The Emperor Doesn't Know Labor Law - 3
Ever since the day I scattered prize money over those dying zombies, I had done everything in my power not to so much as glance toward the Deputy Chief’s office. I would probably keep it that way until the very last day.
After all, they were grinding their bodies and souls in real time just to carry out the Retired Emperor’s final personnel order. If their superior started poking around for no reason, their lifespans would only burn away that much faster. I knew that feeling well enough myself.
If I were a true specialist at administrative work, I might at least try to ease those pitiful zombies’ suffering. But honestly, if I stuck my nose into a situation the Deputy Chief was driving, I would only get in the way. If I couldn’t help, the least I could do was not hinder.
If you sit still, you’re already halfway there.
I had no idea who first said it, but it was a wise line. If you can’t be a capable, diligent superior, better to be an incompetent, quiet one.
“Aren’t you just freeloading a little too hard?”
“Isn’t that better than the alternative—where I try to handle everything myself and burn it all to ash?”
Even Erzebet couldn’t argue with that. She nodded with a serious face.
Just how annoying it was when a superior went around stirring up every corner of the place had been proven by the previous Audit Department Chief. He wasn’t incompetent—he was a competent bastard, and that made him a nightmare. Erzebet still made a face of pure disgust whenever his name came up, so the suffering of the civil servants in the Audit Department back then hardly needed spelling out.
That lunatic.
Even setting personal feelings aside, the man had been a genuine lunatic. Right after I first took the seat of Audit Department Chief, the materials he’d left behind had been enough to make me laugh out of sheer disbelief.
Who levels an entire village just to find one traitor?
And it hadn’t even been confirmed that the traitor was in that village. He just flattened it anyway.
True, among the powers of the Audit Department Chief was the authority to order executions on a regional scale—but previous chiefs never used it unless the situation was truly desperate. I myself had never used it once.
The only one who had treated that power like a daily meal had been that man. Small wonder that when the Second Prince’s faction fell, his entire house was wiped out along with him.
“A superior should at least keep quiet if he can’t be interesting.”
Erzebet murmured it under her breath, as if her thoughts had landed on the same place as mine.
Yes—though the word “interesting” grated a little, she was right. The best thing a superior could do was sit still at his desk. If only the Emperor would realize that, too—
“Ah, the Director of Information is a quiet person, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded at Erzebet’s words, which cut clean through my train of thought. I had already told her long ago that the First Section, which handled interrogations, and the Second Section, which handled intelligence, would be moving over to the Information Department. From now on, her direct superior would be the Director of Information.
Fortunately, the Director of Information was not merely quiet—he was practically transparent. A house spirit of his own office, a legendary pocket monster you almost never saw unless you went looking for him first. At the very least, he wasn’t the type to torment his subordinates.
That much was true, but…
“The Deputy Director of Information is the Second Section Chief.”
“Huh?”
“Once the Inspectorate Ministry is founded, the Second Section Chief will be your boss.”
Unfortunately, the deputy who would command the section chiefs in place of that spectral director was none other than the Second Section Chief. A lineup that made your chest tighten just thinking about it.
“Can I just resign?”
Erzebet’s eyes darted left and right before she asked carefully. The thought of the Second Section Chief becoming her superior rather than her peer clearly made her head go blank.
Fair enough. When it came to the Second Section Chief, Erzebet might know him even better than I, his actual superior. Same rank, so they’d been stuck together often enough, and similar lines of work meant plenty of collaboration.
“Think that’s happening?”
But I couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. How could a weak chief who couldn’t even grant leave decide a section chief’s resignation?
If resignation had been possible, I would have done it first. Even for my lover, resignation was not something I could yield.
“If resignation’s out, what about a transfer? Senior Aria already went to the Empress’s Palace—they’ll need more ladies-in-waiting, right? Can’t you send me there?”
“No.”
The effort she put into blinking those big eyes and looking pitiful was admirable, but that was even more out of the question.
What did the Empress ever do wrong?
What crime had the Empress committed that she should have to live with Erzebet as her lady-in-waiting? I knew the two of them got along surprisingly well, but getting along and employing someone as a lady-in-waiting were entirely separate matters.
Besides, the Empress had only recently given birth and needed rest, and as someone who had risen to that exalted seat, she was the person meant to embrace the Imperial Family and the Empire. And Erzebet standing at her side? Rather than receiving Erzebet’s support, she would end up cleaning up after Erzebet’s antics until she came down with a stress-induced illness.
It was a harsh assessment to make of my lover—but precisely because she was my lover, I could be honest. Controlling Erzebet required crushing her with even greater madness, and hoping the Empress could manage what even I couldn’t was a thought without a shred of conscience.
“I’ll promote you when the time comes, so don’t worry.”
So I offered another direction and tried to soothe her, but—
“If I get promoted, the Second Section Chief will get promoted too! Then it doesn’t mean anything!”
A line of pure, airtight logic came flying back, and I had no way to refute it.
This was all the Second Section Chief’s fault…
These were the best days of my life. If every stretch of my life could be like this, I could laugh even if my rank dropped all the way to commoner.
My little fortune.
Looking at my beloved son Julian, sleeping soundly in his cradle, a smile rose on my face all by itself.
