Chapter 10

Watching the large hand draw closer and closer, Blenn froze in place.

Why? Why is he reaching out? Is he going to pat me on the head for doing well? Or is he going to hit me for getting cocky?

Before Blenn could finish the thought, Rainer reached out and grabbed a lock of his hair.

Quite literally, he took it in his hand.

“This kind of soft luminescence might work well for a crystal.”

“…Pardon?”

He wasn’t going to hit him.

And he certainly wasn’t going to pat him on the head.

Rainer was using Blenn’s hair as inspiration for a magical tool research project.

The silver strands shimmered softly in the light.

“I should look into developing one.”

Rainer muttered seriously to himself before brushing right past Blenn, who was still standing in his way.

He must have been struck by a particularly good idea, because there was now a noticeable spring in his step as he headed down the corridor.

Left standing alone in the hallway, Blenn let out a hollow sigh.

“That damned superior.”

He grumbled as he ran his fingers through his now-disheveled hair.

News that the recent barrier incident had actually been a self-inflicted scheme carried out by a member of the Magic Department spread like wildfire throughout the palace.

Everyone had simply assumed that an intruder had broken in.

The possibility that someone from inside the palace would deliberately orchestrate something like this had never even crossed anyone’s mind. As a result, the incident quickly became the hottest topic in the palace.

“I was honestly shocked when I heard the news. So what happened to that member?”

Kale, Blenn’s friend and a member of the Treasury Department, asked as he spooned soup into his mouth.

“He was immediately stripped of his position and handed over to the Justice Department. Once the investigation is finished, the trial will probably begin right away, won’t it?”

While the Justice Department had been investigating Karbin, Blenn had been called in several times as a witness.

After all, he was the one who had investigated the incident from beginning to end.

“I see. But that member had some serious nerve. No matter how much you resent someone, framing Lord Rainer like that…”

As Kale said, Karbin certainly had some nerve.

In hindsight, thinking he could so easily screw Rainer over had been incredibly complacent.

Still, Rainer must have been infuriating enough to drive him to that point.

Blenn later heard from Hernon at the Third Barrier Division that Karbin had been known within the department as someone whose talent and ability as a Magic Department member were nothing particularly impressive.

He made frequent minor mistakes, and although he worked hard, he was the sort of person who struggled to produce meaningful results.

The stress from that had probably only intensified his resentment toward Rainer.

Rainer’s words had clearly cut Karbin deeply.

Of course, none of that justified breaking the law or abandoning basic principles.

“Hmm, but is that one true?”

“What?”

“The thing Lord Rainer reportedly said to the Magic Department members after the incident.”

“Ah, you mean the part about coming at him one-on-one if they had a problem?”

Kale cleared his throat and nodded.

Even hearing it for the second time seemed to make him uneasy.

Of course, Rainer hadn’t actually put it quite so bluntly.

He had merely said that if anyone had genuine complaints or wanted to argue their own position, they should come directly to him instead of pulling something behind his back.

And if they wanted to settle the matter with a fight, he would accept that too.

But no matter how you interpreted it, the message was essentially the same.

If you have a problem with me, come at me.

If there were still members of the Magic Department nursing thoughts of revenge like Karbin had, that one statement had probably crushed those thoughts entirely.

“Blenn, you’re pretty incredible too. Volunteering to become the aide of someone like that.”

Kale looked at him incredulously.

“You used to hate standing out, didn’t you? You don’t even bother with your appearance because you hate drawing attention to yourself.”

His eyes landed precisely on Blenn’s untidy hair.

“I still don’t like that sort of thing. And I’m not doing this because I want to stand out either.”

That was true.

If anything, Blenn was the kind of person who believed that living quietly and inconspicuously was the ideal way to go.

If possible, he would rather have the world take no interest in him at all.

Wherever he was, whatever group he belonged to, he preferred to blend into the background like air.

But when his survival was on the line, this was hardly the time to be picky about such things.

“Aren’t you afraid of Lord Rainer?”

“I am.”

Honestly, it wasn’t just Rainer’s sharp tongue that made him frightening.

The very aura he gave off was intimidating.

He had a stoic personality and rarely spoke. His face was almost always expressionless, with the only real expression he seemed capable of producing being a slight furrow of his brow.

Even when his face was expressionless, his sharp eyes gave him a perpetually cold aura.

He was a man well over six feet tall, with piercing eyes and jet-black hair that was always slightly disheveled. The dark circles beneath his eyes were practically permanent, and every word that came out of his mouth seemed sharp enough to cut.

How could anyone possibly not find him frightening?

On top of all that, his abilities as a mage were among the very best.

“He is scary, but…”

Blenn hummed thoughtfully.

Kale finished his food in silence and waited for him to continue.

“Once you start thinking of him as nothing more than a guy who’s obsessed with work, he’s not really that scary.”

“…Your mental fortitude is unreal.”

Kale set down his utensils and gave Blenn a thumbs-up.

In truth, this was something Blenn had often been told in his previous life as well.

That he didn’t seem to lose his nerve under pressure and didn’t appear to take much emotional damage either.

