The Disciplinary Committee (2)
"A d-disciplinary committee?! That's absurd!"
The moment she heard a disciplinary committee was being convened, Rhea nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Why would Special Tax Collector receive a reprimand instead of a medal? The people who actually did wrong are completely different people!"
"The Tax Collection Bureau's work has ground to a halt, so the Treasury isn't functioning properly right now. People have every right to be angry."
"What?! What are you talking about! How is any of that Special Tax Collector's fault? This is all because the Tax Collection Bureau was rotten with fraud and corruption!"
"So you think this disciplinary committee is unreasonable."
"Of course it is!"
When I asked the question with a blank, indifferent face, Rhea leapt to her feet and raised her voice.
I, the person actually involved, didn't care in the slightest. If anything, I was thrilled.
So why on earth was Rhea the one getting angry?
Normally, when your superior's head was about to roll, the sensible first reaction was to worry about your own neck. Or so I would have thought.
Is it because she's a rookie?
A young, spirited new hire who lived and died by her sense of justice.
I'd seen the type often enough back in my Intelligence Bureau days.
But unless they had the skill or the connections to back it up, a rookie who stood too straight snapped all too easily. Some died mid-mission because they couldn't stand by while civilians suffered. Plenty more refused to bend their principles, grew disillusioned, and walked away from the field entirely.
Looking at Rhea's furious face, I found myself remembering the rookies who had drifted through my life and vanished just as quickly — faces I'd long since forgotten.
"Senior Secretariat Rhea. You said you became a civil servant to get ahead in the world, didn't you?"
"Why are you suddenly bringing that up…?"
"Then sometimes you need the ability to just accept things as they are, even when they don't make sense to you."
"But you never did that, Special Tax Collector."
"Did I, now? I wonder."
"Yes! I've been watching from right beside you this whole time! I may not know everything else, but that much I know better than anyone!"
Know? She didn't know a damn thing.
She didn't understand any of it.
I'd only done all that because I wanted to escape the Treasury as fast as humanly possible.
Damn it. If things just hadn't gone sideways…
"If everyone had carried out their duties fairly and by the book the way you do, Special Tax Collector, none of this would have happened in the first place!"
"Ahem. Ahem. No, look, what I'm trying to say is…"
"The people who should be sitting as defendants at this disciplinary committee are the Tax Collection Bureau staff and the higher-ups who looked the other way while they ran wild!"
"Haa. This is driving me insane."
"I understand perfectly well what you're trying to tell me, Special Tax Collector. But no matter how I look at it, this particular case just isn't right."
I'd blown up a mansion with a cannon over unpaid inheritance tax, casually tossed out racial slurs at non-human races, and collected the poll tax by slapping on whatever interest rates I felt like.
By what possible standard was I a normal tax collector?
Anyone with eyes could see I was a lunatic.
And yet she was claiming I'd carried out my duties fairly and by the book. Was she serious, or was she joking?
I was genuinely speechless.
I shook my head slowly and spoke again to Rhea, who was staring at me with eyes blazing with righteous fire.
"Unlike a worn-out wreck like me, you're still a rookie. And aside from graduating from the Academy, you've got nothing to fall back on."
"Well, that's true, but…"
"Play the long game. Think about your family back home."
"……"
"Even if it's filthy and underhanded, you endure it, and you climb. Then once you're the one sitting in a high seat, that's when you force your convictions and your justice through."
"I… I…"
"What you need to be doing right now isn't clinging to a rotten rope like me and fretting over my problems. It's finding a way to save yourself."
Rhea stared at me, her eyes welling up, as if she had a thousand things she wanted to say and couldn't bring herself to say any of them.
Leaving her like that, I stepped out of the office.
"Whew."
The moment I hit the corridor, I let out a long sigh of relief.
Good grief. I never took her for the stubborn type, but look at that mule-headed resolve.
A rookie was supposed to do as she was told from above, not talk back point by point.
Still, I'd said this much. Surely she'd quietly go find her own way out now, right?
Yes. Rhea, please, I'm begging you — don't do anything. Just stay put.
That's how you help me.
I really, truly want to quit this time.
"We will now begin the disciplinary committee for Special Tax Collector and 1st Grade Management Officer Rohan Blackwood."
And so the disciplinary committee began.
The moment some nameless junior staffer finished speaking, every self-important figure in the Treasury who fancied himself a big deal settled his heavy rear into a chair.
Honestly. The Tax Collection Bureau had just exploded and everyone should have been drowning in work — so why had so many of them shown up?
Across from me sat not only Vice Minister Bern, but even Minister Elena, who by all rights should still have been home on medical leave.
Tsk. Famous feasts never had anything worth eating, as the saying went.
At worst it was a suspension or a pay cut, right?
What exactly was there to see that had them all flocking here in a herd?
"Haa. Vice Minister Bern. Convening a disciplinary committee out of nowhere without so much as a report to me — what exactly are you trying to pull here?"
Elena, her face markedly gaunter than the last time I'd seen her only days ago, let out a sigh.
Apparently she hadn't been told why the committee was being held at all, and had come straight from resting at home.
I'd assumed she was faking it, but it seemed she'd genuinely been ill.
Not that it mattered to me either way.
The instant her words ended, Vice Minister Bern rose from his seat with a thin, oily smile, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this.
"While both the Minister and I, the Vice Minister, were away from our posts, Rohan Blackwood handed the entire Tax Collection Bureau over to the Inspectorate without a single report of any kind."
"And you, Vice Minister, convened this disciplinary committee without reporting to me either."
