Chapter 272: The Boss Who Finally Showed Up After Losing Five Worlds

"Haa~ Another peaceful day! Obviously, passing the civil service exam is the only right choice!"

Darylis Opel walked into the office building under the warm, holy sunlight, half an hour late for work, yet utterly unconcerned—after all, her predecessor hadn't shown up for ten full years before anyone noticed; she was merely late a little each day, no big deal, no big deal!

"After all, it's not exactly important work."

Darylis pushed open the office door, powered up her workstation, idly pulled a snack pack from her drawer, and quietly waited for the software she'd long since set as her screensaver to appear.

But…

"Wait, how much?"

Darylis's beautiful brows snapped wide open in shock, the sudden impact making her wonder if some malicious senior had cursed her.

"One, two, three, four, five… Correct? No, it must be wrong! Let me count again…"

Unwilling to face reality, Darylis clicked through each pop-up on the screen one by one—but even amid her self-doubt, she wasn't so incompetent she couldn't count properly.

"Oh my god! What's going on? How did I lose this much all at once? Did someone sneak into my office last night? But that makes no sense! Someone with the power to break in wouldn't bother with this! At least leave a referral note! This massive string of anomaly flags is way too obvious! What's your motive?!" Darylis frantically clawed at her long, stunningly blue-white hair, nearly losing her mind.

Looking at the deficit, Darylis instinctively checked her personal account, then shook her head violently—

"I can't afford this! There's no way I can cover this hole! No choice—I have to fix this myself!"

Thinking of this, she immediately stood up, yanked open the third drawer on the left, and pulled out the special operations gear she'd been issued but never worn, recording data while glancing at the strange clock made of twelve dials, silently sighing:

"The team leader usually only glances in at noon, so I've got about three and a half hours to fix this… Good, they're all Lower Realm worlds… Wait! Shit! There's also the 【Exile Lands】! That's why the deficit was so huge! Which 【BEEP—】【BEEP—】【BEEP—】 is having a breakdown?!"

Darylis spat out a string of hometown slang—unladylike but satisfying—grateful she hadn't slacked off on training to maintain her figure, yet still felt her scalp prickle as she saw the coordinates.

"Darylis, you're the top graduate who set the combat assessment record! It's just a prison bound by world rules! You can do this!"

Darylis kept psyching herself up—though protocol demanded she call a specialist, this alarm was easy to trigger, but the aftermath would be a nightmare!

The office ecosystem was clear: even though she was half an hour late, she was still the first one here—if she followed official procedure, wouldn't she be the one stuck with the blame?

"Huh!"

Taking a deep breath, Darylis turned the dials; with the ticking of the clock, the field gear wrapped around her body.

Though entering the Lower Realm from the office was against regulations, she had no time to care now—she had to fix this bug herself, to protect her well-paid, leisurely civil service job, to avoid owing debts that would take tens of thousands of years to repay, to avoid spending half her life in the Taros Prison!

"Coordinates locked, timeline aligned, 5, 4, 3…"

As the system began its countdown, Darylis forced herself to steady her breathing—though she'd once interned in school, she'd never actually gone on field duty in all these years; how could she not be nervous?

"Should've listened to Mom and just signed up for a few hero positions back then…"

Sighing, Darylis opened a program and confirmed there were no available heroes to draft—her heart finally sank.

Radiance swirled; the world bridge was complete. With a faint dizziness, the air grew thick and murky.

"Cough, cough! No wonder it's called the Exile Lands—what a barren, hostile place…"

Darylis smoothed her disheveled hair from crossing worlds, looked down from above at the tiny world below like a tabletop diorama, recalled the school's protocols, and activated her personal terminal to check current status.

"Good, it's a standard Exile Land—rules match the classic model taught in school. Worst case, I'll face a few suppressed Demon Kings. It's fine, it's fine… Oh right, I need to cut the network too—getting caught with a public servant illegally entering the Exile Lands would be a huge problem!"

Disconnecting the network, Darylis took a step forward; ether particles in the void coalesced into a rainbow bridge, lifting her into the diorama world.

"Too flashy. Turn off the visual effects too!"

Darylis stared at her own "Descend to Lower Realm" visual effects and sighed—she doubted even the logistics department imagined anyone would actually descend wearing this field gear.

"Forget it, find the problem fast—I've got several other worlds to handle after this! Damn it, even though time flows independently between worlds, how could so many issues pop up at once?!" Darylis was utterly exasperated; if her evaluation wasn't still months away, she'd swear her seniors had dumped their old debts on her to clean up.

"I'm just a little thing—I can't cover this!"

Darylis sighed, calmed her thoughts, and began sensing the world's condition.

The Exile Lands differed from ordinary worlds, governed by strict rules: only powerful, immortal Demon Kings who lacked any viable hero to oppose them were sent here.

But this imprisonment wasn't a permanent solution—since time flowed independently between worlds, if the root problem wasn't solved, the Demon King would inevitably return; the only purpose was to buy more time for those responsible for training heroes.

"Come to think of it, it's been nearly five or six years since the last S-rank hero appeared—no, even A-rank was half a year ago. I remember it made the news… Seriously, the quality of transmigrators has gotten worse these past few years."

Frustrated, Darylis followed the aura forward and spotted a village in the distance—her gaze instantly sharpened—

"A spell to repel ordinary humans, rooted in necromancy. I recall this Exile Land hosts several Demon Kings skilled in necromancy—better not get close yet…"

(End of Chapter)