Volume 2 - CH 1.06

Part 6

Seiya heated the packet lunch he bought from the convenience store and hurried back to the office for some tea. The fact that it was his lunch break, which was rather short, did not give him an excuse to skip his routine checks on the park.

Because the guys from the security department weren’t exactly tech-savvy, Seiya had no choice but to access the security camera footage from yesterday through the LAN on his own notebook. Originally, he wanted to view them at his own convenience at home or in school, but he gave up after getting strange errors and security issues on his smartphone.

If possible, Seiya would have loved to have an IT engineer on the premises to solve minor issues like this, but again, the park could not afford such a luxury.

The footage depicted the deserted state of the theme park during a typical weekday. That stood to reason, since it was April and all theme parks throughout Japan should be facing a similar situation now.

The cast members were also beginning to lose their drive. They had to do something about this soon, preferably—

“You’re right, we should start targeting the elderly during this period of the year.” Lunch break had ended and Seiya grumbled to Moffle, whom he had bumped into at the corridor.

“Mofu. Of course, fumo.”

It appeared that the injuries Moffle had sustained were not that serious, despite him losing his consciousness. 30 minutes of rest in the infirmary and a dose of his favorite croquettes was enough to get him back in tip-top shape, after which he flew over to the administration building for the interview.

“…Though I must say, we are indeed starting to get more elderly guests lately, fumo,” Moffle continued with a displeased expression.

April was considered the start of a new year for working adults and students, with both parties struggling to get accustomed to their new lifestyle before Golden Week. Until then, not many youth would sour their relationships by taking leaves of absence to bring their friends and family to come here.

And so whoever wanted to avoid ridiculous queues in popular theme parks would strike on weekdays during this period, where they only needed to wait less than five minutes to hop on popular rides like the one featuring a certain archaeologist character holding a certain bullwhip. #Trivia. (Though, for the record, that probably wouldn’t be considered as such.)

And because of that—

Seiya had decided their target demographic to be the elderly, who had nothing to do with the start of a fiscal year.

Right after Seiya made up his mind to continue as the acting manager last month, he began working with homes and shelters for the elderly. He handed out discount coupons, drafted a pricing scheme for big groups and even added lightly-seasoned onigiri, miso soup and warabi mochi to the snack shop’s menu, which were all popular dishes for the elderly.

And thanks to that, they were on track to set the highest record for visitors in April in many years. (Of course, it was nothing but a fraction of the visitors in March with the 30 yen campaign.)

“Young or old, guests are still our guests. Welcome them without complaints, you hear me?”

“Okay, okay, fumo. I just don’t think we can click with them…”

“Ah…” Seiya could relate all too well.

He recalled going on a solo vacation to Gunma prefecture last summer, where he met an old lady at a rustic hot spring whom he could not carry a proper conversation with. Conversations went back and forth like “I came for a vacation from Tokyo.” “Oh my, what an excellent company to work for.” And when he asked, “I heard that this village will soon get submerged as a result of the dam construction,” she shot back a bashful “No, no, that’s absurd.” Seiya had never understood the reason for that.

Why were the miscommunications between the old and the young so extreme?

“If our problems ended at that, it’d still be all right, fumo. But no, they also tend to make ridiculous claims! They make a big fuss out of a stumble, and we’ve even received lawsuits for minor sprains, fumo!”

“The heck…”

“There was even a sick ol’ man who interrupted Muse’s performance by stretching his arms out wide and beckoning her to come over. Old people these days have bad manners, fumo. They throw cigarette butts everywhere and cut queues.”

“…For real?”

“Of course, there are polite ones among them who are fun to hang around with, but a majority of them are really messed up. Particularly those from the post-World War baby boom—”

“Hold it right there; let’s just keep it at that,” Seiya waved his hands and stopped him before he could get into another convoluted topic.

“Fine. So…which posts are today’s interviewees applying for?”

“Everything.”

“Mofu?”

“Each sector received applications, but the total number we got was far less than we’d expected. I originally planned to split them into three days, but from the looks of it we’ll be through them in one.”

“That’s pathetic, fumo.”

“You’re one to talk. Don’t be so glum, we might get more next week.”

The interviews were to be held in the third meeting room, 3rd floor of the administration building.

The two of them entered the building and sat down with their backs against the window, flipping through the CVs that Isuzu had laid on the table beforehand. A little later, Isuzu entered the room dressed in a suit with a dark grey jacket and a tight skirt.

“You’re late, Sento.”

“After I came out from the shower, you see, I spent 10 minutes pondering over my attire as your secretary. I was deciding between pants or the tight miniskirt that’d reveal more of my legs, and ended up going with the latter. That’s so that you’d keep your eyes from the female applica—mm!!” Isuzu covered her mouth and crouched.

“Why do you keep covering your mouth…what’s wrong with you today?”

“Kanie-kun, you’re quite the dense one, aren’t yo—mm!!”

“What? Ah, whatever. Do as you please.”

Seiya took a quick glance at the clock and clapped his hands together. “Let’s begin. Call the first person in.”

The cast member from the Public Relations department nodded and walked out of the room.

The interviewers consisted of the three of them—two high schoolers and a mascot. The applicants had to deal with it since these three were indeed the most important stakeholders of the park.

“Hey Moffle, wait a sec.”

“What’s up?”

“What happened to your Lala Patch?”

“Oh, that. I forgot it, fumo.”

“The heck…”

“I left it in my locker, fumo. Should I go and grab it?”

The Lala Patch was a magical charm given to the cast members of Amaburi. It was a talisman of the size of a 500 yen coin with the upper body of a goddess carved on it. The mascots would be perceived as normal human beings if they wore one, and despite how useful and precious its effect may have seemed, it was actually a regular commodity sold in Maple Land.

The cheapest one went for the equivalent of 980 yen, though those were made in a Chinese magical realm (no implication intended) and might explode, so buying those was discouraged.

“We’re the interviewers, in case you haven’t noticed. There’s no way we’d be taken seriously given that we’re two high schoolers and a suit actor.”

“Hmm… I guess you’re right, but they’re gonna have to get used to it sooner or later anyway, fumo.”

“True…”

“We don’t have time, fumo. Let’s just go with this.”

“You sure about that?”

And just while saying that, the door to the meeting room opened.