I'm Actually Pretty Good at Administration Too, You Know?

Praise came pouring down on me. Franz looked up at me with eyes positively sparkling, Walter clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to leave bruises, and Seraphina and Erika simply stared at me in silence.

That was when the Regimental Commander stepped up in front of me.

"Lieutenant Max Jäger."

"Sir! Regimental Commander."

I snapped to attention and saluted. The commander was looking down at me with a peculiar expression. Until now, his eyes had held the look of a man appraising an excellent chess piece—but this was something else.

Status Analysis.

Bingo.

I could practically hear the abacus whirring away inside the old fox's skull, spinning at full speed. So the man wasn't just good at fighting—he had a talent for politics too? This was nothing short of a goose that laid golden eggs.

"You are... truly remarkable."

The commander gripped my shoulder tightly.

"On the battlefield you fight like a demon, and in the conference room you orate like a seasoned diplomat. Thanks to you, the honor of our regiment stands intact."

"Thank you, sir. But it isn't over yet."

I took care to refresh the mood.

"Lieutenant Colonel Zwinger hasn't retreated. If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anything, he's swallowed poison and is nursing his grudge. Tomorrow's document audit will be his chance to seize on any flaw he can find."

At my words, the commander's face darkened once more.

"...True. That venomous snake would never slink away quietly. The supply ledgers, the operation journals... where in the army is there a book you could shake out without dust falling from it?"

However much bombast I'd packed into my speech, reality remained cruel. Military administration was riddled with holes by its very nature. Even without embezzlement, the books almost never matched the physical counts, and rushed operations left mountains of omitted reports in their wake.

And Zwinger would burrow into every last one of those cracks.

A short while later.

The Regimental Commander, Major Helga, Supply Master Sergeant Hermann, and every other relevant officer had been summoned to deal with the inspection. The mood in the room was that of a funeral wake. The fighting spirit they'd shown shouting down Zwinger just moments ago had evaporated; now they did nothing but heave sighs at the mountain of documents piled before them.

"...Colonel, I'll be honest with you. Getting all of this squared away in a single day is next to impossible."

Supply Sergeant Hermann reported, on the verge of tears.

"We're fifteen percent short on rations against the books. The ammunition situation is worse. The issue logs say it went out, but thousands of rounds are missing from the actual combat expenditure reports. And then there's the supplies we captured off the orcs—nobody logged those, the men ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just split them up among themselves. The moment Zwinger digs through the storage manifests, half the regiment is looking at a cell in the stockade."

"And you call that a report?!"

The commander growled, pressing a hand to his forehead.

"Did I tell you people to keep meticulous paperwork, or didn't I?!"

"Y-you did, sir, but... the conditions at the forward supply depot were such a disaster that..."

Hermann trailed off, glancing around nervously.

Status Analysis.

Now was my moment.

I quietly raised my hand.

"It's not as if there's no way at all."

Every eye in the room snapped to me.

"Yes—Lieutenant Jäger, let's hear it."

The commander's eyes trembled with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straw. I didn't keep him waiting.

"First, we need to reconcile the ammunition expenditure."

The commander nodded along.

"Right. The reports record only thirty percent expended, but the issue logs show forty-five percent left the depot. The whereabouts of the remaining fifteen percent are a mystery."

He tapped the ledger with his finger.

"If we can't account for it, it's embezzlement. It must have been lost somewhere along the line... but there's no finding it now, and no time to try."

I closed my eyes briefly. A fifteen percent gap. There was only one way to fill it: reclassify it not as 'expenditure' but as 'disposal.' Considering the conditions in the Ashen Forest, the excuse practically wrote itself.

The problem was justification. To shut a strict inspector's mouth, I would have to shove the very regulations he worshipped right back in his face.

But even I didn't have the entire Imperial rulebook memorized. And time was critically short. It would be all but impossible for the officers gathered here to read through everything overnight.

...Not that I had to do it myself. As it happened, I had exactly the right skill for the job.

Connect.

Time to work, you ghosts.

I took the ledger in hand and rested my chin on my fist, deliberately wearing a grave expression. To anyone watching, I must have looked like an officer deep in agonized contemplation—while inside my head, a typewriter was clattering away at the speed of light.

