Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 35

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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 35
It tasted far more credible than I’d braced myself for.
Not the sort that rang with pretension in one’s ears, but still a cut above the cheap coffee I’d nursed through exam seasons.
“It’s decent this time, wouldn’t you say? The beans came through an importer connected to the Empire’s longest-running café.”
Kyle beamed, clearly pleased that my reaction had shown on my face, and launched into praise.
“Thanks to that, we’re picking up more customers, and I’ve had to hire staff—the girl who brought your coffee just now, Emily. She’s wonderfully capable.”
Kyle gazed at Emily as though a new employee were proof of the café’s success, his happiness unguarded.
Then, as if remembering why he’d summoned me here, he laughed a touch awkwardly.
“I’ve been rambling about the café this whole time without getting to the real point.”
‘Though at this rate, I suspect the café was the real point all along.’
His expression turned serious, and as he straightened in his seat, it felt like something important was about to surface.
‘What is it, then?’
I mirrored his shift, set down my cup, and sat up straighter myself.
After a brief pause, Kyle made his proposal.
“Diaz, would you consider working with me?”
Given that we’d been discussing nothing but the café, I briefly wondered if I was being scouted as café staff.
‘The work would certainly be easier. Is it a contract position? I do tend to fuss about job security.’
Like any office worker who keeps a resignation letter tucked away in a corner of the heart, I found myself naturally slipping into deliberation the moment the offer landed.
Kyle hastened to clarify, reading my silence.
“I mean, for the Blue Magpie.”
The Blue Magpie was the intelligence guild Kyle commanded and the codename for an elite secret unit loyal to the Emperor himself.
‘The place where the Emperor had stashed the Empire’s greatest talents, all handpicked by him.’
Me? In that organization?
I was just Extra 102132.
“The Blue Magpie? You mean the Blue Magpie?”
I asked softly, bewildered whether I’d heard correctly, and Kyle scratched his cheek with a laugh.
“Was the offer too sudden?”
“Rather abrupt, yes?”
When I answered with a question of my own, Kyle’s eyes widened with amusement.
“Since the war ended and we’ve returned to the Imperial Palace, our workload has actually increased. Recruitment is urgent.”
His eyebrows sagged in that inverted-V shape that comes with genuine fatigue—proof of how swamped he was.
“Of course, I’m extending this offer because we hold your abilities in high regard.”
Having frankly admitted the manpower shortage in what should have been a recruitment pitch, Kyle hastily added praise, watching my face.
The Treasury Ministry didn’t have work-life balance either.
I gave a light shrug, as though that concern barely registered.
“Are things so desperate you’d accept even a cat’s paw?”
Instead, I probed subtly for the real reason behind choosing me, and Kyle laughed with a deflating sound.
“We’re busy enough to need even a cat’s paw, yes—but my sincere respect for your abilities, that’s genuine.”
In situations like this, one should trust perhaps half of what’s said.
So I chose to believe the first part.
‘Is he really that swamped?’
Even the Treasury Ministry had more on its plate since the Emperor’s return, so Kyle, who ranked above me there, would be drowning in work.
‘Actually, he might have been idle during the war. The shock must be worse.’
I swept my eyes across the café, which had been open for nearly three years now.
For a place supposedly concealing an intelligence operation, it had too much genuine substance.
I recalled from the Original Work a story that Kyle and the Blue Magpie had remained in the capital to counter the nobility while the Emperor was absent, playing watchdog in his stead.
‘Something about how intelligence wasn’t all that critical in a war where the Emperor himself was fighting.’
The Emperor was the type to sweep everything clean through sheer overwhelming force.
‘This is textbook proof of “if you’re good with your body, your mind gets a break.”‘
Kyle’s idleness made sense, given that he’d essentially been on indefinite standby in case anything unexpected happened.
‘But now that the Emperor’s returned, it’s time to reassert control from within.’
The Emperor had been on the war front almost constantly since his coronation, so corrupt officials who’d ballooned during his predecessor’s reign still lingered.
They kept their heads down now, wary of the Emperor’s gaze—a man who held both overwhelming force and the people’s hearts. But this atmosphere wouldn’t last forever.
