‘I’m sorry, but your performance in the past few months has been incredibly lackluster. Effective next week, you’ll be stepping down from your position.’

‘Doesn’t it suck when you’re a lower class? The recent hires have been more useful than him so it’s only a matter of time before they take his job.’

‘You can’t even do that right? That’s it. I want you out by tomorrow! I don’t care if you're going down a Class!’

We live in a meritocracy. As much as we’d prefer to say that it wasn’t, that was the truth. This was a world where if you couldn’t show results, your position in society was lowered.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you around before. You only just got re-Classed?”

“Ah, I… um… Yes. I lost my job and the debt was too much.”

Upper Class, Middle Class, and Lower Class used to be the castes that they knew of separating the rich from the normal from the poor. Now, there were actually many more classes from the top of the pyramid A-Class to the bottom of the dregs known as the L-Class.

“That’s the same with the rest of us. Tell us your story, though. Where’d you work?”

“It was a company called Summersi-”

“Hey Tony, stop bothering Liz. The customer’s getting impatient. If you’re gonna move your mouth, move your hands too, or we might be in trouble!”

Classes were determined by wealth and career. However, in more recent decades, those were only two factors that influenced one’s position in society now. There was a third that was much more important. And while the third factor was affected by Class, it was also true that one’s Class affected that third factor. What was that factor?

Our size.

“Hm… I guess that’s passable for a shoe-shining. Here. Take this!”

Flick!

Whaaaaam!

“Uwaargh!”

A 5’6” woman dropped a coin onto the floor. This was not accidental. It was intentional. Those of us by the toe of her high heel scattered as quickly as we could, but an unlucky guy found himself knocked out by it when it bounced, landed on him, and bounced off.

“Oh god, Adam,” the newest shoe-shiner who had joined us gasped when she ran up to see the man’s twisted leg. The impact of the coin must have broken it.

“Hey, come on, Liz. We need to get our money,” I pulled her arm. The 5 of us who were still fine had to go pick up the coin. That was our spoils for our work for the day. 

“What?” Liz was reluctant. “Shouldn’t we get him to a doctor?”

“Do you think there’d be any doctors for tiny little Class L’s like us?” I asked her a question to answer her question.

“I guess not, but…” 

“There are five of us left. The fewer people to split it between, the better. You want to get up to the next Class, don’t you?”

“... I do. Fine, you’re right, Matty,” she finally agreed with me, but she didn’t like it. “This is terrible.”

Together, all 5 of us 1” tall shoe shiners lugged the quarter to the coin box beneath the bus stop we were working at. It took a solid 15 minutes, but we managed to insert the coin into the slot in the ground. When we did, the display on the coin box displayed our names and our classes.

[$0.25 earned. Please confirm distribution]

[Adam Jones - Class L + $0.00]

[Caroline Dahl - Class L + $0.05]

[Elizabeth Bennett - Class L + $0.05]

[Matthew Langley - Class L + $0.05]

[Owen Conroy - Class L + $0.05]

[Tony Kim - Class L + $0.05]

[Is the distribution correct?]

[Yes]

[Distribution Confirmed. Thank you for using the Lusilee Class Credit Converter.]

A couple cents was what we earned for shining the shoes of one normal sized woman. That was all our labor was worth when we were 1” tall Class L’s. Those of us who lost our jobs or went into debt ended up at this size that fit our standing in society, and sadly, our ability to do anything that could get our standing back up had been diminished along with our heights.

“Alright. That’s 5 cents for each of us besides Adam,” I heard someone cheer.

“And much more to go before we can get up to M Class, huh?” a pessimistic man sighed.

“Owen, shut up. Don’t be such a killjoy,” an annoyed woman shouted, smacking the man.

“Yeowch! Don’t hit so hard. What’s with that strength?”

“Hey, it looks like the next bus won’t be for another two hours, so we won’t be getting many customers. Does anyone want to head back?”

“......”

“You alright, Liz?” ignoring the others, I approached Liz who had her gaze aimed towards the opposite side of the shoe shine square. She was still worried about Adam.

“No, I’m not,” she was honest. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen to him. He was still unconscious in an open area at 1” tall. “Shouldn’t we go bring Adam over here now?”

