The Flavor of Power
A day had passed. I greeted the morning with a heart that pounded like it might burst.
Thanks to the servants’ meticulous care, my departure preparations were finished in the blink of an eye.
The glossy fabric of my clothes wasn’t simple cloth at all—it was nano-fiber with built-in protective functions, and every small device adjusted for my biological rhythm and body temperature. This was the Empire’s finest formal wear.
“It’s amazing. This outfit.”
“If Your Highness likes it, I’ll have the exclusive designer who made it place additional orders.”
“Yeah, do that. Focus on practicality rather than looks. Make it functional and useful.”
“As Your Highness commands.”
I asked lightly because I wondered what even more amazing and convenient outfit might exist. Now that I had become the Grand Duke, I was starting to enjoy these luxuries. I just needed to get used to it and breathe naturally.
But the true test of naturalness was in those little details.
Passing through the marble corridors, we reached the reception room. It sat right in the center of a vast indoor garden the palace had created.
The humid, fresh air that real dirt and plants exhaled—something impossible to imagine in the polluted outside world—made my mood feel good. At the center of the enormous dome-shaped greenhouse stood the reception hall’s location, a traditional pavilion structure.
I sank deep into the soft anti-gravity sofa placed right in the middle of the pavilion, and Roan, waiting beside me, stepped forward.
From outside I could feel the buzz of a fairly large number of people waiting.
“Why so many?”
“Forgive me, Your Highness. So many wish to see Your Highness that we have even now culled them to the minimum.”
“Let one person in at a time. Don’t let them all swarm at once or it’ll be exhausting.”
“As Your Highness commands.”
Roan signaled toward the outside, and the semi-transparent alloy door blocking the pavilion entrance slid open smoothly.
The first to enter was a middle-aged noble dressed in a flamboyant banquet outfit.
The moment his feet touched the soft carpet, he dropped to one knee, lowered his head, and carefully took a sleek platinum box from his robe, lifting it up.
“Count Bares, representative of the Capital Water Logistics Association, Your Highness. I have come to congratulate Your Highness on the assumption of your title and to present this personal quantum climate controller filled with the sincerity of our association.”
When Bares opened the box, the semi-transparent cubic device rose into the air, giving off a faint light.
“This is the highest-grade equipment that optimizes humidity and temperature within a five-meter radius in real time according to Your Highness’s brainwave patterns. A rare item developed in the Dark Age…”
“I’ll decide later if I’ll accept it. For now, put it away.”
My careless one-line remark halted Bares’s mouth. At my gesture, Roan stepped forward, silently took the box from the count’s hand, and whisked it out of sight.
Bares’s pupils shook with confusion, but soon he showed his characteristic oily smile of a seasoned bureaucrat.
“I am honored. My meager preparations cannot fully satisfy Your Highness’s noble sensibilities. However, I have ventured to come see Your Highness today without permission to prove my loyalty and to present one small request.”
“Hmmm?”
He started with a bribe—obviously money or favor. Interpreting my lazy reaction as positive, the count began excitedly.
“Recently there have been unfortunate incidents with the bio-paste distribution network in the slums of Zone 7. The slums have frequent small-scale riots and manpower losses from epidemics, so we request a 30 percent increase in the maintenance budget for distribution network security.”
His tone was elegantly wrapped, but he was clearly asking for more money pulled from the Empire’s pockets with various excuses.
No, wait, I felt like laughing. My sister had stirred up a bloodbath in Da-jeon, yet he was still doing this crazy thing?
Dumbstruck, I stared at him again without meaning to.
There was not a trace of fear or guilt in the count’s eyes when he met mine. He genuinely saw the slums’ right to life and death as less important than livestock.
This was trash. Worse than the corrupt superior I’d known in my previous life.
But I didn’t feel bad. If this was the type of human I could dispose of without guilt, then so be it.
“Roan. Tell me—does Zone 7 really have riots or epidemics?”
At my cool question, Roan’s ashen eyes turned toward Bares.
“There are no special problems with public order compared to other regions. No epidemic reports either.”
Bares’s shoulders stiffened. I leaned back on the sofa and looked down at him lazily.
“No riots, no epidemics?”
“T-that’s because there are incidents that weren’t reported on paper!”
Realizing he’d been caught, he hurriedly tried to make excuses, but it was too late.
“Roan. Keep talking.”
“On paper it says 30,000 people died from epidemics, but the actual bio-paste production in Zone 7 increased by 5 percent compared to last month.”
“Hmph. Three people who didn’t die vanished, yet production increased?”
I stared at him in disbelief. The count began spewing various excuses—efficiency allocation, commoners’ usage, and so on. I listened to the incomprehensible babble from one ear.
“Roan. From the morning, the stench of garbage is making my stomach turn. Handle it.”
At those words, Bares leapt up in shock, but the instant he was on his feet his body was lifted into the air. The palace guards waiting outside had silently surrounded him from behind and pinned him down.
“Don’t waste the money—confiscate all his property. Investigate any other corruption he sold 30,000 people for and handle it as you see fit.”
Bares’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
“Y-Your Highness! I am a high noble of the Ministry of Commerce! Without a trial… eek!”
No matter what he shouted, before me he was just a criminal caught red-handed.
“Shut up. Drag him away.”
