3.
“Ugh.”
Having arrived at the office early and spent the entire time drafting reports, I stretched, lightly rotating my stiff wrists.
As my long-sleeved shirt—which I had worn intentionally—shifted upward, my gaze slid toward my wrist.
‘It’s gotten a lot better, at least.’
The bruise, once a deep, hand-shaped blue, had faded to a sickly yellowish hue.
‘Good thing I didn’t go to the temple.’
Because it was my right wrist, it had been a nuisance for a while, but time is the best medicine, as they say.
‘Ointment is enough.’
I pulled my sleeve back down and picked up my pen. Going to the temple for an injury like this? That man was truly out of touch with how the world worked. I shook my head, silently badmouthing Everett Rohas.
Even if it wasn’t coming out of my own pocket, the waste irked me. The temple charged the same donation for a minor scrape as they did for a gaping wound. It was a policy supposedly designed to keep the temple from clogging up with patients who could be treated by a local physician—or perhaps just a way to pick the pockets of nobles who rushed to the clergy for the slightest bruise.
‘I can’t spend half my annual salary just to heal a wrist.’
It would fade in a few days with four silvers’ worth of ointment; two hundred gold was simply ridiculous. I nodded to myself and tightened my grip on the pen.
In truth, I wasn’t in a position to afford the luxury of such distracted thoughts. I had to finish organizing eight years of tax records for seven territories before the day was out.
‘I’m long past my clock-out time, but I still have two territories left, don’t I?’
And even once this was done, a fresh mountain of work was waiting. The Emperor, who had marched to the battlefield immediately after his coronation, was returning after an eight-year absence. Orders had already been issued: every department was to have their records prepared for his immediate review upon arrival.
‘How long until his return?’
Three or four days, perhaps? After overworking my brain for so long, I couldn’t even summon the energy to calculate the exact date.
‘What a miserable life.’
Even if the Emperor was a warmonger and a tyrant who considered human life as worthless as a fly’s, his blade wasn’t likely to reach down to someone like me. As a low-level clerk, I just had to keep my head down, hold my breath, and endure until the storm passed. Things were clearly different for those higher up who had to face him directly.
‘They’re so tense that the bullying is trickling all the way down.’
Because of the foul moods of our superiors, every official in the Imperial Palace was in a state of high alert. The Ministry of Finance was no exception.
‘Even though they’ve been receiving regular reports from the battlefield.’
Reports sent to the Emperor were always polished and refined, meaning some details were inevitably omitted. Naturally, when the master is away for too long, subordinates tend to grow lax. The authority of the Emperor—who had ascended the throne after purging his predecessor and the collateral imperial family—was bound to fray after eight years. Besides, the officials who had joined the ministry during his absence hadn’t even seen his face.
‘I’ve heard rumors, of course. Tales of him wiping out a country in the blink of an eye, or clearing out an entire royal house. But…’
People don’t tend to fear what they cannot see, so those stories were mostly consumed as mere gossip.
‘But now, we’ll see him in the flesh.’
He intended to scrutinize every action taken in his absence—who wouldn’t be nervous? Even I, who prided myself on having lived a fairly clean life, was sweating at the thought of some forgotten, specious error coming to light. The higher-ups must be terrified.
I sighed, glancing at Donovan, who was currently taking his frustrations out on Connie. He had been like this ever since the news of the Emperor’s return broke. While every official with a rank looked like they were facing a firing squad, Donovan was particularly unhinged.
‘Did he really embezzle something?’
I shrugged to loosen my tight muscles. He looked every bit the corrupt official, but I had been telling myself not to harbor suspicions without proof. Yet, watching his increasingly hysterical reactions, I began to wonder if there really was a fire beneath all that smoke.
‘He’s a “bedroom tyrant”—too timid to commit a truly bold crime.’
Wouldn’t he be drawing more suspicion by acting out like this? Then again, the Emperor wasn’t the type to differentiate between those who stole a little and those who stole a lot before the axe fell. At least, that was the case in the original story. The Emperor, before being charmed by the sun-like female lead, was the quintessential romance-fantasy tyrant: efficient, terrifying, and cruel, regardless of whether you were a commoner or a noble.
Donovan, having been in the Ministry since before the coronation, would know that temperament well.
