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"Hmm... what are you doing here?"
Ultima looked at the man in the doorway and immediately pursed her lips. Everything about her face said you are not welcome here.
"Hey, is that any way to talk to your superior? Keep it up and I'll make your life very difficult."
Kaito said it with the easy confidence of someone who had absolutely no doubt that he was, in fact, her boss.
Veyron had no intention of testing that. He pressed a hand to his chest and bowed without hesitation.
"Kaito-sama!"
"You can go take care of your duties for now. I need a word with her."
"Yes, sir. I'll take my leave." Veyron bowed and slipped out, privately hoping with great sincerity that whatever was about to happen between these two would not require a third party.
"...Fine. What do you actually want?"
With that vague threat still in the air, Ultima didn't have many options.
"Hehe. I've found you an incredible position. The kind of thing most people couldn't even dream of getting." Kaito leaned against the doorframe with a grin. "Way more real authority than Chief Inspector. Thousands of people under you. It's a genuinely good deal. So what do you say?"
Ultima watched his expression, the practiced smile of a merchant who already knew you were going to buy, and felt absolutely no desire to believe any of it.
'If it's that good, why not take it yourself? Oh, right. I keep forgetting you founded the Do-Nothing Organization.'
"Stop selling it and just tell me what you want me to do."
"It's just that I expanded by three legions recently, and well... there aren't quite enough commanders to go around. And so... you see how it is!" He finished with an exaggerated wiggle of his eyebrows.
"You want me to serve under Benimaru." Her voice was flat. "No."
Serving under Kaito and Rimuru was one thing. One had given her a soul. The other had given her a name. Those were debts she acknowledged. But answering to a monster as though she were just another soldier? That was beneath what a Primordial was.
"Oh, it'd really just be the title. Day-to-day you'd hand everything off to Veyron. Once he's got the hang of it, he takes the Legion Commander post properly and you step back. Simple."
Ultima looked at him for a long moment.
"You're actually going to let Veyron have the position once he's ready? You're sure about that?"
"One hundred percent. You have my word." He gave his chest a solid slap for emphasis.
"...That's exactly why I'm not sure I should believe you."
She said it quietly, mostly to herself. Then she sighed.
"Fine. I'll do it. Reluctantly."
"But I'm telling you right now, Benimaru doesn't get to give me orders. If he needs something from the Sixth Legion, he can go through Veyron."
"Absolutely, no problem, it's a deal." Kaito was already backing toward the door. "I'll see myself out, don't bother."
He was gone before she could say anything else.
Ultima stared at the empty doorway.
"...Did he just trick me?"
If Kaito had heard that, he would have said yes immediately and without a trace of guilt.
He had promised that Veyron would be promoted once he was familiar with the work. He had made no promises whatsoever about when that would be. How familiar Veyron was with his duties was, in the end, entirely up to Benimaru to judge.
"I laugh, I laugh with glee..."
Kaito wandered down the street humming to himself, and somewhere along the way ended up standing in front of a shop he had never seen before. He looked up at the sign.
I Love Pachinko.
"Pachinko? Oh, Japanese pinball machines!"
He crossed his arms. "Hmph. You think I'd walk in there and throw away all my money like a certain scummy snake? Absolutely not."
He walked straight through the door.
"I'm just doing research. Research into pinball. There's a difference."
Inside, rows of machines gleamed under the lights. Kaito surveyed them with great seriousness and nodded.
"As the saying goes, no investigation, no right to speak. I will conduct a thorough investigation today, and then, from a position of complete moral authority, I will have very sharp words for the owner of this establishment."
He went to the counter and set down two hundred-Tempest Coin. The young woman behind it smiled brilliantly.
"Welcome! Here are your marbles. May your winnings be plentiful!"
Kaito took the basket, squared his shoulders, and informed her, "Today is not your lucky day. You are looking at the man known as the Pinball Prince."
He turned and walked toward the machines before she could respond.
[Okay, hold on. Host, you never once touched one of these in your entire previous life. Where is the title 'Pinball Prince' coming from?]
"Glass marbles are also pinballs."
"..."
"Now. Time to teach this place a lesson."
He fed the marbles into the machine.
Some time later, Kaito stared at the empty basket and did not move.
"This is impossible. This is completely, utterly impossible."
"How is this happening?! No. I am not accepting this."
He went back to the counter and put down five hundred Tempest Coin.
It was not until the sun was touching the horizon that he finally shuffled out. He stood on the street and looked back at the shop with the hollow expression of a man who had learned something about himself that he had not wanted to know.
"Am I really at the same level as that vegetable snake...?"
"I've been looking all over for you. I never thought to check here."
He spun around. Sakuya.
"Sa-- Sakuya! I was doing research. Yes. Research. It's a technical matter, you probably wouldn't--"
"You don't need to explain."
She grabbed him by the collar and walked.
"Sakuya, I was wrong, I know I was wrong, I genuinely know it, please, someone help me-- Ahh ahh ahh ahh--"
It is said that on that very night, the Administrative Building issued an official document titled "Rectification and Treatment Plan for Establishments of a Gambling Nature."
The following morning, every pachinko parlor in the Jura-Tempest Federation announced its closure and bankruptcy. Kaito knew nothing about any of this.
It was only when he went looking for his rematch the next day that he discovered there was not a single pachinko parlor left standing anywhere in the Jura-Tempest Federation.
PS: Gambling and drugs harm people. Please stay away from them and cherish your life!!!
Of course, all of that comes later. For now, Kaito is sitting at a desk under Sakuya's watchful eye, grinding his way through a self-reflection report with a minimum word count of twenty thousand.