Date: June 19, 2020 - 5:11 pm

Location: Colombo

A week after the month of constant C-rank Dungeon manifestations, things had settled down a bit again and Juan Ramirez of the EA was heading to the Madrazo estate. A few days earlier, he received a “special promotion”. After he gave his report about the events of the first C-rank Dungeon Sierra Madrazo had attempted to clear, he was then put in charge of relaying communications between her and the EA. After acting as her supporter (in terms of providing information) for the next two C-rank Dungeon clears she participated in, the higher ups in the EA decided on a unique approach.

From now on, Juan Ramirez will act as Sierra Madrazo’s manager. This was done because the EA thought this was the most practical way in getting her to follow the Uniform Guidelines from then on since she refused to officially work for the EA. It also had to be Juan Ramirez because he was the only one with anything close to a working relationship with her. Most of the other employees also simply didn’t want to do it. Mr. Ramirez, though, initially didn't think it was such a bad deal. His pay was increased and his workload was also likely going to be reduced as well.

Mr. Ramirez drove to the estate’s gates, where he was let in by armed guards after checking his suit, briefcase, and car first. He was frisked two more times by armed guards, before entering the mansion, and again before entering the dining room. It was at this time, that Mr. Ramirez was starting to have second thoughts about his new assignment.

Inside the dining room were Sierra Madrazo and a young man wearing work clothes seated at the end of a long table. He quickly looked at Mr. Ramirez when he heard the door open. Sierra was wearing her signature red beret and her hair had grown out a bit more since last time. She also wore a black tank top, revealing many of her scars as well as her cockroach-shaped Dungeoneer mark.

“Juan, you’re here!” she exclaimed. “Have a seat.” She motioned towards the seat to her left, the seat on her right already occupied by the other man. Mr. Ramirez silently complied. As he walked over, he briefly glanced at the various dishes that were already laid out on the table. There were also various bottles of liquor set on the table as well. “Try whatever you want.”

“I thank you for your hospitality, Sierra.” Juan couldn’t help but continue to speak like this even though he was already used to calling her by her first name. Before taking his seat, he reached out his hand to the other man. “My name is Juan Ramirez. I am from the Earth Alliance.” The other man swallowed before responding.

“S- Santiago,” he murmured as he limply shook Juan’s hand. Oh, so this is the Santiago Sierra mentioned, Juan thought. He took a closer look at him to try and figure out something about him. Sierra seemed to notice and she spoke up.

“He’s a delivery man,” she said.

“A delivery man?” Juan tried to hide his doubt.

“Y- yeah. I deliver packages around here.”

“I see.” Juan assumed that he was speaking in code or some sort of slang. He finally took a seat and then opened up a briefcase. He took out some documents and passed it over to Sierra. “As you already know, the Earth Alliance has assigned me to serve as your manager from now on regarding all Dungeon-related activities.” Sierra laughed as she dropped the documents onto the floor beside her.

“Yeah, I remember. They made me agree to that before sending back all those monitors. But, what’s that even supposed to mean? What are you going to be managing?”

““The Earth Alliance takes the objectives of mutual international cooperation and mutual progress of humanity as its most important considerations. As such, when dealing with the global crisis of Dungeon manifestations, it is essential-”

“Just stop right there!” Sierra interrupted Juan’s prepared explanation. “I don’t need to hear the whole spiel every time. Just answer me this. Are you just going to be watching me to make sure I don’t go making any more surprise Dungeon visits, or is the EA going to be trying to give me orders.” Santiago seemed visibly nervous due to Sierra’s serious tone.

“...Before I answer that, may I ask a couple questions first?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you have absolutely no intention of joining the Earth Alliance?”

“You mean, like “S”? No, I’m not joining that task force or whatever it’s called.”

“Would you prefer to have anyone else to act as your manager, instead?” Sierra looked at Juan with a bit of surprise.

“Do you know anyone else with the cajones to come all the way here by themself and act so bold in front of me?”

“Bold, you say…I am merely doing my duty as an official for the Earth Alliance.” Sierra smiled.

“This is why I like you, Juan. You are faithful to the way you are supposed to act. I’ve never seen you crack or even get nervous this whole time. A lot different from Santiago here.” Sierra patted Santiago on the shoulder when she said this and he noticeably trembled. “But, both of you are really brave.” Juan wasn’t sure if that was the right word to describe Santiago at that moment but he made no comment about that.

“Should I take that to mean you are comfortable with this current arrangement?”

“I guess you could say that,” Sierra replied. “Oh, wait.” Sierra laughed. “Ah, almost got me there. You still haven’t answered my question. What exactly does it mean for you to be my manager?”

Juan briefly considered what to do next. He could try for a standard non-answer or try to talk around the question again, but he wasn’t sure that would work. The truth was that obviously the EA wanted to do more than just monitor Sierra. They wanted Juan to try and influence her and convince her to go on joint operations with the Emergency Dungeon Task Force, among other things. Realistically, Juan didn’t think there was any chance of getting Sierra to do anything she didn’t want to do. Keeping in line with the character he has been playing this whole time, though, he couldn’t just say all that. Juan decided he needed more time to think and appraise the situation so he started putting some food onto his plate to stall.

