Though it took another half an hour, Yan Lidong managed to make it to the Guild. This was not by virtue of his own skill, but rather, a strangely familiar-looking passerby walking him to its front door.
"Seriously, I saw you walk past me three separate times! How did you manage to get that lost? It's a good thing we were both headed here; otherwise, you'd probably wander around until sunset," the passerby laughed good-naturedly. "Kidding, of course. Nobody's that hopeless!"
Yan Lidong laughed along, knowing full well that he was that hopeless. As he glanced askance at the passerby's attractive looks, he fell into thought.
"By the way, what's your name?" the passerby asked. "I'm Hunter!"
Hearing that name, Yan Lidong quickly glanced at the man's face. He did think that he looked familiar; this must be the siblings' so-called baby brother. Just as He Jiuyu said, he bore a striking resemblance to Botany. Knowing that, Yan Lidong decided against giving out his real name, lest the man mention him to the siblings.
"Call me Chen Li."
He offhandedly cut the last part of his name out, but the surname… he decided to borrow it from a certain friend of his.
"Ah, a civilian, huh?" Hunter noted. "Well, there are scanners at the Guild's doors that detect evolvers. More accurately, they detect zombie saliva, but it's the same thing."
The Guild was a grand building with medieval-style architecture, reminiscent of what a guild in a fantasy world would look like. The fact that he could miss such a towering building… Yan Lidong was quite impressed with his own incompetence. As they walked in, he noted that the interior also looked quite old-fashioned, making the technology stand out even further. In particular, where a bulletin board would usually be, there were several self-service machines lined up side-by-side, their interfaces closely resembling game menu screens.
As Hunter said, they walked through a screen of what seemed to be lasers, though Yan Lidong figured they were a result of an evolver's abilities. A hologram displayed a list of the most recent visitors and their statuses; Hunter was deemed a high-level evolver, with Yan Lidong expectedly being a regular civilian.
"You're back. How's City 5 faring?" a girl leaning against the front desk asked.
"Oh, hey, Magonia! It's doing better than expected, since the citizens have gotten used to recovering from these kinds of attacks. Even though it was a pretty large one this time, I didn't find anything unusual," Hunter replied. "I'll compile all the information and give you guys a proper rundown later."
Yan Lidong suddenly felt that his luck was quite good—to meet not only the elusive "baby brother", but also one of the key characters in the love triangle.
"And who might this be?" Magonia asked, glaring at Yan Lidong with unfettered suspicion.
"Woah, calm down! His name's Chen Li, and as you can see, he's just an ordinary person. Either way, he's no threat! I'd wager he's actually a huge idiot, with how lost he got trying to find this place," Hunter said. He wore an oblivious grin, as though his words wouldn't infuriate any normal person.
Yan Lidong returned the smile; luckily, he was not any normal person. "Indeed. Had it not been for our dear Hunter, I would have passed out from starvation before getting here. My sincerest gratitude."
Hunter jumped, his face turning red. He scratched his head. "W-woah! 'Our dear Hunter'? You flatter me, haha…"
Botany's face, He Jiuyu's personality, Yan Lidong noted. He turned to look at Magonia, who was staring coldly at Hunter. She pursed her lips. "Very well. You may be a fool, but gathering information is your main job, so I'll trust you on this one. And you," she pointed at Yan Lidong. "What are you here for?"
Yan Lidong lowered his eyes and instinctively started acting the part of a wronged beauty, only to remember that he was missing the latter part of that description. He swiftly recovered, heaving a tired sigh instead. "I lost most of my things after the attack on City 5, so I came here to look for work."
Hunter, who had been cowering under Magonia's death stare, immediately perked up. "You've come to the right place! The Lord is known for assigning merciful hours while still giving good pay!"
Magonia nodded. "Makes sense. Then you replace the clerk."
Yan Lidong tilted his head. "You're missing a clerk? Isn't that job pretty important?"
She narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, the temperature in the room seemed to get several degrees colder. "He just got fired about half an hour ago. Tried to seduce the Lord out back. I think that's the second time this month."
To the side, Hunter raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? But we're only a week into July."
"Exactly. That's why it's absurd," Magonia muttered. "Unfortunately, as we subdue more zombies, the people grow more complacent. Our defences are more robust, and less than a quarter of the zombies remain, so the people have far more time on their hands."
