Chapter 16: I’m Not the Only One Embarrassed, Right?

The aides began to whisper among themselves.

It was because they had heard Persian’s hearty laughter for the first time.

“I must have misheard, right?”

The six aides were struck with amazement, their faces breaking into smiles.

“The Count can actually laugh like that!”

“I’m telling you, he and Young Lord Dien must be on the same wavelength.”

“That’s nonsense. Who could possibly get along with that cold-blooded man? It’s a miracle if someone can even breathe next to him.”

“Khm! You should have seen Young Lord Dien’s expression earlier. He looked like he had lost the whole world! What better successor training could there be for a young noble?”

While such idle chatter went back and forth, Persian emerged from the office, and Dien followed him out.

When the aides saw the door opening, they stood up from their seats. Petro, who had been clutching his stomach with laughter, quickly suppressed his mirth and stood up as well.

“I’m heading to the morning meeting.”

“Yes, sir!”

The aides answered with military precision.

“Aide Petro has work to do with Young Lord Dien, so assist him for the rest of the day.”

“Eh… understood.”

Petro, having answered, locked eyes with Dien.

Grin!

One corner of Dien’s mouth curled upward.

Seeing that, Petro felt goosebumps erupt all over his body.

Soon after, Persian left the office suite, and Dien approached Petro.

“Aide Petro!”

“Yes!”

Petro answered with a shout of spirit as he looked at Dien.

The goosebumps were still on his arms.

“The Count has instructed me to investigate the history of consumables purchased from the Asmania mine. Therefore, Aide Petro, please filter out the consumables from the items purchased from the Asmania mine over the last three years. Create a report specifically marking the items that are disposed of on-site at the mine after use. The order for the consumables list should be based on unit price. Ah, and if there are items whose purchase volume has noticeably increased compared to last year or the year before, please compile that into a separate report.”

“Eh?”

“Did you not understand me?”

The corners of Petro’s mouth trembled.

“No, it’s not that, but…”

“The other aides can go about their own business. Competent Aide Petro is more than capable of doing this alone.”

When Dien spoke with an innocent smile, the other aides burst into laughter.

“Young Lord… wait… about that…”

Dien ignored Petro’s words and spoke.

“The deadline is.”

Petro swallowed hard and stared at Dien’s lips.

“Let’s have it done by tomorrow morning. You, as the Chancellor’s aide, should report it directly. I have Academy classes tomorrow. Since you are an aide the Chancellor praises so much, something like this shouldn’t be a problem to finish by tomorrow morning, right?”

Dien’s rotten smirk had somehow turned into a bright, clear smile.

He had landed a blow.

Isn’t the first virtue of a subordinate the management of one’s facial expressions?

But if one lacks that important virtue? Then they have to make up for it with their body.

We aren’t close enough to skip the need for professional decorum, are we?

“Ugh, Young Lord… the workload… if I made a mistake…”

At those final words, Petro began to pant as if he were out of breath.

“Oh, come now, Aide! Please smile. You look good when you smile. Just like you were doing earlier…”

“Gah.”

There was a blade hidden in those words.

Only then did Petro realize his mistake and shut his mouth.

“I’ll be staying by the aides’ side to get a handle on the work. That’s alright, isn’t it?”

“Yes!”

The aides smiled as if they found it amusing. However, they too soon felt a chill run down their spines.

They had become more afraid of Dien, who threw workload bombs while smiling, than they were of Persian.

“We must not make a mistake with the Young Lord.”

Petro clutched his head.

Dien knew exactly how to torment a working professional.

Although Persian was scary, he wasn’t the type of superior to micromanage tasks, so he didn’t give many specific instructions.

Even when there were instructions, he didn’t provide detailed criteria.

But Dien was different from Persian.

He even specified the criteria of organizing the report contents by unit price.

Writing a report by unit price rather than by date was like hell for them.

Thus, Dien’s instructions were the kind of terrifying thing only a devil would think of.

At this point, Persian felt like an angel to them.

“Young Lord! If you need anything, please call us anytime! I will become your hands and feet from now on!”

A quick-witted aide said while rubbing his hands together toward Dien.

“Hahaha, thank you. So there was an aide here with good instincts.”

“I am also in charge of the office’s accounting. Because of that, my calculations for profit and loss are very accurate and fast. Hahaha.”

“Seeing you, I feel the future of the Chancellor’s office is very bright!”

“It is an honor to serve you. Haha…!”

Dien patted him on the back.

The aide then put on a deeply moved expression as if he had received royal grace.

“Darn it… he beat me to it.”

And so, a battle of wits began among the aides.

***

“Hmm… It’s messy.”

While surveying the office, Dien frowned as he looked at the piles of documents scattered haphazardly.

“I might as well organize while I learn the ropes.”

With that, he stood up and began tidying the documents.

“Young Lord, why are you doing that…”

The aides approached when they discovered Dien gathering and organizing the papers on the desks.

“It’s nothing. Please go about your business.”

They found Dien’s actions strange yet unsettling. Those piles had their own internal logic of organization, and they were worried they wouldn’t be able to find things easily after Dien touched them.

“I will try to be helpful to the aides. I certainly won’t get in your way.”

“Ah… thank you…”

The aides replied with lukewarm expressions.

However, even though Dien knew what they were thinking, he did not stop what he was doing.

“This brings back memories.”

Back when he was a probationary civil servant. He had been scolded by his senior for his document organization.

It was because he had just piled documents on his desk instead of filing them in a timely manner, which had irritated his senior.

At the time, he felt resentment toward the senior who pushed him, but thanks to that incident, he developed a compulsion. He gained the know-how to organize and file more quickly and accurately than anyone else.