Sigh.

“He’ll be fine. This shoe shine station’s covered with glass, isn’t it? Those normal class folks had to lift their feet to get their shoes in here. He’s not going to get stepped on before he wakes up.”

“Are you sure?”

I wasn’t. That was because I had lied to her completely. It was also likely for the next person to come by wanting a shoe shine to not spot him and end up stepping on him. Still, I wanted to reassure her.

Thankfully, Adam did wake up. Although he was dazed, we saw him get up and start stumbling over to us. He had definitely broken his leg, but he was able to move.

“See? What’d I tell you?”

“He’s still not okay, though. We need a doctor.”

“Are you offering?”

“I’m not one. I don’t even know first aid.”

“Then there’s not much we can do. Sorry to say this, Liz, but we Class L’s are pretty incompetent.”

“Incompe…,” I could see tears start to well up in her eyes. For a second, I regretted my choice of words because that definitely hurt her. “S-Sorry… I know I shouldn’t cry, but I’m still not used to all of this yet…”

“It’s only been a week since you were put here, right? You’re still getting adjusted.”

“I know, but it’s really starting to hit home. Everything’s so different now… and I’m so scared… I… I… ”

I said nothing, but I offered her my shoulder to cry on. It wasn’t that helpful to her as she probably would’ve preferred because I wasn’t good at keeping my balance. Even so, I didn’t do anything else - not even apologize for making her cry.

Liz was someone I knew long before either of us had shrunken down. Although we lost contact with each other since I was re-Classed, I was honestly surprised when she was brought to the Class L facility. I had been shrunken down for over a year now, and I never thought I’d be able to see anybody I knew ever again because of that. Of course, our reunion was a bittersweet one. Because we were meeting as fellow Class L’s, that meant that she also had lost everything too for her Class to be reduced to Class L..

“I don’t know if I can do this, Matty.”

“This is your first time going out with us on a job. You’ll get used to it.”

“No, not the job… Being this size. Why did this have to happen to me?”

“......”

I said nothing. I let Liz do what she needed - which was hug me tightly and cry. She was still having a hard time accepting that her entire world had changed from how it was before. To lose her job at the Summersight Corporation and fall into debt, the happy life she had been living at normal size was now gone. She was now a lower class insect along with me and the others. It honestly hurt to think that I now had to teach her about this new life she was going to have to live from now on.

Unfortunately, this was our world.

While wealth was an important aspect with determining one’s class, our size was now the biggest (literally) deciding factor, but both went hand-in-hand. The richer you are, the bigger you could be and the poorer you are, the smaller you would be. 

Unfortunately, once you’re small, it’s hard to be able to work your way up again. If we lost our money due to our own incompetence, we were made even more incompetent by our new stature so we couldn’t simply earn it back. Who would want to hire us? How could we get back on our feet? In this meritocracy, once you shrank, it wasn’t easy to grow again.

Looking up, I noticed that the bus stop the shoe shine station was at had a new advertisement poster - a help wanted ad. ‘We hire individuals of all Classes!’ I wondered if that was true for even us. There weren’t that many jobs a tiny person could do after all. It was wishful thinking to hope that the ad was real.

“Come on. Let’s get back to the facility. You need a rest.”

Class D’s were 75% normal size. Class E’s were 50%. Class F’s were at 33%. While it was tougher to be shorter, these were still sizes that could interact with each other normally and could still live their lives properly, albeit with a handicap.

People who were G class and lower, however, were forced to be dependent on others. Class G’s were 25% of their normal height, but they were still pretty lucky since they were the only dependent class with a percentage based scale change. Class H’s were all exactly 1 foot tall. Class I’s were all 9” tall. Class J’s were all 6” tall. And Class K’s were all 3” tall. At these sizes, the Dependent Classes needed help to do anything, but they were still fairly visible and there were even doll houses that fit the size because they were toy-sized.

We Class L’s were beneath all of them at only 1” tall. Too small to be considered a toy and given similar conditions, we were insects who were only able to survive because we were allowed to.

How was our survival possible?

Despite us Class L’s being worthless and incompetent, government welfare support actually applied to us. We were still considered citizens even if we were miniscule insects. Honestly, the support was more than we could ever hope for.

