Fixing a Ruined Ending C5

Chapter 5

Blen had achieved his goal of becoming Rainer’s aide, but at the same time, a new goal had been established.

To earn Rainer’s trust.

Well, calling it “trust” might be a little grand. For now, Blen needed to earn enough recognition that Rainer would at least feel comfortable entrusting him with work.

Everyone in the Magic Department already knew that Rainer personally handled even tasks that could easily have been delegated to his aide or other members. Of course, ironically, that didn’t mean the ordinary members of the Magic Department had little work to do.

“But after making such a big promise yesterday, how am I supposed to come up with something worthy of recognition?”

Blen muttered as he dropped the materials he had been struggling to carry since morning onto the floor of the archives with a heavy thud.

He dusted off his hands and looked around the room.

This was the Magic Department’s dedicated archive, located right beside the office. As its name suggested, it was where the department stored the paperwork, documents, and important materials it dealt with.

Naturally, since it contained practically every document the Magic Department had ever handled, the archive itself was enormous.

Bookshelves marked with classification numbers filled the spacious room from wall to wall, packed tightly with materials related to the Magic Department.

There was so much material that even senior members of the department frequently got confused about where everything was. Older documents were especially difficult to locate.

Blen picked up the materials he had brought again and ventured deeper into the archive, where the distinctive smell of paper lingered in the air.

He had already finished classifying and organizing the documents Rainer had previously assigned to him.

But after that, Rainer had dumped another similar task on him.

As Blen put the documents that had already been sorted by subject into their proper places, he continued racking his brain.

Rainer’s standards must be way up on that mountaintop. Is there any chance I can get him to acknowledge me even a little?

Rainer was already famous throughout the Imperial Palace simply because of his personality, but that certainly wasn’t the only title associated with him.

He was the youngest Magic Minister, as well as the youngest person to obtain the National Magic User Certification.

For exceptionally talented individuals, obtaining the national certification in their late teens was considered normal. For the average person, it was usually acquired in their early twenties.

Rainer, however, had obtained his at the age of seven.

That was why, even when the original novel was being serialized and readers discussed the strongest characters in the story, Rainer was always mentioned alongside the protagonist.

And that wasn’t all.

He was a genius who appeared perhaps once every few decades, a gifted individual who had even received the emperor’s personal recognition—a whole collection of dazzling titles that stood in stark contrast to the nicknames associated with his personality.

“If only personality and ability were proportional.”

Blen muttered as he finished organizing the documents.

Then his shoulders and neck began to ache slightly.

He placed the document in his hand onto the bookshelf, rubbed his shoulders, and tilted his head back.

“I never imagined they’d be inversely proportional… Huh?”

The moment he tilted his head back, he felt something hard against the back of his head.

What? There shouldn’t be a bookshelf here.

Blen raised his eyes.

And immediately locked gazes with Rainer, who was staring down at him.

Blen realized that the back of his head was currently pressed against Rainer’s chest and froze in shock.

The first thing that entered his field of vision was Rainer’s black hair.

Below it were the dark circles beneath his eyes, as prominent as ever today.

Along with his expressionless, impassive face, they had practically become Rainer’s trademark.

“Move.”

“Ah, yes. Sorry.”

Blen had unconsciously been staring far too intently at Rainer’s face.

Despite thinking Rainer had a terrible personality, Blen had to admit the man was exceptionally handsome, so he quickly straightened up.

At the same time, he suddenly remembered what he had muttered to himself earlier.

He didn’t hear that, did he?

Feeling inexplicably guilty, Blen sneaked a glance at Rainer.

Rainer brushed the area where Blen’s head had touched him with his hand, then walked over to a nearby bookshelf and began scanning it.

“Are you looking for some particular material? You could have asked me to—”

Rainer turned his gaze toward Blen.

His deep blue eyes, dark enough to almost appear black, were filled with unmistakable disbelief.

“You need to actually be at your desk for me to ask you for something. How can you still not have finished the task I gave you?”

“You gave me this task exactly one hour ago.”

Blen put as much emphasis as possible on the words one hour.

Considering the sheer number of documents involved, identifying, classifying, and organizing all of them within that amount of time was actually quite fast.

“If I had done it, I would have finished within twenty minutes. As expected, you’re incompetent. Didn’t you say you’d make me acknowledge you?”

Blen deliberately cleared his throat loudly, avoiding the question.

