Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: The Incompetent Minister Wants to Retire
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Someday, she had jokingly remarked that the more profound one's self-loathing, the more adeptly they could command the Eyes of the Sky.
At first, I didn't truly grasp the gravity of what she meant, but now I could perceive it with perfect clarity.
Those who wield the Eyes of the Sky could construct an entire, functioning world within their minds using the vast information gathered through various channels and their own vivid imagination.
However, as a heavy price for such sight, their thoughts and emotions became tremendously and dangerously simplified.
This occurred because, when surpassing the natural limits of human processing, the brain sought to maximize its efficiency by creating the simplest possible logical patterns.
In other words, the stronger one's self-loathing and the burning desire to lie to and deceive themselves, the more mental power they could devote to concretizing the world in their head.
That said, it didn't exactly fracture you into a split personality or anything of that sort.
In any case, through the lens of the Eyes of the Sky, everything became crystalline and clear.
Individual anger, profound sorrow, and fleeting joy—all converged into a single, manageable point.
I wasn't merely observing one person, but hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of individual flows simultaneously.
It felt less like experiencing human emotions and more like overlooking a vast, intricate chessboard from above.
I had often wondered if I could truly understand the microscopic sorrow of a single piece, but when Sylphid died, I unexpectedly realized I was still capable of feeling sadness.
That wolf—the coolest, most beautiful, and majestic creature in this world—had kept his sacred promise to me until his very final breath.
So, I too had to do my absolute utmost to honor the promise I had made in return.
After Sylphid passed, I burned his physical body to prevent it from being exploited by others, scattered the remaining ashes into the air, and stood up with renewed purpose.
Alright, it is time to return to the cold reality of work.
I shifted my weary gaze back toward the heavens.
"Huh?"
The girl, who was just about to move a piece on the board, widened her eyes as if she had witnessed something utterly unbelievable.
What she held in her hand wasn't her own piece, nor was it the piece of her opponent.
It was a piece belonging to a completely third domain, yet she had somehow shifted it into the heart of the enemy camp.
And then it fell.
"How in the world is such a thing possible...?"
As she stood there deeply flustered and visibly perplexed, Erich approached her side with a confused look.
"Huh? What is the matter, Mother? What has happened now...?"
"Shut your mouth and stay perfectly quiet for a moment."
"Gah?!"
A massive, invisible pressure emanating from the girl's casually flicked finger, without her even turning her head, crushed Erich down.
Ignoring her adopted son's desperate cries for help and his frantic gasps for air, she muttered to herself in total isolation.
"...He headed to the Empire and then vanished entirely? If he died there, surely... No, but that would mean... He wouldn't fall quite that easily...?"
The girl, furrowing her brow as if the situation were utterly incomprehensible, and endlessly repeating her mutterings, suddenly stopped.
Soon after, a sharp smile crept from the corners of her mouth, hidden behind her hand, followed by a burst of laughter.
"Ha, hahahahaha! Ah, I see it now! So that is how it truly is! I have suspected it more than once or twice, but Minister, you really are human after all!"
She clutched her stomach and burst into a fit of genuine, raw merriment, with tears streaming from her eyes.
They weren't tears born from sadness. They were tears shed from laughing far too hard.
"Haa, you truly are the best, Minister. That is precisely why you can stand against me... Erich? What exactly are you doing down there?"
"S-Save me... please..."
With another effortless flick of her finger, the pressure crushing and flattening him to the floor vanished in an instant.
Somehow regaining his freedom and staggering back to his feet, Erich trembled but chose to speak his mind.
"Y-You're going way too far, aren't you? I really and truly thought I was going to die."
"Hehe, sorry about that. I had some serious thinking to do."
"So, have you finished all that intense thinking?"
"Just this very moment."
At her words, Erich glanced at the board and tilted his head in confusion.
"Why exactly were you laughing so hard just now?"
"The Minister has made a mistake."
"A mistake? So even that legendary guy is human."
At this, the girl looked at her adopted son with eyes full of pity and shook her head slowly.
"Do not think of him as an ordinary person. He clearly recognized it as a mistake and still chose to make the move regardless."