“Let’s see… The facility job listings are the usual, huh? That ad probably excludes us then. Makes sense. It sounded too good to be true.”

Rumble!

Whaaaaam!

Ping! Pong!

[Attention: Dinner has now been distributed.]

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a normal sized facility worker coming by and the automated announcement that came after. I heard a stampede of footsteps by the door so I opened it up to see the chaos.

“Alright! Grub!”

“Slow down!”

“No way. I’m first!”

“The newbie rush, huh? I guess they did just bring some new Class L’s in today. Hey! It’s not going anywhere. No need to rush,” I calmly stated as someone who had gotten too accustomed to living here. “There’s a literal mountain sized blob anyways, so there’s plenty for everyone.”

“Yeah, but the good stuff always gets claimed first,” one person stopped to talk to me - someone who had been here for three months. I was pretty sure his name was Greg. “Aren’t you going, Matthew?”

“I’ll catch up later.”

“Ah. Going to wait for the new girl, huh? I knew she was your type from how you looked at her when you met her! Wait, you two were real close from the moment you met. Let me guess: you used to date.”

“Shut up, Greg.”

I sighed as other Class L’s ran off to where an ice-cream-scoopful of food had been delivered to us. It annoyed me that Greg’s guess wasn’t wrong. The only person that had been on my mind for the past week was Liz. After over a year of being jaded and lonely from living the Class L lifestyle, finding her again really got my mind racing.

“You dumbass. It’s been over a year since we’ve talked to each other. That’s basically breaking up, right?” Would you call me hopeless? I just wanted to be with someone I knew again. But I didn’t know if Liz felt the same way.

“I’m just checking up on her since I’m worried. Knowing her, she’ll still be thinking about what happened to Adam earlier. It’ll be bad for her if she doesn’t eat,” I made up plenty of excuses for me to leave and go see her. I left my ‘apartment’ which was nothing more than a small but clean cardboard box to go see Liz. I didn’t need to rush to gather some of the food scraps that were shared to us by the much larger welfare workers.

Looking up at the sky, I saw the giant 400+ foot tall (in my eyes) woman who had given us our food stand up and start walking away. She wasn’t paying attention to us. She was more preoccupied with her smartphone which was as big as a movie screen to us. At the very least, when she left, the shadow that had darkened my ‘apartment’ was gone, allowing the light from the ceiling lights in the facility building to shine down.

While the quality of the food and our living spaces weren’t that high, I was at least thankful to have a roof over my head and something I didn’t have to scavenge to eat. It was much easier to take care of the needs of the lower class when we were also tiny because we didn’t need as much space or food. 

“Knock, Knock! ” I said aloud. I squeezed through the crack in the ‘door’ of the cardboard box opposite of mine. We obviously couldn’t have any locks, but there was at least a heavy stone we could push to block the door to prevent others from entering. Liz did not seem to have pushed her stone to ‘lock’ her door so I was able to come in.

“Huh? Matty?” I saw Liz on her bed in just her underwear. Immediately, she moved to pull the cloth that was her blanket up to cover herself. “Wait, my clothes!”

“Oh, sorry,” I wanted to turn my entire body around to avoid being a rude Peeping Tom, but I had to admit that Liz’s body was very healthy. It might have been because she only recently became L class and thus hadn’t been subjected to our diet and lifestyle for as long. It might have also just been because her bra was one size too small with how her boobs spilled out in it. “I just thought to check in on you so that we could go get our food together.”

“Checking up on me…? I see. Don’t worry. It’s fine to look. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” Liz did not get anymore flustered than she already was. In fact, she was fine with letting me turn around and look at her. She treated my intrusion lightly and reached for her glasses. “Sorry, I ended up worrying you with how I acted earlier, didn’t I? It’s my fault.” 

“There’s no need to apologize,” I frowned at her self-deprecation. “You’re still new to being Class L. I’m just trying to help you adjust since I’ve been here for a year and a half now.”

“... You’re as sweet as ever, Matty. Just like when we were kids,” she told me. She started rummaging through the pile of clothes that had been given to her when she got her. Despite us being an inch tall, one of the biggest boons of being taken in by the government facility was that we were given clothes that fit us. It was to make sure the public image of the welfare facilities was positive, and I was thankful for it as well. It was much better than having to wear a tissue scrap as a toga.

