Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 4

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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 4
“Well, don’t you know? Donovan gave me the task.”
Coni answered casually, twisting her lip to one side.
“No, I know Donovan assigned it, but you originally handle the Eastern Territory, don’t you?”
The documents Coni handed me were from the Western Territory.
And they were Inter-Territory Strategic Resources Trade Records at that.
“Were you not here then? I’m already dying from being so busy, and Donovan threw this at me to do as well and just left…… So I’m struggling even more.”
Coni ground her teeth.
I pretended not to hear the harsh words Coni laid out and asked instead.
“Why separate out just this part?”
“Exactly my point.”
The Inter-Territory Strategic Resources Trade Records were a kind of ancillary attachment.
It would be far more efficient for Andrew, the person directly responsible for these Western Territory affairs, to prepare them himself.
A brief silence fell between us.
And it was Coni who broke that quiet.
“Now that you mention it, something does seem off.”
Coni scratched her cheek, saying her lack of sleep made her head sluggish.
“I thought Donovan was just playing favorites with you.”
Coni tapped the documents on her desk with her index finger, complaining.
“That Andrew fellow is always saying he doesn’t have time because some cousin of his—some Baron or other—has given family matters to him to handle, and he never wants to do the difficult work.”
It seemed like a feeble excuse from someone collecting a salary, yet it worked surprisingly well on Donovan, who was a hierarchical class loyalist.
‘Because he’s eager to build connections to Andrew’s cousin.’
And the tasks Andrew shirked tended to flow down to employees Donovan considered easy marks.
‘Though that Baron who’s supposedly Andrew’s cousin must be quite a distinguished nobleman, because everyone resents it but feels powerless to refuse.’
It also helped that Donovan was the type to pick out people he disliked and torment them.
‘Dirty and petty as it is, we live in a hierarchical class society.’
It was a familiar irrationality.
Except for small exceptions.
“Even so, wouldn’t it have been more efficient to assign it to someone else managing the Western Territory with you?”
Coni, who had only ever handled the Eastern Territory, would need to understand the structure of the Western region first.
‘Since the Empire began as a confederated state, there are slight differences by region.’
From minor things like how numbers are recorded in ledgers to major matters like tax collection rates.
The East and West in particular had been territories with almost no contact during the old kingdom period, so the differences were unusually pronounced.
‘Yet why specifically Coni? It really is strange.’
I tried to piece together the instinctive warning I’d felt watching Donovan grow angry with Coni and the discomfort I felt now looking at these documents, but I stopped.
I hoped it wasn’t the worst-case scenario after all.
I gave a light shake of my head to dismiss the thought and spoke as if joking.
“Maybe you were just the easiest target?”
I’d meant it to reverse the increasingly serious atmosphere, but honestly, it rang far too true.
‘Without a single thought to work efficiency, dumping it on whoever looks most vulnerable—that’s exactly the kind of thing Donovan would do.’
When Coni heard my suspicion, she shuddered and grumbled.
“So I’m Donovan’s number-one pick for an easy person? Hearing that makes me feel like an orphan who’s heard the worst news?”
Coni made a whimpering sound with her mouth.
I hesitated, unsure how to react, when she began performing like an actress, exaggerating her sadness even further.
“Yes, I have no parents and no fortune!”
If I just let her be, there was no telling where she’d take this.
“Hey! When did I ever say that?”
I picked up several more documents from Coni’s desk to stop her theatrical unemployed soliloquy.
Coni, catching sight of the thickness of the documents I’d gathered, stopped her whimpering and smiled with satisfaction.
“Looks like I do have Carolina Diaz!”
Coni began dancing oddly while spouting off about how being roommates with me from the academy was the greatest stroke of luck in her life.
Of course, I knew her pout had been a joke, but the shift in attitude was surprisingly extreme.
“I would’ve helped anyway, you know.”
I cast a light glance aside and returned to my seat.
Then I picked up my pen again.
‘The Western Territory seems complicated because it has so many iron mines.’
In particular, the House of Camelot, the western lord and a wealthy merchant house, owned several iron mines, and the transaction records of their vassal families were quite intricate.
‘From what I can see, it looks like they borrowed money during a poor harvest, but when they couldn’t repay it in cash, they repaid in goods.’