No matter how many times I looked, he was the spitting image of Christina and me. The soft navy fuzz of his hair was beautiful like Christina’s, and those blue eyes—hidden now in sleep—would sparkle just like mine.
I already felt sorry for the future ladies who would light up high society. The thought of them falling lovesick over our Julian was nothing short of tragic. This father of his had made more than a few ladies cry himself, before he met the partner of his life.
But all of that is experience, I suppose.
Watching his little hands fidget with whatever dream he was having, my smile deepened. If my son ever went around swindling ladies, I would take the lead in scolding him myself—but simply having plenty of romantic experience wouldn’t be a flaw.
Being popular and having a rotten character were two different things. Of course.
“Lafayette.”
“Ah, Christina.”
While I was lost staring at Julian, Christina’s call came from behind me, and I turned.
There she was, smiling bashfully as she came up and slipped into my arms. I drew her close in return and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
No matter how many times I thought it through, these really were the best days of my life.
“It’s still so nice seeing you here first thing in the morning.”
“Haha. You’re telling me.”
I laughed by pure instinct. Spending time with the partner of my life was happiness, and having the fruit of that love was happiness—but winning leave because of it was a joy all its own. Wasn’t this exactly why I could be with my family from the morning on?
A honeymoon leave, then parental leave—even an administration that ground its bureaucrats into dust never touched those. I had secured them one after another. Thanks to that, while the Audit Department was in an uproar over the founding of the Inspectorate Ministry, I could pass my days in perfect calm.
When Julian was first born, I hadn’t even imagined the Audit Department would become a ministry. Maybe Julian was a gift Enen had sent me for all the hardship I’d endured.
By the time my leave ends, the founding should be in its final stages.
It was obvious. In the Chief’s place, the Deputy Chief would be pushing the work forward, and the Chief would never overturn something the Deputy had driven. The only possible variable was the Director of Information, and he was already dying under the existing Information Department workload—hardly the type to pick a fight with the Deputy Chief for no reason.
In other words, the founding of the Inspectorate Ministry was proceeding without any room for me to stick my nose in.
Perfect.
So all I had to do was stroll into the finished Inspectorate Ministry once everything was—
Hm?
The communication orb I habitually kept in my coat began to glow.
Who could it be this early? Father or Mother? Or my father-in-law or mother-in-law?
“Lafayette Baron speaking.”
Worried that conversation might wake Julian, I put some distance between us first and drew out the orb.
“It’s me.”
“Chief?”
At the appearance of a voice I truly hadn’t expected, my brow furrowed. I never thought it would be the Chief.
“You’re contacting someone on leave?”
It was far too unexpected. Leaving people on leave completely alone unless the situation was truly critical was an unspoken rule of the Audit Department. If the Chief started making work calls while his section chiefs were on leave, those same section chiefs would make sure his own leave became spectacular.
A last mutual courtesy so no one died. That was what leave meant in the Audit Department—and the Chief had just crossed that line. A pity, really.
“Sorry. Something came up that I had to tell you right away.”
Of course, the odds of an emergency having broken out were higher than the odds of the Chief simply crossing a line.
We’re screwed.
The thought rose by pure instinct. If the situation was bad enough for the Chief to ignore even that unspoken rule and call, what on earth had happened? I almost wished he had just crossed the line.
“Where are you right now?”
“…I’m in the Imperial Capital, at least.”
“Good.”
A creeping unease began to climb. That was the sound of a man relieved I was close enough to be dragged in at once.
“Yesterday I put together a provisional list of Inspectorate Ministry executives and submitted it to His Majesty. He’s summoned every single person on it. Looks like he intends to appoint them as drafted.”
I swallowed without meaning to.
“Chief? Why are you telling me this…”
I had a guess, but I opened my mouth determined to deny it. Hoping against hope that what he had just said meant, “So I need someone to fill in.” If that was all it was, I was ready to grumble my way through helping him.
But reality was always cruel.
“I put your name down as Deputy Director of Information.”
“…….”
The best days of my life began to crack.
On the way to the Ministry of Finance building, I looked up at the sky without thinking.
This is garbage.
It was so clear it was almost insulting. With no idea what was happening in my gut, the sky was simply, purely clear.
“Deputy Director? Then you got promoted, right? Congratulations! That’s wonderful!”
It was bleak. There was no one to comfort my suffering. Even Christina, who had been making a long face at the news that I had to go into work during leave, lit up with a full smile the moment she heard about the promotion.
I knew that was the normal reaction. Rising to an executive post at a young age, and the Audit Department executives who had been worked like dogs the moment they got there being the odd ones out—ordinarily, promotion was a goal a bureaucrat staked his entire career on chasing.
But we were the Audit Department. We were living witnesses to the fact that the higher you rose, the more it hurt. To people like us, promotion was a poison you did everything in your power to avoid.
Deputy Director?
And for someone who had watched the current Deputy Chief live buried under documents, no word was more horrifying than “Deputy.”
I was losing my mind. Even a section chief in his twenties had been beyond my station—a deputy director in his twenties? Did that make any sense?
“The Third Section Chief is becoming Director of Enforcement. Just so you know.”
But thinking of the Third Section Chief, who had risen past deputy all the way to director, cooled my heart a little.
Right. At least I was better off than him.
And a deputy director in his twenties was still vastly better than a minister in his twenties.
Haah.
I decided to think of it that way.