Prison Freedom - 2
The moment I stepped out of the Crown Prince's palace, I headed straight for the Ministry of Finance building. As much as I wanted to crawl back to my Academy dorm and cry alone, I had no choice.
"Since your place of confinement isn't home, you'll need to prepare. I'll at least grant you that much consideration. The confinement can start tomorrow."
How the hell was I supposed to just go home after hearing something like that?
Prepare, my ass.
It wasn't like I'd been commuting from home. I'd been living at the Academy full-time. What was there even to prepare?
The fact that he'd said "confinement starts tomorrow" made his intentions crystal clear. He wanted me to swing by the Audit Department and get some work done before heading back.
What kind of work, though?
Still, the Crown Prince never dumped work on me for no reason. The bastard worked people like dogs, sure, but he wasn't the type to mess with them just for kicks.
Nothing immediately came to mind. No word from the Minister or the Deputy Chief, and nothing that needed handling on a regular schedule around this time of year. I figured I might as well go check in person.
I just hoped it was nothing serious. My heart was already aching from the confinement; if something else blew up on top of that, I was going to be genuinely miserable.
And of course, something had blown up.
"Chief."
"Huh? Chief?"
There was no other explanation for the scene in front of me.
"What's this? Everyone's gathered?"
Every single executive officer was packed into the office—everyone except the Second Section Chief, who was off on a long trek up north. These people weren't the type to hold meetings out of pure diligence when I was away.
I waved them back into their seats and dropped into my own chair. Unfortunately, something had definitely gone down.
"Things seemed quiet inside the Empire. Outside job?"
"That's correct."
The Deputy Chief's answer drew a sigh out of me. Domestic cases—most of them, anyway—could be handled by the section chiefs. Anything so massive that even the Deputy Chief had to step in would have reached my ears long ago.
Which automatically meant this was foreign. I'd been hoping it wasn't, but a real headache had landed in our lap.
"Which direction?"
"The North. Armed clashes with some of the tribes."
"You've got to be kidding me."
The sheer stacked misfortune of it all forced a sound of pure admiration from my throat.
Foreign was already annoying enough. But the North? We'd drawn the absolute worst card. No wonder the Magic Tower had suddenly summoned a mage out of nowhere.
When something kicked off abroad—especially in the North—nine times out of ten it was a problem that required force. This was one of those nine.
And for those kinds of jobs, it was usually the Ministry of Special Affairs or the Magic Tower that stepped up.
Those absolute bastards.
Trouble in the North had made the Magic Tower summon a mage. The mage getting summoned had forced me into four-person combat as a last-minute substitute. In the end, the North was the reason I was stuck with confinement.
Dead weights, the lot of them. Never once useful in my entire life.
"Where's the Second Section Chief?"
And if the Magic Tower was mobilizing over the chaos, the Second Section Chief's dispatch had just skyrocketed from difficult straight into hellfire difficulty.
Section 2 had gone north for intelligence gathering in the first place. The second it turned into a problem that needed muscle, they wouldn't be able to do much.
"About that…"
The Deputy Chief trailed off, unusually hesitant. What? Don't start making me nervous.
After a stretch of silence, he finally forced the words out.
"The Second Section Chief's report only came in today."
"Today?"
"Yes."
That was strange. The Magic Tower's mage had been summoned yesterday, so even if the report had been late, it should have arrived yesterday. Even the Magic Tower couldn't read the future.
"Margrave Sorden's report came in yesterday, I'm told."
"So the Second Section Chief was late."
Margrave Sorden yesterday, Second Section Chief today. A full day's delay…
The news was bad enough that another sigh almost escaped. A few hours' lag was understandable. Unlike the Margrave, the Second Section Chief was out there grinding through hostile terrain with just his section; compiling intel took time.
But this wasn't a few hours. This was a full day. Meaning he'd been in a situation where he couldn't report for an entire day.
Already took a hit, huh.
This wasn't a case of difficulty spiking into hellfire territory. He'd already been punched in the face by the hellfire and was laid out cold.
"The Second Section Chief said he intends to remain on-site."
"Bullshit."
The Deputy Chief nodded in agreement. Even he thought the Second Section Chief needed to come back.
Stubborn pride of his.
At first the northern hellfire punch had probably scrambled his brains. Then, belatedly realizing he'd gotten blindsided, his pride must have taken a hit. So now he was digging in his heels and insisting on continuing the mission.
He always dragged his feet when you assigned him work, but once he started he clung to it like a man possessed. Truly a unique personality.
So that's why he sent me.
I rubbed the back of my neck without thinking. I'd wondered why the Crown Prince had suddenly ordered me to go do work first. This was why.
The Crown Prince knew the Audit Department had people deployed in the North. Yet only Margrave Sorden had filed a report, which must have struck him as odd. And just then the Audit Department Chief conveniently showed up in the Imperial Capital, so he'd sent me to clean it up.
I really did have a cursed knack for landing work. How did the timing always line up like this?
"If you're going to get hit, at least get hit somewhere less ridiculous so you can come back on your own."
With a sigh I activated the communication orb. That bastard was mine to hit—watching someone else do it put me in a foul mood.
Weak little shit getting himself beaten up. Time to order him back immediately.
