Let Me Listen to Your Lingering Regrets

First-class agents were those with a success rate of at least 95% in sending souls to the heavenly world. Senpai was one of them with an outstanding success rate of over 99%. But if you look at it another way, it also meant that he couldn’t save almost 1% of the souls.

An outstanding job performance.
Success that’s become naturally expected.
But even so, there were still souls that Senpai couldn’t save.
Without even thinking about it, I continued with my training thus far.

—Well, of course, I wouldn’t think much about it.

That morning, as soon as I opened the door to the office, I scrunched up my nose at the staunch odor that filled my nostrils, which was different from usual.

On the sofa bed, Senpai was sleeping sloppily as usual. What was different was the opened bottle of scotch whiskey on the table made of sturdy cherry wood, and the empty beer cans scattered on the floor. I had never seen Senpai drink alcohol so more than feeling dismayed, I was surprised and dumbfounded.

Senpai was snoring as he slept, probably because he was drunk all night.

Could something have happened?

As I pondered over it, I decided to let him sleep longer while I picked up an empty can and started cleaning as per my routine. I returned the books back on the shelf, swept the floor and cleaned the coffee and alcohol stains on the carpet. I compiled the documents and filed them in the cabinet.

At that moment, a photo slipped from the stack of documents and fell on the floor. I arranged a bunch of files on the desk before picking up the photo. In it was a beautiful woman with long black hair flowing over her shoulders. She had a well-proportioned slender eyes and nose but her facial expression was somewhat contradictory—she was smiling cheerfully and yet there was a hint of anguish on her face.

(How pretty…)

After looking at the photo, I went back to arranging the files that had fallen to check where it could have slipped from.

I found her right away. The person in the photo was also on the upper left of the file, which was sandwiched in between clips. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Hmm, Kyoko Kasuga… and… Oh!” The file had been stamped “done”, which meant that her lingering regrets had been resolved.

What a relief. But what surprised me was that the person in charge of her case wasn’t Senpai. I got interested and started flipping through the documents.

“!!”

I took a deep breath. There were pictures of an arm that had been torn apart, with horizontal and vertical red streaks, making me nauseous and shudder in fright.

“What is this?”

Looking back at Senpai who was still sound asleep, I had a hunch that this lady was probably the reason why he drank heavily.

What should I do?

But well, it wasn’t like there’s anything I could do about it. I glanced between the photos and Senpai, and ultimately decided to put the files back.

I thought it was for the best.

But somehow, there was an uneasy feeling in my chest.

Soon after, I would know what it meant.

After wiping the table, I made strong black coffee as usual and proceeded to wake Senpai up.

T/N: The title of this chapter is actually in English.