Maybe that was why he had been able to come up with such a ridiculous plan as preventing Rainer’s death from overwork in the first place.

If he had been someone like Karbin, it would have been completely impossible.

“I’ll be cheering on your treacherous aide life.”

“Thanks for the lip service.”

“Let’s have dinner with Luwen sometime. The three of us.”

Kale, who had finished eating first, gathered his tray and stood up.

There was a Treasury meeting that afternoon, so he needed to start preparing early.

“Oh, right, Blenn.”

Kale set down the tray he was holding and began rummaging through his coat.

He pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Blenn.

“What’s this?”

“A temporary memo from the Treasury Department to the Magic Department. Notice of a change to the Magic Department’s budget allocation.”

Apparently, Kale’s seniors had entrusted the document to him personally because they knew he was close to the Magic Minister’s aide.

They had probably chosen the most efficient method of delivery out of fear of running into Rainer if they went to the Magic Department office themselves.

“Got it. Thanks. Good luck with the meeting.”

Blenn waved Kale off and unfolded the document.

Then again, was there even a reason for the budget to be changed?

One of the Treasury Department’s core responsibilities was allocating each department’s annual budget.

The Magic Department had an enormous workload, along with countless administrative and research responsibilities, so it consumed a significant portion of the annual budget.

It also produced results to match.

As a result, it typically received a substantial budget every year.

As far as Blenn knew, that budget had never been altered in the middle of the year.

Not once.

“Hmm…”

Blenn slowly read through the document before letting out a heavy sigh.

A fact he had completely forgotten suddenly came back to him.

Blenn cleared his tray and left the cafeteria.

The moment he entered the Magic Department office, he headed straight for Rainer’s office and knocked on the door.

By now, he had gotten accustomed to entering without waiting for permission.

As expected, Rainer had his nose buried in documents as usual.

Looking closer, he appeared to be reviewing material related to crystals, one of the most fundamental types of magical tools.

Blenn suddenly remembered the recent incident when Rainer had grabbed his hair and started muttering about luminescence.

“Lord Rainer. A temporary memo regarding the budget came from the Treasury Department.”

“Budget? What about the budget?”

His voice was directed toward Blenn, but his eyes remained fixed on the document in front of him.

“It says they’re cutting part of the budget allocated to the Magic Department.”

Rainer slowly raised his head.

At the mention of a budget cut, his brow furrowed as he held out his hand.

“Or, more precisely, deducting it.”

Blenn handed him the document he had received from Kale.

“A few days ago, you damaged the conference room wall, Lord Rainer. The repairs are expected to be fairly extensive, so apparently they’re going to take the construction costs out of the Magic Department’s budget.”

That was the day they had brought Karbin in as the culprit behind the barrier incident.

Karbin had confessed to everything, but then, unable to contain his anger, had attempted to attack Rainer directly.

Rainer had subdued him with ease.

In the process, however, a large crack had formed in the conference room wall.

“…”

Rainer’s brow furrowed further as he read through the document.

“Why is that old geezer dragging the Magic Department’s budget into this? Are they really setting the price that high for one cracked wall?”

“If I may offer my opinion, I think the price is actually quite reasonable.”

Calling it one cracked wall didn’t quite capture the extent of the damage.

If Rainer had put even a little more force into it, the entire conference room wall might have collapsed.

“If they wanted reparations, they should have gone to the man who lunged at me. He was the one who used magic in the first place.”

“But the reason the wall was damaged so badly was because of the force you used, Lord Rainer.”

The blade Karbin had created at the time had not contained much magic.

He simply hadn’t been skilled enough to produce anything particularly powerful.

When Rainer had seized his wrist and slammed it against the wall, a small amount of Rainer’s own magic had flowed into the blade.

When the blade shattered, the wall had effectively been destroyed along with it.

And considering Rainer’s level of skill, he probably could have subdued Karbin without ever needing to strike the wall.

As Blenn calmly laid out his perfectly logical argument, Rainer lifted his head.

His eyes narrowed as he stared at Blenn, who showed not the slightest hesitation.

The more Rainer thought about it, the more brazen and ridiculous this man seemed.

To begin with, Rainer hadn’t believed for even one percent that Blenn would actually resolve the incident perfectly within the time limit.

“You’ve got a smart mouth.”

“If I only had a smart mouth, I wouldn’t have been able to resolve that incident.”

“Is that really so impressive? If I had done it, I would have figured it out in thirty minutes.”

Rainer looked unimpressed.

“A flimsy plot devised by a flimsy man would have been exposed sooner or later anyway.”

Honestly, that wasn’t wrong.

Whatever Karbin’s intentions had been, the plan he had come up with had contained plenty of holes.

At the time, however, the ministers had been making such a fuss that nobody had been able to think clearly.

If it hadn’t been for that, Rainer or someone else would have easily uncovered the truth.

“Would it kill him to just say I did well…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Blenn hadn’t meant to let that slip.

Rainer’s glare was becoming sharper by the second, so it seemed wiser to make himself scarce.

“Then I’ll take my leave.”

“Hold on.”

Just as Blenn was about to turn the doorknob, a voice came from behind him.

The moment he turned his head, Rainer crooked a finger toward him.