The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 30

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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 30】

“I’ll ask you directly. What is your relationship with the Former Empress?”

“Excuse me?”

“What exactly is your relationship that…”

You torment me while bearing such a resemblance to her.

Asil, who had called Rianel to the Bureau Director’s office as soon as the special audit ended, only realized what he had done when he saw her awkwardly frozen expression.

“Ha…”

“Bureau Director?”

Only then did Asil admit that he had been pushed to his limit.

‘At first, I thought she was just a woman who had overheard a lot of information.’

I assumed her knowledge about the Special Tax Bureau came from things she had heard from her father. But.

[I never told her. She may be my daughter, but why would I share your personal affairs with her?]

In addition to the denial from the person involved.

[You resemble Ensilen.]

The Emperor’s words became the catalyst, and the suspicions he had desperately suppressed took shape and burst forth.

Moreover, after seeing her attitude at the Ministry of Finance.

He realized this woman resembled his Master in every small detail he could remember.

‘Perhaps I’m going crazy to think such things.’

The season when his Master passed away was approaching, and around this time, he always became sensitive due to the insomnia that plagued him.

He tried to comfort himself this way, but once the suspicion had swelled, it wouldn’t subside.

‘No matter what I do, Rianel looks like my Master.’

So even knowing it was a crazy question, he had no choice but to ask.

“Who exactly are you?”

Are you my Master? Or are you a specter imitating my Master?

“Who exactly are you to torment me like this?”

Have you come to scold me for living pathetically? Or do you know my past and wish to mock me?

He couldn’t tell what was the correct answer or what was the truth.

Everything became tangled and mixed up in his head.

“…Ah.”

Asil, who had long ago lost his Master’s hand and become lost, came to his senses under the quiet gaze looking down at him.

Only when he saw someone who, like a lighthouse, stood firm without being swayed by others’ emotions, reminding him even more of his Master.

“I won’t take up much of your time. Instead, could you listen to my story?”

He admitted his desire to confess the time he had endured alone for so long.

“…What.”

“If I may confess one thing.”

A thread-like smile appeared on Asil’s lips.

“I was an ungrateful wretch…”

‘Why is he acting like this?’

Though it was a story that came out of nowhere for the person involved.

* * *

The story began at a rather unexpected timing.

“Do you know that I was taken in by my Master?”

Rianel momentarily failed to manage her expression.

“You do know.”

‘Oops.’

Rianel, feeling a sense of crisis that she might become a tree that gives generously only to be stripped bare, cleared her throat loudly.

“What did you mean earlier? About becoming Bureau Director for your Master’s sake.”

“Ah.”

Asil smiled.

“I meant exactly that.”

Bitterness soon tinged that smile.

“In this vast Imperial Palace, this was the only place where traces of my Master remained.”

Regardless of what rumors followed, these were the achievements of someone who had been an Empress.

As soon as the Empress died, high-ranking civil servants tried to cut away her traces, and the Emperor did not stop them.

Most of the tasks carried out in the name of reform disappeared or were abolished under the name of the Former Empress’s bad practices.

When Asil belatedly heard news of his Master’s death at the Academy and entered the Imperial Palace, all he could barely grasp and protect was a single agency bureau that was nothing but an empty shell.

“I don’t understand.”

Rianel said.

“No matter how much it was to protect traces of your Master, becoming the head of an agency seems like an unreasonable choice. That position isn’t just about protecting something, but about enduring many things.”

“Of course you could think that way.”

Asil himself didn’t know why he had made such a choice.

“Perhaps it was guilt.”

“Guilt.”

“My Master once revealed to me her decision to go to the Imperial Palace. It was quite a sudden decision.”

Smiling deliberately in that state, he revealed the full story that Rianel didn’t know.

“I was truly a pathetic person back then. Even if I didn’t like the conclusion my Master had reached, I should have accepted it, but I got angry and poured out ugly words. No, even that wasn’t enough – I even hurled curses saying that my Master would never achieve what she wanted or find happiness.”

And after doing that.

“I regretted it, but I didn’t have the courage to face my Master.”

So I avoided her and didn’t meet her.

“Until I heard that my Master had passed away, that’s how it was.”

Asil’s guilt lay in having ended things with his respected Master in such a way.

Not a good ending where they smiled and encouraged each other.

But an immature ending where he expressed his disappointment, screamed, and threw tantrums.

‘Why would he regret that?’

But for Rianel, who was the person involved, it was an utterly absurd story.

Because Rianel hadn’t been hurt at all by her student’s words.

Everything Asil said had proven to be true, and he had analyzed the Emperor correctly too.

Then as a scholar, shouldn’t she feel pride that her reasoning had been correct?

Instead of raising this question, Rianel asked something else.

“What’s your reason for telling me this story?”

“I just wanted to get it off my chest.”

“…”

“I wanted to receive an apology.”

If he was the only one in this world who remembered his Master’s footsteps,

And if the person who most resembled his Master was Rianel.

Even if it was just a substitute, he wanted to say what he had wanted to say.

“I am not your Master.”

Rianel, who had been watching him, said what she needed to say.

“I know.”

Asil was already a student who had passed adulthood.

Even children raised in ordinary homes leave their parents.

Rianel thought it wouldn’t be desirable to continue a master-student relationship with him in any form.

However.

“The Former Empress’s death was not because of you.”

“I know that too.”

“So the Former Empress would not have resented you.”

I thought I could at least say this much.

“Even if she had an unfortunate life in the Imperial Palace, she wasn’t petty enough to blame others for the cause.”

Actually, I hadn’t planned to go this far.

Just once, I spoke with sincerity.

‘Please find peace.’

Living while carrying the past is an unhappy thing.

Rianel, who had been looking after her student for the first time in a while.

“…I’m grateful, but this hand…”

After a long moment, she realized what she had been doing and withdrew the hand that had been stroking Asil’s head.

‘Ah, my mistake.’

* * *

Today, ten days after the special audit.

The Ministry of Finance’s disciplinary action was finally decided.

“They all got fired, right?”

The people at the Special Tax Bureau were absolutely delighted.

Watching someone else’s house burn down is entertaining, but this fire had struck their enemy’s house.

“And they had to pay back double the allowances they’d been pocketing all this time.”

“There were so many cases of embezzlement discovered that some of them went straight to prison.”

“Now this is justice!”

The Empress Dowager had imposed somewhat harsh but appropriate punishment.

Seeing that the organization was rotten to the core with this level of corruption, she dismissed all employees of the Ministry of Finance.

Of course, there were exceptions.

[I know nothing about this. If it’s my fault for not stopping what my subordinates were doing, then so be it, but I was absolutely not involved!]

Minister of Finance Royhum.

Having offered bribes to the Emperor, he survived alone by shifting all blame to his subordinates.

“Justice was a bit lacking.”

“Damn it.”

“But they won’t cause us trouble anymore, right?”

“Isn’t our life too harsh if we have to be satisfied with just that much…?”

“Still, it was fun when we took down the Ministry of Finance.”

“The problem is that fun was just a one-time thing.”

They floundered about, missing the dopamine that had suddenly disappeared.

Still, being able to have such trivial chatter meant they had gained that much breathing room.

So.

“Where are you going this time?”

“I plan to visit the Princess Palace.”

Rianel had made up her mind.

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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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