Chapter 297: The Boss Who Only Showed Up After Losing Five Worlds

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

Darylis Opal 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 a full decade before anyone noticed; she was merely a few minutes late every 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, pulled a snack pack from her drawer at random, 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 in her self-doubt, she wasn’t so incompetent she couldn’t count.

"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! Anyone 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 goal?!" Darylis frantically scratched at her long, stunningly white-blue 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!"

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 as she glanced 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 worlds… Wait! Damn it! How is there a [Exile Realm]?! That’s why the deficit was so huge! Which [BEEP—BEEP—BEEP] is having a breakdown?!"

Darylis spat out a string of hometown slang, un-ladylike but relieved she hadn’t slacked off on training to maintain her figure—yet even so, her scalp prickled when she saw the coordinates.

"Darylis, you’re the top graduate who broke the practical exam 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’s ecosystem was clear from the fact that even her half-hour delay still made her the first to arrive—if she followed proper 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, her field gear wrapped around her body.

Though entering the lower worlds from the office was against regulations, she had no time to care—she had to fix this bug herself, to protect her well-paid, leisurely civil servant 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 counted down, Darylis forced her breathing steady—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…"

Darylis sighed, opened a program, confirmed there were no available heroes to draft, and finally let her tense heart sink.

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

"Cough, cough! No wonder it’s called the Exile Realm—this place is barren and cruel…"

Darylis smoothed her disheveled hair from crossing worlds, gazed down at the tiny world below like a miniature sandbox, recalled her school training, and activated her personal terminal to check the current status.

"Good, it’s a standard Exile Realm—the rules match the classic model from 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 connection too; if anyone finds out a public servant entered the Exile Realm illegally, that’s another huge problem!"

She severed the network link, took a step forward, and ethereal particles coalesced into a rainbow bridge beneath her feet, carrying her into the sandbox world.

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

Darylis stared at her own “descending to earth” visual effects and sighed—she doubted even the logistics department imagined anyone would actually descend into the lower worlds 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 across 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 Realm 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 an S-rank hero appeared—no, even an A-rank was half a year ago. I remember that made the news… Honestly, the quality of transmigrants has been getting worse these past years."

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

"A spell to repel ordinary humans, rooted in necromancy. I recall this Exile Realm housed several Demon Kings skilled in necromancy—better not get close for now…"

(End of Chapter)