‘Anyone who’d tasted the sweetness of power wouldn’t relinquish it without struggle, so naturally Kyle would find himself busier.’
Politics, after all, ran on justification more than force.
I’d reasoned my way into understanding the timing of this sudden recruitment.
‘Still, something nags at me.’
As my deliberation stretched on, Kyle pulled out a contract like an angler waggling bait.
“This is an Employment Contract.”
He wore the smile of a gambler holding a confident hand.
“I can’t yet disclose the detailed work requirements, but—”
Taking it and reviewing it, I found the contract filled with blanks just as Kyle said—work conditions, location, and the like all left empty.
But the compensation listed was more than four times my current monthly salary.
Noticing me trace the numbers on the contract several times with my eyes, Kyle’s smile deepened.
‘I was planning to decline gracefully.’
The sum was too large to refuse outright.
‘Why not hear him out a bit more?’
Kyle drove the wedge in deeper, seeing me tempted by the overwhelming figure.
“Consider that your base salary as a Blue Magpie operative.”
“That’s the base?”
Oops—my tone had risen a notch.
Kyle added further explanation.
“All Blue Magpie members take a confidentiality oath through a method called the Oath of Mana. The figure reflects the hazard pay adjusted for operational risk. Of course, the work you’d be doing wouldn’t be particularly dangerous.”
Kyle emphasized that what I’d be doing wouldn’t differ much from my Treasury Ministry work.
‘Well, I never thought he was recruiting me as a field operative anyway. The only issue is the secrecy oath.’
The Oath of Mana was a binding method that forced one to pay the price if the oath was broken.
‘Betrayal means death, or something like that.’
The thought kept creeping in that as long as I honored the oath faithfully, it would be fine—and the power of that number was terrifying.
‘But objectively, my salary isn’t even that stingy to begin with.’
Yet he was offering four times it.
“Ah, Blue Magpie operatives are also provided with a Cover Position. Since you’re already working in the Imperial City, we wouldn’t need to arrange anything special—but naturally, compensation comes with the cover position as well.”
So not four times my salary, but five.
‘Honestly, I’m tempted.’
Had I not known the future, I would have signed on the spot.
But the timing was all wrong.
‘If only this weren’t the period right before the Original Work begins—that chaotic, rambunctious stretch.’
The heroine would arrive in six months, and until then I needed to stay low.
For now it was quiet, but soon the Imperial Palace would be painted red with blood.
‘The nobility misjudged the Emperor as a mere boy with fighting strength, thinking they could outsmart him since he’d been moderate in his early actions.’
They’d badly miscalculated—what they took for an unexpectedly docile temperament was actually a young man working through the burnout that comes after consuming a third of his life in war.
‘If I remember right, wasn’t the rumor that the Emperor was a blood-crazed demon considered propaganda meant to demoralize enemies?’
But about half of that rumor was true.
‘He doesn’t enjoy killing people, but he doesn’t exactly hold human life sacred either.’
It wouldn’t take long before the Emperor, who so far had tolerated the gnats buzzing around him, finally snapped.
‘According to the Original Work’s pacing, he should have already exploded. It’s odd that things are still quiet.’
Was he distracted with something else?
In any case, unless the Emperor underwent sudden reform, it wouldn’t be long.
If I joined the Blue Magpie, I might weather the storm that would engulf the palace.
But in another sense, it seemed riskier.
‘The Emperor might rage and purge some of his staff, but he probably can’t just wipe them all away.’
It would be the Blue Magpie’s role to prove indispensable in that process.
Walking into the eye of the typhoon—but I wanted to live long and quiet.
Seeing me hesitate, Kyle ventured a careful proposal.
“It seems immediate decision is difficult. I’ll give you ample time to think it over, and I’d be grateful if you’d consider it favorably.”
Offered a reprieve from the choice, I finally nodded in agreement.
‘The more I think about it, the more appealing it’ll become.’
The thought flashed through my mind that I was already halfway convinced, but first I’d secured an exit.
Six months until the Original Work begins. The storm is scheduled, but where exactly I’ll be standing as an Extra—that remains unknown.

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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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