“Today’s the day, Haruo,” Gobuto muttered to himself as he adjusted his oversized nametag, which read Gobuto Haruo: Intern Extraordinaire in shaky, handwritten letters. “You’re going to impress everyone. No tripping, no panicking, and definitely no accidental fires.”
With a deep breath, he marched into the Heroic Helpline Network office, his satchel full of neatly organized scrolls and his mind buzzing with determination.
Then he tripped over a mana cable.
“NOT AGAIN!” Mana Shizuka’s voice rang out from his corner as one of his monitors flickered ominously.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Gobuto scrambled to his feet, hastily untangling himself from the cable while clutching his satchel protectively.
Mana sighed, muttering something about “daily disasters” before returning to his monitors. Gobuto offered an apologetic wave before scurrying to his desk.
His attempt at a graceful entrance had failed spectacularly, but he wasn’t giving up. Today would still be the day.
“Gobuto,” Kurohane Megumi called, striding into the office with her usual air of authority. “I have a job for you.”
“Yes, Supervisor Megumi!” Gobuto replied, standing at attention so quickly that he nearly knocked over his chair.
Megumi dropped a stack of glowing scrolls onto his desk. They pulsed faintly, and one let out a low, unsettling hum.
“Sort these into the filing cabinets. Properly,” Megumi instructed. “And no accidental enchantments this time.”
Gobuto’s ears drooped slightly. “That only happened once!”
Megumi’s raised eyebrow suggested otherwise. “You’ve got until the end of the shift. Don’t disappoint me.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Gobuto saluted as Megumi walked away, her cape swishing dramatically.
Gobuto stared at the stack of scrolls, determination rekindled. “Okay, cursed scrolls. Let’s see who’s boss.”
He picked up the first scroll, which immediately unrolled itself and began reciting in a deep, wistful voice:
“Chasing dreams, knowing only a handful ever reach them…
Why do we even try?”
Gobuto groaned. “Oh no, it’s one of those scrolls. Can’t you just hiss ominously or something normal?”
The scroll ignored him, continuing:
“But I know the answer already… Someone important to me is here in this town.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Stop being so dramatic and get in the cabinet!” Gobuto hissed, wrestling with the scroll. It wriggled like a rebellious snake, nearly escaping his grip before he shoved it into a drawer marked “Overly Sentimental and Mildly Cursed.”
One down. A dozen to go.
Midway through his battle with the scrolls, the orb on Gobuto’s desk glowed, signaling an incoming call.
“Priority call,” Niwatori Tama squawked. “Apparently, everyone else is too busy to answer.”
Gobuto froze. “Me? You want me to take the call?”
“No,” Tama replied dryly. “I want the desk plant to take it. Yes, you. Answer it before the adventurer gets eaten or cursed.”
Gobuto gulped and tapped the orb. “Hello! This is Gobuto Haruo with the Heroic Helpline Network. How can I assist you today?”
A frantic voice burst through the orb. “IT’S ALL SLIME!”
Gobuto blinked. “Uh… can you repeat that?”
“The floor! It’s slime! I’m stuck in a dungeon, and the floor turned to slime! I can’t move! And something’s laughing at me!”
Gobuto fumbled with his Intern Survival Guide, flipping to the dungeon emergency section. “Okay, um, don’t panic! Can you describe your surroundings?”
“It’s a dark hallway with creepy glowing eyes on the walls,” the caller said. “And the slime keeps bubbling, like it’s alive!”
Gobuto’s hands trembled slightly as he scanned the guide. “Right. Definitely cursed. Don’t touch the slime. Is there a lever or switch nearby?”
“No! Just more eyes! They’re blinking at me!”
“Okay, uh… blinking eyes mean…” Gobuto flipped through the guide, stalling. His eyes landed on a tip from the Advanced Dungeon Guide, which he hadn’t fully read yet. He cleared his throat, trying to sound confident. “If the eyes are blinking, you need to find the rune on the wall and push it. Trust me.”
There was a long pause. “What does the rune look like?”
Gobuto froze. He hadn’t read that far. “Uh… like a spiraling chicken?”
“A what?”
“It’s a common dungeon motif!” Gobuto insisted, even though he was fairly certain he was making it up. “Look for it!”
There was a shuffling sound on the other end. “I found it. Are you sure this is safe?”
“Completely!” Gobuto lied.
The adventurer pressed the rune. The glowing eyes immediately turned bright red, and a loud rumbling filled the room.
“WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME DO?!” the caller screamed. “THE SLIME IS CLIMBING THE WALLS!”
Gobuto flipped frantically through the guide. “Oh no… that means… uh… you’ve activated Slime Overdrive.”
“WHAT IS SLIME OVERDRIVE?!”
“It’s, um… a temporary enhancement to the slime curse. But don’t worry! It should stabilize if you… uh… spit?”
“Spit?!”
“Or… wait, maybe it was…” Gobuto trailed off as the orb flickered. The sound of gurgling slime and rumbling walls intensified—then, suddenly, everything went silent.
“Hello?!” the adventurer’s voice crackled through the orb. “What’s going on? The slime—it stopped moving!”
“It did?” Gobuto asked, blinking. “Uh… great! That means the curse worked itself out! I told you it would stabilize!”
“It did?” the adventurer repeated, baffled. “Wow… I didn’t know curses could just fix themselves.”
“Totally normal!” Gobuto said, scrambling to sound professional. “Nothing to worry about. You’re good to go!”
The adventurer hesitated, then sighed in relief. “You’re amazing! Thanks, Gobuto!”
As the call ended, Gobuto slumped in his chair, beaming with pride.
At a nearby desk, Megumi crossed her arms, watching her mana monitor as the residual curse energy from the dungeon dissipated. “The curse didn’t fix itself,” she muttered. “The dungeon must’ve hit its mana reset threshold. Probably kicked in from too much slime buildup.”
Mana glanced up from his monitors. “Should we tell him?”
“Let him think he saved the day,” Megumi said, already turning back to her work.
As the office quieted down for the evening, Gobuto sat at his desk, scribbling a new entry in his Intern Survival Guide:
“Lesson #27: When in doubt, trust the adventurer’s bad aim.”
He glanced around the room, feeling a rare sense of belonging. He wasn’t perfect, but he was getting there—one step (and one slime-covered adventurer) at a time.