My Prison Chronicles - 5
For an imperial civil servant, the line between weekday and weekend is so thin it might as well not exist. Still, a weekend is a weekend, and free time comes a little easier than it does on workdays.
So I had allowed myself a faint hope: if I could just survive the weekend, I might finally escape the mortal enemies who so thoroughly murdered my mental health. They hadn't come on the second day. If I could just endure today—the third day—I would be free.
"Hehe, we're here."
"You came."
I had failed.
I knew it.
The First Department Head, with the rest of the senior staff standing behind him.
Right. Expectation is the mother of disappointment. Having expected nothing, I felt no particular psychological damage.
Things you desperately want tend to fail spectacularly, after all. "If I can just get through today"? Then of course something would blow up today. That was the iron law of the universe.
"You're all busy. Why are you here?"
Not how did you get here—the word that came out was why. Seriously, why. Weekdays were already hard enough to rest through. They should at least play a little on the weekend.
Of course, if you counted "teasing their boss in prison" as play, I had no argument.
"How could we go off and have fun while the Chief is sitting here crying all alone?"
"Go back to that Chief right now."
Who the hell was that. I did not know that Chief.
The First Department Head's usual nonsense. I would have shut it down cold, except the Demon Duke and Margeta floated up in my mind and my conscience gave another little twitch.
So in everyone else's heads, I was a wretched convict locked in a cold cell… Strange. Aside from the occasional ache of the heart, I was living quite comfortably in here.
Maybe I should have at least pretended to be suffering.
But if I were lying around looking half-dead, Margeta might actually have fainted. Better stick with the "I'm fine" concept.
"Chief. Are you experiencing any discomfort?"
From behind the First Department Head's snickering, the Deputy Chief asked carefully.
It had been only three days since my detention. In two more days I would be released. And with all the visits already, the food packages had been more than generous.
"…I'm doing fine."
The situation was a little too embarrassing to spell out in detail, so I muddled through it. Hearing that I was doing fine, the Deputy Chief didn't press further.
An awkward silence hung in the air, but the visitor lineup was so glamorous it didn't last long.
"First the Minister, then the Chief. Whose turn is it next?"
The Second Department Head looked around as he said it, and my gaze landed on the Deputy Chief before I could stop myself.
"Chief?"
"No, nothing."
I quietly looked away from the expression that asked why I was staring at him of all people at that particular moment.
Sorry. But after the Minister and the Chief, the next in line was the Deputy Chief. The thought had just… come instinctively.
"If you look on the bright side, at least we don't have to hold our breath anymore, right?"
The Third Department Head's sudden remark nearly made me nod on pure reflex.
He had a point. I no longer had to calculate how many disciplinary reports I'd written and sweat over every one of them.
"Want to come in too, then?"
"I decline."
My kind invitation was met with a straight-faced refusal from the Third Department Head.
As far as I remembered, that bastard had stacked up a fair few disciplinary reports of his own. The Third Department was the most active unit in the Audit Department, so inevitably the Third Department Head wrote more of them than most.
Fewer than me, of course. Not that I wanted to win at something like that.
"Chief, Chief. What number visit are we?"
Unlike the three Department Heads making a racket with useless chatter, the Fifth Department Head kept a quiet silence; I exchanged a nod of greeting with him, and the First Department Head immediately pounced.
"Fifth."
"Huh?"
The First Department Head blinked, as if the answer had blindsided him. The look on his face said, You've already had four visits?
Regrettably: the Minister twice in one day, the Demon Duke once, the Academy once, and these people once. Five total. Correct.
Surprising, right? I was surprised too. Who gets five visits in a five-day detention. That shouldn't even be possible.
Damn it.
Just thinking about it made me angry again. What kind of person visited twice in a single day. Even I had never gone that far.
During a detention, you might visit every day, but you did not visit multiple times in one day. That was the unspoken rule of teabagging.
Coming twice a day was the equivalent of clearing a daily quest twice—an act of pure villainy. I firmly believed that. Anyway, I believed it.
"Uh… the Minister, the Academy… even His Grace the Duke of Victory came, and that still leaves one…?"
The First Department Head folded his fingers one by one and tilted his head, as if no one else plausible remained.
Because he was only a Department Head, he clearly underestimated just how far a Chief's connections reached. My network was larger than he could imagine.
"His Excellency the Minister came twice."
"Whoa."
"And Her Grace the Demon Duke once, the Academy once."
"Whoa…"
The First Department Head's drawn-out sigh made my chest ache for no good reason.
If even that guy is reacting like this…
A visitor list so outrageous that even the First Department Head—who was already several steps removed from normal—was stunned.
Just how spectacular a parade of visits had I been subjected to?
There was still plenty of visiting time left, but I sent them all away.
"Don't get in the guards' way for no reason. Go home. You should rest on the weekend too."
"Is the Chief saying the guards matter more than his adorable subordinates?"