Sadly, custom items like properly sized bras and even glasses were not provided. Someone like Liz who wore her glasses only had them because they had shrunken down with her. If she broke those, she wouldn’t be getting a new pair. 

“If you thought I was sweet as a kid, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m a no-good person, Liz,” I groaned at Liz’s praise.

“... The person who’s no-good is me. I’m sorry. If I had known you had become an L Class, I would’ve tried to help you… I looked for you for months, but when I couldn’t find you, I thought you ran off on me and just gave up on searching…” Liz regretted knowing that I had been through this for much longer than she had.

“That’s my fault. It happened so suddenly, I couldn’t contact anybody. And even if I did tell you, I would’ve brought my troubles to you.”

“You’re terrible,” Liz frowned as she put on her pants. Even those weren’t properly sized, but at least the elasticity of the fabric allowed it to cover her legs and butt fully. “I know we didn’t get to the proposal step yet, but we were still dating. If I had known that you’d been re-Classed, we could have…”

“There’s no point in regretting the what-ifs,” I stopped her from continuing that sentence. She grabbed a basic T-shirt to put on next, but before she wore it, she suddenly approached me. Her hand touched my chest.

“I can’t believe you’ve been able to live like this for so long, Matty. You’re so strong,” she spoke melancholically… although she drifted off for a moment when her hand lowered towards my stomach. “Literally too.”

“Strong, huh? I’m just doing my best to survive,” I did not feel that way at all. In fact, I felt that I had given up long ago. I was just going through the motions because I didn’t want to die.

Liz’s hand moved up to my face and caressed my cheek.

“Survive… I don’t know I can,” I could hear Liz’s voice cracking. She was trying her best to not cry again. “Really… I shouldn’t have trusted those guys. I should’ve known they were just using me.”

She was thinking about how she got into this mess. She had already told me the story before when I first ran into her. After being scammed by another business that was working jointly with her for a job, Liz not only lost a large sum of money but also her career. She ended up not only taking the blame for the incident but also shouldering the entire debt until her Class dropped down to L.

“That’s just how society is these days. Everyone’s trying to take advantage of each other to get up to the next class. It’s every man for themselves,“ I told her. “You can’t trust anyone but yourself and you have to be selfish to be able to push forward in this world.”

“Don’t trust anyone? But I can trust you, can’t I, Matty?” I felt something touch my back. Liz’s arm had wrapped around my waist. I had been worried about how she felt about me, it seemed she still had feelings for me.

“You really shouldn’t,” I told her bluntly. “I’m not someone who helps others.”

“You say that, but you’ve already been helping me since I got here. You’re even checking up on me now, aren’t you?” Liz locked eyes with me. “Hey, remember back in elementary school? Whenever I forgot my lunch and you shared your food with me? You’d say things like ‘My mom made too much’ and ‘I don’t like this. You eat it.’ ’You’ve never been honest with yourself, Matty, but you’ve been helping me since back then too.”

“Shut up. I can’t believe Forgetful Lil’ Lizzie can remember something like that,” I looked away from her. I couldn’t believe Liz brought that up. Well, if she decided she wanted to trust me, I hoped that she wouldn’t start blindly trusting everyone else. It was what got her into this mess and a part of why I was worried about her ever since she became a Class L. She could be taken advantage of. And with Class L’s all desperate to get bigger, she was in danger.

Grip!

“Matty, I told you to never call me Lil’ Lizzle again,” Liz’s hands suddenly grabbed onto my shoulders. From her voice, she wasn’t angry and was just embarrassed, but the strength of her hands said the opposite.

From what I knew about Liz, before she was a Class L, she was a 5’2” young woman with a frail figure and a ‘literary girl’ appearance with her glasses and prim and proper manner of dress. She was certainly shorter than my normal height of 6’3” tall. However, as a Class L, things were different.

“Yeah, I guess I’m not over a head taller than you anymore,” I told her, pointing out that I met her eye level. I was able to look her in the eye because we were both exactly 1” tall.

