Name Badge

On the next day's afternoon, as Apollo was walking through the base, watching how the battle preparation were made, someone suddenly grabbed the tip of his shirt, calling him out.

"Sir...can I change my job again? T-These clothes doesn't suit me at all!"

Apollo looked at her with a questioning face and checked her out from head to toes.

"What are you saying? You look great!"

Actually no. There was something missing. Apollo also didn't know what was wrong, but, no matter how he saw it, this one lacked something even if she was dressed exactly like all other maids.

On could say she lacked a maid's temperament, or maybe she was just too easygoing? No, there were some easygoing maids before and none of them left this kind of feeling... Anyway, just like she said, it didn't fit her at all, but even if it didn't fit her, it was just temporary and as long as she mastered the moving skills and knife techniques she would be able to change her job again.

"Sir, I can see your eyes trembling! You are lying!"

"W-what are you saying!?"

"Sir is so cruel. Demoting me into a maid after losing a battle. It makes my heart break."

"Okay, stop. You know why we are doing this! If you don't like it this much, go master you new skills. Once you have mastered them, you can change into a ranger."

"Eh!? I don't want to be a weakling ranger!!!"

"Then become a powerful one!"

"...All right! I will show them all that even as a ranger I'm still the strongest!"

"Yeah, yeah, go do that."

After seeing the girl off Apollo's smile disappeared from his face.

"Damn, I feel like I'm destroying these girls identity by doing this. Soon I won't be able to recognize them at all! Talking about this, who was that???"

Apollo already had trouble recognizing each girl when their clothes were fixed, but now that they started changing clothes chaos had completely took over the base.

"Maybe I should have someone make name tags for them... Because they are small and simple, it should be quickly to make... Yeah, let's do it!"

Arriving at the factory, Apollo saw a cat girl with a bored face hammering a huge mask.

"Hey, how is it going? Do you think you can finish it on time?"

"Ugh... Master, look at the size of this thing! There is no-"

A plant girl suddenly arrived interrupting what the cat girl was saying.

"Don't worry! We will finish on time! You can trust us! And if we are unable to do so, you can even take the meat out of our meals!"

"Nyaaaaa!!!!!???? What are you saying!? No one takes my meat!!!"

"Then you better work hard, or you will lose it!!"

"Noooo!!!"

The cat girl stopped paying attention on me and started hammering the giant mask with a newly found intensity.

"Thanks for all your hard work."

"We were born to serve you."

While that's true, it's not something Apollo was comfortable hearing, causing him to make a strained smile.

"Anyway, how can I serve you?"

"This is a little embarrassing to say but I'm having problems keeping track of you all, so I want you to make some short of name tag or badge with each of your names so that I can see it and recognize who am I talking to."

"That's easy to do. Give me an hour and I should be finished!"

"Great! Thanks...."

"Mika! I'm Mika!"

"Right! Thanks Mika."

(Man, I must appear like a forgetful old man now...ugh...)

One hour later, Mika appeared with a basket full of badges on her hand. Each badge had the shape of a flower with a blank space for the name of the person right in the middle.

"Here you are. Look. The name goes here and the professions are here. The badge is linked to the base's system so it will automatically update whenever the person puts on the badge or changes professions."

Mika grabbed a badge and put on her own clothes. The badge lit up as if turning on and suddenly Mika's name appeared in the middle of the flower and two symbols lit up around it, one in blue and another in yellow.

"See? My name is here now. Also, the symbol in blue represents my first profession, soldier, and the symbol in yellow represents my current profession, engineer. I don't know how many professions there are in the system, so I left two empty slots available, and if there are more, in the future we can make another badge by recycling these ones."

"Oh! All right! Perfect! I never expected this much! Actually I only expected a simple metal plate with your names, but this will work even better. Thanks Mika! Great job!"

"Don't just praise me! Pat my head!"

Although feeling a bit awkward, Apollo patted her head as she wished and as he did so, he could so an imaginary dog's tail wagging and almost could hear her bark in happiness.

"..."

"Thanks master! I'm happy to serve you!"

"I see... All right then, thanks and see you later. Oh, yeah, give Nyau one as well."

"Eh? You recognized her?"

"That love for meat is hard to miss."

(Actually it could be Penny as well, but I met Penny earlier so I knew it wasn't.)

"Boo!! Damn cat! It seems like I need to teach her a lesson!"

"Hahaha. Go easy on her. She still has a job to complete."

"Okay, I will delay her punishment for after the battle."

"Great. Please do that! Then, I'm going now."

"Have a safe trip!"

Apollo walked around the base personally giving out badges to each girl but, before he was finished, a voice suddenly come out from his bracer announcing the enemy was here.

[M-m-master! The enemy! The enemy arrived!]

"Calm down. Where are they? How many are they?"

[They are on the other side of the mountain. There are....too many! There are over a hundred points on the map!!]

"Yeah, we are finished..."

If Apollo had another week, maybe he could prepare something proper...

If the crystal cores from Negi and Jaylee had not exploded, maybe he could have a fair fight...

Unfortunately none of those happened and the brutal reality was that the enemy wouldn't wait for him to get ready.

"Seems like we have no other choice. Let's go greet them."