Kneel, Bark, and Get Hired

So all it took was one of those dogeza grovels?

"Um... uh... h-have... have some tea..."

The next Judicial Aide—the woman who might one day rise all the way to the Supreme Court, one Elena Rays—finally seemed to have calmed down a little.

Let me say that again: that sweaty, dripping wreck of a woman was her calm. When I'd first revealed that I was the Emperor, she'd gone and vomited no fewer than three times.

Between the brown hair hanging to her waist and those perpetually sunken eyes, she had already looked ghostly enough; the hellish grind of her duties had hollowed her out into something even closer to a walking corpse. Add that unwieldy hulk of a frame on top, and maybe "eight-foot ghost" was the closer description.

After darting several glances at me as I took a sip of my tea, she at last worked up the courage for her first words.

"F-First of all... it is an honor to, to meet you... that's how it goes, right...? Hehe, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he..."

"Relax. I'm not here to eat you."

"...Pardon?"

"Don't let my reputation fool you—put someone capable in front of me and I'll even let them drop the formalities. So don't be scared."

"Ah... ahaha... of course... sire..."

She wasn't buying a word of it.

Then again, if a man wearing the chilling title of Blood Emperor told me to make myself at home, I wouldn't swallow it either. No—Ian had simply received a catastrophically bad upbringing, that was all there was to it.

Still, the attempt to put her at ease seemed to have landed; with a small, steadying breath, her expression loosened a fraction.

"I heard you came looking for me... is there... something you need...?"

"I'll ask you point-blank. You're the one who taught the prisoners how to write retrial petitions, aren't you?"

"...Uheh?"

"I was genuinely impressed. They understood every trial down to the letter, then dug into the smallest lingering doubts and proved the need for a retrial each time. Were you in this line of work before?"

Thanks to her, my workload had doubled—but the bare minimum I demanded of a Judicial Aide was airtight command of the law. The post was hopelessly understaffed for what it asked, so anyone hoping to survive it needed elite fundamentals. She was on an entirely different plane from the former aide, who'd had to dig through law books by hand for even the monthly trickle of petty theft cases.

She went rigid for a moment; then, trembling, she answered.

"P-Perhaps... there has been some sort of misunderstanding...?"

"A misunderstanding?"

"T-teaching criminals how to write retrial petitions... done wrong, that could get you arrested as an accomplice. Why on earth would anyone do something that insane...?"

That was exactly what I couldn't figure out about her.

Tartarus held only those whose guilt was beyond dispute, so ferreting out cracks in those convictions was, in effect, hurling a gauntlet at the justice system itself. Forget accessory charges—they could have executed her on the spot. From where she stood, of course she'd deny everything.

'Every Tartarus guard, without exception, is granted a private office—right?'

I'd heard a fair number of them even ate and slept on-site. I looked around the room, then borrowed a knife from Elise. When I pried open the small hatch built into the ceiling, she jolted in alarm.

"W-Wait a moment...!"

Whsshh—a cascade of paper came raining down. I fished a few sheets out of the pile.

The traces of her thinking were plain to see: this prisoner might qualify for a retrial on these grounds; that one might be overturned if someone probed here. Her handwriting was lovely, at least. With a little more care spent on her appearance, she might even have been pretty.

"This looks like an open-and-shut case to me. What do you think?"

"Hehe... hehehe...!"

And then the frozen Elena laughed.

All that stammering had vanished; legs crossed now, she regarded me with a perfectly composed expression. What—was she secretly made of sterner stuff after all? I had only just started to get wary when—

"So? What do I have to do to live? Should I do the dogeza thing?"

"...What?"

"Well, if I've done something that naughty, then dogeza it is. See? I'm doing it—like this, like this? Or is a naked dogeza more to your taste? You are a man, after all."

She sank to her knees on the floor and, as if to prove she had no will to resist, pressed both palms flat down as well. One moment she looked pale enough to froth at the mouth—the next, she was desperately, earnestly begging for her life.

"There! I'm kneeling! Fully ready to bark on command, too! Woof! Woof woof! Whine! Whiiiine!"

"...No."

