“Umm, Anita. Go to Cesia’s workplace and inform them I summoned her!” she said.
“Your Royal Highness, it appears you have no business with Cesia, so ought you not release her back to her duties?” Anita pointed out. “If it’s known that the princess is summoning her so soon after starting, it’ll make it harder for her to do her job.”
“Aah…” Mavis nodded.
Sharp! This is what the head maid of that guy’s clueless sister has to be able to do! As Cesia mentally applauded Anita, Mavis hummed and pouted again. At the risk of repeating myself, she really is cute.
“Then, what do you want me to do? I can’t even talk to her, then!” the princess protested.
“How about making plans to meet with Cesia on one of her days off?” Anita suggested.
Mavis’s jade-green eyes sparkled the same way her brother’s did. “Great idea!”
That’s some “great idea.” Please, let me enjoy my day off in peace.
And so, Cesia was finally released to her post. She returned in a hurry and, after a light scolding, was back to her desk work. I had to sacrifice some of my precious day off. The government can be so cruel.
To make up for the time she had lost, Cesia rushed through her paperwork, checking documents as fast as possible while widening her eyes and making sure not to overlook anything. After graduation, she started work as the lowest-level enforcer in the Second Division of the castle’s Financial Audit Bureau, the Second Financial Audit Division.
Put simply, her job involved poring over the minute details of various transactions to uncover any irregularities or fraud. Given her past, it was an ironic position. Being an enforcer meant that she would also go out on investigations, and apparently, things occasionally got violent. Cesia had heard the words “Financial Audit Bureau” and “civil servant” and looked forward to an easygoing desk job. She was still nursing her betrayed expectations.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” she sighed.
After she visually reviewed the documents for imperfections, she used magic to check whether any trickery was in the paper. Double-checking like that was the standard. This type of delicate magic was her specialty, so she didn’t have any complaints about the job itself. There was so much of it to do. A few others had been employed at the same time as her, and a decent number of people worked in the department, but Cesia was still busy every day.
Spring was a season with a lot of personnel changes, among other things, so there was more paperwork than usual, and money flowed more freely. Her seniors called it the busy season, but she had only ever experienced this level of activity, so she had no idea what the off-season was like.
“I finished checking this bunch!” Cesia said, taking a sheaf of documents to the desk of the coworker who was mentoring her, Layne.
Layne raised his head. “Good work. I have some more for you. And, take this to Keith.”
“Wow…” As he passed her the documents, Cesia made a sour expression.
“What’s with that face? Are you dissatisfied with something? Then, take these, too,” Layne said, adding more to the pile.
“There’s even more…”
Layne was a good guy and capable at his job, and he treated Cesia fairly, even though she was a commoner. All the same, she wouldn’t mind being given a bit more slack.
After graduating as valedictorian from the honorable Royal Academy, Cesia proceeded along the path Marcus had suggested for her, although not without feeling some annoyance at doing so. Due to circumstances, she had attended the Academy all the way through twice, so she was slightly older than her colleagues who graduated at the same time. Anyone between fourteen and seventeen could take the academy entrance exams, although the high tuition skewed the pool of those who could attend toward the children of nobles and wealthy merchants.
Cesia began attending as “Selene” at fourteen. After two years of classes, she was sixteen when she graduated. Right after that, she started over, attending as herself, so when she graduated and got her job, she was eighteen. If one applied to the school as soon as possible and graduated two years later, they would be sixteen at the youngest, so Cesia was on the older end of new graduates.
“Cesia, is it true that you’re Prince Marcus’s mistress?” the man sitting at the desk across from her asked, grinning. He was Keith, a senior of hers who had entered the department the same year as Layne.
Stop talking and get to work, Cesia thought, but she couldn’t say it. She looked forward to the day she attained a high enough position to say what she wanted.
“I get that a lot,” Cesia smoothly began what had already become her standard explanation, efficiently sorting some documents at the same time. “The prince is one of the directors of the Academy, and while I was there, he served as my guardian. But really, we only ever talked when he greeted me occasionally, you know. He’s the guardian to several other promising commoners without any family, so it’s not like I was special or anything.”
When she attended the Academy, she was bullied for having the prince as her guardian. She was a woman, after all, and after she started her job at the castle, she had often been suspected of being the prince’s lover.
“Besides, don’t you only use the term ‘mistress’ for someone who already has a wife?” she asked. “The prince isn’t married yet, you know.”
Roy, who had started at the same time as Cesia, warned Keith. “Stop harassing her!”
Keith just laughed heartily. “Then, would you rather be his lover, instead?”
Cesia chuckled, then dumped the sheaf of documents Layne had handed her earlier on Keith’s desk with a loud thud. “Keith, these have to be submitted today. I can’t help though.”
“Huh? Why? You always help!”
“I have plans today.”
These documents were Keith’s job in the first place. Payback like this is nothing.