveyed.
“I just need your phone for a second. I’ll give it right back, I promise.”
“Hmmm~ what should I do? Should I give it to you so easily? The world operates on a give and take basis you know. What do I get for letting you use my phone?”
I hadn’t accounted for Rosa being difficult.
“My eternal gratitude.”
“I already have that.”
Damn. She was right. The rooftop incident where she saved my life.
“Is there something in particular you want?”
“Hmmm… yeah, there is actually.”
“Oh? And what is it?”
“I want to be the first one who rides with you on your motorcycle when you get it.”
“Huh? That’s it?”
“Yeah. Is there something wrong with that?”
“No… I just thought it was pretty tame. Usually you’d ask for something more unreasonable.”
She affectionately rubbed her cheek up against my back with her eyes closed and said with a peaceful smile, “I just want a bit of attention from my boyfriend who’s been busy lately.”
The lips of the woman behind the counter were visibly twitching as she did her best to keep her mouth shut.
“Then I promise you’ll be the first to ride with me when I get it.”
“Alright, it’s a deal then. Here you go.”
She held her unlocked phone up in front of me. I held onto her left hand with my left hand and her phone in my right hand. I located the most recent video, turned the screen toward the woman, and permanently deleted it in front of her.
When she confirmed it was deleted she let out a sigh of relief.
“Then, as agreed upon, I've marked off your vision test as passed. You can start the class 6 knowledge test now. I’ll get your temporary paper class 5L learner’s permit printed out in the meantime. The permanent license will be sent out to you in the mail, you should receive it within the next 5-10 business days.”
“Oh, thanks.”
She exited from behind the counter and headed over to the station to set me up for the class 6 knowledge test. While she did that I folded up the contract I had her sign and stuffed it in my pocket.
When she set it up, she turned to us and spoke to Rosa who’d glued herself to me in a monotone voice, “Ms. Clingy Girlfriend, do you mind returning to the waiting area while your boyfriend completes the test.”
“Sure, I don’t mind, Ms. No Boyfriend.” Sparks flew between the two of them.
I ripped Rosa’s arms off me and escaped to my seat in front of the station. When the woman left, Rosa followed along close by her side. I didn’t know what was said between them after that, but it was no doubt scary and something I didn’t want to be caught between.
Catfights were vicious and scary things men should stay far away from. Rosa had definitely put up that overly affectionate act intentionally to get under that woman’s skin.
Well, Rosa not getting along well with other women wasn’t anything unusual. There had only been a few exceptions to that.
