The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 42

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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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42.

To be honest, if it had been any other advisor instead of Ashwood, I absolutely wouldn’t have helped.

I had already figured out everyone’s individual work capabilities through the documents they’d pushed off to the Winter Palace.

Those guys would definitely be too frustrating for me to teach.

‘Let Ashwood deal with the frustration instead.’

There’s no way my fragile mentality could handle it.

So I was planning to transplant some demonic blood into Ashwood.

Teaching him everything would be a loss for the Winter Palace, but leaving things as they are would just bring Casian and me one step closer to death from overwork.

‘You have to cut unnecessary expenses to live comfortably…’

Even if that expense is labor.

“Salice Advisor, I’ve finished organizing the documents you mentioned.”

I started him with organizing raw data first, just like I educate administrators when they first come in.

“Here, redo this part. If you don’t understand, grab one of the administrators and ask them.”

Being truly fair as I am, I even treated him exactly the same as the administrators.

Ah, I’m really too kind. Seriously.

*

Francis had accepted the ridiculous conditions, thinking that otherwise he would tarnish the reputation of House of Ashwood.

Of course, it was also because the other advisors had made such a fuss.

‘At this rate, Her Majesty the Empress will issue a stern order.’

‘We tried asking the Rose Palace advisors for help, but they looked at us like we were trash! Acting like they’re the only ones who are busy.’

‘I had an acquaintance among the Sun Palace advisors from childhood, so I tried talking to them… They said where would anyone have the capacity to help others these days.’

‘That’s not all – when I brought it up, the Sun Palace advisor said that because of us, the work that the Winter Palace should handle keeps getting delayed, and told us to get lost immediately unless we wanted to take the scolding from His Majesty the Emperor instead.’

‘They’re all so rude – do they really think nothing works without the Winter Palace witch?’

During that conversation, Francis also clearly heard what a Sun Palace administrator who happened to come by to deliver work said mockingly.

‘Nothing does work. Only this place doesn’t know that even His Majesty the Emperor has given her special consideration, tsk.’

It was such a quiet voice that the other advisors didn’t seem to hear it.

At that moment, Francis Ashwood felt great humiliation.

Born as the eldest son of a ducal house and raised with thorough heir education, yet he was being outshone by some baroness from a remote corner?

Having received severe criticism from his grandfather, Duke Ashwood, for withdrawing under the Empress’s orders during the recent cruise ship incident, he was even more unwilling to accept it.

‘At this rate, it would be better for the second son to take over the ducal house. Do you think I sent you out just to play puppet to the Empress?’

He didn’t know if Salice Advisor had done this on purpose, but his grandfather probably wouldn’t protest or intervene even knowing this situation.

‘He would say that’s also part of my capability.’

Francis sighed deeply and headed toward the administrators with the materials that Rozelita had rejected.

He wasn’t blind or deaf, so he couldn’t help but know how busy Rozelita was.

Of course, he felt anxious about missing various heir lessons to make this time.

‘Why does what I’m learning here seem more helpful?’

Even though they were all teachers he had carefully selected.

Francis cautiously handed the materials to an administrator, wanting to ask about the parts Rozelita had checked.

“Ah, this is difficult work when you’re doing it for the first time. For this level, well, it’s not bad if I think of you as a newcomer.”

He paused for a moment at those words.

‘Not bad if you think of me as a newcomer?’

He was someone rumored to be an outstanding talent and had even received the position of First Prince’s primary advisor from the Empress.

In fact, until Rozelita arrived, he had never missed being in the top performance rankings each quarter.

He had only been outshone by the Winter Palace advisors and administrators after she came.

Whether they knew Francis’s feelings or not, the administrators chuckled and said,

“Still, thinking about when we first came in, Salice Advisor has become much kinder.”

“Right, back then she was really too busy to even talk to us, wouldn’t even answer and just sent back red check marks.”

“If our interpretation was a bit slow, the advisor would handle everything herself saying it was urgent… We would have preferred her to scold us asking why we were so slow.”

“Oh, I also have the next set of materials for the work assigned to Ashwood. How fortunate.”

Fortunate?

His pride cracked once more.

Even more so because the latter part had been passed to someone else, assuming he wouldn’t meet the deadline.

“That’s right, now the advisor acknowledges that we’re at least functioning as proper people.”

Francis became even more puzzled by the administrators who laughed heartily while saying things that showed no pride whatsoever.

“…Aren’t you angry?”

Too curious, he ended up saying something that would have definitely earned him scorn if said in front of Rozelita.

The administrators’ eyes widened upon hearing that.

“Angry? Isn’t it lucky instead?”

“Lucky?”

“Don’t you know as an advisor yourself? For administrators, their career path is essentially determined by which advisor they meet.”

