The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 125
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 125
My plan was simple.
I would go to the Grand Temple of Parens, which seemed to be the headquarters of the Gaejo Faction.
I would alternate between attack scrolls, defense scrolls, luminescence scrolls, and firework scrolls, smashing everything indiscriminately.
I would meet the Tower Master and Father, who should already be infiltrating that place.
After that, I would extract both of them using a teleportation scroll, and then whether I lived or died was….
‘It’s all or nothing, really.’
That was the profound realization I had arrived at.
‘Of course!’
All this time, the reason I had worked so hard to devise plans, craft schemes, and lived so diligently was because I lacked power.
‘When the body is strong, the mind doesn’t have to suffer!’
The place I arrived at was not Parens where the Grand Temple stood, but the small village where I had spent my childhood. This was because teleportation scrolls could only transport the caster to coordinates they knew precisely.
The rural village where Father’s former workplace, the village school, was located, and where the library that had saved Kiaros stood.
Thanks to that, I could see the sea for the first time in a very long while.
“The weather is lovely.”
Along the vast, azure sea, lovers walked hand in hand across the sandy beach.
Among them were many men who carried their lovers on their backs, giggling as they dipped their feet into the waves.
Seeing that sight, someone came to mind unbidden.
“Kibon….”
I settled myself on the sandy beach and gazed at the waves for a while.
Before leaving, I had wanted to see Kibon one more time, but I simply couldn’t muster the courage.
I was afraid that if I revealed I was an experimental subject, he might show an expression of disgust.
[Still, I’m sorry. It might be an unpleasant situation….]
[I am not displeased. Are you perhaps displeased, Minister?]
The excitement and warmth woven through the tone of that question remained so vivid in my memory even now.
[…No.]
My heart at that time, when I could only answer shyly.
[…It’s nice.]
[It is nice.]
I wasn’t sure when it started, but I had come to like being with him.
I liked the fact that there was someone who unconditionally followed my lead.
In a world where nothing went my way, only Kibon bent entirely to my will.
‘It seems like it must have been from much, much earlier.’
Now that I thought about it, I had wanted to dance the first dance of the banquet with Kibon.
That was probably why I told Kiaros without hesitation, ‘I think I’ll be going now.’
As my thoughts extended even to Kiaros, a sigh escaped me naturally.
When I had said that our scandal was nothing serious, Kiaros had answered like this.
[Is that so? It seems Namia was thinking that way.]
And after a brief pause, he added.
[Or perhaps you just want to believe that.]
I had no response to that statement. Because it was the truth.
I wished Kiaros hadn’t come to regard me in such a particular way.
I wanted to believe it was simply because of the Dark Age, that he wasn’t reacting much to the scandal involving me.
‘I already have someone I care about….’
Kiaros was a good person, and I didn’t want to hurt him.
Yet his gaze and the words he casually uttered clearly conveyed affection.
I didn’t know why he had come to like me, but then again, it wasn’t as though we had no connection whatsoever.
If I hadn’t harbored feelings for Kibon first, there were quite a few moments when I might have fallen for him entirely.
‘I can’t burden such a person with something so heavy.’
Kiaros was in a position where he would have to kill me for the sake of the Empire.
I couldn’t bring myself to make him kill a woman he had feelings for. The same held true for Kibon.
So I left only a letter behind.
Since it would be the end anyway, I poured everything I wanted to say as a woman, not as his superior.
After deliberating carefully on how to write it, I composed it in the form I could express best.
‘My first and last confession, delivered in writing.’
I sighed once, brushed the sand from myself, and stood up.
My thoughts were sufficiently organized. Now I had to rescue Father and the Tower Master as quickly as possible.
‘The Parens Grand Temple.’
A grand and extraordinarily complex temple that had endured since ancient times. It was also called a labyrinth because even entering it was said to be difficult.
It was structured so that the test subjects could never escape, and perhaps the Tower Master was also wandering lost in that labyrinth.
‘Let’s go.’
I gripped the strap of the crossbody bag containing the scrolls the Tower Master had prepared and moved forward.
* * *
“Kiaros?”
The Emperor furrowed his brow with suspicion as he watched Kiaros suddenly become vacant.
“Boy? We were having a perfectly fine conversation, so why….”
The Emperor couldn’t finish his words. Without even listening to him, Kiaros bolted from the room.
“Kiaros!”
The Emperor was startled and tried to grab Kiaros when, at that same moment, the Emperor’s aide rushed in urgently.
“Your Majesty! The High Priest has just been caught red-handed attempting to assassinate the Crown Prince!”
The Emperor blinked in surprise.
“Kiaros? Is Kiaros alright? Ah, he must be fine. I confirmed it myself.”
Judging by how quickly he had arrived, even before the aide, he seemed to be fine.
Since the Emperor had entrusted most of the pursuit of the Gaejo Faction to Kiaros, he was not well-informed about the situation after apprehending the Minister of Education.
“But the High Priest? The High Priest tried to kill Kiaros? How dare he?”
“Yes. According to the Ravens, the Crown Prince had already suspected that the High Priest was behind the Gaejo Faction and was investigating the Temple. Due to Namia’s efforts, we have now confirmed that Victor Awin is also a member of the Gaejo Faction….”
The Emperor pressed his forehead briefly against the flood of information. However, true to his nature as a Dragon-kin who excelled in all things, his situational assessment was swift.
“I see. Understood.”
The Emperor’s crimson eyes gleamed ominously.
“Now that the High Priest is captured, I cannot leave the Temple untouched. Regardless of past religious courtesy and such, I must destroy the Grand Temple first.”
To destroy that vast, labyrinthine place.
The meaning was simple.
It meant that the current Emperor, Fedwin Polariud, would manifest as a dragon and obliterate it without leaving a trace.
* * *
Kiaros tore through the Imperial Palace in a frenzy.
Thanks to him, every servant in the Imperial Palace got to witness Kiaros’s full-speed sprint once again.
The sight of him—always so elegant and refined—running in his formal attire was like….
“Oh my, he doesn’t seem to be in his right mind.”
“Namia escaped, didn’t she?”
“Wow, so it really was confinement? I had no idea. I thought the Empress just chose her words poorly.”
He looked absolutely mad.
Combined with the Attendant’s testimony that Namia had vanished, rumors within the Palace spread beyond anyone’s control.
Regardless, Kiaros came to a breathless halt before a shabby bench.
An old, neglected bench near the Temple within the Imperial Palace—one that no one paid attention to.
[Of all the benches I’ve seen in the Imperial Palace, this is the ugliest, but I’ll definitely come back here later.]
That worn and pitiful bench where she’d clearly just said something off the cuff while glancing around.
Yet that seemingly casual remark had delighted him so much that at the time, Kiaros felt as though he were walking on clouds.
How dreamlike that night had been—it only became clearer in retrospect.
[From that day on, this bench might just become my favorite among all the Imperial Palace benches.]
It was a lie.
In truth, from that very moment, this bench had been his favorite among all the Imperial Palace benches.
It was the place where Namia had made her first personal proposal to him.
[She went out briefly at night. She took a secluded path toward the Temple and returned shortly after.]
Surely the bench was where Namia had stopped by that night.
Indeed, tucked in one corner of the ivy-covered bench lay a single letter.
With trembling hands, he unfolded it. Namia’s familiar, neat handwriting came into view.
But the letter began with….
【Title】
Namia Loapi’s Emotional Status Report and Recommendations
【Table of Contents】
1. Background and Purpose
2. Content and Theoretical Framework
3. Results and Discussion
4. Conclusion
It was in report format.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————