Chapter 58: I Was Absolutely Dumbfounded!

Chapter 58: I Was Absolutely Dumbfounded!

…

When he arrived at the office in the morning, Louis cleaned the room thoroughly. In a corner, he found several strange curly hairs and some soft fur.

Looking at the pile of strange curly hairs he had cleaned off the sickbed, Louis put on gloves with an impassive face and threw them out onto the balcony—these were goblin hairs.

As for the red and white soft fur with a faint fragrance, they were probably from the little foxes’ tails.

It seemed that when he wasn’t in the office, these little foxes came often. Helen must have opened the door for them. This probably wasn’t their first time coming to play.

‘No wonder things have been missing these past two days. That naughty girl, what kind of friends has she been making! They treat you like a little lackey and a wallet, and they steal from your home.’

[Louis’s anger value +5]

After finishing the tidying, Louis sat behind Director Trif’s large solid wood square desk. He fiddled with the crystal ball on the desk for a while, adjusted its angle, and then went to a cabinet.

This cabinet had many different kinds of clothes—looked like costumes? No, no, Louis believed they were probably various outfits specially prepared for the agents to wear when working outside, to help them disguise themselves.

Louis picked out some clothes like ‘female pirate’, ‘female agent’, ‘nun’, etc., and organized them into one section of the cabinet.

He calculated; adding that maid outfit, it was just enough.

Then he sat back at the desk, drank some tea, and read the newspaper for a bit.

“Shocking News! Harold Defeated! Blackhorn Alley Plunged into Faceless Doomsday Panic”—this was clearly written backwards!

“Is the Mysterious Man a Man or a Woman?”—this was probably some darn goblin making things up again.

“Shocking! The Moonlight Circus Is Actually…”—Louis suspected Yingling had secretly sold that information.

[Earl Yingling, the belle of the ball, and Her Highness Princess Ocris will jointly attend the charity ball the day after tomorrow. Wizards and nobles from all over are flocking in…]

[Special Mysterious Affairs Handling Office summer activities, private services 20% off…]

After flipping through the newspaper, Louis pulled out all the office’s financial documents. Due to confidentiality rules, the documents seemed to be enchanted with magic spells.

But it was useless.

‘The office’s annual budget expenditure last year was 2,800 Gold Galleons? That’s equivalent to over three million soft sister coins, right?’ Louis felt a bit shocked.

How much was the annual budget for each Night Watchman station in Academy City? A few hundred Gold Galleons!

But this office didn’t do serious work like the Night Watchmen; it was a dispensable department. Giving it a few hundred Gold Galleons a year would already be considered a lot!

‘Director Trif, you are truly a talent! How did you manage to squeeze this money out of the Ministry of Magic?’

‘So, my office has to pay Fox three million in protection fees every year?’

Louis narrowed his eyes slightly.

After looking for a while, Louis curiously checked the salary expenditures for everyone.

‘Last year’s salaries, plus travel expenses and subsidies, totaled 6,976 Gold Galleons. There were 21 temporary workers in total. Most temporary workers had a monthly salary of 2-3 Gold Galleons, with a few senior temporary workers getting 4-5 Gold Galleons—that added up to a bit over two hundred Gold Galleons.’

‘Also, there were 5 formal agents with Ministry of Magic appointments… a monthly salary of 20 Gold Galleons?! And various subsidies? The difference is this big? The formal agents are the real dads! The temporary workers are all… ahem, they are all temporary workers.’

‘Among the 5 agents, the highest monthly salary was Director Trif’s, 40 Gold Galleons a month… So, this is Inspector Trif with an annual salary of five hundred thousand? That’s a pretty high rank. But, it seems Professor Sacred Icon Tree’s salary is still the highest; many have annual salaries over a million soft sister coins.’

Louis kept reading and suddenly felt something was off.

‘Huh? The five agents for a year only add up to a little over a thousand Gold Galleons! Adding the temporary workers, it’s still less than two thousand. So, who was paid the five thousand Gold Galleons?’

After flipping through more, Louis’s expression turned strange: ‘There are even daily wages? Temporary hires?’

Louis looked even more puzzled. He found that some people had very low daily wages, like some students who basically got paid 1 Silver Fox a day, plus a boxed meal.

Some people had very high daily wages, and it seemed most of them were actually from the Red Fox Den—and they used stage names, not real names!

The highest-paid one had the stage name ‘Snow Fox’. She only came a few times last year, not for very long in total, yet her fees added up to over 2,000 Gold Galleons!

And it seemed she was hired again this year; she was currently on a business trip with Director Trif and the others!

‘What kind of official business is this for?’

Putting down the documents, Louis was completely baffled.

At that moment, a sneaky little kitten crawled in through the window. She had a cloak tied around her neck and carried a small bag on her back—clearly, Helen didn’t want to miss this good show today.

Louis pretended not to see this invisible naughty girl and continued looking at the documents. But the little kitten kept swaying in front of his eyes, as if trying to see if Louis had noticed her. Louis couldn’t focus on the documents anymore, so he pretended to drink tea, space out, and bask in the sun.