"Why? Was it even a mistake to begin with then?"
"It was a mistake. A ridiculously and dangerously huge one."
The move the Minister had just played held the terrifying potential to overturn the entire board as it stood up to now.
He couldn't possibly have been unaware of that consequence.
"And yet, he placed the piece without a hint of hesitation."
"Uh, um. I don't get it at all? Why would he do that?"
"Of course you don't understand. Neither you nor I can ever truly comprehend what humans call 'righteousness.'"
At the very least, she had a vague intellectual grasp of the irrationality found in the emotion called righteousness, which allowed her to comprehend that the Minister's move was a deliberate blunder.
Otherwise, she would still be lost in her own confusion.
"...Hmm?"
"Anyway, our primary target is perfectly clear now."
The girl's hand, now grasping a new piece, began to move across the board once again.
"C-Celine. I-I'm not being treated like a common traitor, right...?"
While rummaging through old, dusty records in the archive, Lisana Simon sidled up and asked tentatively. Celine shot back with a face that clearly asked what kind of absolute nonsense that was.
"Of course you aren't. Why would you even let such a thought enter your head?"
"Well, I was under enemy hypnosis not long ago..."
"But you didn't actually leak any specific or sensitive information, right?"
Lisana, endowed with perfect and absolute memory recall, remembered every single conversation she'd had with Alina, who had been posing as her older sister while she was hypnotized.
She knew for a fact she hadn't said anything compromising, but she still couldn't shake the nagging anxiety in her heart.
"Still, something about the situation feels off..."
"On the contrary, thanks to you, we uncovered another Oracle executive and dealt them a decent blow. That's precisely why the Minister granted you paid leave as a reward."
"That was actually meant to be a reward!?"
"...What exactly did you think it was?"
Why did every soul in this department think that being granted leave was some form of secret punishment?
Celine, bewildered by the reaction, soon realized she wasn't much different herself.
"Anyway, stop worrying about nothing at all. If the Minister truly saw you as a traitor, do you think you'd be standing here chatting with me right now?"
The Minister never, under any circumstances, forgave traitors.
When he had first taken office as Intelligence Minister—though that original group no longer existed—there had been employees and agents selling internal information.
Perhaps because of that betrayal, his first act upon inauguration was a thorough and brutal house cleaning.
All the trash found during the cleaning was burned and thoroughly incinerated.
To be perfectly clear, this was not meant as a metaphor.
"Th-That's pretty convincing... Oh, and separately, there's one more thing bothering me..."
"What is it now?"
"Um, is the Minister perhaps a hidden mage...?"
The somewhat out-of-left-field question made Celine tilt her head, but she quickly grasped the true intent behind it.
"You're talking about the way he dispelled your hypnosis?"
"Ah, yes. Exactly that."
Celine recalled the specific incident.
As soon as it was revealed that Lisana had been hypnotized by the enemy, the Minister had urgently assembled nearly the entire Intelligence Department, including the Owls and herself, and personally interrogated her.
After confirming no information had leaked, he dispelled the hypnosis on her—by simply raising his right hand and placing it on her head.
"It is indeed curious. I heard Alina Rippenstall is a pretty powerful mage despite her twisted personality."
Such a mage's meticulously cast hypnosis had been undone by the Minister with effortless ease.
She'd subtly asked him later how he'd accomplished the feat, but as expected, he offered no explanation.
"M-Maybe he learned the technique from his famous mage little sister...?"
"Who knows. I'm no expert on magic, but I doubt it's something you can just learn that easily."
It was always like this with him.
She, the Owls, and all the Intelligence agents and staff had so many questions about the Minister, but since he kept his mouth shut, they knew nothing.
"Speaking of which, where is the Minister right now...?"
"He's gone to inspect the magic tool department store. When I loosened up a bit, he discovered that some of the merchants, including the manager, were up to no good."
The magic tool department store was fundamentally government-run by the Empire, so the Intelligence Department didn't usually get involved, but occasional spot checks like this still happened.
After that, the two ended their chit-chat and returned to their respective tasks.
Soon after, Celine gathered the needed documents and began sorting them at the table.
