Fixing a Ruined Ending C11

Chapter 11

The gesture was almost as if he were calling an animal over. Blenn briefly considered simply ignoring him and walking away. But no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t openly disregard his superior, so he reluctantly released the doorknob.

“What do you need?”

Rainer, the one who had called him over, said nothing. Rather than speaking, he merely stared at Blenn so intently that Blenn began to wonder if he was somehow being challenged to a staring contest.

After a moment, Rainer reached to the side. From the countless stacks of documents piled across the large table, he pulled out the file sitting at the very top and placed it in front of Blenn.

“This is the analysis report for the candidates who took the third National Mage Examination this time.”

“Oh, yes.”

The National Mage Examination was, as its name suggested, one of the official examinations administered by the Heliorn Empire. Those who passed were granted a state-certified qualification as a mage.

Mages working in various fields throughout the empire all possessed this certification, each identified by an individual serial number. Naturally, using magic without the proper qualification constituted an illegal act. The Imperial Palace Magic Department therefore also monitored those who illegally used magic without certification, as well as those who forged such qualifications.

Returning to the matter at hand, anyone who wished to become a certified mage had to take the examinations administered periodically by the Imperial Palace Magic Department and pass all three stages, from the first through the third.

“Have you already finished reviewing them?”

Based on the established passing criteria, members of the Magic Department first screened the candidates who had passed the first and second examinations. Those who passed both were permitted to take the third examination, and the established procedure was for Rainer to determine the final successful candidates based on their accumulated scores—in other words, the analysis reports of those who had taken the third exam.

Of course, determining the final successful candidates was hardly a task that actually required Rainer himself. The evaluation criteria had already been standardized, and the work was normally assigned to members of Rank Three or above within the Magic Department. They were more than capable of distinguishing between those worthy of receiving a mage’s certification and those who weren’t.

Yet Rainer still refused to entrust the final selection to his subordinates and continued to choose the successful candidates himself.

To an outsider, it might have looked like an absurd waste of highly skilled manpower.

“You do it.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Go through the third-stage candidates, pick out only those who passed, and give me the list.”

Blenn blinked slowly.

This was the first time.

For the first time since becoming Rainer’s aide, Rainer was actually assigning him a proper task.

Until now, the only thing Blenn had really done was sort and organize documents that Rainer had already finished reviewing.

“M-Me?”

“Why? Can’t you do it?”

“It’s not that. It’s just… this is something you always handle yourself, so I don’t quite understand why you’re handing it over to me…”

Rainer let out a deep sigh and leaned back in his chair.

“I wasn’t originally planning to do this either. It’s simply easier for me to do it myself…”

He muttered quietly, his expression bored. After rubbing his face with one hand, he looked again at the silver-haired man standing awkwardly before him.

“Who was it that boldly made it a condition of becoming my aide that I be allowed to actually assist with my work?”

“Ah…”

“If you don’t want to, forget it. I can do it myself.”

“No. When did I ever say I didn’t want to?”

The moment Rainer moved to take the documents back, Blenn hurried forward. He practically snatched the stack away and pulled it toward himself.

“Just leave it to me. I’m confident I’ll do an excellent job.”

Blenn beamed.

Rainer stared at the corners of his mouth, which seemed determined to climb higher and higher.

He had merely given the man some work. What was there to be so happy about? And why was he grinning like such an idiot?

“Stop smiling and get out. You wasted two minutes asking unnecessary questions.”

“Oh, dear. That’s quite a crisis, then. I’ll be off.”

Carrying a substantial stack of documents, Blenn’s footsteps were remarkably light.

When the door closed behind him, Rainer lifted his head again. At the faint sound of humming drifting in from outside, his brow furrowed deeply.

“…What a strange man.”

Meanwhile, Blenn returned to the aide’s office and placed the documents on his desk with a broad grin.

Finally, he was making progress in earning Rainer’s trust in his abilities.

When he had confidently declared that if he solved the incident caused by Karbin, Rainer would have to let him properly assist him, it had been little more than a gamble. It was questionable whether Rainer had even accepted the proposal, since he had never actually told Blenn that he would abide by it.

So when he solved the incident, Blenn had cautiously brought it up again.

But at the time, Rainer had merely used his hair as inspiration for a new research idea and left it at that.

And just moments ago, when Blenn had once again pointed out that he had successfully resolved the incident, Rainer had brushed him off by saying that not being able to solve it would have been the truly foolish thing.

Honestly, Blenn hadn’t expected anything at all.

Since things had turned out this way, he had been thinking that he would accomplish something impressive enough to make Rainer’s eyes pop out of his head and finally earn his recognition.

But now, sitting right before him, was a task Rainer himself had entrusted to him.

Of course, it was probably only a fraction of the work Rainer currently handled on his own.

Still, it was more than enough to make Blenn feel that all his efforts had finally paid off.

Humming happily to himself, Blenn began carefully examining the analysis reports of the third-stage candidates one by one.

“Oh, this person’s results are excellent despite this being their first attempt.”

The candidate had displayed outstanding scores across all three examinations. Blenn marked the candidate’s papers with a passing notation and wrote their name on the list.

