2

I can’t believe it.

That I’m labeled ‘trash’… that I’m called trash!

I’ve never been treated like this anywhere.

So I looked pretty; apparently, my head must’ve been full of flowers. Not even a peerless beauty, yet this character didn’t use it to her advantage and seemed to have just thrown it away on the street.

‘If they looked surprised I came on time, she must’ve been seriously useless…’

Cold sweat broke out from the first day. As I replayed the shocking moment, a boy with brown hair and drooping eyes approached.

“Coco, I heard you were really sick. Are you alright?”

He looked genuinely concerned, like a fairly close friend. I answered shortly to avoid sounding suspicious.

“Mm. I’m okay now.”

“Really? If you have trouble, tell me. You know the branch manager’s been upset because of you, right?”

“Because of me…?”

This wasn’t just ordinary uselessness.

I playfully asked my friend Nicola about how my pretending to be sick and saying I didn’t remember things had upset the boss.

“Was that something one person could mess up so many times in a short period…”

“Coco, what did you say?”

“Ah, nothing.”

What he told me was ridiculous.

Being late was the least of it. When asked to clean, she made things messier instead of tidier; she couldn’t count stock properly, so other staff had to ring things up multiple times; she often forgot customer orders, making them wait ages.

Most recently, she supposedly spilled the shop’s most expensive box of perfume oil and ruined it. It caused a big loss to sales. She breaks things so often now that everyone knows it’s her at the sound of a crash.

The branch manager must be a saint.

“Luckily, they didn’t fire you because you promised to pay it back with your wages.”

What?

“They don’t have things like workers’ comp here…”

“Huh?”

“Ah, no.”

The situation was more serious than I thought. The looks I’d seen earlier weren’t concern but hostility. I needed to make amends fast.

“So you really need to be careful this time, Coco. Got it? Remember what I said.”

I felt a bit discouraged and nodded. It felt like I’d chosen ‘very hard’ difficulty at the start of a game. I hadn’t even started the tutorial.

“It’s useless, Nicola.”

A freckled girl with her hair in twin tails appeared. Beside her was another tough-looking girl of similar age.

“If she were someone who understood when you told her things, would we be at this point? Maybe you should just give up.”

“Pinea, isn’t that harsh? To someone who came in sick.”

Nicola snapped back. Pinea scoffed.

“It probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Might’ve even been better—at least she’d have stayed put.”

“Hey!”

At Nicola’s protest, the tough girl beside her backed Pinea up.

“Exactly. Honestly, how much have we suffered because of her? Everyone except you hates her. She just causes trouble!”

‘At this point, shouldn’t Cornelia look for another job?’

I could easily understand why they hated the body’s original owner—I would have too. But now I’m the owner of this body!

“Just wait! Cornelia, you’ll get fired soon!”

“You’ll get fired!”

They left, tossing those curses behind as they swept away.

“Coco…”

Nicola looked helpless, thinking I might be hurt.

I was surprised but it wasn’t my fault, so I didn’t dwell on it. What mattered was next.

I calmly put my hand on Nicola’s shoulder.

“Coco?”

“I need you to help me.”

According to Nicola, this place was a store that sold household goods.

The work wasn’t much different from modern times: selling items to customers, ringing up sales, restocking, organizing, cleaning—simple tasks.

As a seasoned professional worker, I’d mastered these tasks back in university. Of course, they wouldn’t entrust important duties to a trainee.

‘It’s inconvenient not to have a POS machine, though.’

Only trainees certified to handle transactions could ring things up, so I didn’t need to worry about that.

The shop was two stories: the first floor sold goods, and the second floor handled finances and inventory. The second floor even had the branch manager, assistant manager, and a senior office. I thought it was a hole-in-the-wall, but it seemed bigger than expected.

‘Right, even the name Daijo… it was unusual.’

Anyway, my job was more like part-time than full-time.

“First I should pay back whatever that perfume oil cost and then look for another job.”

Nicola’s help was invaluable. At first, he found me a bit odd, but when I said I had suffered after a high fever, he didn’t question anything I asked. He’d only known the original me for a couple of months, so he didn’t know much about my past. He even praised me for asking so many questions.

The first thing I asked was this.

‘How much is the pay?’

They said trainees all got the same pay—40 zeni—since there were no annual contracts. When I asked Julie after work, she said it was about a week’s worth of Rio’s medicine.

I wrote down things I needed to remember to adapt to this world in my notebook. Currency matters.

‘A week’s worth of medicine? Why is it so expensive?’

They said pay wouldn’t suddenly jump after the trainee period; you had to get on the branch manager’s good side and sell well to earn better performance-based pay.

I hoped to save up while covering basic meals, but at this wage I couldn’t see a future. I’d be stuck eating stale bread while commuting.

I felt I needed to redefine my goals given the current situation.

“What’s this? On time all six days out of six!”

Nicola’s amazement surrounded me.

“Maybe the sun rose in the west?”

After hearing about all those failures, the first thing I did was stick to the basics.

Namely, attendance and punctuality.

It means ‘diligence and laziness’—a basic virtue for every worker.

Just having this would keep you from being called useless and you wouldn’t be criticized even if your skills weren’t exceptional—assuming sensible coworkers, of course. It’s also the most urgent flaw to fix given the previous owner’s uselessness.

“Good job. Really!”

It wasn’t that amazing, but Nicola’s praise made the staff glance at me as if surprised. Their looks were proof of how thoughtless the previous me had been.

‘Fine—it’s probably for the best. With expectations this low, doing a little better will seem like a huge change.’

“You’re making a fuss over the obvious. It’s ridiculous.”

Pinea sneered, clearly annoyed. But she wasn’t wrong.

“Sounds like you’re afraid of getting fired, huh?”

Sad but true.

“Guys, could you join me in praising her?”

I quietly ignored Nicola, who was the least normal, and headed to my assigned work area.

My main duties here were cleaning.

Handing out flyers, sweeping and mopping to tidy the displays and shop interior. Inventory and organizing were banned after the perfume oil incident. I also helped customers find items when needed.

From my brief time working, I learned the shop ‘Daijo’ was run by the Daijo trading company and was a fairly large operation. It had a headquarters in the capital and branches in various territories.

‘Maybe because I’m used to X-Mart and the like, it still looks like a local shop to me.’

Still, for an analog age, it’s impressive.

While cleaning, I often drifted into such thoughts—only brave Nicola bothered to be kind even to a so-called useless person.

‘Nice and easy.’

My work philosophy is there’s no need to force friendships at work. Quietly head to resignation when the time comes.

“Hey, are you going to run a business like this?!”

Before I knew it, voices were raised in the shop.

“Ma’am, this product is difficult to refund.”

The voice belonged to Pinea, who was unusually hunched compared to before. In front of her stood a middle-aged woman in an elegant dress.

“No, I don’t like it so give me my money back—what’s the problem about that? That flyer at the door said they’d refund if you’re not satisfied!”

I could feel it. A feeling familiar even from the modern world.

Pinea looked clearly flustered.

“But you only brought the grape stems like this and asked for a refund…”

In her hands were bare stems with no grapes on them.

“Hey! Do you know who I am?”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Had I returned to the modern world?

Ha ha… right, this is a workplace too.