'The specific reports the Minister highlighted this time boil down to three main ones.'
There were reports on the suspicious stolen goods flowing into the Empire lately, and on the massive funds converging from noble factions, anti-noble factions, the merchant union, and underworld forces—regardless of their faction.
That alone was enough, but the truly decisive one was the very last report.
'A large underground space in a building left abandoned mid-construction, right before completion, for no special reason.'
It was a pattern familiar to the Intelligence Department's records. A first for Celine herself to witness, though.
'A Dark Auction. It looks like it is being held again after three long years.'
There are those specific items you buy thinking they'll be super useful, but once you get them home, they just gather dust.
Like that expensive exercise machine you splurge on for your health, only for it to become a clothes rack a week later.
Lately, such useless items were piling up in my house as well.
Strangely, they always look so different in the store versus how they look at home.
It makes me suspect that some kind of purchase-inciting magic is at play in those aisles.
Anyway, with all these items piling up, it looked bad aesthetically and cluttered the place, so I decided to dispose of the unused ones.
It's time for a minimalist life, right?
But snapping out of my thoughts, I realized I was back at the department store, browsing for new goods again.
Someone, please, stop me.
"M-Minister? What brings you here again today...?"
Maybe because I visit so often now, the department store manager comes out to greet me personally every single time.
Or is it not the frequency, but because I buy so much each time I visit?
This must be the famous VIP treatment.
Should I start notifying the manager in advance of my visits next time?
"Do I need to report my arrival every single time?"
"N-No, no, no! Of course not! W-We just want to ensure we provide better service for you, Minister...!"
Emphasizing his service spirit—yep, this is definitely VIP treatment.
But what specific perks do department store VIPs actually get?
"Better service, you say."
"Y-Yes, sir..."
"Is what the Merchant Union executives receive from the store also considered part of this 'better service'?"
I'd seen them getting lots of complimentary gifts or whatever, so I asked if I could get some too. The manager frantically shook his head.
"N-No, it's not like that at all! Th-Those people, er, those guys just visited personally, and our store hasn't provided anything special to them, n-none at all!"
Denying it even after I saw him giving—I guess I can't get any free gifts then.
That's a real shame.
Wait, hold on a second—this changes everything, doesn't it?
"That is what he says, Jamel Branch Chief."
Turning and calling out, my agents brought forward Jamel, the capital branch chief of the Merchant Union, whom we'd coincidentally run into at the entrance earlier.
He'd told me earlier that if I asked nicely, he'd hand some of the gifts over.
"So, who exactly is the liar in this room now?"
I didn't want to be petty over mere complimentary gifts, but if there's discrimination in VIP treatment, I couldn't just let it slide as a paying customer.
Not because I'm sulking over not getting any—please don't misunderstand me!
"...Th-The Merchant Union threatened us! They said if we didn't offer bribes, they'd pressure me out of my manager position...!"
Bribes? Threats?
What on earth are you talking about?
"D-Don't you lie! We never did that! You lot proposed the deal to us first, didn't you?!"
Proposed a deal?
Huh?
"The magic tool department store is Empire state-owned. As such, wasn't entry for the Merchant Union strictly prohibited by His Majesty the Emperor as a protective measure for Empire merchants? Or am I mistaken?"
Or is my memory failing me today?
Strange. I'm sure I heard it directly from His Majesty.
Hmm, whatever. I'll just have my subordinates get all the messy details.
"Take both of them to the Intelligence Headquarters immediately."
"M-Minister! N-No, Great Overlord, please!"
"S-Spare me! I-I'll tell you everything you want to know!"
Yeah, yeah. You can talk all you want once you're there.
And such a fuss over a simple "spare me." It's just a little chat—what's the big deal?
Having my agents escort them both to headquarters, I headed for the department store rooftop.
Lately, besides the shopping, I'd gotten addicted to something else: the ice cream sold at the rooftop terrace.
The soft-serve topped with caramel syrup is irresistibly sweet and delicious.
I was just about to head up, leaving the distant screams behind, when a strange sight caught my eye.
Alexander?
Why exactly are you getting stabbed by that woman over there?