Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 6

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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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Episode 6
The Emperor’s knights and inspectors flooded in all at once.
“Everyone stop what you’re doing and step back against the wall!”
The aura of knights who had crossed battlefields with the Emperor was far too intense for the timid clerks.
The startled staff hesitated for a moment, then rose from their desks and pressed themselves against the wall, trading nervous glances.
The knights positioned themselves opposite us at a measured distance, watching.
It was a veiled threat—don’t cause trouble in the Emperor’s name, don’t invite suspicion.
The frightened staff kept stealing silent looks toward Donoban, one after another.
It meant: do something, anything, please.
‘They need to know what this is about, at least.’
Unable to withstand the piercing gaze of dozens of eyes, Donoban broke into a cold sweat and spoke to one of the knights.
“I, what is this about…?”
He’d started with a reasonably loud voice, but it shrank to barely a whisper the moment the knight’s gaze turned toward me. It was pathetic to watch.
The knight looked Donoban over from head to toe, then asked him.
“Are you the supervisor of this office—Donoban Shroze?”
“I am, but—”
Donoban’s tone made it clear he wished he could deny it.
The knight called over one of the inspectors.
“I’ve found Donoban Shroze.”
The inspector who arrived immediately began interrogating Donoban.
“In the reports submitted from this office, evidence has been found that documents were falsified to allow Duke Camelot and the families under his command to evade taxes, commit bribery, and create embezzled funds.”
Donoban’s face drained of color, taking on a sickly pallor.
“What? That can’t possibly be…?”
The inspector watched Donoban with evident displeasure as he repeated nothing but “that can’t possibly be,” his expression blank, and spoke with biting sarcasm.
“Since it can be, we’re investigating.”
Dismissing Donoban with a gesture to the knights, the inspector glanced at his documents and called out Andrew’s name.
“The supervisor for Duke Camelot’s territory and the surrounding region is Andrew Nofen, I see.”
Andrew, who had been hiding at the very back of the line of people, was quickly dragged forward.
With knights far larger than him gripping both his arms, Andrew kept turning back as though he wanted to run.
The inspector unfolded the middle section of the documents he was holding and thrust them at Andrew.
“Did you write this report, Andrew Nofen?”
What the inspector held was a copy of the strategic materials trading report for the Western Region.
The one I’d written through the night a few days ago to help Constance.
The moment Andrew saw the names of the territories listed in the document, his face drained to the same sickly hue as Donoban’s, and he seemed to have found his own way out, crying out:
“I didn’t do that! Constance did! Donoban ordered Constance to do it—two-thirds of the people here saw that!”
He even pointed in Constance’s direction to make sure the inspector knew who she was.
“That carrot-haired woman there is Constance.”
Constance, suddenly singled out by Andrew, turned toward me for a moment before barely catching herself.
“Well, I’d need to look more carefully, but at first glance… it does look like something I might have written…”
She gave an ambiguous answer and smiled awkwardly.
I didn’t have a chance to correct her.
“We arrest you for assisting Duke Camelot in bribery and embezzlement!”
The moment Constance gave her half-hearted affirmation, she was taken away.
Andrew was also dragged away, deemed to require further questioning.
The remaining staff were driven out of the building, and at the same moment, the Finance Ministry’s entire office in the Outer Palace was seized.
Knights and inspectors swiftly gathered items that could serve as evidence.
Not a word was spoken among the staff until the knights and inspectors disappeared, their arms full of seized materials.
Everyone’s expression had grown somber from this unexpected disaster.
My complexion was the worst of all.
Some of the staff who knew Constance and I were close friends kept their distance, afraid they might be suspected of complicity if they stayed near me.
They even cast suspicious glances in my direction from time to time.
But about half of them, seeing my pallid face, seemed genuinely alarmed and offered comfort.
I accepted their concerned words with courtesy while my mind raced with questions.
‘What just happened? Why Constance?’
The knights had taken three people away, alleging they assisted Duke Camelot’s bribery and embezzlement.
‘They produced the strategic materials trading report for the Western territories as evidence.’
But I hadn’t done anything for Duke Camelot.
I’d simply written it based on what I saw in Andrew’s organized copy of the Western Region’s accounting ledger.