That was right. All Class L’s were one inch tall. We weren’t shrunken down the same percentage when we were made into Class L’s. That meant shorter folks like Liz were actually at a bigger scale than the rest of us. If my 6’3” self had been shrunken down to 1/75 scale, Liz was only shrunken to 1/62 scale. 

“Did the shrinking go wrong? You shouldn’t be my height, right?.”

“There’s a bit of unfairness with how Class L’s are shrunk. You’re not ‘Lil’ anymore,” I sighed.

“Well, I guess that’s one good thing about being in L class then.” Did Liz just make a joke to try to lighten up the mood? “Remember our first date? The fact that you were so much taller than me was so frustrating.”

“Frustrating?” I repeated her words, but it wasn’t because I was confused. I understood why she didn’t like the fact that I had been 13 inches taller than her.

“Yeah. Because I couldn’t ever do this.”

Much to my chagrin, Liz was the one who initiated the kiss. I could feel her hand behind my head firmly pull me towards her. At the same time, the hand she put on my waist was strong enough to turn the distance between us from an arm’s length apart to zero distance apart. My chest pressed against hers which was still only clad in just her one-size-too-small bra.

Because Liz was shrunken to a different scale than me so that we were both 1” tall, to her, it must have looked like I was shrunken down to her level. It was like the Liz I knew before had grown in height and strength. She was always on the weak side, so it wasn’t like she could utterly overpower me with just a slight change in size, but it was still enough for her strength to match mine.

It was a solid two minutes before Liz let go. We were both out of breath.

“Well, someone’s feeling better,” I told her. “I thought you said you gave up on me.”

“I said I gave up on looking, but we didn’t break up. Just because you got re-Classed and disappeared does not mean you can get away from being my boyfriend.”

“Wow. I didn’t know you were so possessive,” I chuckled at her assertiveness. My concerns were blown away right out of the gate. Liz still loved me even after I had vanished from her life.

“Matty, thanks for checking in on me. I’ll try to get used to all of this soon. I just need some time.”

“I understand,” I accepted her answer. “In any case, we should get some food. There may be plenty to go around, but it’s still better to get it before everyone else has made a mess of things. You’ve been having trouble getting used to the food at this size, right? I’ll show you what parts are better to eat than others.”

“I’m not really hungry…,” Liz avoided looking me in the eyes as she answered.

“Yeah, that’s no good,” I held her hand. “You need to keep up your health. Trust me when I say that if you don’t keep a routine, you’re not going to last long as a Class L. ”

My gaze was serious. And I didn’t look away from Liz’s face until she glanced back at me and saw me still staring straight at her.

“Hehe…” I finally managed to get her frown to change for a brief moment. Even though it was full of melancholy, it was somewhat a smile. “You say that you aren’t sweet, but you really are a good person, Matty.”

“If I’m good, what are you, a saint?” I asked her.

I got Liz to giggle with that. Since our heights matched, her strength had increased enough to match if not overpower my grip, so she broke off quickly and moved towards the door.

“Then let’s go. We need to eat if we want to do more shoe shining tomorrow, right?” she spoke to me, a listless expression no longer on her voice. Her voice told me she was pushing herself to make an effort. It seemed that after kissing me, she had cheered up. I hoped that she was as happy as I was in knowing that we had reaffirmed our relationship.

“Yeah,” I nodded, following Liz out the door of her cardboard box ‘apartment’. As I got out into the hallway, though, a thought came to my mind.

‘... Is Liz really going to be able to handle this kind of life?’

Shoe shining, unfortunately, was one of the few jobs we Class L’s could do. It sounded like simple work, but at our size, it was an intensive labor even more so than working at a car wash at normal size. Normal sized shoes were even bigger than buses to us after all. And as she had witnessed that afternoon, even getting paid could be dangerous and injury-inducing. 

There wasn’t too much else that we tiny citizens could offer, though. The welfare facility had a very minimal listing of work we could actually do to contribute to society. The most money we could make was just a couple of cents a day doing something that minorly pleased one of the giants who didn’t actually have to pay us if they chose not to. 

I looked forward to seeing Liz waiting for me at the end of the ‘hallway’ of cardboard box apartments. Maybe it was just my own regrets, but I recalled the happy smiles she made back then. I hadn’t seen a single one of them ever since we reunited at the facility. The only expressions I had seen on her were ones of depression and fear. Even our kiss had been salty with the tears she had been crying.