[Currently trying to cover the 15% ammunition gap as 'disposal.' My plan is to write it off as defective rounds ruined by the humidity of the Ashen Forest, plus losses sustained during engagements. I need the relevant regulations.]

I typed it out and hit post.

The comments came flooding in almost immediately.

Okay. Exactly the clause I was hoping for.

I deactivated the skill at once and returned to reality.

"Regimental Commander. That fifteen percent was never lost."

"What? Then where did it go?"

"It was disposed of."

"Disposed of?"

I began my explanation with a perfectly serious face.

"The Ashen Forest is a region with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠extremely high humidity. Our older-model rounds, already in poor storage condition, had absorbed enough moisture to pose a serious risk of misfires. A dud round mid-battle is a direct threat to our own men's lives. So I ordered them destroyed on the spot. Rather—I did order it."

"But there's no disposal report, is there?"

"It was a wartime emergency. There was no time to fill out paperwork in the middle of a firefight."

I recited the clause the Gallery had dug up for me.

"'Wartime Emergency Materiel Management Regulations,' Article 14, Clause 3: 'Field commanders hold the authority to act first and report afterward regarding defective materiel that may pose a critical threat to an operation.' If we draft the after-action report on the basis of this clause, there is no issue."

"......!"

The commander's eyes went wide. He hurriedly flipped through the regulation binder, found the relevant clause, and clicked his tongue in disbelief.

"...He's right. He's absolutely right. And I'd overlooked it. Article 14, Clause 3. Good heavens, Lieutenant Jäger—you've memorized regulations buried this deep?"

"I simply paid close attention during the logistics courses back at the academy, sir."

"Impressive. Most officers dive headfirst into tactics and neglect administrative regulations entirely..."

The way the commander looked at me shifted yet again. No longer merely a brilliant field officer, but an elite who had mastered administration as well.

Status Analysis.

But this was only the beginning.

"Then what about this? The food supply records. The rations billed against our troop numbers are far too high. Anyone looking at this would think the men were carving into steak at every meal."

Sergeant Hermann scratched his head and handed over the documents.

"Let me see that."

I skimmed the ledger. Sure enough, the food expenditures were conspicuously high relative to troop strength.

They ate a lot? Then the obvious answer is that they moved a lot.

I sketched the broad strokes in my head: combat stress, high caloric expenditure, and the disposal of enemy materiel. Weave those three threads together and we had our story.

The sticking point, as always, was regulations. Even I didn't know every last rule in the Imperial Army code—

But with a cheat skill, that was a different matter entirely.

Connect.

[Overspent ration budget. Need the relevant regulations.]

I typed it out and hit post. Comments:

I nodded and tossed the answer to Hermann.

"Special rations were issued to boost the men's morale ahead of the fierce fighting. As for the foodstuffs captured from the orc positions—they were suspected of being poisoned, so they were incinerated in their entirety, and additional rations were drawn from our own supply in their place. It was a measure taken to prevent a violation of Sanitation Code Article 7."

"......! I'll, I'll draft the report right away!"

Hermann gaped in admiration and began scribbling furiously with his pen.

Time slipped swiftly by. The deeper the night grew, the more tangled the problems became—but the collective wisdom of the Gallery's grizzled veterans knew no limits.

"What about the excessive uniform allowance claims?"

"Corrosion of the uniforms by the orcs' acidic blood. Emphasize the necessity of early replacement."

"The shortage of medical supplies?"

"Say they were allocated to preventive disinfection operations. Epidemic prevention is sacred ground even the Inspectorate won't dare touch."

"This operation map doesn't match the actual routes of advance. Lieutenant Colonel Zwinger will hound us for deviating from the pre-approved plan."

"It falls within the field commander's discretionary authority. Field Manual Article 2, Clause 5 explicitly permits minor route deviations arising from unexpected changes in combat conditions."

Each time, I would glance at the documents, stare vacantly into space for a moment (Gallery-surfing, to be precise), and produce a flawless answer in under a minute.

With every repetition, the officers gathered in the conference room grew more and more speechless. Those who had begun the night in open admiration had now gone past astonishment into something bordering on reverence as they watched me work.

Status Analysis.