He didn’t know what field of magic the person would eventually specialize in, but someone like this was bound to go far.

Blenn continued examining each candidate’s scores meticulously and evaluating them according to the established criteria.

Then, he suddenly stopped at one particular page.

“Hmm. This candidate is… rather ambiguous.”

A puzzled expression appeared on Blenn’s face as he examined the analysis report.

The candidate’s ability was good enough to have passed the first examination, but their performance was just barely at the level where they might have been eliminated during the second.

At the same time, however, their ability wasn’t quite poor enough to fall clearly below the second-stage passing threshold.

If the member who had reviewed the candidate’s work had been slightly generous in their evaluation, it was entirely possible that the candidate had passed the second examination legitimately.

In other words, their ability was thoroughly ambiguous.

Even so, the results of the third examination were unequivocal.

They had failed.

If they improved their skills a little more and took the examination again next time—or the time after that—they would probably have a good chance of passing.

Blenn was just about to mark the candidate as unsuccessful when the crystal orb sitting on his desk began to ring.

The moment he tapped it, an instruction from Rainer came through, telling him to retrieve a particular document from the archives.

Blenn rose from his seat and headed for the archive.

By the time he returned to the office with the requested material, the members of the department were beginning to prepare to leave for the day.

“Blenn, are you staying late again today?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

Perhaps Luwen still felt sorry for his friend after becoming an aide, because he gave Blenn a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“Make sure you eat dinner, okay? You know your body starts suffering if you don’t eat properly.”

Touched by his friend’s concern, Blenn’s face softened.

“Luwen, can I give you a hug?”

“Nope.”

Luwen laughed and shook his head.

“I’m heading out. Good luck with everything.”

“Yeah.”

Blenn exchanged a few words with the other members as they left, wishing them a good evening before returning to the aide’s office.

He neatly arranged the documents he’d brought back and was just about to knock on Rainer’s door when something Luwen had said earlier suddenly crossed his mind.

You need to eat properly if you don’t want your body to suffer.

He was right.

Food was indispensable to maintaining one’s health.

And yet, the person on the other side of this door was practically a professional at skipping meals in favor of work.

What was it he’d said?

That he could survive on only small amounts of food?

No wonder he’d ended up with that fate.

Come to think of it, if Blenn wanted to prevent Rainer from dying of overwork, reducing his workload was certainly important.

But unless he also got Rainer to adopt a regular and healthy lifestyle, his plan to prevent that death from overwork might not succeed.

“…This isn’t the time to be happy just because I’ve been given one assignment.”

Blenn knocked and entered.

“Did you have to go make the documents yourself? I told you to bring what already existed. Why did it take so long?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just put them over there.”

Blenn placed the documents on the desk.

Then, pretending to fuss with the papers for no particular reason, he stole a glance at Rainer, who was still completely absorbed in his work, sitting in exactly the same position as before.

“If you’ve got enough time to stare at me like that, why don’t you go outside and do the work I assigned you properly?”

Does this man have eyes in the back of his head or something?

“Hmm. I was just thinking about dinner…”

“Go eat if you want. Don’t if you don’t.”

Rainer cut him off before he could even finish speaking.

Blenn left the office with a disgruntled expression.

The moment the door closed, Rainer let out a long sigh.

Why did the man keep reporting every little thing to him? If he wanted to eat, he could simply go eat.

Then—

There was another knock.

Rainer set down the pen in his hand and stared toward the door.

As expected, it was Blenn again.

“He’s really getting on my nerves.”

“Rainer, I’ll ask you in advance, but would you like to have dinner with me—”

“No.”

“I thought you’d say that. In that case, how about playing a round of this card game with me?”

“I genuinely cannot understand how your thought process works.”

Rainer shook his head in exasperation as he watched Blenn wave a box of cards around.

“It’s working hours. Who plays games during working hours?”

“For the record, dinner time officially started one minute ago. Strictly speaking, it isn’t working hours anymore.”

Blenn’s rebuttal was surprisingly logical as he dragged over a small table that had been sitting to one side.

“If I win, you have to come have dinner with me immediately. Of course, if I lose, we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“I don’t see any benefit in this for me.”

“Rainer, what do you think when you look at me right now?”

“Annoying. I want you to get out of here immediately.”

“Then you just have to win the game. That’s plenty of incentive, isn’t it?”

The wider Blenn’s smile became, the more incredulous Rainer’s expression grew.

“How old are you, exactly? Why have you been making these ridiculous gambling-style propositions lately? I’m not indulging you, so put that back where you found it and leave.”

“Yes, if you really don’t want to, I suppose I can’t help it.”

Blenn drooped his shoulders and returned the table to its original position.

“Rainer, you must really dislike these card games.”

“To be precise, I dislike you—”

“Is it because you’re bad at them?”

“…”

“Ah, if that’s the case, then I apologize for being rude. Even His Excellency, the genius mage who supposedly can’t fail at anything in the magical world, might not be particularly good at the Empire’s traditional card games.”

At that moment, Rainer’s eyebrow twitched with considerably more force than it had at any point before.