The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 106

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 106
“Are you still feeling unsettled?”
“Ah, well… somewhat, yes.”
I answered with embarrassment. Then Kiaros asked slowly.
“Could the spy be Victor?”
“Pardon?”
“I heard about Victor Awin’s rather peculiar confession to you at the Banquet Hall.”
“Yaaaawn… I apologize. The aftereffects of the sedative keep making me yawn.”
After a wide yawn, I murmured thoughtfully.
“It was certainly a twisted form of affection. Still, I do somewhat agree that the timing wasn’t right.”
He became an adult four years before me, and just as I came of age, he was sent on an extended overseas assignment…
“Perhaps he had more to say to me. But it seems he quickly avoided it because of the misunderstanding that the Crown Prince favors me.”
“That’s hardly a misunderstanding—the entire Imperial Palace seems to know about it.”
Kiaros looked at me with amusement, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“And now there’s also a rumor that I’m so fond of Namia that I’ve locked her in the Imperial Palace, and I visit her daily, shedding blood and tears in devotion?”
His crimson eyes gleamed mischievously. I hurriedly bowed my head.
“If I’ve offended you, I’m truly sorry. I was simply digging a trap to catch the Gaejo Faction…”
“Why apologize? I was the one who said you could sell my name.”
Right? It’s fine, isn’t it? Truth be told, I’d only said it out of courtesy.
“But I never expected you’d sell it to this extent.”
Or was I wrong? Well, what can I do—I’ll just have to accept it…
Just as I was about to bow even deeper and recite another apology,
“It seems I’m still quite difficult to deal with.”
What does that even mean…?
Who in this Empire is truly comfortable around Kiaros?
As I remained silent and bowed even lower,
“Raise your head. I’m only joking.”
I quickly lifted my head.
“It appears Kiaros Polariud can only meet Namia’s eyes when given a direct order.”
His crimson eyes, full of playfulness, somehow seemed melancholic.
I parted my lips, then finally let out the yawn I’d been holding back.
“Yaaaawn… I apologize. This absolutely doesn’t mean this conversation is boring…”
“Enough.”
Kiaros waved his hand lightly.
“Even the Ravens look at me with such pitiful expressions these days—I wonder where they’ve been hearing such things…”
“Ah… but once you take a Crown Princess, all those rumors will disappear.”
“Really?”
“At least in front of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, I guarantee it.”
Everyone values their lives too much to gossip then…
“Is that so?”
My sincere words only made Kiaros smile more playfully.
“Do you really think there’s a woman in this situation who would marry me?”
Even in the darkness, Kiaros’s boyishly mischievous smile was breathtakingly beautiful.
I had to steel my optic nerves to keep from being enchanted by that expression.
His appearance was truly flawless. The unreality of the two of us facing each other in conversation was almost overwhelming.
“Of course. Your Highness need not worry about such things at all.”
In the end, I pledged with my whole heart, my complete sincerity, and my very soul.
“Ordinary women would naturally—absolutely—think of their children’s names if Your Highness merely decided to smile with your eyes once.”
“Is that so?”
At that, Kiaros looked at me and curved his eyes into crescents.
The aegyo-sal beneath his eyes, which didn’t usually show, curved up plumply.
His eyelashes cast shadows around his gleaming crimson irises.
Faced with such dazzling beauty for the first time, my heart seemed to stop.
Kiaros whispered in a voice as smooth as honey.
“Is this how it’s done?”
Completely enchanted, I blurted out my answer.
“If our daughter, I would name her Anastasia. If our son, I would name him Victor.”
At my unhesitating response, Kiaros immediately grew serious.
“You have a talent for breaking the mood in the strangest ways. I would never name my son Victor.”
“I apologize. In truth, I’ve never thought about children’s names before, but I’ve been dwelling on these two names, and it just happened. I’m sorry.”
There was nothing I could do about it.
I had answered while enchanted by Kiaros’s eye smile, but honestly, I had never truly considered that I would marry and have children.
Because finding Father had always been my life’s first priority.
I had vaguely wished to marry and build a family, but I never placed that desire above my longing to live with Father again.
Somehow, that felt like a betrayal of Father, who had sacrificed his life for me.
Kiaros pressed his forehead with an exasperated expression and spoke in a displeased tone.
“Even so, what madman names his child after his rival?”
“Haha, a rival, you say.”
Being interrogated—not quite interrogated—by none other than the Crown Prince made me wonder if I might be executed for this.
In the end, I defended myself in a subdued voice, reading the atmosphere carefully.
“The rumors that Your Highness favors me are just that—rumors. They’re not true, are they?”
Wasn’t he simply using the fact of my heartbreak during this dark period as a cover?
I had been trying not to steer the conversation in that direction, but I felt so wronged that I spoke up.
“We… we haven’t had anything particularly significant happen between us. I simply guessed that Your Highness was using those rumors for your own reasons as well.”
“Is that so?”
Kiaros gazed at me quietly.
“So that’s what you’ve been thinking, Namia.”
As I fell silent, Kiaros added softly.
“Or perhaps that’s what you want to believe.”
His eyes held an indescribable sadness. As a small silence settled, I laughed awkwardly and waved my hand.
“No, well… honestly, we weren’t really that close to begin with.”
“That’s true. I was the only one observing chastity for fifteen years, entirely one-sided.”
Chastity? What an odd choice of words.
That’s when Kiaros’s face suddenly tensed.
I widened my eyes as well.
The sound of footsteps grew closer, steady and deliberate.
Before I could identify who was approaching, I glanced at Anastasia’s and Victor’s desks in the empty office.
In Victor’s pen holder, a single pen still stood—the very one I’d given him that Kibon had broken.
‘He still hasn’t thrown it away.’
One way or another, Victor was the only person who had extended his hand to me in childhood.
Had he confessed back then, I would have accepted. Had he asked about my circumstances, I would have told him everything.
There was a time when I desperately needed ‘that one person’ so badly.
Then my gaze slowly shifted to Anastasia’s desk.
‘Ah… so she’s reading this sort of thing these days.’
On Anastasia’s desk lay a book titled “The Perfection of Obsession is Escape,” placed there neatly.
The one who always handed over coffee with shy hands, who unhesitatingly repelled Riedan with coffee grounds and hot water.
‘Now I can finally confirm which one it is.’
I let out another thoughtless yawn and quietly gazed out the window.
Anastasia, draped in a robe, walked through the corridor in the darkness.
‘Ah.’
She passed the Scroll Department Office at an unhurried pace, then entered the Production Workshop without hesitation.
Our eyes met. In the darkness, I couldn’t read his expression from those luminous crimson eyes.
After some time had passed, Anastasia emerged from the Production Workshop. In her hands was unmistakably the beaker containing dragon’s blood that I had been experimenting with just moments before.
‘Heavens.’
As Anastasia slowly passed by and I released a quiet sigh, tears welled up in my eyes despite thinking I had already prepared myself for this.
That’s when it happened.
“Wait.”
Kiaros whispered, looking at me. He had already moved close to my side.
“Pardon me for a moment.”
“Yes?”
“Something feels off. I think I need to follow this through to the end. Can you let me hold you for a moment?”
In the same instant, my body was lifted up.
He, holding me, swiftly opened the window of the adjacent office.
“Don’t scream.”
And then he leaped out. It happened in the blink of an eye.

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