Though he lived like a dried-up fish at home, in the office, he became a germaphobe that even a professional cleaning company would admire.

And it seemed that germaphobia was still present.

He simply couldn’t stand the sight of documents piled randomly on the desks.

“Hmph.”

As expected. There were tasks that had been completed two years ago mixed into their desks.

Dien silently organized the documents amidst the busy aides.

Closing time approached.

As the aides were finishing their work, they discovered the transformed office.

In the midst of their busy work, they had completely forgotten that Dien was organizing files.

Before long, they began to marvel at the office, which was now so clean it could be described as beautiful.

“Wow.”

Petro was the first to let out an exclamation, and the other aides’ eyes widened as they looked at the organized documents.

“Ah! I apologize for organizing them as I saw fit. I’ll explain briefly.”

At Dien’s gesture, the aides hurried over.

“First, the bookshelves are categorized by year based on the completion of the task. You can consider the very top to be the oldest. The documents in the boxes are routine tasks like daily or weekly reports. They are used frequently, so I placed them nearby. Major projects have been put in the drawers. Documents before progress are in the top drawer, and as the work nears completion, I’ve put them in the bottom drawer. Once completed, I think you can move them to the bookshelf.”

“Wow… seriously, this is…”

The aides clapped their hands after opening the document boxes and drawers.

“Also, I’ve ordered a bookstand through a servant, so once it arrives, you can keep standard forms there.”

“I am simply ashamed that the Young Lord had to take care of even these things.”

“Don’t mention it. Hahaha.”

Though they had worked as aides for a long time, this was the first time they had seen a noble take the lead in such matters.

It was a task that would have ended quickly if they had all done it together, but they felt they couldn’t have matched Dien’s standards even if they had.

“Then I shall be heading out. The time has already become quite late.”

“Ye- Yes, please do!”

“Keep up the good work~.”

“Thank you… no, please get home safely!”

The aides raised their voices and bowed ninety degrees toward Dien as he left the office.

Just looking at the office suite, they could sense Dien’s administrative mastery, which was unimaginable for his young age.

The aides hovered in front of the organized bookshelves, pouring out more exclamations.

Not only were they sorted by year and month, but bookmarks were inserted between the documents, allowing them to know what the task was without even opening the file. This would save time as they wouldn’t have to rummage through papers.

The consideration of shortening the workflow was also noticeable.

Boxes labeled “Disposal Documents” were placed next to each of their desks.

Anyone who handled documents for a living would feel it.

The immense efficiency brought about by systematic organization.

“I need to be careful from now on…”

They erased the thought from their minds that Young Lord Dien was merely in the middle of successor training.

From the rumors of the Kandebara Merchant Group to experiencing Dien firsthand today, they felt he was a capable administrative manager.

“I’m not the only one embarrassed, right?”

Petro spoke to the aides, looking dazed.

“Look at the order of the document organization. The classification criteria are consistent, and not a single thing is wrong. Is this really something a newly arrived rookie noble can do?”

“It’s unbelievable…”

“Hahahaha. Truly, you can tell the whole by looking at one part… I think I understand why the Count wants to keep Young Lord Dien by his side. Let’s do our best as well.”

“Let’s do that.”

They continued to marvel as they thought of the departed Dien.

Leaving the royal castle, Dien looked at the sky that had somehow begun to set. Tomorrow was a day to go to the Academy.

Though each day was busier than expected, there was still work left to do.

Busking performance.

As it happened, Nue was out to meet him, carrying a guitar.

Nue mentioned that some people had been saving seats since the afternoon to watch the performance.

“Young Lord, aren’t you tired?”

On every busking day, there were endless encores and insufficient sleep. It was natural for Nue to look at him with a worried face.

“It’s fine. When I see the faces of the people listening to my songs, my fatigue vanishes completely.”

A hobby becomes a source of vitality in life.

Through busking alone, he was spending days so happy they couldn’t even be compared to his previous life.

Just then.

Someone ran past, bumping hard into Nue’s shoulder.

“Ouch!”

Nue fell right onto her backside.

She looked at the person in anger, but the man was already running far away.

“Hey! You should apologize before you go!”

An angry Nue called out to him, but Dien hurriedly grabbed her arm.

“Nue…”

Dien’s tone was serious.

“Master! That rude person is…”

“No!”

“Yes? What is it?”

Right before he collided with Nue.

Dien had seen the man’s face along with a knife hidden in one of his pockets.

“He’s not human…”

And from him as he ran with the knife, a strange sound was heard.

It wasn’t the guitar sound he heard from humans, but a thundering roar like a scream.

Dien instinctively sensed that he was not a human, but some other entity.

Because there had been no one until now who made such a bizarre noise.

“Nue! I’m going to follow that man, so you go to the plaza and tell the people waiting for the performance that it’s been canceled.”

“What?”

“Right now!”

With those final words, Dien chased after the man.

The entity making that thundering, scream-like noise felt dangerous.

And when the man passed by him, though briefly, the light that had appeared when he faced the assassin emanated from his hand.

“There’s something…”

He felt a strong conviction.

A conviction that the entity was connected to the power he possessed.

“Pant… pant…”

The man entered a narrow alleyway in the city.

Seeing that, Dien followed him in.

“It’s loud enough to kill me.”

Inside the dead-end alley where he arrived following the man.

The roar he heard from him grew even deeper.

It was because there were others there making the same noise as the man.

With expressionless faces, they were drawing their swords.

To be precise, they were pointing their swords at a woman wearing a hood in their midst.