“I know that much.”

Since it’s usually the advisor’s job to decide whether to give administrators important work and to direct their work approach.

“It’s been three days now, so you should know by now since you’ve also received confirmation from Salice Advisor.”

One of the administrators with a rather sharp attitude made a slightly sarcastic remark.

Normally he would have called it rude, but now that he was starting to understand the atmosphere, Francis Ashwood suppressed his ego.

“At least our advisor teaches us work.”

“Moreover, Salice Advisor doesn’t get angry when teaching newcomers.”

“…What?”

“Many other advisors don’t teach us in the first place – they just assign work and get angry when things don’t go their way.”

Francis thought of the Summer Palace administrators at those words.

Come to think of it, had he ever done anything other than give work instructions to them?

He had thought administrators should naturally know how to do things, and he had suppressed his irritation when they didn’t follow along as much as he wanted.

“Even when busy, she checks everything for us. She doesn’t ask why we’re so slow either. Though she does make us do it until we get it right.”

“She even gives detailed explanations when she has some free time. It’s just that there’s no time to breathe during settlement period.”

Thinking about it, Rozelita had spoken at length yesterday.

‘You don’t need to classify everything in excessive detail. For data like this, what’s needed is the industry type, business experience, and the proportion relative to the total.’

And he couldn’t deny that it had changed his perspective on viewing data.

In fact, as he adapted to that method, he could feel Rozelita’s previously serious expression relaxing a bit.

“And isn’t our report format convenient to use?”

Francis closed his mouth slightly.

Actually, at first he had wondered why it was so simplified.

Usually reports always had polite decorative phrases at the beginning and end, and summaries expressed in respectful language.

But the Winter Palace reports were almost just the necessary summary and main content.

Since only truly necessary content was included, some documents even omitted the table of contents.

It was common for them to end in just one or two pages.

“If you adjust the lines a bit here, it’ll be easier to read. Delete this line.”

While he was continuing his thoughts, an administrator kindly looked at Francis’s document and explained in detail the parts that needed correction and the reasons why.

Seeing this, the administrator who had been sarcastic earlier spoke up again.

“It’s all in the manual, but since you can’t see it, we have to spend time on it while we’re busy.”

“Tsk, cut it out. Salice Advisor would really praise you for that.”

The administrator who was scolded just pouted and focused on work.

Francis decided to just accept the administrator’s impudent attitude now.

That was because the other party’s work processing speed made him shut his mouth. Though called assistance, he had realized he was more of a burden than help.

The Winter Palace’s already written manual – he definitely wanted to see that, but.

‘You have no shame, and no conscience either?’

Now he could even predict what Rozelita would say.

And very keenly that it was a favor that didn’t even need to be granted in the first place.

Looking at the documents piled up throughout the Winter Palace offices, he could also realize how shameful his behavior had been.

‘We made all that fuss over less than half of half of this workload…’

Rozelita was somehow managing it all while teaching administrators and even servants.

Moreover, having learned the reason why he had no choice but to be given the position of attendant, he couldn’t even resent it.

‘…Since the number of aides itself is small, we can’t increase the administrators any further.’

As a son of a ducal family, he was not ignorant of the power struggles within the palace.

He felt deeply ashamed of himself for having only known Rozelita through rumors and perceiving her as merely an impudent aide who stirred up trouble everywhere without knowing courtesy or shame.

Meanwhile, his mind gradually became organized. He also figured out how he should act as the Summer Palace’s First Aide.

*

“…You’re telling me to stop coming to the Winter Palace?”

On the fifth day, around six o’clock, Francis showed a shocked expression at my words.

“Yes, you need to work at the Summer Palace.”

If we spent five days on new employee training, we were more than generous, weren’t we?

Besides, I hadn’t forgotten my original purpose in the slightest.

Though his thinking was a bit rigid, his work sense wasn’t bad, and that attitude of thoroughly checking mistakes and trying to improve – while it would be perfect for a subordinate under me.

‘Why would I hand over the Winter Palace’s weapon to someone else for nothing?’

I said to him with a bright smile.

“I heard that even Prince Charley has been working overtime lately, so the First Aide should go check on things.”

Now that the raw data organization was perfect, I smiled naturally at the joy of being completely freed from Summer Palace miscellaneous tasks.

“That may be true, but I’m still…”

Still what? The next step is handling important tasks, but I’ll never teach you that.

“Well then, good luck with the first half settlement, Aide Ashwood.”

I cut him off sharply without listening to his regretful words.

Now it’s your turn to feel frustrated!

Since he’d gotten used to our administrators, how suffocating would it be.

I pictured his future and completely drove out the Winter Palace’s freeloader.

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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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