41.
To be precise, they only partially overlapped.
‘My Dear Male Lead, why are you acting like this?’
The progression I remembered from the original story was changing. Suddenly. In a way that I couldn’t even guess the cause.
‘Under normal circumstances, the voices should have been raised over the tax rate issue first.’
The war had taken place only in parts of the Empire’s east and north. Upon his return, the Emperor had decided to lower the tax rate slightly to facilitate the restoration of those regions.
‘That much is what already happened.’
In the original work, problems arose because the west and south also demanded tax cuts, citing war damages. The war had been long and fierce, but it hadn’t spread to those regions. Their damages, if any, were negligible.
‘The Emperor, who initially ignored the opinions of the nobles from the west and the south, eventually couldn’t take it anymore and started to pressure them.’
The fact that the argument had been skipped meant that the scouting battle between the nobles and the Emperor at the start of his return had vanished entirely. They had gone straight to the point. In a much more radical way.
‘What kind of change of heart is the Emperor going through?’
No matter how I searched my memory, I couldn’t guess the catalyst for the original story to be diverted. As far as I knew, nothing special had occurred around the Emperor.
‘Perhaps it’s a lack of information.’
I was on the slower side when it came to news; I wouldn’t even know the rumors within the Imperial Palace if Connie didn’t pass them on to me. My only point of reference was the original story, but the Emperor’s life before meeting the female lead was not covered in much depth. Consequently, I had to infer it from scattered flashbacks or dialogue. The nobles’ request for tax cuts was a sort of turning point—a catalyst for the Emperor to turn against them.
And the matter of the Emperor’s marriage was the fuse that ignited the tension. It meant that if the argument for tax cuts had been weak, there would have been no reason for the Emperor to be so sensitive about the marriage proposal. After all, the Emperor was a man who had thought, ‘a political marriage is part of my duty,’ until he met the female lead.
‘If this goes off-track, will the timeline of other events change as well?’
My plan to play it safe using my memories of the original until the female lead appeared was on the verge of ruin. Even in the worst way I could possibly imagine.
Perhaps seeing that my expression was unsettled, Connie hurriedly added, “They said it’s not like anyone died or anything.”
However, that wasn’t much of a comfort.
‘They might soon, though.’
I looked back on the events that occurred before the female lead’s appearance.
‘So, the next one is…….’
Afterward, the nobles would reorganize their ranks and start rebelling against the Emperor’s words at every turn.
‘Since he’s an Emperor who is already popular with the imperial citizens and has grasped the military power, it was a gamble the nobles threw, fearing that their power would weaken throughout his reign if they were pushed back once.’
As nobles who only united during times like this, they were all one gang, regardless of their origin. Even the former Emperor, who would be labeled the most incompetent and unpopular ruler until the day the Empire fell, didn’t think to make the entire nobility his enemy. They must have believed that forming an alliance guaranteed a fairly high win rate.
‘If only the opponent weren’t the current Emperor.’
The Emperor was the type who left no room for compromise. Meanwhile, his intelligence unit, including Kyle, had a natural talent for digging up corruption. In the original work, the nobles who attempted to rebel were weeded out and lost their positions in order of their radicalism. Appropriate punishments were handed down—stripping of titles, execution, or exile. Since there wasn’t a single noble who didn’t have dirt on them once shaken, they were dragged away as criminals, and the links of the alliance gradually loosened.
‘It’s self-inflicted, since the Emperor wasn’t framing them for crimes they didn’t commit.’
In this process, a bloody wind blew through the officials of the Capital. Not only those who had picked the wrong side, but sometimes unlucky bystanders were affected by the purging of a powerful figure. It meant that low-level people like us could be unfairly caught up in it again, just like the incident Connie went through last time.
Originally, I had intended to dodge and weave until the Emperor’s personality developed through his relationship with the female lead, but the situation had changed. I had been keeping a low profile because I thought the influence of the typhoon would reach my surroundings, but if I couldn’t predict its movement, I needed a strategy other than simply crouching down and enduring.
‘There’s no guarantee that I, or those around me, won’t be the unlucky person swept away by the suddenly shifted path of the typhoon.’
My heart had once tilted toward refusing the Blue Falcon’s offer, but perhaps the eye of the typhoon was safer. Yet, when I actually received the offer, I didn’t have the courage to walk into it myself. That was still the case now. The Emperor was a reasonably moderate boss to his subordinates, so I wondered if I should accept Kyle’s offer, but…….
‘Even if the Emperor acted a bit leniently toward those around him, it didn’t mean safety was always guaranteed.’
In fact, there was a description in the original work that stated: ‘In the case of servants who leaked trivial information by colluding with nobles or adjutants who ruined a mission due to a blunder, they were actually given even heavier punishments.’
‘Servants are one thing, but the adjutant was a close associate who had been through the war with him for quite a while, and he cut him off. Without blinking an eye.’
Huh?
Wait a minute.
I felt like something very important had just flashed through my mind. My sixth sense was clamoring at me—that I would regret it if I missed it. I was in pain, struggling with a clue that was just out of reach. Perhaps interpreting my appearance in a certain way, Connie tried to comfort me.
“Well, the higher-ups might be nervous, but what would happen to us lowly ones?”
The problem was that something *did* seem likely to happen. Around me. And a big problem that I needed to realize right now.
Seeing that my expression, which had grown troubled by Connie’s words, showed no sign of softening, Connie’s comfort continued. “In the first place, we’ll barely cross paths with them. We’ll just do our work as we always have, like running on a treadmill.”
It was Connie, trying to reassure me with a rare, serious attitude.
‘That’s true, too. A weed rooted in the ground endures a typhoon better, after all.’
“I suppose so?”
Just as the atmosphere was about to get serious and I was trying to lift the corners of my mouth to answer, it happened. It felt like the end of the clue, which had been just out of reach, had accidentally touched my hand.
“Connie, wait! I think I need to recall something very important right now.”
It was a sudden remark that didn’t fit the context, but Connie’s mouth snapped shut. Working at the Ministry Of Finance, it was safe to say that Connie and I were the weeds of the lowest class within the Imperial Palace.
‘I thought that since I didn’t even have enough presence to appear in the original work, all I had to do was lie low.’
However, I had recently formed a small connection with those who reached a bit deeper.
‘Now that I think about it, I did know an adjutant!’
Everett Rohas.
Someone who could be in danger even if the original story went as planned was close to me.
‘That adjutant who was punished severely for ruining a mission due to a blunder—that wouldn’t be Everett, would it?’
The appearance of that unfortunate adjutant was only about two lines in the book; he was a supporting character close to an extra, and names like that didn’t appear. There was only a brief mention that the punishment had been delivered because of the adjutant’s mistake during the Emperor’s process of purging his political rivals.
‘The name wasn’t explicitly stated, so I had just glossed over it.’
I didn’t know exactly how many adjutants the Emperor had, but given the organizational structure, there would be around ten, so the probability was quite high.
‘Did Everett ever appear after the original story started?’