"Oh, Chief."
And the Second Section Chief who appeared through the orb looked like he'd been hit very hard.
"Where the hell did one of your eyes go?"
"Ah, this?"
He fiddled with the eyepatch covering his right eye and burst out laughing. My brow furrowed. What was so funny?
"I put it down as the stake. Time to go win it back."
"Cut the crap and get back here."
"Aww."
At the firm recall order, it was the Second Section Chief's turn to frown.
"We're in a situation where every hand is desperately needed. Central is already sending more people—pulling existing personnel out seems strange, doesn't it?"
He couldn't openly defy a direct order from his superior, but he still tried to push back with reasons.
"You already sacrificed one of a section chief's eyes. That's more than enough. If the Margrave has a problem, tell him to take it up with me."
Of course the pushback was pointless. When you're told to do something, you do it. A mere section chief had no room to argue.
And this was a situation big enough for the Magic Tower to move. A section specialized in intelligence gathering rather than force was already out of its depth. The Margrave would understand. He'd requested the dispatch for intel work in the first place.
"Get back here and get treatment."
"Tch… Understood."
He was going to fold anyway. All that stubbornness for nothing.
After cutting the link with the Second Section Chief, I spent a little time scolding the other officers.
"For something like this you should contact me first. What kind of superior doesn't even know his subordinates are out there getting beaten up?"
"We were planning to get the Second Section Chief back first and then report. You already grabbed the back of your neck just a moment ago."
And I found myself persuaded by the First Section Chief's words. Apparently they'd decided that reporting "the Second Section Chief is refusing to return and digging in his heels" would only spike my blood pressure, so better to handle the persuasion themselves.
It was actually a solid plan—if I hadn't come up to the Imperial Capital.
"Chief. What business brought you to the capital?"
The Fifth Section Chief must have been thinking the same thing, because she carefully opened her mouth.
My words dried up for a second. Admitting "I came to receive disciplinary action for beating a royal" required a considerable amount of courage.
Especially in front of the First and Third Section Chiefs, both of whom had thoroughly rebellious streaks. If I told those two that I myself had committed insubordination against a superior, wouldn't they turn into even bigger menaces than they already were?
"Disciplinary action."
But the hesitation was brief. In this tiny civil-servant world, news that someone had been disciplined spread instantly.
At my answer the Fifth Section Chief quietly averted her gaze, as if apologizing for asking something she shouldn't have.
It's fine. I was already prepared to forgive the Fifth Section Chief several times over even if she made a huge mistake.
"Pfft…!"
"Whoa, and you just wrote a disciplinary report not long ago."
You two, on the other hand, are not included. You absolute dogs.
The First Section Chief's snicker and the Third Section Chief's admiring tone made something surge up in me on pure reflex.
"So this time it's confinement, then."
The Deputy Chief's flat observation only made the First Section Chief's giggling grow louder.
It was so unfair. More than half the disciplinary actions I'd ever received had been from covering for these bastards' screw-ups. Being nice to your subordinates was completely useless.
"But what happened at the Academy? There's no reason you'd be writing disciplinary reports while on dispatch."
"It wasn't a disciplinary report."
An awkward silence settled over the office. Disciplinary action that wasn't a disciplinary report meant I'd received something higher.
The Third Section Chief, who had asked the question, snapped his mouth shut. The First Section Chief covered her mouth with her hand, eyes going round. Too late for that—my wounded heart wasn't coming back.
"No, but what on earth…"
When silence stretches too long, it starts eating the words. The Third Section Chief carefully tried again, only to lose to the silence and close his mouth once more.
So I decided to win.
"See this?"
I raised my right hand. The proletarian fist that had proven even royalty bled red.
"I used this hand to beat a royal."
The way they immediately put distance between us the second the words left my mouth was a little shocking.
Why were you suddenly acting like normal people? Since when did you care about common sense?
"Chief… then is it the death penalty…?"
"No."
Just confinement.
When I explained the royal-assault incident that had made the Crown Prince recoil in horror and the principal wring his hands, the silence filled instead with open mockery.
Things like: to be a chief you need the courage to punch a royal; just punching isn't enough—you have to draw blood; I guess I'll just stay a section chief for life; you finally worked out your preschool grudge on a prince.
After every possible provocation had been flung around, the officers finally returned to their seats.
"Chieeef— are you mad?"
Everyone except the First Section Chief.
"Yes, I'm mad, so go back before I hit you too and make you write a disciplinary report."
I waved her off. She just stuck out her lower lip and glared at me with a sulky face.
Does she have no shame?
Sometimes I even thought that. Officially I outranked her, but she was still four years younger than me. Had she forgotten her own age?
Out of pure instinct I reached toward her protruding lip. When someone offers it to you, not taking it would be rude—
"Chief, you said the confinement starts tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah."
She opened her mouth before I could grab it, so I missed my chance.
"Then have a meal with me!"
The First Section Chief's bright smile as she said it left me briefly experiencing cognitive dissonance.
"A meal?"
With you?
For a moment I tried to picture the two of us sitting down to a meal alone.
No matter how hard I thought about it, the only image that came to mind was the two of us tearing into combat rations.