"Minister, nearly every department's work has stopped because the Tax Collection Bureau is under inspection. Given the urgency of the matter, I ask that you understand I had no choice but to convene this committee under the Vice Minister's authority."
"By that same logic, wasn't the fraud and corruption the Tax Collection Bureau committed an urgent matter as well? According to these documents the Inspectorate sent over, contractors were exploiting powerless imperial citizens while invoking the Treasury's name, and the tax collectors took bribes and looked the other way. Is that not what it says?"
"That matter was one that could have been fully reported to either myself or the Minister in advance. Had Rohan Blackwood followed the chain of command, we could have prepared, and this catastrophe of the entire Treasury grinding to a halt would never have occurred."
As if he had anticipated every single thing Minister Elena might say, Vice Minister Bern answered every one of her questions without the slightest hesitation.
"Fraud and corruption must be rooted out. On that point, I agree. But was it truly necessary to charge ahead like this, without so much as a report?"
"And what about the imperial citizens suffering right this moment?"
"That can be handled later through compensation procedures, can it not? Minister, you must look at the entire forest, not fixate on a single tree. If our Treasury fails to process its work on time, other institutions are affected, and that will plunge the entire Empire into chaos."
"Looking solely at the atrocities those contractors committed against imperial citizens, it's a miracle there hasn't already been a rebellion. You say I'm looking at a single tree, Vice Minister — from where I sit, it seems you're the one who can't see the forest."
Had both of them greased their tongues before coming here?
Their exchange was so relentless, so unwilling to yield an inch, that even I as a spectator found myself flustered.
"I, along with every department head gathered in this room, believe Rohan Blackwood orchestrated this affair with impure motives."
"Impure motives? Vice Minister, you would do well to choose your words carefully."
"Yes. I am being more careful right now than at any other time. Think about it. Why, of all moments, did the Inspectorate suddenly storm in while the Minister was on medical leave and I was away at an Imperial Council meeting? Doesn't the timing strike you as odd?"
"If they judged the matter urgent, that would be entirely possible."
"Had the Inspectorate taken only the tax collector named Wilson, I would have thought the same. But they dragged off every last member of the Tax Collection Bureau, including Director Theodore. That is what makes it suspicious."
"That is a matter on which you should be demanding an explanation from the Inspectorate."
Minister Elena had done her best to defend my position, but the opinions of Vice Minister Bern and the others were already set in stone.
Even as Minister, Elena had reached the point where she had no choice but to read the room.
"So then. What disciplinary action do all of you wish to impose on the Special Tax Collector?"
Sure enough. After a brief silence, Elena looked around at those present and reluctantly asked for their opinion.
"We believe the appropriate discipline for Special Tax Collector Rohan Blackwood is a three-month suspension, followed by a six-month pay reduction upon his return to duty."
"W-what did you just say?!"
A suspension and a pay cut at the same time.
For a civil servant, that was as good as a death sentence.
A pay cut alone usually meant you would never be promoted for the rest of your career. A suspension went without saying.
The discipline they were demanding would put a full stop on my career — the equivalent of wiping clean everything I had built as a civil servant up to this point.
And it wouldn't stop with me. It could leave a permanent stain on the record of Minister Elena, the one who had recommended me.
They're warning Minister Elena while turning me into a vegetable — slowly starving me out before they kick me to the curb.
Strictly speaking, it was insubordination.
They weren't merely trying to bury me. They were going further — driving a stake into the ground so Elena would never again exercise her personnel authority however she pleased without consulting them first.
Elena bit down hard on her lip and glared at Vice Minister Bern.
Of course, as Minister, she held the final decision. But she couldn't simply ignore their collective opinion either.
And more to the point — would these people have walked into this room without preparing for the possibility that Elena might refuse?
They had almost certainly come armed with any number of methods to pressure her if it came to that.
I'm genuinely fine with this, though.
It wasn't an impeachment. It wasn't a dismissal.
And I wasn't being removed for a criminal offense either.
That meant my pension and severance wouldn't be cut — so as far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with it at all.
A suspension? That was basically a vacation.
A pay cut? Honestly, it stung a little, but a few months of thinner paychecks wasn't going to starve me to death.
I was planning to quit anyway.
And once I came back from suspension, I'd already be shut out of actual work — so I could sit at my desk all day staring into space and then clock out. Perfect.
Eventually Vice Minister Bern would accept my resignation, and it'd be pure gravy.
Just give them what they're asking for.
When my eyes met the hesitating Minister Elena's, I quietly nodded.
She chewed her lip, then gripped the gavel with a trembling hand.
"S-Special Tax Collector Rohan is hereby removed from duty, and a p-pay red—"
Just as she squeezed her eyes shut and prepared to bring the gavel down—
"Th-this is terrible! Terrible!!"
The conference room doors burst open, and several staff members came rushing in with ashen faces.
"You insolent—! Do you have any idea where you are—!"
Vice Minister Bern's neck veins bulged as he roared in fury.
But the staffers stammered on, their faces white with terror.
"A-an enraged crowd is gathering in front of the Treasury! Everyone needs to evacuate!"
"What?! What in blazes are you talking about! Speak clearly!"
The chamber erupted into a stir.
A flustered Vice Minister Bern seized the reporting staffer by the collar and shouted.
And then that staffer urgently pointed straight at me.
"Th-they're demanding the immediate release of the Special Tax Collector…"
At those words, not only I but everyone in the room went mute as fish with their mouths full of honey.
Release?
I wasn't even locked up in a prison. What release?
What on earth was going on?
Suddenly, out of nowhere?
It seemed yet another problem had cropped up in my otherwise perfect resignation plan.