A Heart Startled by the Audit Trembles Again Before the Chief - 1
It was back when I was already staying at the Academy ahead of the entrance ceremony. Father, who had been sending me daily greetings through the communication orb, suddenly stopped answering. Only after a long stretch of silence did a brief message finally arrive.
It struck me as odd, but I let it go with the thought that something urgent must have come up. After all, Father was the head of a count’s house and oversaw several merchant caravans. He had been answering me every day because his daughter was about to enter the Academy and he would not see her for a while—yet even he could run short of time.
Father was busy, just as I had guessed. The problem was that the nature of that busyness was terribly wrong.
"O-Oppa. You’re all right, aren’t you? Father—what about Father?"
By the time Father stopped leaving even short messages, a call came from Oppa, his face pale and haggard. The news he gave me then was devastating. Our house had become a target of the Audit Department.
The Audit Department. The hunting dogs who carried out His Majesty the Emperor’s will, punishing disloyal nobles—or, by their own judgment, striking first and reporting later. And of the houses bitten by the Audit Department, ninety-nine out of a hundred met with total ruin.
It couldn’t be. Why us? Father was the most diligent and upright man I knew. Always gentle, warm even to commoners. He loved money, yes, but that was hardly a crime that warranted the Audit Department.
"Oppa…"
With a bitter smile, Oppa ended the call. I stood there blankly for a long time, clutching the communication orb and weeping. A disaster that had crashed down without warning, the helplessness of being able to do nothing, the terror of what might become of my family—everything that had been the fluttering excitement of enrollment plunged me straight into hell.
The news that followed was the worst kind. Mother had finally collapsed and was confined to bed. My still-young siblings cried every day, searching for the father who had been taken away and the mother who had fallen. If only I had been at the manor—if only I could have been with them.
And then a miracle arrived.
"Ah—Father?"
In the midst of living as if I were already dead, Father’s call came through. At the sight of him looking as though he had aged another ten years, tears burst out of me—yet joy welled up in my chest at the same time. Father was safe. The house was safe.
"Hic… Yes… yes… I-I will."
I managed the answer only after several hiccupping sobs.
When Father later explained everything, it turned out the entire audit had been a mistake by the Audit Department. The section chief who had commanded the scene visited the manor in person to apologize and offer compensation, and—most unusually—the Audit Department Chief himself sent a letter of apology acknowledging the department’s error, bringing the matter to a close.
A disaster born of the Audit Department’s blunder, yet even in my resentment I could not bring myself to hate them. A natural disaster was something one simply prostrated oneself before and prayed would pass without further harm. In the Empire, the Audit Department was exactly that sort of force. No one in our house had died under their scrutiny; we had even received compensation. It truly was a miracle.
In those early days after enrollment, when I had been half out of my mind over the family affair, I met a good friend and recovered quickly.
"Hi! You’re Irina Jollun, right?"
At first I found that endlessly sunny girl strangely hateful. Here I was suffering so much—what right did she have to smile so brightly? Looking back now, I am ashamed of the thought.
"Want to eat lunch together?"
"No thanks."
A pink-haired girl kind and bright to everyone. I pushed her away coldly at first, yet somehow, whenever I was with her, my heart grew lighter.
"Irina, what do you think of this? Pretty, right? I brought it because it matches your hair!"
"Yeah… it’s pretty. Thank you."
By the time I came to my senses, I had become her closest friend. The fact that our house’s innocence had been proven around then, letting my heart settle, probably played a part.
And so I began spending my days with that pink-haired girl—Luise. Thanks to her I made many friends I never would have managed on my own. In the process I even came to know the younger brother of the Audit Department Chief, but Erich himself was blameless. Erich, too, seemed oddly reluctant to talk about his older brother, so I deliberately let the subject drop.
There was even a dreadful stretch when the Audit Department Chief was suddenly dispatched to the Academy, yet I never ran into him and could live in peace. With the old disaster forgotten and my days turning pleasant, the date of the school trip drew near.
"Time really flies."
"I know. The expo feels like it was only yesterday."
Until last year the Academy had never held a school trip. I had entered prepared to spend every day inside the Academy except for vacations, and I had not considered it a hardship. Most facilities existed on campus anyway; leaving the grounds was more of a bother than anything. So when I first heard we would be going on a trip starting from our entrance year, I honestly thought of it as an annoying new schedule.
"Irina, this is your first time seeing the sea too, right?"
"Yeah. I’ve never been either."
But the destination was said to be the Boyar Duchy—one of the continent’s premier resorts, famous even beyond the Empire—yet I had never had the chance to go. The distance was considerable, and one could hardly hire a teleportation mage for a private pleasure trip rather than house business.
And now the Academy would send us? All I had to do was pack? The sense of bother vanished and my heart filled with excitement. Wandering the shops with Luise over the weekend, choosing swimsuits—how delightful that had been.