‘That must be why he’s in such a state.’
My heart finally tipped toward the suspicion that Donovan was guilty of something. His voice was so shrill that other employees began to throw disgruntled glares his way.
“I’ve told you how many times this is urgent? Is it still not done?”
‘He assigned a week’s worth of work just yesterday.’
No matter how much you rush, there is a limit to how much time you can compress.
“It will be finished shortly.”
Connie replied, her tone suppressed. Initially, she had handled Donovan with the business-like smile honed from years of social life, but her patience had clearly reached its limit. If he hadn’t come over to nag her every hour, she might have actually finished it faster.
“‘Shortly,’ you say? How many times have I heard that? Tsk.”
Donovan continued to snipe at her until the very end before disappearing. As soon as he stepped out of the office, Connie slumped into her chair. She didn’t make a sound, but her lips moved in a way that any native speaker could easily interpret. Donovan’s name was interspersed with some very colorful, harsh vocabulary. Everyone in the office turned a blind eye, silently condoning her vent. She had been the primary target of his recent hysterics, after all.
I approached cautiously and placed a hand on her shoulder. When I gestured toward the door, Connie followed, her face sullen. We headed to the back of the Ministry building to give her space. Once out of sight, she began to grumble in earnest, repeating the same repertoire from earlier, only this time aloud. I listened, offering periodic nods of support.
A long while later, Connie, her face flushed the same color as her carrot-colored hair, sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“That man, Donovan. He was always a jerk, but he’s been unbearable lately.”
“Tell me about it. Ever since the news of His Majesty’s return, he’s been a nightmare.”
Connie’s nose wrinkled as if she had something juicy to share. She leaned in and whispered for me to keep it to myself.
“Donovan was so happy, bragging that he’d managed to get into Duke Camelot’s faction.”
Duke Camelot was the head of the noble faction. One of Donovan’s distant relatives was a retainer for the Duke, and it seemed he had encountered the man a few times through that connection. It was common knowledge that he had bragged about it endlessly.
“But it seems His Majesty is planning to cut Duke Camelot off as soon as he returns.”
‘Oh.’
I pursed my lips and inhaled sharply.
“I heard they were on bad terms even before the coronation. I don’t know why he let it slide eight years ago, though.”
Connie laughed, suggesting that perhaps there were so many names on the Emperor’s hit list that he’d simply forgotten about the Duke. I didn’t know the reason, but in any case, Duke Camelot—who had survived the initial purge—had been aggressively expanding his influence while the Emperor was away, hoping to secure his survival.
But the Emperor, who had turned a blind eye to internal politics while external matters were urgent, was clearly ready to settle accounts now that the war had ended.
“Everyone who knows, knows. Though it’s not something to be talking about openly.”
Connie straightened up and winked at me.
“It means the wyvern that was playing king while the dragon left its lair is finished, too.”
She added that she hoped the Emperor would wipe out an orc or two while he was at it. Even though Connie was well-connected, for this news to reach a low-level clerk in the Imperial Palace, it meant the Emperor was being quite blatant about his intentions.
“But is Duke Camelot just going to sit back and watch that happen?”
To my muttered question, Connie gave an ambiguous shrug, saying we’d have to wait and see. After that, we shared a brief, lighthearted exchange. Feeling slightly refreshed, Connie sighed, looking as though she truly didn’t want to move.
“Shouldn’t we head back in?”
“I suppose we should.”
Even though I knew my sleep time was being chipped away with every passing second, returning to a desk piled high with paperwork was a painful prospect. We returned to the office at a glacial pace.
Donovan did not return. Around midnight, the employees who had finished their work began to disappear one by one, their faces pale and zombie-like. That was when I finished organizing the tax records for the final territory.
I approached Connie, who seemed to have a mountain of work left, and asked, “Do you want me to help you a little?”
Connie, who had been on the verge of tears under her workload, brightened. After a brief internal struggle with her conscience, she cautiously accepted.
“Then, I’ll ask you for this part. Thank you so much.”
I took the paperwork she handed over. Out of habit, I looked at the front of the documents.
‘Huh?’
I blinked my bleary eyes and checked again. The text hadn’t changed. Before I knew it, the question slipped out:
“Connie, what exactly are you working on?”