“...... I don’t want this for her…”

Liz said I was sweet, but that was far from the truth. It was only because it was her that I was going out of my way to do all of this. I had been a Class L for well over a year now and had endured it, but knowing Liz, I was certain that she was not going to bear this lifestyle for very long.

There had to be something I could do for her.

“I need to check that ad…”

“Excuse me! Hey! Excuse me!”

“...”

“Hello! Down here! Hey!”

The reason why I had been a Class L for a full year was not because I lacked the effort. It was incredibly difficult for anybody to make enough money to be allowed to go up a Class. This was not simply because of how low paying the jobs we could take were but it was also because this was a competition. It was a fight to make sure you were the one who earned the most profit.

“Excuse me! Hello?! Can I get some help?”

“...”

“Maybe I should get closer. Heeeey! Over here!”

In the shoe shine station, we may have split our profits, but that was also at the expense of Adam who had gotten inadvertently injured by the coin when it fell. This was a society that was quick to abandon the weak and unlucky if it meant getting ahead. I, too, had experienced the same as Adam had before and had spent long periods of time needing to recover.

“Hey! Over here! Down here!”

“Hm? Did you need something?”

“You heard me? Yes! Excuse me, I need some help!”

I did not want this to happen to Liz. While I knew it was better for her to get used to being a Class L so that she could survive, I wanted to help her get out of this life. I hadn’t even bothered doing this for myself, but when it came to her, something in my mind wouldn't allow me to just let her go through everything I had gone through. For Liz, I was going to do whatever I could to help her get back up on her feet. I wanted to get her Class back.

“Here. Put this message on Box 021.”

“Sure… A message? Wow. How rare for someone in the facility to get a message.”

That was why I barged into her apartment box that morning after a long week of working behind the scenes.

“Liz!”

“Hwah?! M-Matty?! You’re lucky I’m dressed this time,” Liz put her hands on her hips. She had gotten a bit more accustomed to her time as a Class L now, so she wasn’t feeling as depressed as she was before. Actually, with how often I’ve barged in, she was probably feeling annoyed now instead because of my intrusion. “Isn’t it too early to go to the shoe shining station?”

“Dressed? Hm… Yeah. This will do,” I scanned the woman’s body from head to toe to rate her clothing choice. I gave her a quick thumbs up but then used that same thumb to point out the door. “Come with me. We’re doing a different job today. And if you play your cards right, you’ll have a much easier time at this size.”

Although she was unsure of what I was saying, Liz trusted me. She willingly followed me out of the facility. Of course, she was definitely confused when, instead of walking to the bus stop right outside of the facility building, we kept to the wall and kept walking to the opposite side of the building.

“Hey, Matty, just where are we going? It’s dangerous to be outside like this, isn’t it?” There was plenty of time during our long trek for Liz to ask me questions.

“We’re meeting someone,” I told her. “It took me ages to get the attention of that C Class facility worker, but they were actually able to do something for me. I didn’t think it was possible, but the person I had them call said they’d send someone over… That welfare worker though… she could’ve given me the message without crushing the roof of my box…”

My explanation was still extremely vague, so Liz kept asking me questions. “Meeting someone? You tried to get someone to come here? For what? Why?”

“You can ask me yourself,” a voice from above spoke up as a shadow suddenly fell over us as we walked.

“Hm?” Turning around, I saw a pair of black pumps almost as big as I was tall. Someone bigger than us had come.

“Wah!” Liz screamed, frightened to suddenly have a giant figure loom over her. “Wait… H-Huh?”

It seemed that Liz realized that the ‘giant’ she was looking at was not as big as she had thought. While the normal sized women at the bus stop were around 400 feet tall in comparison to our inch high selves, this woman was closer to 70 feet tall. She was still huge to us, but not monumentally gigantic.

This 70’ tall strawberry blonde woman in a pencil skirt was, in reality, only 12 inches tall.