‘Then something went wrong somewhere in between.’
From what I knew as the true author, about ninety percent of the transactions covered in that document were iron ore.
‘I remember it was difficult to parse because the debt relationships between vassal families were tangled.’
Let’s assume Duke Camelot used debt relationships surrounding iron ore to commit bribery and embezzlement.
‘Whether the Emperor learned of this through the minister’s report or some other channel—it seems the Emperor, having found a way to take down Duke Camelot, brought in the author to secure evidence.’
The iron ore transactions are recorded in accounting ledgers, those ledgers are sent to the Capital for verification, then compiled and organized.
To determine how much contamination occurred at each step.
The Emperor was known for his cruel methods, but he wasn’t the type to punish those who were innocent.
‘After all, I wasn’t involved in Duke Camelot’s crimes anyway.’
Being implicated in a crime I didn’t commit was unpleasant, but if I calmly explained myself, I could be released.
If things didn’t go smoothly, I might suffer for days or weeks, but there was no reason Constance needed to step in.
But now that Constance had already been taken, revealing that I was the true author wasn’t a good idea.
‘Both of us would be dragged in as suspicious.’
It would only result in the number of prisoners in the Imperial Palace detention facility increasing from three to four.
Until this point, I suppressed my guilt by inwardly reproaching Constance for her needless meddling, while simply hoping she’d be released quickly.
A few hours later.
Rumors began to circulate that Donoban and Andrew, under investigation, were claiming they knew nothing and that Constance had taken the lead in everything, so if there was any problem, it was entirely Constance’s fault—they were scapegoating her.
“Damn fools.”
After Heder came specifically to tell me the rumors, I began cursing Donoban and Andrew vehemently.
From the moment Heder called me out, I could see the staff glancing out the window as though watching a spectacle, quickly returning to their work as I stood there.
Since I was the type to grow colder and more rational the angrier I became, it was rare for me to show emotion like this.
Even as I made a show of being ready to rush to the Imperial Palace’s temporary holding cells and seize Donoban by the collar, my mind was already cooling, logic finding its way back.
Something about Donoban felt off.
Unlike Andrew, pushing others into the abyss for his own survival out of pure selfishness, it didn’t seem like his words came from that kind of greed.
‘It feels more like he’s following a script that was already written.’
Donoban’s repeated muttering—”that can’t possibly be”—echoed through my mind like a broken recording device.
‘Normally, he should be claiming he was wronged or that he knew nothing about it.’
Yet he carried himself as though he believed it would never come to light.
I had more reasons to suspect Donoban.
‘Why did he assign the work to Constance instead of to Andrew, the actual supervisor…?’
At the time, I’d dismissed it with doubt, but now that events were unfolding like this, I wondered if my casual remark had actually been the truth all along.
I recalled what I’d said to Constance in jest: ‘Donoban must think you’re the easiest mark.’
Constance didn’t even have a family name. She was a commoner, born in an orphanage attached to the Temple.
Recognizing her unusual intelligence from childhood, the priests had written her letters of recommendation, connected her with patrons among the faithful, enabling her to enter the Academy.
She graduated with respectable grades and passed the examination for Imperial City administrators, but she had no backing whatsoever.
‘If Donoban was the culprit, he must have intended to blame her from the start, the moment anything went wrong.’
Donoban was a petty man with an inflated sense of pride.
‘Like a rabbit digging multiple escape holes.’
I wondered if Donoban, despite believing he’d never be caught, had created multiple escape routes like a rabbit fleeing a hunter.
‘If my suspicion is right, Constance is in danger.’
I regretted ignoring my instinctive warning just days ago, choosing to trust Donoban’s absolute minimum—that surely he wouldn’t do anything truly serious.
‘I should have been more suspicious then.’
But now there was no time for regret.
‘There were some points that bothered me when I wrote the documents.’
I needed to start there.
At the time, I’d been rushed and exhausted, so I’d let things slide. But if the accounting ledgers submitted from the Western Region were indeed falsified, then by digging deeper, I could find the points where they’d been altered.
‘Numbers don’t lie.’
I organized in my mind what needed to be done.

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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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