Bares was dragged out like luggage, his mouth sealed by the guards’ iron grip.
“Next.”
The door opened again, and this time a baron from the Technology Ministry introduced himself as he entered.
His eyes were completely different from the last one. Seeing the count being dragged out, sweat already beaded on his forehead.
“Y-Your Highness! I am nothing like that count! I have not come to beg for anything! I wish only to dedicate this body to Your Highness’s service…”
“Really? But I’ll choose who I use as my own tool myself. Did you waste my precious time just to make that obvious speech?”
My dry slap made the baron’s shoulders tremble.
He had come to swear loyalty, wagging his tail, but this was just a thin ploy to avoid audit or punishment.
“Roan. What’s wrong with this guy?”
Roan read the holographic document in a neutral voice.
“There is evidence that he double-billed maintenance costs for air purifier filters and embezzled the funds. To hide the embezzlement, he manipulated the filter replacement cycle, intentionally raising the acid rain concentration in the slum zone.”
“I can’t figure out what tool of mine would only think of skimming money. Handle him too.”
“P-please spare me, Your Highness! Aaaah!”
The baron screamed horribly as he was dragged away by the guards.
With one word I could manipulate a person’s life and fortune. It should have been heavy on the conscience, but somehow I felt a thrill—like gutting the black-company executives who’d chewed me up in my previous life.
This was absolute power.
“Next.”
The third to enter was different from the flamboyant nobles. A man in plain, undecorated clothes walked in, suppressing extreme tension.
The moment he touched the carpet he prostrated himself deeply and spoke in a steady tone.
“I am Kyle, the chief agent of the Ashen Trade Guild that operates between border routes. I beg Your Highness to accept me as your subordinate.”
Hmmm. Same type as the baron who’d been wagging his tail earlier?
I almost decided to dispose of him on the spot, but the atmosphere was subtly different from the previous two, so I asked Roan for information.
“Roan. What’s on his record?”
“No special problems. A commoner who independently operates a trade guild and has produced quite exceptional results.”
I was about to listen a little more. There seemed to be a clear purpose behind the flattery, not just empty words, which piqued my interest.
“Straight to the point. A man with no backers who crawled into the palace must have a good reason. Tell me.”
Kyle’s pupils flashed with obvious calculation. He took a deep breath and poured out his proposal without hesitation.
“Please grant my guild the overall authority for central logistics and purification control. If we exclude the illegal tributes and middlemen’s cuts the nobles have been giving the border Star System Dukes, we can cut 30 percent from maintenance costs while raising logistics efficiency by 10 percent. I will demonstrate profit that will maximize what Your Highness’s account receives, staking my life on it.”
Hmmm. There was a slight irritation that he so openly spoke of money, but the attitude of guaranteeing results with clear numbers was admirable.
All right, how would I use this guy?
I had Roan send the details via terminal and took the device myself. Reading through the holographic data revealed quite an interesting story.
A commoner who had started in Terra’s slums, built his own guild, and achieved exceptional results. He had small illegal traces because he dealt with corrupt nobles, but they were cute compared to his superiors’ grease, so they could be overlooked.
Above all, his courage to stake his life on a gamble appealed to me. Let’s give him a try.
“Sure. Good.”
I set the terminal down and smiled lazily.
“Confiscate the property of the nobles we just took. Transfer logistics management authority to this man.”
Kyle’s eyes, still prostrated, sparkled brightly. I looked down at him and drove the nail in.
“No bribes needed. Run the business properly and pay the imperial taxes without even one copper missed. Exactly.”
“Your Highness…”
“From now on I’ll watch how you work meticulously. If you perform well, I’ll become your solid backer.”
Kyle sucked in a sharp breath. A commoner guild leader had become the Grand Duke’s direct subordinate. I could be someone’s backer. The feeling was oddly good.
I liked the man, so I resolved to watch him seriously.
Kyle was a commoner running an exceptional success track.
He had built his guild with his bare fists, but without a proper backer he had endured the nobles’ checks and exploitation all this time, barely growing. The limits of being commoner were now clearly approaching.
Then he watched the new empress carry out her bloody purge and decided to take a terrifying gamble. If he could use the merciless imperial power as his backer, he could shatter every limit.
But soon the merciless bloodbath forced him to rethink. The empress was like the sun—too hot and ruthless. Approaching her meant certain death.
Instead, he changed his target to the title of Grand Duke that had been bestowed upon him by the absolute power’s protection. And finally the gamble he staked his life on yielded a brilliant success.
“I will never forget it! I will devote myself until I become dust beneath Your Highness’s feet!”
He had crawled on the ground for decades under the nobles’ trampling. But things had changed. He now had an overwhelming backer who would never lose to any duke.
‘A lord who doesn’t even demand bribes but only looks at skill!’
Kyle’s eyes were filled with unendurable joy and reverence.
He prostrated himself so deeply his head nearly scraped the floor and retreated backward out of the greenhouse pavilion. This audience had been a dizzy gamble that could have gotten his head cut off. But the sweet result gave a thrill that no success he had ever achieved in his life could match.
‘As long as I get my mark, there’s nothing to fear in the Empire’s commercial domain from now on!’
Thinking that, Kyle urged his guild’s steps. To keep the Grand Duke’s backer, he now had to prove his usefulness with perfect results and records.
His heart was about to burst.