The Crown Prince took a notebook and fountain pen from his breast pocket, then looked back and forth between the shattered magic-stone floor, the crumpled steel door, and his two younger siblings as he rapidly wrote something down.
“Steel door damaged, full replacement of forty pyeong of highest-grade magic-stone flooring, three squat racks destroyed, dumbbells and weight plates lost… The Empire’s precious tax money has all gone up in smoke over a mere sibling quarrel.”
Crown Prince Maximilian von Argenheim.
Compared to the muscular Arthur and Victoria, his body looked endlessly frail.
After all, with his formal attire and glasses, his build seemed utterly ordinary, like that of a man who belonged behind a desk.
And yet at this moment, in the middle of the collapsed gym, the one who looked the largest was him.
The charisma of a ruler who most closely resembled the current Emperor flowed from his entire body.
“…You’ve caused quite the grand incident, Arthur, Victoria. Kneel.”
At Maximilian’s icy rebuke, the two fools could not utter a single peep and obediently dropped to their knees on the floor.
“The full cost of repairs will be deducted from both of your dignity-maintenance allowances. I imagine you’ll be living without pocket money for about three months.”
“B-Brother! But this happened because Sister barged into my training hall first…!”
“Shut up, Arthur. There is no excuse for one who destroys imperial property.”
“Brother, listen to me. I was only trying to get Ian—”
“Prince Ian or whoever else, do you think swinging a sword at your family is normal, Victoria?”
“…If it was Arthur, I thought he’d be able to dodge this much.”
At the Crown Prince’s merciless notice, the two lumps of muscle became as silent as mutes with mouths full of honey.
No matter how overwhelmingly powerful they were, before true authority, they were helpless.
“And Ian Sterling.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
“You will come with me. Since those two imbeciles seem to be fighting because of you… I’ll have to take you away and separate you from them.”
“B-But Brother, today is Ian’s lower-body day…!”
“Do you think now is an appropriate time to open your mouth, Arthur?”
“…Sorry, Brother.”
Having silenced the Second Prince with a single sentence, the Crown Prince gestured to me.
“Follow me.”
#
The place Maximilian brought me to was his office, located at the center of the imperial palace.
In complete contrast to the palace’s splendid and antique image, his office was extremely practical and dry.
There was not a single common work of art or ornament, only cabinets that filled the walls and mountain-like piles of documents stacked almost to the ceiling.
It felt as though I had been dropped into the middle of a busy modern office from my previous life; only the smell of ink, paper, parchment, and the urgent footsteps of a few officials filled the bleak space.
“Sit at that table over there. I have a few documents I was in the middle of handling, so wait a moment.”
Maximilian indicated a round conference table in one corner with his chin, then immediately headed to his own desk.
As soon as he sat down, he left me alone and began furiously scrawling signatures across the backlog of documents awaiting approval.
“I’ve rejected the palace repair budget proposal submitted by the Ministry of Finance. Who submits something like this without even following the proper format?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Tell them to revise it by tomorrow morning. If they put together something this sloppy, they must at least be prepared to work overtime. Ah, and execute the flood-recovery aid for the southern territories that came up with it right away. I looked it over, and strangely enough, that one had no issues. I’ve stamped it, so take it to His Majesty.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
Two officials, sweating profusely, clutched the documents to their chests and ran out as if fleeing.
After watching the two leave, another man knocked on the door and entered after them.
“What is it?”
“I have come from the Ministry of Magic, Your Highness. Regarding the budget for improving the crystal balls, we would like to request an increase—”
“I already increased the budget, didn’t I? And yet it’s still not enough?”
“T-That is…”
“No. Unless the minister or the Master of the Magic Tower comes in person, I won’t even review the documents. Leave.”
“Excuse me…”
After the storm-like execution of work ended, Maximilian pushed his glasses up once, rose from his seat, and came over to the table where I sat.
In his hand were two documents.
“Now, take a look.”
He dropped the first document in front of me.
When I examined it, it was a policy proposal outlining the unification and reform of the Empire’s complicated weights and measures into a decimal system based on the metric system.
“This is…”
“This was the plan I had originally devised. But then you submitted something like this to His Majesty.”
Maximilian placed another sheet of paper on top of it.
For a moment, I doubted my own eyes.
It was the draft of the weights-and-measures reform proposal I had submitted not long ago at the tea party with the Emperor.
The document was covered with traces of Maximilian’s own red-ink circles and dense annotations.
“It was an excellent document, Prince Ian. You clearly organized what I had been thinking, and some of your proposals even pointed out matters I hadn’t considered. You also did well in identifying the inconvenience of converting between units in the yard-pound system.”
Maximilian leaned toward me, his violet eyes gleaming.
