Chapter 1045 – #249_Overwork
#1039
1.
It was a bit twisted, but the goal was achieved.
I successfully completed my romantic(?) first experience with Diana.
‘I want to go home quickly.’
‘Hey! Diana! S-Siwoo! Thank you!’
The next morning, Diana, who had turned as red as a ripe persimmon, grabbed her mother’s sleeve and ran away in a hurry. Siwoo, who no longer had any reason to stay at the villa, also returned to the Tiferet mansion.
Even when he was staying at the villa, he couldn’t fully focus on resting.
He had to give lectures for the pilot semester, prepare for lectures, and meet with various academic societies, barely making time to play with Diana.
However, after returning, he was completely immersed in work.
“Thank you for the insightful discussion.”
“No, it was my pleasure.”
“Then, please take care.”
After seeing off the witch he had recently partnered with, Siwoo slumped back into his chair at his office table.
Since dawn, the heat in his head hadn’t subsided.
“Ah, I’m going to die.”
After seeing through the identity of the apprentice witch who was impersonating Count Cagliostro and signing a friendly agreement with the Emerald Tablet, Siwoo was vividly feeling how much pressure he had been under from the Castle.
After transferring 10% of the voting rights in exchange for reasonable support, things were literally going smoothly.
The growth of the Hesed Magic Society was like a ship with the wind in its sails.
Every day, several minor academic societies contacted him.
He had dinner appointments with prominent witches in various fields, and the number of pilot semester students who joined mid-semester had more than doubled.
This meant that the amount of work Siwoo had to handle was also increasing exponentially.
The paper knife he received as a gift at the beginning of the society had long since become dull, and he couldn’t even remember when he last slept.
He thought the unique culture of Gehenna, where they subtly applied perfume to letters, was very elegant, but every time all sorts of fragrances wafted from the pile of letters on one side of the table, he felt like desperately writing ‘Please don’t put perfume on the letters’ at the end of his replies.
But what could he do?
It was the path Siwoo had chosen to protect the lovers who gave him so much love.
“Good morning! Ugh! Open the door.”
Sharon, who acted as his secretary, came in, staggering under a mountain of documents.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, this? The witches from the newly established Alchemy School organized the teaching materials. Ugh, I’ll be busy organizing teaching materials again for a while.”
To reiterate, the basic undergraduate courses that Siwoo lectured on were preparatory courses for the intermediate courses later on.
As the number of departments increased, a large amount of data had to be organized, reinterpreted, and compiled into standardized information.
Other department heads helped out, but… they all had to prepare their own lectures, so most of it fell solely on Siwoo.
But he couldn’t just be down in the dumps by himself.
As usual, he started the day with a light morning skit.
“Secretary Sharon.”
“Yes, Chairman. I’ll report today’s schedule.”
“Alright, let’s hear it.”
Sharon, the super-intelligent secret secretary, pretended to put on her glasses and reported the schedule.
“At 8 a.m. today, there’s a breakfast meeting scheduled with the Castle personnel who were dispatched.
From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., there’s the pilot semester class as usual. From 1 p.m., there’s a formal lunch with the council for the seminar.
From 3 p.m., there’s an inspection and review of the production facilities at the Forget-Me-Not Garden.
At 5 p.m., there’s tea time with Schlepole Ishtar, the head of the May Tea Party Society.
At 7 p.m., there’s a dinner with Mercedes Aisha, the head of the Shureliom Small Society, where there will probably be discussions about a direct supply contract with the Tree Atelier.
From 10 p.m., there’s the general meeting of the society. From midnight, a pleasant sleep awaits with a beautiful secretary! Wow, so busy!”
Sharon, who had added a joke at the end, gasped dramatically as if she was out of breath.
It was true that her daily life was hectic.
Even if it was called tea time or dinner, in the end, they had to engage in fierce psychological warfare while talking about work.
Moreover, even after that schedule was over, Siwoo had to sit at his desk until the next day without sleeping a wink for his personal research.
Here, the biggest difference between a salaried employee and a startup CEO was felt.
Since it was his own work, he couldn’t take his hands off the work even after the work was over.
He had to think about whether he could move in a slightly better direction.
“Now that we’re partnering with other minor societies, it seems like the societies we initially recruited are getting impatient. They’re worried that the initial conditions might change. Are you going to change them?”
The Forget-Me-Not Garden, the May Tea Party, and the Shureliom Small Society were all minor societies that had joined hands when the Castle’s checks were effective.
Back then, the Hesed Society was in a desperate situation, so they offered various good gifts, but they were worried that the situation might change and they might not keep their word.
In fact, if the Hesed Society subtly interpreted the existing agreements and packaged them with elegant rhetoric, they could have changed the existing contracts to their advantage.
From the point where they had received cooperation instead of suffering from the Castle’s checks, a reversal of power had occurred.
“I won’t change them. Trust is more important.”
“As expected of Siwoo.”
That was the mindset of a merchant who only looked at the penny at their feet.
Rather than being happy or sad about immediate expenses, it seemed more important to build an image that ‘the Hesed Society returns as much as it invests.’
He had learned from his two mothers-in-law that popularity and trust were assets that could not be exchanged for anything in Gehenna.