“I think I’m working pretty hard.”

“So pretending to work while insulting your superior counts as working hard to you? What remarkable logic.”

Blen nearly dropped the documents in his hands.

That damned minister had definitely heard him earlier when he had muttered something about personality and ability being inversely proportional.

Fortunately, Rainer didn’t go out of his way to punish people for gossiping about him privately.

If he had, the Magic Department would probably have been wiped off the map by now, and the other departments wouldn’t have fared much better.

He probably thought even the time spent punishing them and worrying about it should instead be spent working.

What an extraordinary workaholic.

After that exchange, the archive abruptly fell silent.

Only the sound of turning pages and rustling paper echoed through the room.

The awkward silence was unbearable. Blen desperately wanted to finish the task and return to the office as quickly as possible, but unfortunately, there was still quite a bit of material left to organize.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to him.

If he wanted to prevent Rainer’s death from overwork in the future, he would need to infiltrate every aspect of his daily life.

Wouldn’t it be better to get closer to him as soon as possible?

Regardless of whether Rainer recognized him professionally, breaking down this psychological barrier might allow Blen to help him even more.

“Um, Rainer, I have something I’m curious about.”

“What.”

“You skip meals all the time and devote yourself to your work. Doesn’t that make you tired?”

“You seem to be incompetent and don’t know much, but humans can survive on minimal meals.”

Why does he have to attach “incompetent” to every answer?

Putting that aside, minimal meals?

Blen felt an urge to demand an explanation for how Rainer’s fate of dying from overwork could possibly be reconciled with that statement.

“Then how many hours do you sleep a day?”

“Would knowing how many hours I sleep somehow improve your work efficiency?”

“…No.”

“Then don’t ask questions unrelated to work.”

His plan to somehow become closer to Rainer on a personal level had become a useless scrap of paper approximately three minutes after it began.

Then again, perhaps trying to get close to someone with absolutely zero social skills had been an impossible task from the start.

Blen gave up on talking and moved his hands at superhuman speed.

Thanks to that, he was able to finish the organizing work quickly.

Before leaving the archive, he nevertheless asked, as any proper aide should, whether there was anything else he could help with.

Rainer didn’t even spare him a glance.

“Go do your own work properly.”

Blen bowed his head and walked toward the door.

Before leaving, he looked back at Rainer, who was standing motionless in front of a bookshelf, scanning through the materials.

“The documents related to that magical artifact are also on the very bottom shelf of C-3.”

But, as expected, Rainer acted as though he hadn’t heard him.

Feeling as though he had become invisible, Blen resisted the urge to throw an imaginary punch at Rainer and closed the door behind him.

Once the archive fell silent again, Rainer continued examining the document in his hands.

His eyes moved diligently over the words.

It was material on an earlier model of the magical artifact he needed to improve.

He had read all the way to the final page, but there was exactly one piece of information he wanted that was missing.

“…”

Rainer raised his head.

The bookshelf he was currently standing in front of was marked A-4.

Leaving the document he had been reading behind, Rainer moved elsewhere.

When he reached bookshelf C-3, he crouched down and began examining the materials placed on the very bottom shelf one by one.

But he couldn’t find any information about the artifact.

Of course. Figures.

Just as he was thinking that, he spotted an old document shoved into the far corner of the shelf.

Rainer pulled it out and checked its contents.

Information about the artifact’s earliest model was listed there.

And it was exactly the information he had been looking for.

Holding the paper in his hand, Rainer stared for a moment at the place where Blen had disappeared.

Meanwhile, while Rainer was still examining the materials in the archive, Blen had just returned to the office, rubbing his stiff shoulders.

“Okay, I understand. Yeah. I’ll report it to the minister.”

Something about the atmosphere inside seemed unsettled.

Several members were gathered around the communication crystal, their expressions unusually serious.

“Did something happen?”

“Oh, Blen.”

Fel, who had been speaking with someone through the communication crystal, approached him.

“Rainer left a while ago. Do you know where he is now? Something urgent came up that we need to report.”

“He should be in the archive. But why—”

At that exact moment, Rainer entered the office.

Judging by his expression, he looked ready to demand why everyone was gathered around instead of working.

But he soon seemed to sense that something was different and merely furrowed his brow slightly.

Fel cleared his throat once and hurriedly stepped forward.

“Rainer, we just received word from the Magic Department stationed at the border. It seems there’s a problem with the barrier.”