“Thanks to that excellent document you submitted, I had to overturn half of the practical policy plan and write it anew. Thanks to you, my workload doubled.”
“…Ah.”
“So shouldn’t you take responsibility?”
“Pardon? Responsibility, Your Highness? I merely offered an idea…”
“Once the social season is over, you will come here and help me.”
At Maximilian’s firm notice, I was so dumbfounded that my mouth fell open.
A hostage from a defeated nation was to oversee the Empire’s administrative affairs? What country’s law was that supposed to be?
“I do not understand what you mean, Your Highness. I am a hostage from the Kingdom of Sterling. To assist with state affairs in the office of the Crown Prince, the heart of the Empire… That is absurd.”
At my protest, Maximilian snorted.
“Indeed, ordinarily. But as I see it, you are so capable that you may be the foremost talent on the continent. To let the abilities of such a splendid administrative official rot unused right before my eyes would hinder the development of the Empire.”
“Yes, that…”
“And do you know what we call those who hinder the development of the Empire?”
Maximilian’s eyes flashed.
“Traitors.”
“…Your Highness?”
“Ian Sterling, are you a traitor?”
“Of course not, Your Highness.”
“Yes, of course. Then you must surely be willing to assist in the development of the Empire.”
“Yes, that is true, but…”
“Good. Then from now on, you are a special administrative official of my office.”
“Your Highness, this is far too unreasonable!”
“Unreasonable, unreasonable. Yes, I suppose it is.”
Setting down the documents, Maximilian grinned broadly and laced his fingers together.
“But aren’t you a hostage who lost and was dragged to the Empire? A hostage who must endure however the Empire treats him. If you felt wronged, you should have won the war. Isn’t that right?”
“…”
“I’m joking. If I speak this coercively, you’ll only feel resistance… so I’ll offer a carrot from my side as well. I will protect you completely from my two younger siblings.”
“…!”
As if he knew very well that I had been caught between those two lumps of muscle earlier, facing the dilemma of a lifetime, the Crown Prince smiled slyly.
“Let me make an analogy. What happens if you throw a teddy bear to two children who absolutely refuse to let go of what’s theirs?”
“…The teddy bear will get caught between the two and be torn in half.”
“Yes, exactly. Then what is the way to save the teddy bear?”
“…Someone else has to take the bear away.”
“Precisely. I’m saying I’ll take that bear and make it do some work.”
“…”
Maximilian crossed his arms leisurely and drove in the wedge.
“Of course, I’m not some evil demon, and I don’t intend to make you work every day. From now on, stop by here twice a week and help me process documents. Naturally, I’ll pay you a salary as well.”
“But Your Highness, if His Majesty learns of this…!”
“Ah, don’t worry about that.”
Maximilian took out a permit stamped with the imperial family’s red wax seal from his breast pocket and showed it to me.
“Father has already approved my proposal. It is His Majesty’s command.”
“…”
“You no longer have any grounds to refuse, do you?”
At the words that even the Emperor’s approval had been given, I sensed there was nowhere left for me to run.
I let out a deep sigh and bowed my head with an extremely sour and reluctant expression.
“…I look forward to working with you, Your Highness.”
“That’s a good attitude. I like it very much. Well, I hope it never happens, but even if you conduct yourself a little poorly and a problem arises, as long as you’re working in my office, I can cover for you. Unless it’s by His Majesty’s command, that is.”
“…Thank you.”
“Good. Then let’s go to the room next door.”
Maximilian sprang to his feet, immediately grabbed my shoulder, left the office, and took me to the room next door.
“This is the office you’ll be using.”
“Pardon?”
Inside the room, a mahogany desk, a plush office chair, ink and quills, and practical documents related to the metric-system reform piled as high as I was tall had already been perfectly set up.
There was even a nameplate on the desk.
[Special Administrative Official of the Crown Prince’s Office
Ian Sterling]
“Take a look around the room for a bit, then return to your quarters when you feel like it. I don’t intend to make you work right away, and you must be tired today as well after getting caught up in all sorts of commotion.”
“…Thank you for your consideration.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll review some more documents before going in.”
#
After leaving Ian in the room next door and remaining alone in his office, Maximilian silently clenched both fists and cheered with an expression of rapture that one could never imagine from his usual cold face.
‘Got you, Ian Sterling…! You’re mine now!’
Overcome with the surging joy of finally obtaining a competent, cheap administrative slave he could actually communicate with, he writhed violently in place, only to end up striking his own desk with his flailing arm…
Crash—!!
And the mountain of hundreds of documents he had painstakingly sorted spilled onto the floor.
“Ah, fuck.”
The Crown Prince’s curse echoed hollowly through the empty office.