This is why the environment in which a person learns is important.
“Then, we should start preparing for breakfast first.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
As he said that and turned around, his legs wobbled.
It wasn’t just his legs that were wobbling.
Suddenly, along with extreme dizziness, a heat sensation rushed to the back of his eyelids, and even Sharon’s surprised face tilted as he widened his eyes in surprise.
“…Siwoo…!”
Along with Sharon’s voice, which sounded like it was coming from underwater, his consciousness faded away like an old CRT TV turning off.
2.
“The examination is over… Kyaa!”
As soon as Yebin finished the examination and left the room, Sharon grabbed Yebin’s skirt and clung to her.
As soon as she saw Siwoo collapse, she was in a panic and went to find Yebin, the most skilled doctor in Gehenna.
“Hwaaang, Doctor, please save our Siwoo. If Siwoo dies, I’ll die too. Hwaaaang!”
Sharon, who was a mess of tears and snot when she first found Yebin, had eyes that were twice as swollen while waiting for the examination outside.
Siwoo had been involved in all sorts of incidents.
The fact that he had suddenly collapsed made it impossible not to imagine all sorts of things.
Could there have been a change in the ‘Black Knight’ or ‘Deep Consciousness’ that was said to be inside him?
Could one of the prophecies Siwoo had received from the prophecy agency have come true?
Could it be a late aftereffect of the injuries he had sustained in numerous battles?
Whatever it was, Sharon was crying so much that she couldn’t even support her body and was almost crawling on the floor.
“Please get up, Evergreen! Oh my goodness….”
“Siwoo, hikk, what’s going to happen to our Siwoo? Doctor….”
“It’s overwork. Simple overwork!”
Yebin, who had barely managed to pull Sharon off her skirt, grabbed her hand and replied.
“There’s no need for any special treatment. He’ll get better if he rests well for a day or two.”
“Really? Ugh, is that really all?”
After that, Sharon barely regained her composure, but questions still remained.
“A spirit being overworked…. Can such a thing happen?”
A witch’s spirit is an ideal body.
They have flesh and blood, but they don’t need sleep, excretion, or food, and they are free from aging as well as various diseases.
On top of that, they even receive appearance and body shape corrections as if they had been reborn, so it could be seen as a higher-level version than the ultimate immortality that the Emperor was looking for.
So, Sharon was able to work as a homunculus hunter and a convenience store flyer delivery person for 10 years without hardly sleeping, right?
“Of course. The spirit is strongly influenced by the mental state. But this doesn’t seem to be just a problem of work-related stress.”
“T-Then what is it?”
Yebin rustled and took out a chart.
It was a chart that marked the accumulated injuries inferred from the scars and the places where the spirit’s unique tuning was misaligned.
“He’s been fighting too much without having time to properly relieve his mental fatigue. On top of that, mental overwork has piled up, so his body declared surrender first.”
Yebin had diagnosed his body before.
Even from the last diagnosis, his body had more scars.
This meant that he had fought life-or-death battles at least four or five times in the past year.
During her apprenticeship, Yebin had followed her teacher around the world, going to countries where insurrections, wars, and terrorism were taking place.
In that time, she had treated countless soldiers who had participated in wars.
She had seen many soldiers with healthy bodies suffer from shell shock, PTSD, and other CSR and commit suicide.
Some people lost all their vitality after just one battle and lived like empty dolls.
In this way, movies and games tend to portray life-or-death battles somewhat lightly, but the mental energy consumed by life-or-death decisions is not something that can be addressed simply by physical health or health theories.
If an ordinary person had fought life-or-death battles several times in a few years, even someone with a strong mental fortitude would have their nerves worn out like a rubber band.
He had been suppressing it and overdoing it, so it was inevitable that he would break down.
“But he’ll get better if he just rests for two days?”
“Well, as a doctor, my opinion is that it would be best if he took a three-month break from work and rested completely… but that’s not possible, is it? For now, I think we should keep an eye on him, so I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Yes, thank you…. Before that, please take this.”
Sharon insisted on giving a precious jewel to Yebin, who was strongly refusing.
Yebin, who knew the heart of a guardian who wanted to give something to a doctor, had no choice but to accept it. Sharon, who was left alone, placed her hand on Siwoo’s pale forehead and stared blankly.
“I’m an idiot.”
Sometimes, there are things that you can’t see properly because you’re too close.
To Sharon, Siwoo was more amazing than anyone else.
She was proud that Siwoo was her lover, and she was so happy to see him succeed.
She was busy trying to help him in every way and stand by his side.
Because of that Siwoo, she had unconsciously thought of him as an ‘extraordinary person.’
As a superhuman who would stand tall and move forward no matter what adversity or hardship he faced.
But why hadn’t she thought of it?
After almost losing Duke Eloa while obtaining the floodgate, he had been running around in all directions without a single day of rest.
Sharon had been working hard to help, but she hadn’t imagined that he was overdoing it.
He hadn’t shown it at all, and Sharon was also busy sharing the workload that was pouring in.
But as a result, it was just optimism to think that Siwoo would be fine.
He was just putting on a brave face and reassuring those around him.
“You’re an idiot too.”
Sharon’s tearful fingertip poked Siwoo’s cheek as he slept soundly.