"What? Why?? Do I look pathetic? It must break your heart, right!? Executing a shameless bitch like me wouldn't get you a single thing anyway!?"

She kept groveling across the floor, doing her best impression of a puppy. Wow. I hadn't exactly assumed she was sane, but this was a different species of not-sane.

I was too struck to speak, merely staring—and in her urgency she actually started to strip. The temperature around Elise was dropping at a rate I couldn't quite explain, so I hurried to stop her.

"Enough—sit down. I didn't come all this way to press charges."

"Eh?"

"I told you, didn't I? I'm magnanimous. And by my standards, what you did wasn't a crime."

The retrial petitions she had written all shared one trait: not a single one sought a lighter sentence.

Acquittal, or nothing.

More than that—a few of the pages that had just rained down from the ceiling read like this:

Reading them all together, this woman had not been aiding criminals. She had been aiding people who might well be innocent—accepting the risk to her own neck to do it.

"I have no idea what you stood to gain from it, but your talent impressed me. That's why I'm here. I'm poaching you."

"Poaching... me?"

"Go submit your resignation this instant and take the post of Judicial Aide in the Ministry of Justice. There's a mountain of work, so you start tomorrow. Any complaints?"

I had tried scouting talent from within the ministry itself, but nobody there came close to her. Besides, with Duke Argos's faction lying in wait, picking from a pool of bribe-guzzlers was a good way to get knifed in the back—hire one, get stabbed; hire another, get stabbed again. Who could say? What a hassle.

Measured against that, a woman who had held her one line absolutely firm inspired far more trust.

She stared up at me blankly for a long while, murmuring, "The Ministry of... Justice?"—and then her eyes slowly narrowed.

"Um, now hold on. Isn't that going a bit too far...?"

"Too far how?"

"Your Majesty admitted it yourself just now! I heard you, clearly—by Your Majesty's standards, this was not a crime..."

"......"

"Th-then you shouldn't use that as an excuse to order an upstanding citizen around, should you!? Are you a tyrant? Is this tyranny!? Why did you even make laws if this is what they're forrr!?!"

...What is wrong with this woman? What's gotten into her all of a sudden?

Until a moment ago she'd acted as though she'd do anything so long as he spared her life—and now, like a mouse that had finally turned on the cat, her eyes rolled back and she launched into open rebellion.

"Should I take that to mean you're refusing an imperial command?"

"I-I wouldn't take it quite so f-far as...!?"

"Then I don't understand. As my aide, your salary and rank would leap beyond all comparison with what you have now. So why refuse?"

"Th-that is... p-professional integrity! Guard work simply suits my nature...! And people do say life shouldn't be measured in money alone, don't they?"

The words themselves sounded plausible enough, but even an idiot could tell it was a lie. It seemed connected to whatever she'd muttered about the ministry earlier—but she clearly had neither the intention of explaining nor any desire to. I shrugged.

"Fine. Then let's call what you did a crime after all."

"...Pardon?"

"You just told me that coercing someone who'd done nothing wrong was a crime. So—unless you'd like a death sentence, come along quietly."

Her face drained white again as she scrambled for a counterattack.

"Y-you can't just retract a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠statement—"

"Watch me. Pointing a finger at the Emperor of Lugnica is, all by itself, ample grounds for execution. A felony, no less."

"Hah...!?" She hastily snatched her finger back—and Elise's strike slammed into her flank.

The ambush wrung a faintly comical "Urk!?" out of her, but she merely curled around her ribs and quivered on the floor.

"Shall I put her out with one blow? She's rather pitiful to watch."

"That was my intention as well, my lord. However, she coated her body in mana for an instant and defended against it."

Huh?

"Is this one a knight?"

"Judging by her complete lack of muscle, I would guess a mage. Going by her reflexes, a rather skilled one at that."

Oho~? Really? Now that was an unexpected bonus.

"S-Save me—" Elena was still reaching out, faintly pitiful to the very end, when Elise chopped down on her head and knocked her cold. I hoisted the unconscious woman over my shoulder and headed for the door.

"What shall be done about Lady Rays's letter of resignation?"

