The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 108

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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 108
It was the moment Anastasia, following her instincts, rolled her body frantically across the ground.
“Cough!”
A man in black clothes leaped down and immediately struck Victor to the ground.
Anastasia’s legs gave out beneath her, and she couldn’t even think of standing. The man in black who had subdued Victor spoke to her.
“Your reflexes are quite sharp. Though I was planning to save you anyway.”
A dagger was already clutched in the hand of the Victor he had restrained.
Where exactly had that dagger been aimed?
Chills ran down Anastasia’s spine.
Even if I hadn’t held him in particularly high regard as a person, I had always trusted him as a colleague.
That’s why I hadn’t harbored the slightest doubt when Namia said she was “requesting the blood of Yongin.”
“Quite clever, in your own way.”
Kiaros’s slow voice came from behind.
“You had someone else do it just in case. You were worried there might be witnesses in the building, weren’t you?”
Kiaros slowly set down Namia Loapi, whom he had been carrying. Namia stood beside Kiaros, swaying slightly.
Namia Loapi wore the same expression of shock.
* * *
I stared down at Victor in utter bewilderment.
Everything was far too obvious. Even his attempt to kill Anastasia at the end.
I had caught him red-handed, quite literally.
Kiaros clicked his tongue as if exasperated.
“The Minister of Finance will tear his hair out when he hears of this.”
A faint contempt colored his voice.
“The heir to the Awin Marquis House—what could possibly be lacking in him….”
That was my question too.
‘Why on earth would Victor do this?’
Didn’t the Gaejofa Faction manipulate those whose hearts harbored some deficiency? Wouldn’t it be difficult to recruit those who possessed everything?
In fact, Victor wasn’t even mentioned in the original work. The war didn’t bring any particular benefit to the Awin Marquis House.
That was when it happened.
“…It’s because of you.”
Victor glared at me behind Kiaros, his words grinding out like gravel.
“Namia Loapi, it’s all because of you.”
Me? What?
“I… I couldn’t even leave the Gaejofa Faction.”
His eyes gleamed with madness.
“Only after I reached a point where I couldn’t report to the Imperial Palace did they allow me to leave. So I traveled to that distant foreign country for several years and came back.”
I realized something and my mouth fell open.
So that long-term assignment abroad….
In truth, Victor was the heir to the Awin Marquis House, and he could have easily refused to go. And if he’d wanted, he could have returned early.
‘In reality, there wasn’t even important enough work in our department to warrant a long-term assignment.’
At the time, I simply thought the Scroll Management Department was doing something pointless again, as it always had.
But that… there was the Gaejofa Faction behind it. I could understand why he said he would leave the Gaejofa Faction.
‘Because I just became the adopted son of Marquis Awin!’
Victor possessed excellent abilities, but his family background was lacking. That must have been what he considered his weakness.
After realizing he possessed an exceptional talent for winning people’s hearts, it would have weighed on him even more.
With his innate social skills, he could have climbed much higher.
‘That’s why he said he would leave. That’s why he didn’t appear in the original story!’
Then, why did he rejoin the Gaejofa Faction now….
“Even when I was student council president, you never clung to me. You were clearly living a pathetic life, and I was your only salvation, yet you didn’t.”
Victor glared at me as he spoke.
“But now that you’ve become a minister, you’d have even less reason to cling to me, wouldn’t you?”
I stared down at him blankly. His logic was utterly absurd.
“So… you took the Gaejofa Faction’s hand again?”
It was truly difficult to believe. I couldn’t accept it in any way.
“So… at the Saint Cairo Banquet, you tried to drag me down and kill and injure all those people?”
Then Victor shook his head and answered immediately.
“I wasn’t trying to kill you. When the explosion happened, I was going to save you first—I was always by your side, wasn’t I?”
At that time, Victor had indeed been with me in the VIP seating.
I blinked, utterly dumbfounded.
If that accident had happened, I would have quit not just my ministerial position but the civil service entirely. Of my own will, before any disciplinary action.
No, I would have become a complete wreck. People would have died and been injured because of me. Even if I lived, it wouldn’t be living—I probably would have taken my own life from the guilt.
Victor must have known that better than anyone. But that made it even more horrifying.
“You were going to push me deeper into the mire, and then become my savior all over again?”
I asked, trembling.
“Because I wouldn’t cling to you at this level, you wanted to create an even greater gap between us?”
The fact that he would harm people for such a reason made my skin crawl. I never dreamed Victor was capable of such cruelty.
Even if he was a bad man to me, I thought he was fundamentally a kind person.
“He even smoked cigarettes.”
Kairo, noticing my shock, spoke sarcastically from beside me. His tone carried something like a reproach.
“The Minister of Scrolls has quite a few sides you don’t know about, doesn’t he? He even threatened Kibon like some street thug….”
I had no idea Victor was a smoker. I had never even imagined him threatening someone with that angelic face of his.
Anastasia murmured quietly.
“My, my goodness. Did Kibon really report all of this to the Crown Prince? It makes him seem a bit… pathetic.”
At Anastasia’s words, I shook my head and defended Kibon.
“No, he doesn’t seem pathetic at all. He didn’t even tell me directly. I actually think it’s admirable that Kibon kept this fact hidden from me until the end.”
At my exchange with Anastasia, Kairo’s expression became extremely embarrassed, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.
That was when it happened.
“Why wasn’t I desperate enough, Namia Loapi?”
Victor glared at me and asked. His expression was filled with resentment.
“If I had confessed, you would have accepted me, but your feelings were only that shallow, weren’t they?”
Whether it was desperation or the realization that this might be our last meeting, his voice grew urgent.
“Why, exactly? Would you really have needed to become the Crown Prince just to have someone worth clinging to?”
“What are you saying? That’s… that’s absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not it.”
At those words, Kiaros beside me flinched. Victor paid him no mind, his eyes gleaming wildly as he shouted.
“Then what is it? Do you actually like Kibon? Why on earth would you?”
At the same moment, Kiaros staggered heavily. That was when it happened.
“Y-you don’t know that and you’re asking?”
Anastasia, who had somehow risen with the Raven Servant’s support, interjected.
“Y-yes, I get it! I-I pretended not to know before…”
It seemed she simply couldn’t contain herself on a subject of such interest.
“K-Kibon at least doesn’t hide his true self like you do!”
Anastasia breathed heavily, her voice rising sharply.
“K-Kibon doesn’t deceive people like that! That’s the worst thing you can do!”
Suddenly, I noticed Kiaros’s hand trembling beside me.
“K-Kibon is honest and genuine! When I asked outright ‘do you have someone you like,’ he couldn’t even lie in front of everyone!”
Anastasia now gripped the Raven Servant’s hand tightly as she spoke with dramatic fervor.
“H-he was even a smoker? He said every day that he didn’t understand smokers! N-none of the department staff knew that, yet you deceived so many people without batting an eye—it’s truly chilling!”
The Raven Servant, whose hand was grasped by Anastasia, shook his head vigorously in agreement.
“Indeed. It is truly chilling.”
“K-Kibon showed us all his authentic self! Remember? That arrogant tone and those eyes with no desire to appear well…”
“Oh, truly a young man whose exterior and interior were one and the same.”
“K-Kibon never put on any pretense before the Minister of Education—he was qualitatively completely different from you…”
It was unexpectedly Kiaros who stopped Anastasia, who had been speaking forcefully in exchange with the Raven Servant.
“Stop…”
Kiaros spoke in a low voice, breathing heavily.
“Please stop.”

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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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