Helen couldn’t help but feel pleased. She turned back into her human form and started changing clothes inside the cloak, but when she stuck her little butt out, the cloak lifted up.

Louis couldn’t help but rub his face hard. He put away the documents and went to the cabinet to organize the bookshelf. Only after Helen finished changing did Louis turn around, casually picking up a script written by Pol (Polst’s pen name) to browse.

Just as Louis was getting into the reading, a sneaky figure crept up to his feet again, tied his two shoelaces together, and then giggled mischievously there—even a blind person could hear that laughter.

Seemingly bored of that, the lazy girl lay on the sofa by the fireplace, crossed her little legs, and secretly started chatting with her girlfriends through the crystal ball.

At Helen’s pleading, her little girlfriends finally came over to have fun.

Five little foxes kicked the door open and came in. They all looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, but they dressed quite fashionably. One wore pirate-style clothes and long boots, with a small jacket left open, covered in colorful decorations, and a shirt underneath that was tied together, revealing a white little bunny.

Another wore a witch’s robe dress, but the skirt was either deliberately cut with a high slit up to the hip or ripped from the bottom to make a short skirt style.

Louis suddenly realized he had prepared clothes for them for nothing—compared to their outfits, the office’s costumes were practically nun outfits!

To be fair, these little foxes all had quite a sense of style, but in this era, these clothes were considered non-mainstream weird outfits or revealing short skirts. Plus, with their good figures, they attracted stares wherever they went. Professors who saw them would definitely mutter about the decline of morals.

More interestingly, these girls were all chewing gum. After entering the room, they didn’t speak. They fiddled with things here, kicked things there, or secretly slipped certain items into their sleeves.

In no time, the office was a mess, a proper bunch of little hooligans. Plus thieves.

Two of the little foxes brought an antique-style camera, a lighting board, and a ‘moonlight bug’ magic lamp shade.

Louis was dumbfounded—they brought quite complete equipment!

Seeing Louis looking at them, those two little foxes gave Louis a mischievous smile, then, chewing gum, started assembling.

While working, the two little foxes kept cursing. Occasionally, they deliberately mentioned some adult wizard or professor who was blackmailed yesterday, then purposely glanced at Louis.

After those three little foxes messed up the office, there was one very tall little fox who directly sat on Louis’s desk. Playing with things on the desk, she mischievously told Louis some cheesy pickup lines. She even tried to lift Louis’s chin.

Louis was stunned.

So was Helen.

[Zinnia, you little brat! See if I don’t pluck all your fur when I get back tonight!] Helen was so angry her face turned red, nearly cursing out loud on the spot.

‘Naughty girl, not learning good things, already learning to swear. Your sister usually doesn’t spank you enough!’

Seeing the hand reaching for his chin, Louis rolled his eyes and swatted the approaching hand away with a fly swatter.

The little fox Zinnia cried out in pain and laughed, “Kid, you’ve got quite a temper. Big sis likes that.”

Just then, a tall woman around twenty years old, wearing a black high-slit witch robe and black noblewoman-style suspender thigh-high stockings, walked in—she was ‘the chief assistant of Grand Alchemist Dylan, Miss Lilith’, one of the most famous new-generation Foxkin at Sacred Icon Tree Academy.

Or, in Helen’s eyes, one of the academy’s super big sisters/big brothers.

A proper little troublemaker.

Compared to these big sisters and big brothers, Lufield was a well-behaved little baby.

Lilith was a super repeater—most repeaters were people who had passed the wizard exams. They chose to stay at Sacred Icon Tree for further studies to earn the title of Sacred Icon Tree Archmage or qualify for a professor position.

But Lilith didn’t stay at the academy for further studies because this little troublemaker who didn’t study or work, though very talented, had no real learning. So she couldn’t pass the exams.

She stayed at the academy because she liked it—there were many followers and admirers here. Playing the Great Demon King in her free time was so much fun.

Her older sister Yingling never stopped her sister’s mischief. She even gave her some of the family’s business at the academy for her to run errands.

So Lilith had a new reason—she stayed at the academy for ‘business’.

Business… that sounded very impressive—at least among the students.

And there was indeed some business, because Grand Alchemist Dylan was actually an employee supported by the Red Fox Den.

And Lilith was the shopkeeper of the Red Fox Den, so her own teacher was actually her subordinate.

Professor Dylan was indeed a bit afraid of her, or rather, not just Professor Dylan; many professors didn’t dare to provoke her.

A repeater who scared professors, a student who had dealings with all sides in Blackhorn Alley—many students idolized her and were also very afraid of her.

In the academy, if a student knew Lilith, or if Lilith had spoken to them, it was a very face-giving matter. And if you could be her follower, ordinary students would definitely call you boss.

Helen idolized this super big sister of hers.

When this tall lady in the black high-level witch robe entered the room, all the little foxes in the room quieted down a lot, becoming somewhat cautious.

Rows of narration and options appeared before Louis’s eyes. Looking at the lines of content, Louis was dumbfounded.