First Job
At 18:05 on the 12th of September, the Butterfly emerged.
A rabble of butterflies began to flutter around in the city, releasing a blue gas that forced everyone who wasn't wearing gas masks to fall into a deep slumber.
The Butterfly was a Monster that was a gigantic arthropod usually formed by the collection of many butterflies. No matter how many times it was attacked, it only dispersed into smaller butterflies with each shot to its physical form.
In its last two appearances, it had poisoned 12 people who came into contact with these tiny arthropods and hypnotized two Monster Hunters because they had stared too long into the butterfly's eyes. But no casualties were found.
This time, the thousands of butterflies that fluttered about the city did not flock to one place to create its original form. Thus far, this was also the most harmless Monster Emergence.
However, from whatever unnatural power, the Butterflies had left blue and black patterns on most windows of the more famous companies in Kansas City. Yes, only the famous ones. The patterns were identical to the butterfly's wings and no one was able to clearly interpret the message it was trying to give.
***
Two Days Later…
"What?"
"Yeah. Meme… as Monster Hunters, our duty is to protect the public from these magical beasts that keep appearing out of nowhere, right?"
"And?"
"And, when the Monsters leave random graffiti on the walls, which is considered as harming public property, we are the ones to scrub it off the walls. So, are you up for this job or not, intern?"
15 minutes after this conversation with Professor Jane, Jogu stood before the ColdVex products building. The 5th tallest building in the capital.
Hideyaki Meme gazed at the tall window before him, painted in blue and black with a pattern of a butterfly's wings.
All the windows of the building were painted as if the Butterfly was trying to pull a joke on all the capitalists of Kansas.
Meme wore his blue coat and his office tie with high expectations for his first job at the Monster Hunter Society as an intern and this was what he got. A window scrubbing job.
"Why did the Butterfly have to paint the goddamn walls? Dead people would've been better."
He stood there with the water bucket and the long window scrubber on his hand dressed like he was about to get a job in a big shot company. People who walked on the pavement eyed him weirdly.
'Who's that weirdo? Damn, nice costume for a window scrubber. He's not good in the head, is he?' Meme imagined what the people eyeing him were saying.
"I'm an intern at the Monster Hunter Society, guys! This is our job too!" He cried out to let everyone in the streets so they would know who he was. Pushing the scrubber into the bucket of water, he began to scrub the tall window with all his might.
'Early in the morning… dressed in my best suit. What did my life come to? Where did I go wrong bro?'
An anxious feeling crawled over his body as he continued to scrub the glass windows.
The city life continued on as Meme continued to wash these glass windows of the conglomerate in order to serve the Monster Hunter Society. For what felt like hours, Meme scrubbed the windows up and down to get the color, now called butterfly essence, off the window.
However, in reality, it had only been 16 minutes.
Meme sat down flat on his ass on the pavement to get a rest for his hard work. Sweat was trickling down his forehead. His arms were feeling numb and his chest was on fire… from his hard work.
"This shit is hard," he cursed.
Clank!
Suddenly, the sound of another metal bucket falling on the floor made him turn his head.
She was a girl wearing a short skirt, a long-sleeved black and red sweater, and a lowered cap that managed to cover half of her eyes. She seemed a bit younger than him, possibly a high schooler.
As Meme continued to gaze at her in confusion, she shifted her head and caught him off guard. He didn't turn away shyly. He was already caught, after all.
"Hey, Mister. You work here?" She asked, smiling at him.
Patting the dust off his pants, Meme stood back up on his feet.
"No no. I'm just here for some help. I'm actually an Intern at the Monster Hunter Society," Meme replied proudly.
The girl's eyes widened. "Oh? How cool is that!"
Meme felt himself ascending from her words of appreciation. Even though the girl sounded excited when she said it was 'cool,' it seemed that she was not interested in talking more about the Monster Hunting topic.
For quite some time, she continued to examine the butterfly essence in silence. Meme felt slightly awkward.
"Ahem… so." He broke it. "What exactly are you doing here? Do you work here? Or are you being forced to do this as a school project or something?"
She chuckled. "Nope. I'm just here willingly. I want to help people any time if it's within my power. And scrubbing windows happens to be within my power."
Meme chuckled when he heard this. "Helping people like this scrub their windows? Haha. You don't need to help a big-shot company like this to scrub their goddamn windows. I'm here because my professor ordered me to come here because we must help people in need from the harm done by Monster Emergences. And we need to do this kind of shit to prove the point, apparently. Keep the appearances, you know."
The girl shifted her brown eyes toward Meme, filled with curiosity.
"You're saying you don't approve of helping these capitalistic bastards clean their windows when they have so much money in their accounts? So… You're saying you don't like to help people like this, eh?"
Meme scratched his head.
"Um, surely it's not that I hate people. I mean, I am a person who certainly wants to help people. Why else would I join this Monster Hunter Society?"
The girl smiled from the corner of her lips. "Not everyone needs saving, you know. Some people are better off dead."
"Eh?" Confused, Meme turned to the girl. "Say what now…?"
For a brief moment, he looked at the black-haired girl's eyes as she continued to stare at him with a smirk. "But you said you want to help people, hence why you're here."
She shrugged casually. "Everyone's always contradicting themselves."