After that, I went to sleep at my house, and at 4 in the morning, I woke up with Hexael poking my head with his paw to "gently" let me know that I should go to the bank.
He could have woken me up in worse ways, so I decided not to complain, at least he helped me a little in that sense.
And with that, I didn't sleep anymore, I just put on my dress, got completely ready, and went to the nearest bank with a paper I received from Ophelia. It serves to show the bank and facilitate the creation of an account.
She gave me this paper even without me informing anything, so either it is given to everyone or she saw that I did not have a bank account after researching about me. In any case, this paper will ensure that regardless of how much money falls into the account, it doesn't seem suspicious.
Since obviously money will fall at irregular intervals and in various amounts, depending on how many missions I go on as a magical girl with my team and how strong the monsters are.
Arriving at the bank, it's pretty empty, with a few people actually doing something and some tellers. I quickly see an empty spot and go to it so the teller can assist me.
"Good morning, how can I help you?" The teller says with a forced smile. It's obvious she didn't want to be here working early in the morning. She seems to be around 25 years old, and the dark circles under her eyes indicate that she works too much.
Her slightly hunched posture and the way she looks at me also indicate how stressed she is with the job.
I sit in the chair in front of her, seeing the computer on which she will open my account. I think of a way to prevent her from doing a poor job just because of the fatigue.
Problems with bank accounts are annoying and irritating to fix when they happen, and since it's something done by humans, errors are sometimes inevitable.
"Good morning, I'm here to open a bank account for myself," I say to her in the best tone I can muster, even though it's naturally a bit cold.
"I'll need to ask you a few questions," she says, pressing some things on the computer. Her tired tone doesn't help either, so I think of a good tip to give her and "help" her stay awake.
"First question... what is the bank account for?" She asks, but she seems like she's about to fall face-first into the keyboard from sleepiness.
"I recommend you make a cup of coffee with ginger shavings, a teaspoon of cocoa powder, and a small teaspoon of cinnamon," I say to her before continuing. She looks confused.
"It helps wake you up and gives you more energy, and it's easy to make," I explain to her what I meant by the small recipe I mentioned.
"Oh... thank you, I really need something to keep me awake. I'm picking up too many extra shifts. Could you tell me how to make it?" She opens up more, just as I had hoped, and with that, I know she won't do a deliberately poor job.
She seems like a "nice" person, just very tired because of the work, but her tiredness could make her make mistakes, so I decided to just wake her up to life with a piece of advice.
"Make a cup of coffee, preferably filtered or strong, and after preparing the coffee, just put the 100% pure cocoa powder, cinnamon, and ginger shavings in a cup, then pour the coffee over it."
"After that, just stir it well and drink it, but if you want to soften the bitter taste, add a sweetener or honey," I tell her this recipe that I've made a few times for my sister when she needed to stay awake to study.
"Okay, thanks for telling me that," she says, writing it down in a small notebook. While she's doing that, I take the letter I brought with me to solve part of my problems.
"I have a letter, it will indicate several things for the opening of my account." I never told Ophelia where I lived, but incredibly, this paper came to me. Honestly, opening an account with this letter has a problem.
Probably the Magical Girls' base will have access to certain information, even if they say they won't use it. It's a fact that they'll know extra things.
But I think it's okay to have this little control. Anyway, the government practically does the same thing with all bank accounts and uses them when they want, so having accepted to use this letter saves me bigger problems.
The woman just reads the paper and takes almost 15 minutes, then starts typing various things into the computer. There are so many that we spend almost 20 minutes just on that.
"It seems you're in a great company. That's so amazing. Well, maybe you could give me a hand to work there," the teller says as a joke while handing me the paper.
It's obvious she wasn't serious and just wanted to help lighten the mood, but if she knew what this "job" is, she probably wouldn't want to risk it.
"Yes... it's a great company, I guess..." Being a magical girl is literally one of the worst "jobs" in the world. You have horrible risks and can't even complain because you accepted this "position" knowing the consequences beforehand.
Also, it doesn't really pay anything, Septarion doesn't pay the magical girls, so they kind of just end up losing. If it wasn't for the Magical Girls' base, the losses would probably be even worse.
The Magical Girls' base provides them with a place to stay, family protection, and money to sustain themselves, all funded by Ophelia.
"Okay, I see here in the database some things and there's even a pending payment," the teller says, a bit more awake as she looks.
'It must be the payment for the first mission with Ayane and Lenore...' This is great. If everything goes well, I'll be able to buy things at the Magical Girls' base tonight.
"W-Wow... that's... a lot for one night..." She's surprised looking at the amount. I'm not sure how much it is, but since the defeated monster was a Colossal Class, I must have earned a good extra.
The teller quickly realizes this is a "special" account and decides to do the rest of the process in silence. She doesn't make jokes, doesn't question the account, the money, or where it came from.
"Well, I believe your account will be active in about 5 hours during the system's account update. I'm sorry it takes so long, but those are the regulations. I hope you don't need the money right now."
"But if you do, you can open a small loan with a 3.8% monthly interest rate," she speaks more seriously to me while already trying to make an offer.
"I don't need the money right now. I just came to open the account at this time because I won't have time later," I justify the reason for having arrived so early, even though I don't need it.
"I understand. Please sign here and here for confirmation. Also, an email and a statement will be sent to your company every month showing how much was spent, although what it was spent on will be kept private for only you to know," the teller informs.
I already knew that. In the end, the Magical Girls' base will know how much I spent per month, but this only lasts until I "retire" if I can get there well.
Magical girls actually have a relatively short service time, with the oldest, according to what I've discovered, retiring at 37, and that's only because she wanted to continue.
I didn't see exactly when they are eligible and able to retire, but I deduce that from 30 years old, a magical girl can retire if she wants to.
Of course, she can also stop earlier, either because she can't stand it anymore or for something similar, after all, it's a difficult "job" to defend this city and kill monsters.
In addition, the Magical Girls' base continues to pay you for most things, so just entering, staying for a while, and leaving already leaves you with money for the rest of your life.
"I understand completely," I say, taking the paper and a pen to finish this quickly and go home to prepare for the day. I also need to eat something, as I didn't have dinner last night and now I want something.
As soon as I finish signing everything, I hand the papers back to her. She takes a quick look at the paper and puts it next to the computer for a moment.
"Okay... here we have your address. A card in an envelope will be sent to you as soon as possible. It will contain your bank account number, the pre-set password that you can change online or by coming back here."
"And it will also have some other papers that will show you everything you need," she says with a small, tired smile.
"Thank you for your preference, and we hope you can continue with us for a long time," she says one of those generic speeches when you affiliate with a store or bank as she lets me go.
"Thank you for the help," I say, just that, getting up and going to the door. It was a long process, but now I've dealt with one of my small problems, which was getting a bank account.
I don't think I can sleep a little more, and it will soon be time to go to school, so I'll spend the rest of the time inventing something good to eat by mixing the canned food I have.