The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 32

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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 32
“U-uh?”
“How could I possibly create such a teleportation scroll? I don’t even have the skill for it….”
I quickly withdrew my hand and let my shoulders sag with the usual listlessness as I continued speaking.
I couldn’t make it, so I couldn’t make it—but at least I wanted to provoke him a little more.
“Last time I already got in trouble for overstepping, so there’s no way I could do something like that….”
“I, Namia, th-that!”
“It’s all something the Team Leader taught me….”
“Hey, you really!”
Just as Oson, his face flushed with anger, raised his hand to strike my cheek—
Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded taking a hit. The Marquis and his wife hit me often enough.
‘For teasing him like that, this much is cheap.’
Compared to my satisfaction, getting slapped was nothing.
But suddenly, someone bolted forward like lightning and twisted Oson’s arm.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
Oson shrieked and jumped back.
At the same time, Royal Guards came rushing from far away.
“Your Majesty!”
“Empress! You can’t just run off like that!”
Surprisingly, the one who had twisted Oson’s arm was a muscular Empress.
The Empress laughed triumphantly and shouted.
“Come on, let’s go! It’s time to start the trial!”
“Your Majesty! No, if you suddenly run off like this….”
“I’m worried he might escape! Why are you letting such a suspicious person wander around alone?”
Then the Royal Guards spoke with a whimper.
“The only suspicious person who isn’t supposed to wander alone in this trial is the Empress herself…. This person is a witness and the accuser…. Please don’t forget….”
“Ah, right. That’s true. I forgot.”
The Empress blinked and spoke as if apologizing.
Yet she still didn’t release Oson’s arm, which she held firmly.
“Anyway, let’s go. You’re in a position where you have to come along too, right?”
The Empress giggled and winked at me.
And she even whispered, ‘Give me a thumbs up!’
And so Oson was surrounded by Royal Guards and dragged along by the Empress.
His retreating figure looked just like an ox being dragged to the slaughterhouse.
And watching that sight, I thought with a cold expression.
‘That guy… really does have something. A teleportation scroll? So he was planning to escape even if he became a wanted criminal.’
Now that it’s come to this, I’ll push him to the very end.
Well, it’s not just because I almost got hit. It’s killing two birds with one stone.
* * *
The recess ended, and the trial resumed.
The Empress’s complexion remained consistently radiant.
In contrast, Oson’s face had grown increasingly pallid ever since the Empress declared, “That fellow is suspicious.”
“Very well, let us resume the trial.”
The Minister of Justice, already showing signs of exhaustion, made the announcement.
The Empress smirked and turned her gaze toward me.
Her expression asked what I wanted her to do next.
Now I no longer needed to memorize legal statutes—I only had to exchange the hand signals we’d arranged beforehand.
[Give me the signal!]
Just as she’d said earlier.
I was preparing to smirk and give the signal when—
‘Hm?’
Unexpectedly, my eyes met someone else’s.
‘What? Surely not me? It seems like they’re looking at me?’
It was Kiaros, seated at the front.
Unmistakably, Kiaros was gazing at me with eyes blazing like the sun itself.
‘D-did I get caught? Am I exposed? How much does he know?’
Otherwise, among all these people, there’s no way he’d single out someone sitting at the very back like me.
As I blinked, Kiaros’s crimson lips slowly parted.
‘Do well.’
The words his lips formed were short enough that I could read them from his mouth alone.
‘Splendidly.’
A smile tinged with something acrid, subtly woven into his expression of dominion.
My heart plummeted at merely meeting his gaze.
‘S-so frightening!’
Even though the Empress was my superior, she wasn’t a dragon-human, so I could regard her as an ordinary person. But a true dragon-human—merely locking eyes with one made my body tense instinctively.
‘What do I do….’
Ordinary humans are instinctively intimidated by dragon-humans.
Moreover, the Crown Prince stands at the apex of the Civil Service hierarchy.
My only possible response was predetermined.
‘Yes.’
I froze rigidly and answered through lip-reading as well.
‘I’ll do well.’
Meanwhile, the trial resumed in earnest.
