The Plot Is Twisting in the Worst Way Possible
The original story and reality were overlapping. Only partially, to be exact.
'Male lead, what the hell are you doing?'
The story was diverging from the original I remembered. And suddenly, at that. In a way where I couldn't even guess the cause.
'Originally, the first thing that should've happened was voices rising over the tax rate issue.'
The war had only broken out in the eastern and parts of the northern regions of the empire. After his return, the emperor had decided to slightly lower the tax rates in those areas to aid with reconstruction.
'That much has already happened.'
In the original story, problems arose when the western and southern regions also demanded tax reductions, citing war damages. Although the war had been long and fierce, it never reached the west or south. So while there had been some damage, it was negligible at best.
'At first the emperor dismissed the nobles from the west and south, but eventually he couldn't take it anymore and began pressuring them.'
The fact that this argument had been omitted meant that the probing phase between the emperor and the nobles right after his return had been completely skipped. They had jumped straight to the main event. In a much more aggressive manner.
'Just what kind of change of heart has the emperor gone through?'
No matter how much I searched my memories, I couldn't pinpoint any event that might have caused the original story to twist. As far as I knew, nothing unusual had happened around the emperor.
'It might just be a lack of information.'
I was the type who was always a bit slow to catch news. Unless Connie delivered the rumors circulating inside the imperial palace, I usually remained completely in the dark.
The only thing I could rely on was the original story, but the emperor's past before meeting the female lead wasn't covered much in the novel. That left me with no choice but to infer things from flashback scenes or characters' dialogue. The nobles' request for tax reductions had been a kind of turning point. It became the catalyst for the emperor to fall out with the nobility.
The emperor's marriage to a commoner was the fuse that exploded the tension built up from those tax reduction demands. If the nobles' demands for lower taxes had been weak, the emperor wouldn't have had any reason to react so sensitively to the marriage issue.
After all, before meeting the female lead, the emperor had been the type of person who viewed political marriages as simply part of his imperial duties.
'If this is changing, does that mean the timeline for other events will shift too?'
My plan to lie low and use my knowledge of the original story until the female lead appeared was on the verge of complete collapse. And in the worst possible direction I could imagine.
My expression must have looked grim, because Connie quickly added,
“They said no one died and came back or anything like that.”
But it wasn't much of a comfort.
'They might soon, though.'
I thought back to the events that had occurred before the female lead's appearance.
'So next would be...'
After this, the nobles would regroup and begin opposing the emperor's every word. Given that the emperor was already incredibly popular with the citizens and held military power, the nobles were making a calculated gamble. They feared that once they yielded even once, their power would weaken throughout his entire reign.
Only at times like this did the nobles band together seamlessly, regardless of whether they were from the east, west, south, north, or the central region. Even the previous emperor—who would later be remembered as the most incompetent and unpopular ruler until the empire's fall—had never considered turning the entire nobility against him.
So when they formed their alliance, they must have believed their strategy carried a fairly high chance of success.
'If only their opponent hadn't been the current emperor.'
The emperor wasn't the type to compromise. On the other hand, Kyle and the rest of the emperor's intelligence unit possessed a natural talent for digging up corruption. In the original story, the hardliners among the rebellious nobles were shaken down one by one in order of their extremism and stripped of their positions.
Of course, appropriate punishments were handed down according to their crimes—revocation of titles, execution, exile, and so on. It seemed there wasn't a single noble who didn't have some dirt on them, because every time they rose up against the emperor, more nobles were dragged away as criminals. As a result, the alliance gradually loosened.
'It's not like the emperor fabricated crimes that didn't exist, so they brought it on themselves.'
During this process, a bloody wind also swept through the imperial palace's administrators. Not only those who had chosen the wrong side, but even some unlucky souls got caught up when one of the powerful figures fell.
It meant that low-ranking people like us could once again get unfairly swept up, just like what had happened to Connie last time.
Originally, I had planned to dodge everything skillfully until the emperor started dating the female lead and developed a conscience. But the situation had changed. I had been keeping my head down because the typhoon's influence seemed like it might reach even my surroundings. If I couldn't predict the typhoon's movements, I needed a different strategy than simply lying flat and enduring it.
'There's no guarantee that the unlucky person swept away by this suddenly changed typhoon's path won't be me or someone close to me.'
I had been leaning heavily toward rejecting the Blue Hawk offer, but now I was starting to think that the eye of the typhoon might actually be safer.
Still, when the actual moment to accept came, I didn't have the courage to walk into the eye of the storm on my own two feet. And that hadn't changed even now.
The emperor was a rather lenient superior to his subordinates, so maybe I should accept Kyle's proposal... but...
'Even if the emperor acts kindly toward those around him, it doesn't mean safety is guaranteed every time.'
In fact, one of the descriptions of the past in the original story mentioned that 'servants who leaked minor information while secretly communicating with nobles, or adjutants who ruined missions due to blunders, actually received even harsher punishments.'
'A servant is one thing, but an adjutant? Someone who'd been through the war with him for a long time as a close aide, and he still cut them off. Without even blinking.'
Huh?
Wait a second.
The feeling of something incredibly important flashing through my mind struck me.
My sixth sense was screaming at me. That if I missed this, I'd regret it.
I was writhing in agony over a clue that seemed just out of reach when Connie, apparently interpreting my expression in her own way, tried to comfort me.
“Well, the higher-ups might be nervous, but what could possibly happen to us low-ranking folks?”
The problem was that I was pretty sure something would happen. To the people around me. And it was a huge issue I needed to realize right this instant.
When my expression showed no sign of easing despite her words—only deepening in worry—Connie's consolation grew even longer.
“Besides, we probably won't even run into them. We'll just keep doing our jobs like usual, spinning in our little wheels.”
It was rare to see Connie being this serious as she tried to reassure me.
'She's right about that too. Weeds rooted firmly in the ground actually hold up pretty well against typhoons.'
“You think so?”
The mood was growing increasingly serious. I forced the corners of my mouth up, trying to relax my stiff expression and respond to Connie, when it happened.
The end of that elusive clue suddenly felt like it had brushed against my fingertips.
“Connie, wait! I think I need to recall something incredibly important right now.”
It was a sudden remark that didn't fit the context at all, but the serious atmosphere made Connie's mouth snap shut immediately.
Connie and I, who worked in the Ministry of Finance, could fairly be called weeds—the lowest tier within the imperial palace.
'We have so little presence that we don't even appear in the original story, so I thought I just needed to be a little careful.'
But recently, I had formed small connections with people who reached a bit deeper into the inner circles.
'Now that I think about it, I know an adjutant!'
Everett Rohas.
Even if the original story proceeded as written, there was someone dangerous who had been right by my side all along.
'That adjutant who ruined a mission with a blunder and received severe punishment... that couldn't have been Everett, right?'
The unfortunate adjutant's appearance in the story was only about two lines long. He was closer to an extra than a supporting character, so his name was never even mentioned.
The only thing written was a brief note that, due to the adjutant's mistake, the emperor's purge of his political enemies had been delayed.
'The name wasn't given exactly, so I had just glossed over it.'
I didn't know exactly how many adjutants the emperor had, but organizationally there were probably around ten, so the odds were quite high.
'Had Everett even appeared after the original story began?'