Chapter 5: 5 The Sixth Cleanup Bureau

5 The Sixth Cleanup Bureau

"Although our Cleanup Bureau is an auxiliary department under the Ministry of Police, it doesn't fully belong to the Kingdom's Ministry of Police. It's a relatively independent and loose transnational organization, with branches in every country around the world. It accepts assignments and leadership from each country, and is responsible for handling certain special situations.

Apart from the headquarters, whose exact location is unknown, our Cleanup Bureau has a total of 87 branches, each assigned an astronomical constellation as its code name. The one you've just joined is Bureau No. 6, which uses the Virgo constellation as its code name, also called the Virgo Cleanup Bureau."

After introducing the situation of the Cleanup Bureau at a leisurely pace, the red-haired woman, whose mischievous streak had been satisfied, curled her lips as she looked at Li Ang, who had visibly breathed a sigh of relief. She then raised her hand and pointed at Heishanyang beside her:

"As for our job content, it's to deal with these troublemakers, to prevent them from affecting ordinary people's lives.

Specifically including but not limited to: interdimensional demons trying to harvest souls, mad evil gods wanting to descend their will, radical deities preparing to control the world, special anomalies born from human obsessions, oceanic races wanting to counterattack the land, prehistoric civilizations frozen in polar glaciers, undying ghosts that have escaped the normal timeline, ancient creatures living deep within the earth's crust, natives thriving on the far side of the moon, and so on..."

"..."

Holy shit... Is this world really this complicated? I thought it was just a 19th century with a crooked tech tree. I didn't expect so many dangers lurking in the shadows!

"How did you actually believe that!"

Looking at Li Ang, whose eyes were full of shock and who had been completely taken in by her bluff, the red-haired woman seemed to have seen something amusing. She raised a hand to cover her slightly upturned, dewy lips, her supple waist bending forward slightly, and let out an irrepressible light laugh.

And as her voluptuous figure swayed gently, the woman's already slightly tipsy face quietly flushed with a charming blush, like a cluster of bright and alluring oleander flowers quietly blooming in this dim corridor, faintly exuding a sweet, cloying fragrance laced with a touch of poison...

So she was just bluffing. You scared me...

Looking at the red-haired woman before him, whose smile was utterly captivating, although he'd just been tricked, for some reason the weight Li Ang had been carrying in his heart over his sister's relapse had suddenly lifted considerably. However...

Wait, what was I just asking? Did she actually answer me?

Amid the red-haired woman's bright smile, a thin veil of mist suddenly drifted through Li Ang's mind. A piece of his originally clear memory strangely blurred, as if something had been silently erased.

After standing there for a while, wanting to speak yet holding back, and racking his brains without finding a reason, he could only temporarily skirt around this strange fog and open his mouth to ask the question he cared about most.

"Um, may I ask about the treatment at our Cleanup Bureau..."

"The treatment is quite nice."

Staring into Li Ang's eyes and catching that familiar wisp of blankness, the red-haired woman answered with a smile:

"As long as you pass the probationary period, you'll be an assistant-level public servant of the Kingdom, but your salary will be paid at the clerk level. Your weekly wage should be around 12 gold wheels."

12 gold wheels? That much?!

Hearing the salary level of the Cleanup Bureau, Li Ang couldn't help but tremble all over, instantly tossing that little bit of doubt to the back of his mind.

1 gold wheel = 10 silver wheels = 100 copper wheels. 12 gold wheels is 1,200 copper wheels. With 52 weeks in a year, that's 62,400 copper wheels!

Judging by the consumption level of the royal capital, a fairly lavish breakfast costs only two or three copper wheels. After becoming a full member, earning over 60,000 copper wheels a year means he'd stepped straight from the slums across the threshold of the middle class!

Enough said. From now on, the Cleanup Bureau is my fucking second home!

"And besides the salary, you can also enjoy some other benefits."

After glancing at Li Ang, whose breathing was noticeably quickening,

the red-haired woman added with a smile:

"A normal clerk-level civil servant gets two ten-day long vacations a year, plus weekends off on Saturdays and Sundays. Counting holidays, they get about 160 days of rest in total.