I waited for the day of the trip to arrive. When I joked to a student-council friend that I wished we could leave tomorrow, she stared at me with eyes that looked ready to cry. Sorry—but I really was looking forward to it.
"Irina! Erich’s in the same carriage!"
Even the random drawing for carriage assignments had gone well. Random or not, it was only within the same class, and in any case we had ended up with people we were close to. Good travel companions, a wonderful destination. This trip was going to be truly enjoyable.
"Huh? Elder Brother?"
That delightful trip took a sharp turn the moment Luise spoke those words after climbing into the carriage on the day itself.
Elder Brother?
Cold sweat broke out. If I looked in a mirror my pupils would probably be shaking. The only person Luise called “Elder Brother” at the Academy—at least as far as I knew—was one man.
Why… why…?
I knew he was Erich’s older brother. I knew he was on friendly terms with Luise. Still, I had assumed that since he was not a student he would ride in a different carriage. Why of all people? I had never seen him even once since that first encounter. I had thought that if I simply kept avoiding him I would be safe.
I hurriedly hid behind Luise’s back and curled up. I knew the gesture was meaningless, yet if I did not do at least that much I felt my legs would give out. And then, as if mocking me, the very voice I least wanted to hear arrived.
"Hello. It’s been a while."
He saw me.
Just as the urge to flee was about to explode, he had greeted me directly; any further evasion would be rude. Holding back the sob that threatened to spill out, I opened my mouth—yet I could not stop my body from trembling.
Beside me Luise looked at me with a mix of puzzlement and concern. I had never told her about the incident involving the Audit Department Chief. I had not wanted to burden her with worry, and I had been half-afraid that the Chief, being close to Luise, might somehow take offense at my “telling on him.”
I carefully lifted my head and saw the black-haired young man seated opposite Erich—the Audit Department Chief. Arms folded, leaning back, he looked as though he had come for a leisurely outing, yet the moment those pitch-black eyes settled on me my heart hammered wildly.
"Don’t just stand there—come in. Your legs must hurt."
"Y-yes! Thank you!"
"No need to thank me."
I hurried after Luise into the carriage and immediately faced a new dilemma. Erich and the Audit Department Chief sat facing each other. The empty seats were either beside Erich or beside the Chief.
Where… do I sit?
Luise, what do I do? If I sit next to Erich I feel sorry for him. But sitting on the other side is too terrifying.
While I dithered over a dilemma I could confide in no one, the Audit Department Chief gestured to me.
"Come on, sit down."
"Yes…"
Mother, Father… I miss you so much… I’ll still be able to see both of you during the vacation, right?
Assuming the goal was to put Erich and Luise together, no matter how I turned it over this seating arrangement was the best I could manage.
But “best” only by my standards; from Irina’s point of view it was the worst possible. Even now I thought I could feel a faint tremor from the seat beside me. Still, it was the placement I had arrived at after long, agonizing thought.
I’m going to lose my mind.
I felt terrible about it, but that idiot Erich needed to be stuck next to Luise at least on occasions like this. If I seated Luise opposite him, Irina would end up facing me. Better the side seat where she didn’t have to look at my face the whole time than to force her to stare at me for hours of travel. If she fainted midway I would have nothing to say for myself.
Truthfully, the previous incident itself had been resolved smoothly. The damages had been thoroughly made good, and I had even sent an apology letter stating that “as long as it does not rise to the level of treason, we will look the other way once even if you go a bit far.” But that sort of noble give-and-take and the frightened heart of a young lady in the bloom of her youth were two entirely different matters.
"Irina, you’re really all right, aren’t you?"
Luise, who had been chatting with Erich about this and that, glanced at Irina and asked with concern. There was nothing for Luise to worry about on the physical front. Right now Irina was simply exhausted in spirit.
"Mm-hmm, I told you I’m fine. You know how tough I am, Luise."
The forced bright smile of a seventeen-year-old young lady was so heartrending I could hardly bear it. How utterly lamentable that some wicked bastard had frightened such a pitiful girl to this degree. Fuck, you son of a bitch Section 3 Chief. Did your conscience and sense of shame peel off along with your hair?
I looked at Irina with a complicated heart, and our eyes met. Her lips quivered, then she hurriedly bowed her head. The fact that she did it with those same blue eyes as Erich and Luise only made the guilt surge higher.
"I’m going to catch a little sleep. Wake me when we reach a town."
"Got it, hyung."
In the end I made an emergency escape into sleep. At the very least, having the monster in the neighboring seat asleep would be better for her mental health than having him awake.
And so the carriage rolled toward Boyar, carrying one young lady bubbling with excitement for the trip, one complete fool simply delighted to sit beside the girl he secretly loved, and two people each drowning in suffocating awkwardness and terror.