"Ding! Ding! Ding!" Suddenly ringing the lottery bell, the recruitment agent looked at me with a wide smile. Dressed like a clown, she appeared more like a jester than someone who'd work for the embassy of employment.
"You won a job!" Exclaiming at the top of her lungs, she kept ringing the golden bell behind the glass wall.
Overwhelmed by the situation, I had no clue how to react. Much like every other day, I've expected today to be uneventful, but somehow out of hundreds of thousands of people, I've managed to score some kind of job.
"This runt got a job?!" Exclaimed the man sitting right beside me.
"Sir, please focus in the front," warned the receptionist attending to him from behind the same glass wall.
The others seemed just as restless and angry, however, keeping my head straight I pretended not to notice their glares. Although, with hundreds of eyes from across the large hall focused on me, it proved to be quite difficult.
"What kind of job did I get?" Clearing my head, I looked back at the clown-nosed woman in front. "And how did I get it? I just recently turned eighteen, some people wait their entire lives!"
"Well…" Placing the bell on the table, the receptionist sat down in her chair. "It turns out the agency needs someone young, someone with a fresh perspective, someone without any prejudice for this new vacancy in the humans and monsters relation department."
"Monsters?!" My subconscious took over my tongue, and my mind was blazed with fear. "Y-you mean demons, devils, vampires, and withers?!"
"Shhh! Don't disturb the other citizens." Pressing her fingers against her red clown nose, she hushed me. Then slipping her hand under the desk, she produced a contract forward. "As for your concerns, the shoes you fill through this job will help that department bridge trust between us and the creatures of the other realms."
Opening a small window through the glass, she passed the contract to me before quickly shutting the window right back up. Taking the contract in my hand, I skimmed through and stumbled across the job title.
"Monster Girl Hotel manager?" Having never heard of such a title, I glanced back at the receptionist. "Why would anyone stay at a hotel filled with monsters?"
"That sounds like prejudice to me, is it?" Frowning her eyes, she seemed almost offended herself on behalf of the monsters. "I can always pass the job to one of the other hundreds of thousands of other applicants. I'm sure they'll happily take it off your hands."
Her words cut me like a razor. Reminded of my own words from seconds ago, I could only imagine how long I would have to wait for another job if I rejected this opportunity. Who knows maybe they'll throw my application at the very end of the line too? I can't let that happen! Not when I've got no one else to rely on anymore!
"Fine…" Taking a deep breath, I reached towards the shut window to borrow a pen from the receptionist. With a smile, she opened the window and handed me a quill already dipped in red ink.
"Don't be so pessimistic, Mister Ken. My pe–I mean, monsters aren't all that scary," the receptionist's words weren't that convincing, especially since she was dressed like a clown.
Quill in hand, I began signing my name everywhere necessary. While doing so, however, I came to a page with passport-sized pictures of four humanoid girls printed in black and white. Right underneath their photos were brief descriptions of them with their names and species.
'Miako, Rin, Senya, and Cinder.' From pictures alone that too just headshots, they appeared indistinguishable to humans, but that might just be because of the black and white ink the contract was printed in. 'Either way, they look much different than what I thought a monster would look like.'
With unmatchable charm even through the papers, I felt drawn to them as if being pulled in by a Siren's song. Lush hair, thick eyebrows, supple weight on their shoulders, and gentle smiles on them all, just gazing at their pictures, I forgot how much time must've passed.
"Mister Ken, are you done signing?" Breaking my chain of thoughts, the receptionist held her hand through the window to get the signed contract back. "The embassy's escorts will be right outside to drop you at the hotel. You're going to be living on-site so if there's anything you need picked up from your home, please list them to me and we will bring them to you later."
"No," handing the contract back to her, I leaned back into my chair. "I'm an orphan, a job was my way out of the institute so no, I don't need anything picked up."
A bit taken back; she pressed her lips shut for a moment before speaking once more.
"Very well, please be on your way then, and good luck in your life and career," wearing a smile, she picked the bell from the table and rang it one last time. "Also please bear in mind that your job is to help humans get comfortable around monsters, and that starts with getting comfortable yourself."
Although reluctant, I nodded back with a forced smile. Even though I'd gotten a job, something most people only dream of in our nation, I couldn't feel an ounce of happiness. Maybe if they weren't monsters, I would've felt different about working with such beauties, but unfortunately for me, that wasn't the case.
Getting off the chair, I turned around to leave. However, before I could take even a step further, the receptionist called out to me once again.
"Oh! I almost forgot!" Turning back to face her, I saw her nervously scratching her chin.
"What is it?" I asked, my eyebrows frowning deep with confusion.
Taking a moment to collect herself, she put up an awkward smile and gestured to me to lean closer to the glass. Her hands covering each side of her mouth she slowly whispered as I leaned closer.
"I forgot to tell you, but it's mating season for monsters, and you'd probably gonna need to watch yourself around that first batch of monster girls," hearing her words, my face was flushed a bright red.
"What?!" I screamed, but it was already too late to back away.
The next thing I knew as I stepped outside the embassy, I was forced into a car making its way toward my new and only job as the Manager of a hotel filled with monster girls.