But our Cleanup Bureau's work is special—we need to be on call at all times, so there are no such vacations. On top of that, you're not a wanted criminal; you voluntarily joined a dangerous department, so you can also receive quite a few special perks.

Apart from receiving double the usual benefits like pensions and housing purchase discounts that other civil servants get, you, your spouse, and all your direct relatives can enjoy free medical services, with a total reimbursement quota of 2,000 gold wheels per year for everyone combined.

Also, when your children reach school age, they can freely choose any public school except the Imperial Inner Academy, and can be admitted internally without exams. If they study externally, they can also transfer schools freely;

After they turn eighteen, the Cleanup Bureau can also issue a letter of recommendation for you. Apart from the top three universities, which still require a certain level of grades, they should all be able to enroll without exams—even if you've died in the line of duty beforehand, it still applies..."

Die in the line of duty! I'll die in the line of duty right now!

Ah no! What I mean is, from now on, in life I'm a person of the Cleanup Bureau! In death, I'm a dead person of the Cleanup Bureau! After cremation, I'm the Cleanup Bureau's ashes! Even if someone grabs me and scatters me, I'm the Cleanup Bureau's dust storm!

After secretly taking two deep breaths, Li Ang, whose sense of belonging to the Cleanup Bureau had exploded, raised his head, clenched his fist tightly, and asked with as calm an expression as possible:

"Then... when can I come to start work?"

"Now."

Returning to her large desk behind her, the red-haired woman fished around in a drawer for a moment, then tossed a palm-sized booklet over with a smile:

"Hold onto this. This is your credential. First write your name on it, then pin the badge tucked inside, and you've completed the procedures."

That's it? That's all there is to it?

Catching the booklet, Li Ang opened his newly acquired credential with some suspicion. After looking at the design of the badge inside, he couldn't help but remark in surprise:

"This woman pushing a ball is..."

"That's the insignia of our Sixth Bureau."

The red-haired woman explained: "The Cleanup Bureau's symbol is a sacred scarab pushing a dung ball. The meaning is that the Cleanup Bureau, like the sacred scarab, cleans up things that cause pollution, and gains nourishment and strength from those things.

However, because we need to distinguish members of different branches, each branch's badge is different. For example, our Sixth Cleanup Bureau uses Virgo as its code name, so we changed it to a woman pushing a dung ball."

"..."

A woman pushing a dung ball... a dung-beetle lady? What kind of genius designed this?

Holding the bizarre badge in his hand—which was less 'full of creativity' and more 'trying to creatively kill the wearer'—Li Ang's facial muscles twitched violently. He felt like he had ten thousand old grievances stuck in his chest, desperate to be spat out.

Out of consideration for the Cleanup Bureau's generous treatment, he forcibly swallowed all those grievances. Li Ang silently pinned the dung-beetle lady badge on, took the quill handed to him by the red-haired woman, and wrote his name on the inner page of the booklet.

"Sizzle."

【You have successfully obtained a job and activated the Iron-tier badge "Probationary Worker"】

【Probationary Worker: A job seeker who has been hired by a company or organization because they meet the basic requirements of the position, but is still in an Observation Period. They are the lowest-ranking member of a company or national functional department. Since they have not yet been formally hired by the company, they are sometimes also called a temporary worker.】

【Equip Effect: When performing your duties, your work efficiency will receive a slight boost.】

【Advancement Route: If you continuously equip this badge for more than two months and have not been fired, this badge will automatically advance to the Bronze-tier badge "Working Stiff," and it cannot be unequipped before the advancement is complete.】

【Hidden Trait (No Equip Required): When this badge has not yet advanced to Bronze-tier, and the department it belongs to encounters a serious problem, the probability of you taking the blame and being fired will greatly increase.】

【Please note that this badge's trait conflicts with the already obtained badge "Unemployed Youth" and cannot be equipped simultaneously. The badge "Unemployed Youth" has been automatically unequipped.】