Because the promissory notes had been split, combined, and moved around, it was hard to track.
‘No wonder the young master wanted to bail on this.’
It seemed I’d brought back more work than I’d anticipated, but it was better to review one more page than to waste time regretting it.
I kept my weary eyes wide open and turned through the documents one by one.
Coni was also working without a word, eager to finish quickly and get some sleep.
The two of us remaining in the office devoted ourselves to work like that until sunrise.
‘We just breathed and worked, really.’
Thanks to that, we finished everything before Donovan arrived for his shift, having supposedly stepped out briefly and then left for the day.
I handed the completed report to Coni.
Having received the documents, Coni began dancing and singing another of her original compositions, this one with the long title “Being Roommates with Carolina Diaz Is a Stroke of Luck.”
“Go get the approval already.”
“Right. Thanks so much, Lina.”
After having the processed documents approved by Donovan, Coni said she really thought she was going to die and left immediately.
Donovan made some remark to Coni about being so whiny, saying her mental state was weak, but anyway, from today onward there was a special four-day holiday for the entire Imperial Palace administration.
‘Of course his bullying wouldn’t work. It’s an Imperial Decree, after all.’
Most employees hadn’t even come in. And the few who did come finished only urgent work before leaving right away.
I also watched for an opening and carefully slipped away.
I left the Imperial Palace as quietly as possible, afraid someone might call me back, and walked one more block before quickly hailing a shared carriage.
As I dozed off and on while feeling the rough ride of the shared carriage, before long I was home.
I mustered my last bit of strength to wash up, then collapsed onto my bed.
From the moment I lay down on the mattress as if someone had struck the back of my neck, my memory went completely blank.
Whether it was sleep or unconsciousness, I couldn’t tell.
* * *
“I slept so well.”
The outside was dimly bright, and checking the clock showed 6 a.m.
“Can I call this waking up early?”
I’d lost the first day of the holiday, but it didn’t matter.
I still had two days left.
‘I would’ve liked to see the Imperial military parade and fireworks.’
But I wasn’t that disappointed.
It didn’t seem bad to spend some ordinary time, putting off the things I’d been too busy to do recently.
“Let me get some treats for the cats and then head to the grocer, after that I should do some cleaning at home.”
I prepared to go out simply and grabbed some Chicken Jerky from the cupboard.
When I arrived at Grizel Park, which the cats had claimed as their territory, I called out to them softly.
“Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol—where are you all?”
Checking the faces of visitors, I called a couple of times before the cats gradually began to appear from the distance.
Sol, the most affectionate one, greeted me by rubbing her body against my shin.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Sol, whose cry was the highest octave like her name suggested, meowed adorably.
I gave each cat a piece of jerky to chew on.
The cats, with the fairly large pieces of jerky in their mouths, trotted off to a small distance to begin their meal.
I distributed more Chicken Jerky to the cats that kept coming back for more as soon as they finished.
Until all the jerky I’d brought was gone.
Fortunately, the satisfied cats went to their preferred spots and began grooming or humming contentedly in the sunlight.
I gazed at them for a moment with pleased eyes, then raised my hand to Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol in farewell.
“See you next time.”
It was about time for the grocer to open now.
Construction still wasn’t finished, so I was heading toward the direction of the west gate of Grizel Park when I encountered a man coming into the park from the opposite direction.
He was a large man wearing a hood pulled deep over his head.
The path through the provisional west gate was quite narrow for two people to pass.
‘Especially not two people including a man with such a good build.’
I stepped aside to let him pass.
I raised my head to tell him to go first, and in that moment, a jawline glimpsed between the hood looked familiar.
I’d only faced him twice, but it wasn’t a face easy to forget.
‘Huh?’
I seemed to show surprise without meaning to.
Everett Rohas turned his head to the side and averted his eyes first.
‘I must have been staring too intensely.’
“Please, go ahead.”
I encouraged Everett Rohas, feeling a bit embarrassed.
Everett Rohas, who had been regarding me for a moment, gave a small nod and passed.
I only looked back after Everett Rohas had gone quite far.
‘How strange.’
I hadn’t expected to run into him again.
I didn’t know then that this remarkable coincidence would continue.

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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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