“This looks delicious. Do you eat this all the time?” It was a poor attempt at stalling, but Sierra didn’t seem to mind.

“No, I usually eat something lighter than this.” She started taking some food herself as well as putting some on Santiago’s plate. “Come on, eat up. I’ve invited you both to dinner, after all.”

The three of them ate and Juan began to casually chat with Santiago. As it turned out, he really was just a delivery man. The same delivery man that had come across Sierra right after she defeated her first D-rank Dungeon Boss. After he drove off in fear, he actually returned again shortly afterwards because he had to deliver a package. He wanted to just drop it off and leave right away, but Sierra was still there. Sierra roared with laughter as she recounted the story.

“He looked like he was about to piss his pants when I grabbed him. If he was going to be that scared, why didn’t he just leave the delivery for some other day or to someone else?” Santiago now looked just a tiny bit more embarrassed than nervous as Sierra playfully shook him. “I told him that that was either the bravest or stupidest thing I had seen in a while. Well, after that, I told him to help me bandage myself and then I signed for the package.” Sierra laughed again.

“I see, that is quite interesting,” Juan responded while thinking in the back of his mind how unfortunate this turned out for Santiago.

“I had to be careful about who to talk to for a little while since my father’s cousin tried to kill me so it was nice having Santiago around for a bit. It took me a week to round up most of those snakes, but a couple of them got away. Well, for a while, anyways.”

“I suppose that was quite the busy and stressful time,” Juan responded, treating this as normal conversation.

“Oh, this was the package by the way,” Sierra said, pointing at her red beret. “What do you think? Does it look nice?”

“It suits you well.” Juan was mostly indifferent to her appearance, but he supposed it wasn’t bad.

“You think? I didn’t really care for it when I first saw it,” she said as she took it off and took a closer look.

“Oh?” Juan said, now wondering if he had just messed up. “Then why did you buy it?”

“I didn’t. My father ordered it for me. I think he saw it on a page of some catalogue I was looking at. I was spending a bit too much money around that time so he canceled my credit card, but I guess he thought that this was something I really wanted so he bought it for me. Can you believe it took a whole month to arrive?”

“I see. A month-long delivery is quite unusual,” Juan responded, deciding to not comment on anything before the last question.”

“How about you, Juan? What’s the last thing your father bought you?”

“Me? Well, I think that would be a watch from when I graduated from university.”

“I see. Santiago said the last thing he got from his dad was a pair of shoes.”

“Shoes?”

“Y- yeah. They were a new pair of running shoes for my eighth birthday,” said Santiago.

“And that was the last gift?” Juan asked, already regretting the question.

“Yeah, he was shot and killed a month later. It was by some gangster.” Santiago instantly looked down after he said this.

“It wasn’t one of us,” Sierra said, even before Juan glanced over at her. "We don't kill regular people."

“Is that what happened to your father as well?”

“Hmmm? No, my father was born with a heart condition and died from a heart attack.”

“Oh, I see. I am sorry to hear that.” Juan was now thinking about whether or not he should continue with this conversation topic.

“My mother, though, was shot and killed. Different gang, though. All dead now. My father made sure of it.” Juan tried to not let these open admissions affect his expression. “You look like you’re used to hearing these kinds of things,” she said, probably commenting on his passive face.

“It is not that I do not feel sad to hear them, but it is something that I come face to face with more often than I would like.” Sierra grabbed a couple bottles of liquor and put them down right in front of Juan.

“Do you drink, Juan? Maybe, just when you’re feeling down and need to cheer up?” Sierra asked.

“No, I usually drink on happier occasions.”

“I’m kind of the same. I rarely drink outside of celebrations. Bad memories from when I was younger. But, I still like to see others get drunk.”

“That’s interesting.”

“So, would you call this a happy occasion?” Juan thought hard about this question.

“I think the host would know that best.”

“Interesting answer.” Sierra then looked back at Santiago. “What do you think, Santiago? Is today a day worth celebrating?”

“Huh? Uh, I don’t know.”

“Juan, do you think you can help out Santiago here? What do you think the right answer is?” Juan looked between the two of them and then picked up one of the bottles.

“Cheers to my promotion.” Juan hid his nervousness as he appraised Sierra’s reaction. After a moment, she cracked a smile and laughed.

“Of course, cheers to your promotion. Go on, open it up.” Juan struggled to open the bottle and Sierra offered to open it instead. Juan instantly complied. After Sierra opened it, she poured for all three of them. She picked her glass up and the others followed suit, Juan before Santiago. “So, my manager, what should I expect?” Juan finally decided to give his answer.

“You should expect a relationship that benefits both sides. And, if you don’t think it does…I’ll make sure to let my superiors know your complaints.” Juan knew that Sierra had no intention of being controlled by the Earth Alliance and he certainly wasn’t planning to actually go out on a limb to try and change that. With this answer, he figured he dropped off a big enough hint that he, personally, was not going to get in her way.

“Looking forward to a good relationship as well.” Sierra seemed sufficiently satisfied with his response. She raised her glass, and the others followed suit. “Cheers to that and cheers to me avoiding prison.” Juan decided to make no comment on that other part as she clinked her glass with his. The three drank from their glasses and then continued eating their dinner, while making casual conversation.

Juan thought the food was great, by the way.