“My bad. Did I scare you? You were taking so long to come to the meeting destination, I figured you were still on your way,” the doll sized woman got on her knees to get a closer look at us. As with anybody who was looking down at an insect sized Class L, she had no reservations about showing us the black lace panties under her skirt. “I’m Elena. I take it you are the Matthew and Elizabeth I was told wanted to work for our company?”

“We do?” Liz was confused before I took the reins of the conversation.

“Yes, that’s us,” I shouted up at the 12” tall woman. “I’m sorry for making you go out of your way for us Class L’s.”

“Now, don’t say that,” Elena frowned. “Lusilee welcomes employees of all Classes. We’re more than willing to come pick up anybody who isn’t physically able to make the journey to our company. Please don’t put yourself down over your Class.”

I was impressed by how welcoming Elena was and how friendly she was speaking to us 1” tall Class L’s from her height.

“Well, we’re still sorry for making you wait. The trip wasn’t long for you, was it?”

“Not at all. I don’t think you’re aware because I know it’s too dangerous to venture far from the facility at your size, but the Lusilee Company building is next door,” giggled the strawberry blonde company employee. “At my size, it’s a bit of a workout, but it’s not too bad.”

“That’s good to hear. I didn’t want to cause any more trouble when you’re already going out of your way both hiring us and picking us up.”

“Ah… Well, about that,” Elena turned her attention to Liz who was still staring up at the woman with a dumbfounded look. “Elizabeth was it? That’s the name I was given. You wanted to take this job too, right? It doesn’t look like you were told anything.”

“That’s because she wasn’t,” I responded for Liz’s sake. “Sorry. She only recently became a Class L, so she only saw the jobs the facility listed were available. I was the one who saw the ad at the bus stop and thought that this would be better for her.”

“Oh? You sure are a nice guy,” Elena whistled, apparently impressed at how much I had done for Liz’s sake. “A go-getter like you would pass the interview phase if we had one.”

“There isn’t one?” Liz was surprised.

“There isn’t a need for one for Class I’s and below,” Elena answered. “I was told to staff my department with whoever was small enough to fit and had some openings. Not many folks your size actually think they can apply for the job so I’ve been waiting for a while for someone to come. You two were hired the moment you contacted the company.”

That was a relief. So we were both hired. It would’ve been rough if only one of us got to go. I didn’t want to throw Liz into this on her own or leave her behind at the facility..

“Um!” Liz finally calmed down enough to speak up. She shouted upwards nervously. “Miss Elena, can you explain what we’re being hired for? I’m not sure what kind of job we could do.”

At that question, Elena smiled. “Are you nervous about it? Well, that makes sense since Class L’s don’t really have many job opportunities. But don’t worry. The Lusilee Company lets even a Class H girl like me work like a normal person. You’ll be treated fairly, and there will even be things closer to your size for you to work.”

“Is that so? Wait, the Lusilee Company? Really? THAT Lusilee Company?”

Instead of answering, Elena lowered her hand down onto the ground. She was clearly signaling for us to climb onto it so she could pick us up.

“You’ll see what I mean when we get there. Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle. Hop on.”

Since I was the one who made the call, I climbed the doll-sized woman’s hand first, trying to be careful not to mess with her pink nails as I sat down in the middle of her palm. When she saw me doing it, Liz relented and joined me. She was unsteady and uncertain, but she got on.

“Matty, what the heck did you do? I thought you Class L’s couldn’t get any jobs.”

“I tried my luck. I couldn’t believe it either, but this could be a major break for us, Liz. Let’s give it a shot.”

There wasn’t that much room considering a 12” woman’s palms were definitely smaller than a normal person’s. Liz had to hold onto me tightly because she was afraid of falling off before Elena’s other hand hovered above us, giving us a slightly protective ceiling.

“Let me show you to the company, you two. I’m sure that you two will be happy there.”

With that, the doll sized employee took us away from the facility. As concerning as it was to let someone we didn’t know take us away from the safety of the welfare building, I wasn’t afraid. Even Liz wasn’t. That was because of the name of the company that was hiring us.

It was the Lusilee Company - one of this society’s most renowned businesses internationally. For companies to be willing to let Class L’s take a job, there had to be a catch, but that wasn’t the case with Lusilee. This was a company whose reputation assured us that, even if there was a catch, we were still likely to be in for a pleasant stay.