The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 145

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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【Chapter 145】

The next day.

“Team Leader, you’re already at work?”

Wilbrin was puzzled to see that Rianel was already there.

She was usually someone who arrived right on time, and normally when Wilbrin arrived, either no one was there or only Til would be sitting alone in the government building.

Today the atmosphere was different.

“Are you busy?”

“I have personal matters to attend to.”

Rianel was looking at the ledger of some noble family.

Wilbrin was puzzled.

“No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem like personal matters.”

“In the process of Evan, the son of the former Minister of Finance, turning himself in, I secured Minister Royhum’s ledger, and I was checking its contents.”

Evan had left his father’s corpse and most of his belongings at the place where his father died, but he took the ledger containing the family’s corruption, money, and his own belongings.

When asked why he took the ledger, he said he had been told repeatedly that Royhum must never find out about it.

‘Though in the end, he couldn’t endure the life of a fugitive and personally returned the ledger to the guards himself.’

From Asil’s perspective, the longer Evan remained in hiding, the more delayed the revelation of Royhum’s death would be, so he didn’t bother digging up the corruption of the dead.

But now the situation had changed. So he was investigating this.

“Based on this, I plan to verify the flow of funds between the Temple and the Ministry of Finance, and check whether he was involved in the Temple’s bribery case.”

Minister Royhum was the bastard who embezzled the Princess Palace budget by diverting it to the Temple in the form of donations.

She thought there was no way he hadn’t colluded with the Temple.

She was planning to bundle this together and conduct a tax investigation on the Temple as well.

The Temple originally had no disclosure obligations, and it was difficult to punish the private misuse of donations under any law.

‘The Donation Goods Act only constitutes a violation when donations are used for purposes different from those presented when collecting them, so it doesn’t apply to simple religious offerings.’

But right now, public opinion toward the Temple was at its worst.

At times like this, demands to collect religious taxes could arise, or it could become the decisive fatal blow that would completely bring down the old religion.

It would have been impossible when the religious order was solidly united as one, but now numerous sects had emerged.

The logic that the enemy of my enemy is my friend could apply, and the divided sects might attack the old religion together.

Moreover, the Temple couldn’t have been keeping proper ledgers all this time.

‘The Temple had no separate disclosure obligations, and there was no one like Former Cardinal Janol trying to expose internal corruption. So it was difficult to recognize problems from the outside, and internally they didn’t try to secretly hide evidence either.’

“Just by checking how donations were used, I estimate that much fraud and corruption will be confirmed.”

People who had arrived for work one by one had gathered before she knew it.

After listening to the story, someone spoke up.

“No, why are you doing that alone?”

Especially Til, who came in after Wilbrin, reacted most intensely.

Wasn’t this an opportunity to legally take down Royhum, the former Deputy Bureau Director, no, even the Saint?

He didn’t want to miss this chunk of dopamine that had come after so long.

“We can even work overtime, that’s what I’m saying.”

Especially if they could dig up Royhum’s crimes, these were people who would turn over even the dirt from his grave.

But Rianel shook her head.

“The measures from now on are not the basic duties of the Tax Bureau, but could easily be interpreted as private revenge.”

She judged it was better to draw the line when it came to dangerous matters.

For safety’s sake as well.

“Excuse me?”

Everyone became bewildered.

What revenge?

“There’s something I need to tell you all.”

Rianel looked straight at them.

She wanted to clearly remember this moment of revealing her identity.

“I was Empress Ensilen.”

“?!???”

* * *

“So, so then…”

A dazed silence flowed.

“Y-you’re saying you were Her Majesty the Empress?”

Wilbrin said.

“That’s correct.”

“This doesn’t seem like something to just brush off and move on from? Then what really happened to the Duke’s daughter?”

“I’m not sure about that either.”

“So there are things even Team Leader doesn’t know…”

It was a natural thing to say, but it sounded strange coming from Rianel.

“Really, really are you truly that person? The youngest professor at the National Academy, a legend in academia, and the tragic Empress…”

“You know quite a lot, Mel.”

“Ah, how could I not know.”