"Send word to the warden later, under my name. Tell him to pay out her severance on the spot—no room for excuses."

"Swift and decisive as ever, my lord."

"This is what the imperial throne is for. Who'd dare say a word ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to me about it? Anyone with a death wish?"

"Nnnghh..."

I hitched the groaning woman up again. Whatever her past was, it was none of my business—but from now on, she was going to be drowning in stress. So much that not a single night would pass without her thinking of me before she slept.

"What in the world is going on...!"

It was evening that same day. The nobles charged with keeping watch on the Emperor's every move had no choice but to hear the rumors the moment they broke—and this time, the news ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was more than enough to summon every last one of them.

The head of one count's house slammed a fist against his desk, his voice taut with agitation.

"You declared he couldn't kill hands and feet—the likes of aides—and yet one ended up dead, didn't he!"

"And here we'd breathed easy because a whole week passed without reprisal..."

"The true problem is that the Ministry of Justice appears to have suffered no damage whatsoever. I'm told the aide's duties were disposed of entirely under a Supreme Court justice's discretion."

"And above all that, the gravest problem is the military."

This time the head of a marquisate spoke, his voice heavy with grief.

"Ian Astrea—the man the rumors painted as a rebel... and now, of all things, he has gone over to the Emperor."

"Bestowing the post of Commander-in-Chief on him makes it plain there is nothing more to read into their relationship."

"For all practical purposes, pressuring the Emperor by force is no longer possible."

"Th-then what are we to do? Doesn't this mean Astrea has already told the Emperor everything about our plans...?"

A heavy silence answered the question, and the only sound in the room was the dreadful click of someone swallowing drily.

The military they had believed could never be taken from them had slipped away. The Emperor had killed an aide without a second thought, and contrary to all their hopes the ministry seemed to have taken no real damage. And beyond that—the Emperor might have sensed their schemes.

The Emperor knows. The Emperor knows. The Emperor knows.

That terrifying thought circled without end through the nobles' skulls. Tomorrow, the person seated beside any one of them might be dead—and that person might be themselves. Some were even beginning to think they ought to feign ignorance, brazen it out, and present their submission to the Emperor before it was too late.

"It is not over yet."

"!!!"

Duke Argos, who had kept his silence until now, finally opened his mouth.

"It has been only a single day since the aide died. With no one to replace him, a crack must inevitably open—and finding a person of that caliber will be no ordinary task."

"B-but did you not say as much last time... that even taking the military would require no less than a year—hng!?"

Argos's murderous glare snapped the count's mouth shut at once. The men whose object of fear had flipped from the Emperor to the Duke in the space of a breath went rigid with tension.

At the sight of them, Argos spoke again.

"Astrea, certainly. Losing him to the Emperor's side was a grave miscalculation. His skill yields nothing to Commander Line—hailed as the Reincarnation of the Sword Saint—and in command and rank, the comparison isn't even worth making."

"......"

"And yet—does there not exist one more force in this Lugnica that rivals the military?"

A ripple of startlement spread through the chamber. Argos went on, plainly savoring the reaction.

"The Northern Grand Duke. Contact has been made with the head of House Trancy. He says he will gladly stand with us."

"Th-then..."

"Precisely. Three months from now comes the friendly exhibition between the North and the newly appointed knights of the imperial House of Lawrence. If we crush the imperial house there, and at the same time gather every grievance born of His Majesty's devouring of the three branches to squeeze him with..."

No matter what sort of man he was, he could hardly rebut that—or draw his sword over it. Or no... if he did swing his blade, then this time, at last, they could put him down under the name of tyrant and reduce him to a rubber-stamping scarecrow of an emperor. That, after all, was why they had crowned him in the first place.

"This time, at long last, the age of the nobility arrives. Heh heh... heheheh."

"Hahaha..."

At the sound of Argos's laughter, the nobles laughed along with him. And because of it, Argos missed what was happening right before his eyes—no successful plan, no achievements to his name, only the title of Duke and the habit of leaning on it. In that very attitude, a seed had quietly been planted.

A seed called distrust.