Hunter glanced at her. "What do you mean 'unfortunate'? Come on, I know that the Lord didn't reciprocate your feelings, but—"
Yan Lidong lightly patted Hunter on the shoulder, causing the latter to freeze in place. Magonia, who had immediately grabbed a nearby weapon, glared at him for a few more seconds before quietly she settled back into place. With that, he considered their transaction complete; Hunter showed him the way to the Guild, and Yan Lidong saved him from an early death.
Still, after hearing their conversation, he seemed to recall a certain interaction he had witnessed in that dark alleyway.
So, half an hour ago, he had already arrived at the guild, but since he wasn't at the front, he managed to write it off as a random alley and walk past it. Then that intimidating figure… he nodded. He seemed domineering enough to be deserving of his moniker of the Lord. Mentally, Yan Lidong gave his thanks to him for seducing the previous clerk; with this timing, he could sweep up the job immediately.
"I'd love to take the position, then. Do I need to submit an application somewhere?"
Magonia waved her hand. "No need. Hunter has an eye for people—I'm comfortable trusting him on this front. Anyone he brings in poses no threat to us."
"No qualifications needed?" Yan Lidong asked. He wondered why an organisation under such an important figure was being handled so haphazardly.
"To be honest, our standards were pretty high at first, but that's changed recently. All the previous clerks have fallen for the Lord, the Warden, or Magonia, confessed their love, and gotten kicked out within… maybe a week, at most?" Hunter rubbed his head sheepishly. "It's not that we're grouping you in with them, but at this point, we'll take anyone who's a decent conversationalist and can work a spreadsheet. Just please don't fall in love with them. Especially the Lord, oh goodness, falling for him is a death sentence, but his popularity is astounding. Even random civilians send in dozens of letters proclaiming their love for him."
Seeing Magonia grow moodier at Hunter's words, Yan Lidong quickly stopped him. "Don't worry, I already have someone else I like. I just graduated university, too, so I think I can manage the workload of a simple front-desk job."
Well, he would've graduated university—he had one final left before the apocalypse hit. As for having someone he liked, that was a bold-faced lie. In his 22 years of life, he had been confessed to dozens of times, and not a single person had sparked even a hint of interest. After interacting with them, he knew that neither Magonia nor the Warden were exceptions, and after seeing how the Lord treated the previous clerk… Yan Lidong was admittedly quite opposed to going anywhere near him. If he accidentally roused the Lord's suspicion, he wasn't arrogant enough to think that he would be treated any differently from the others. Dying peacefully was one, but he knew a death by the Lord's hands would surely be painful and torturous.
"Great! Honestly, this job is pretty light, since things have settled down a lot recently. Civilians will drop by and report zombie sightings, street fights, robberies, the like. You just need to log the details in a spreadsheet; if it's about zombies, then it gets assigned a threat level and uploaded to the bulletin board. Evolvers will come in and take on some of the missions posted here," Hunter explained. "For the really dangerous ones, you can just call me directly. I handle the information-gathering, and then report directly to the Lord; he'll take things from there."
"Are you done here? It's about time we get going," Magonia huffed. "Then you… Chen Li. The Guild will be in your hands. It's a regular 9 to 5, so clock out in 4 hours."
Hunter quickly scribbled down his contact information and handed it to Yan Lidong before hurrying to follow Magonia out the door.
Yan Lidong was left standing in place. He suddenly registered the absurdity of the situation; they hadn't asked for any ID or qualifications, directly giving him the job on the spot. Though he certainly wasn't upset, he did have to wonder—did they think he would fall for the Lord within a week as well? It seemed that they had given up on finding qualified candidates, and settled on cycling through different employees once the previous one got kicked out.
He sat down behind the desk, finding that the computer was already turned on, with the spreadsheet pulled up. Luckily, the controls and software were pretty much identical to the ones that he was used to, so he had no trouble figuring out how to work it.
Now that he had access to the internet, however, he suddenly felt a growing curiosity. Not necessarily about the events of the apocalypse, though; once again, his love for gossip was rearing its head. He still didn't know how exactly Magonia and Piper were connected to the Lord, and with an unsupervised computer in front of him, he simply couldn't help himself.