"Yes."
"Hiiing…"
For the sake of the guards' mental health alone, I had to cut the visit short. Honestly, they had already been tormented by visitors of exalted rank—Ministers, Dukes, young ladies of great houses—but the Audit Department was a different breed entirely.
People of impossibly high station were uncomfortable and awkward, sure, but you could still handle them by the manual.
But the Audit Department—who could ruin me on the spot—with its senior officers prowling around their own workplace in a pack? If I were a guard, I'd be halfway to a heart attack.
I ought to show a little consideration myself.
Even under the Crown Prince's orders, these guards had looked after me with almost excessive care. Returning at least that much was only proper.
Of course, none of this would have happened if I hadn't been detained in the first place—but let's move past that. I hadn't exactly checked myself in for fun.
Still… it's over now.
The Minister, the Audit Department, the Academy—if they had all visited, everyone who was going to come had come. The Demon Duke's appearance had been a surprise, but that was overachievement, not a shortfall.
The only ones left, if anyone, were the Dark Light Squad…
"Ah, Penelia asked me to give you her regards. She said the Dark Light Squad got sent out on deployment right away and couldn't come."
So that was it. I had thought it strange that the Fourth Department Head hadn't shown up. The first day had been closed to visitors, fair enough—but she was not the type to stay away through the second day as well.
She must be buried in work.
Straight from wiping out the Red Wave into another deployment. If I'd known they were going to get run this hard, I would have fed them more even if the First Department Head had tried to stop me.
Next time I saw them, I would make sure they were taken care of properly. Their bodies were their livelihood—they needed to eat well and stay healthy.
I had developed a habit four days ago: praying to Enen once when I came on duty, and once when I went off.
In the morning, a pleading prayer that the shift end without incident. In the evening, a prayer of thanks that it truly had. Twice a day, like that.
It's over.
With trembling hands, I marked an X on the calendar. At last—at last—it was the fifth day. At noon today, the Audit Department Chief could be released.
Finally.
It had been a time of suffering. Only five days, and yet it had felt like five months.
On the first day, the Minister had come—the Minister of Finance, no less. Honestly, I could endure that much. I had personally overseen him when he was the one inside this prison; being startled that he showed up as a visitor would have been strange.
Of course, I never imagined he would come twice on the same day, but still—I could endure it.
And that was as far as my endurance went.
The Minister was the most manageable one…
A hollow laugh slipped out at the absurdity of that reality. Who could have imagined that the Minister of Finance would turn out to be the least stressful visitor.
On the second day, a Duke arrived first thing in the morning. Not just any Duke—Her Grace the Demon Duke, who rarely left the Magic Tower. And when she walked into the cell carrying food, my heart nearly stopped.
I was already giving the Audit Department Chief the best meals I could manage, but that was only by my standards. If he told the Demon Duke something like, "The food is repulsive and the guards taste terrible," I would have to say goodbye to my neck.
…Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened.
Two ducal houses.
And after Her Grace the Demon Duke came the daughter of His Grace the Iron Blood Duke. When security showed me the visitor list, I nearly smacked them for joking around.
Honestly, a ducal house was more terrifying than a high-ranking official. Officials could at least retire. A ducal house was a ducal house until death. There was a reason people said you shouldn't even glance the wrong way in front of one.
Still, it was a relief that the visitor was a young student rather than some veteran of politics and high society. It was a little bitter, though, watching that young student sob her heart out in front of the Audit Department Chief.
And the last ones…
My mind simply stopped thinking. I had expected it from the moment the Audit Department Chief was detained, but the people I most desperately hoped would not come… came.
The Audit… the Audit… the Audit Department, which could take my head in every possible sense of the word…
I would stop the thought there.
It's over now, anyway.
My plunging mood rocketed skyward again. This ordeal was finished. The days of lavishly serving a master who went by the name of "prisoner," fretting every second that I might fall out of favor—finished.
This filthy, wretched life as a jailer. I was quitting this instant. For real.
"G-Guard!"
Just as I was about to pull out the resignation letter I had spent last night carefully drafting, a security officer's voice rang out behind me.
The urgency in it drew a sigh from me. What now. What was it this time.
"What is it?"
Every time a security officer came running, something far from ordinary had happened. The Minister. A Duke. A young lady of a great house. The Audit Department.
But today was release day. Surely it wouldn't be anything related to the Audit Department Chief. Yes. That would be enough.
Tempered by five days of fire, standing on the brink of submitting my resignation, I was stronger than I had ever been. I was confident nothing could surprise me now.
"A messenger from His Grace the Duke of Victory has arrived!"
"…What?"
I was immediately surprised.
His Grace the Duke of Victory…?
No—why? Why would His Grace the Duke of Victory—
At least this time he hadn't come in person, but still—why?
Damn it all.
I wanted to cry. I should have submitted that resignation yesterday, not today.