Oson primarily shrieked about the injustice, insisting it was preposterous, while the Empress pressed the attack, calling him a suspicious character.
…By any measure, the defendant and plaintiff had switched positions.
I made a small heart shape with my fingers toward the Empress.
It meant ‘just keep insisting.’ The Empress cried out excitedly.
“I ran into that wretch right in the Imperial Palace! My instincts from the battlefield were screaming at me! That bastard is definitely XX XXX suspicious!”
“Your Majesty, you should first present your own defense….”
The Minister of Justice stepped in, looking bewildered.
It was at that moment.
‘Hm?’
While the Empress and the Minister of Justice bickered back and forth.
Kiaros, who had been watching me, suddenly wore a confused expression.
* * *
[That’s not a position for me to overstep into….]
When Namia said those words earlier, her expression had turned somewhat bitter.
Kiaros suddenly recalled Oson’s rampage.
Namia had created a scroll to save the Crown Prince, yet all she heard from her superior was that she had overstepped.
‘In truth, with that level of ability, the superior should have followed Namia’s words….’
He remembered how she had hung her head listlessly when being scolded by Oson.
So Kiaros impulsively looked at her and moved his lips silently.
‘Go ahead and overstep. Do it to your heart’s content.’
Up to that point, things were fine.
But then Namia also looked at him and moved her lips silently.
However….
‘Hm?’
Kiaros actually couldn’t read Namia’s lip movements.
Her lips were small, and the distance was far too great.
How on earth was Fron reading this?
‘…Is it a scroll that improves vision, perhaps?’
Only then did he begin to understand the identity of the parchment crumpled in Fron’s pocket.
But in any case, he didn’t have that scroll.
He could make out ‘Yes’ much.
But the four characters that followed eluded him.
‘Aa-ae-o? What?’
Then, like a flash of lightning, her earlier words came back to him.
[You just need to follow my instructions well.]
Kiaros furrowed his brow in thought.
‘Follow your lead? Is that what you’re saying?’
Dare she tell the Crown Prince to follow her example?
‘I told her to overstep, and now she’s overstepping too much….’
Kiaros was startled by his own unbidden thoughts.
Perhaps Oson had harbored the same sentiment.
A superior who unconditionally dismisses the words of their subordinates….
‘Did I give tacit permission for her to drag this trial wherever she pleased, yet now apply a double standard to myself alone?’
It was while Kiaros was engaging in this confusing self-reflection.
That suddenly.
She made a heart shape with her fingers and showed it to him.
‘…Hm?’
Kiaros rolled his eyes, hesitating with a skeptical expression.
Was there a reason to escalate things this far? Was there a larger scheme at play?
I didn’t understand his intent, but should I just go along with it? After all, he was the one who told me to show off in the first place.
‘Well, it doesn’t seem particularly difficult….’
Kiaros furrowed his brow, raised his hand, and made a small heart shape with his fingers.
* * *
‘What, what is this?’
Kiaros was acting strange!
He sat with the most solemn expression in the world, making a heart shape with his fingers with utmost seriousness.
His excessively grave face made the sight positively shocking.
‘What, did I misunderstand something?’
But there was no situation to clear up the misunderstanding.
Fortunately, nearly everyone’s attention was fixed on the Empress and the Minister of Justice.
With the trembling Oson positioned between them, they were creating absolute chaos.
“That wretch must be executed immediately! How dare he deceive the Imperial Family—I’ll tear his limbs apart and scatter them to the four winds myself!”
“Strictly speaking, the person with suspicion of deceiving the Imperial Family would be the Empress….”
Throughout all this, the Empress glanced at me repeatedly.
No matter what Kiaros did, I couldn’t stop here.
Even if no one was watching me sitting at the very back, there would certainly be people watching Kiaros….
‘There’s no helping it….’
But it was Kiaros who would face the embarrassment, not me.
Cleaning up afterward was….
Originally, if you’re an adult, you handle your own affairs.
‘If I make the wrong gesture here, even the Empress might get confused.’
Oson was such an obvious suspect that he was even considering fleeing.
I drew a larger heart with both hands. It meant ‘keep going’.

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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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