Though I had never seen you, I was someone who had to remember you.

Because.

“Thanks to you… I was able to complete my studies.”

The difficult livelihood, just lightening that burden alone made Empress Ensilen always a person I was grateful to.

“I’m glad I can convey this directly.”

I wanted to express my gratitude.

But when I came to the Imperial Palace, the Empress had already passed away.

I always suffered from not being able to convey those feelings.

‘Finally I’ve fulfilled that wish.’

Moved, he grabbed Rianel’s hand. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Wilbrin suddenly rummaged through her bag and said.

“That’s right, I have that book! Her Majesty the Empress’s book!”

『The Circulation of Wealth: A Study on the Sustainable Development of the Imperial Economy and the Redistribution of Wealth』

Til was dumbfounded.

Just from the title, it looked completely uninteresting, and Wilbrin didn’t seem like the type to read such things.

“Why do you have that?”

“Do you know how expensive this first edition sells for these days? I was afraid thieves might steal it while I wasn’t home, so I always carried it with me.”

And if necessary, it could be used as a self-defense weapon too.

The book was thick, so it looked perfect as a substitute for a two-handed blunt weapon.

“C-could I possibly get an autograph on the front page? Preferably similar to what you used when you were a professor?”

“Give it here.”

It wasn’t particularly difficult, so she did it for her.

“Great! Now the price is doubled!”

Watching the delighted Wilbrin, Til muttered that she was materialistic.

But when Mel whispered the market price of a first edition signed copy, Til’s eyes popped out.

“It’s that expensive?”

And Rianel looked at them.

“Can you all trust what I’m saying?”

The atmosphere was much more accepting of the story that a dead person’s soul dwells in a living person’s body than Rude had been.

“Well, uh, of course it’s surprising, but it’s also understandable.”

Til said.

Those ridiculous abilities.

The power to make multiple people grab the back of their necks with the word “roughly” – thinking it was just because she was a genius from birth even brought a strange sense of relief.

‘As expected, she was a different breed from me.’

Til cleared his throat loudly.

“B-but did I say something wrong? Is my life already over by any chance?”

He meant whether he had crossed a river of no return.

“Life and bells have no direct causal relationship. It’s difficult to understand what that question means.”

“Wow, hearing that makes it feel really surreal….”

Whether the previous Rianel had been an eccentric person as rumored, or if she too had been a victim of the Ministry of Finance’s gossip was unknown.

But since the Rianel they knew had always been like this, they felt reassured.

Til looked at Rianel who was staring intently at her, then covered her mouth with her hand and nodded.

“Y-yes, I’ll be careful with my words.”

She couldn’t drop out of this fun dopamine party alone.

* * *

She had interrogated him just in case.

Making the trip down to the interrogation room worthless, Evan wasn’t much help.

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know what happened to Vanessa or whatever, and the Temple isn’t my concern either!”

“And yet matching the initial consonants in the middle of all that, what’s that about.”

Wilbrin grumbled continuously as she left the interrogation room and returned to the government building.

“That young master is no help at all. How could such a foolish son come from under that cunning old man.”

“Perhaps Royhum was the unusual one.”

Since no one else in the Bartello family besides Royhum had become a civil servant, that interpretation seemed right.

Though Royhum didn’t trust his son and shared almost no knowledge with him.

“Not knowing could also be a weapon, couldn’t it.”

The public opinion toward the Temple was already at its worst anyway.

“Since we’ve secured substantial evidence of the Temple’s tax evasion, just the fact that we’re investigating unconfirmed areas will put considerable pressure on the old religion.”

Tax audits made opponents nervous just by the words alone.

And then the government meeting.

“A tax audit of the Temple?”

The Empress Dowager looked down at the agenda item that had been submitted.

“Haven’t we done that before?”

“No.”

While they had investigated the Temple’s embezzlement of the Princess’s budget in the form of donations or taking bribes from nobles, the Imperial Palace had never examined the Temple’s own financial status.

“I see.”

The Empress Dowager nodded.

“So what aspects of the Temple are suspicious?”

“There are signs of tax evasion.”

Rianel took out prepared documents and explained.

“Indulgences are ineffective items, but selling them can be classified as a profit-making business. That would constitute income tax omission.”

“Hmm.”

“Also, high-ranking clergy including Cardinals have shown increased personal assets, or their relatives’ wealth has grown significantly. There’s sufficient grounds to view this as gift tax evasion.”

Things like human experiments only had victim testimonies without direct physical evidence, so they needed to enter internally to confirm.

‘We can use the tax audit as a pretext to get inside.’

Though the Temple had likely already destroyed the materials, just going in and turning things upside down would be meaningful.

The very fact of being investigated would further damage the Temple’s prestige.

‘Previously they were pointed at as a corrupt group, but back then they survived by pinning all the blame on Saint Yuna and Cardinal Oben.’

But now that the Temple itself was being watched as a problematic organization, that wouldn’t be possible.

“If the Temple is really such a place, it would be right to investigate.”

The Empress Dowager also thought it would be better to break the Temple’s power.

“Well, what do you think, Princess?”

The Empress Dowager asked.

It was a question meant to empower her.

The Princess who received the question hesitated slightly, then straightened her shoulders and looked ahead.

“Having such a place in the Empire is absolutely unacceptable, so I believe strict investigation and fact verification are necessary.”

So that no one gets hurt.

So that no one like Linda appears again.

The will of the new monarch, fragile yet filled with intense determination, was clear.

“Truly the Princess’s intentions run deep. Proceed according to the Princess’s opinion.”

The Empress Dowager stamped her seal for approval.

However.

Before the ink on the seal could even dry, a report came flying in.

“…You’re saying the Temple has collapsed?”

Everyone present simultaneously hardened their faces.

At that moment.

“The Temple must reveal its ledgers!”

“The Temple must acknowledge the human experiment victims!”

Two streams of harsh chants echoed together in a tangle.

The Temple was collapsing, surrounded by angry citizens.

Startled priests hurriedly locked the doors and piled chairs and furniture at the entrance, but the citizens were faster.

At the front was a man wearing a blue hood, Logan.

Since he shared plans with Rianel, he knew how the Imperial Palace would conduct the tax audit. He used that information to incite the people.

Of course, he wasn’t alone.

Among the hostages who had been trapped in the Temple’s secret residence and then rescued, those who shared his cause volunteered to be his hands and feet.

Each harboring their own grudges, they moved more persistently and meticulously than Logan had expected.

The ugly secrets thus revealed.

“What, tens of thousands might have died because of those Temple bastards?”

“Could it be that my missing daughter not coming back is….”

“They dared to live luxuriously by selling corpse flowers? Those who call themselves God’s messengers?”

Enraged people grabbed farming tools and implements from their homes and swarmed in.

The result.

“The main gate’s been breached, boss.”

“Really?”

‘Easy enough.’

Watching the crowds pouring through the breached gate and the fleeing priests, a strange emotion crossed Logan’s face.

‘It took so long to get here after my parents died.’

Of course, Rianel had said they should follow proper procedures and do it legally.

‘But the law is too slow.’

Moreover, there were escape routes everywhere for the wicked.

‘Above all, the law favors those who have.’

What those in power truly feared was something else.

It was the people.

The anger erupted by an overwhelming number of people together.

Individually scattered they were weak, but gathered together they became this vivid.

The Emperor knew this fact, so he obsessed over reputation and pushed infamy onto the Empress.

On the other hand, the Pope deceiving people to conduct experiments and selling indulgences was.

‘Because he looked down on the people.’

Logan smiled a twisted smile.

“But I’m not sure if it’s okay to enter a place that was called a sanctuary like this.”

“What are you saying now, when you were the most excited one breaking things?”

“Is that so?”

He laughed sheepishly.

Logan patted his shoulder and handed him an indulgence.

“Don’t worry.”

This should forgive your sins.

“Damn it.”

The man took it thinking it might be a land deed, then immediately threw the paper away.

Logan chuckled even after being hit by the paper, then casually slung his axe over his shoulder.

“Shall we go then?”

At last, it was time to hunt the butcher.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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