Chapter 134

Rodella and Aivert enjoyed a truly dreamlike vacation.

Waking up to the morning sun, they would see each other’s peacefully sleeping faces.

They ate meals together, listened to music, and spent the nights in their own private world.

Their usually chaotic daily lives had become a peaceful interlude, as if nothing had ever happened.

As the two of them were enjoying their happiness, a flower basket arrived.

[Congratulations on the fulfillment of the Duke’s long-cherished wish.]

The sender’s name wasn’t written, but Rodella, by the handwriting, and Aivert, by the context, quickly figured out who it was from.

“How did the Chancellor know?” Rodella tilted her head.

The two were closer to each other than ever before.

Unlike Rodella, who was puzzled, Aivert had a good guess.

She had figured out Aivert’s feelings long ago and must have known about the subtle relationship between the two.

In that situation, alone, at the end of the contract engagement, what else would they have done by going into a mansion for newlyweds?

There were no issues because a good conclusion had been reached, but if it had ended badly, it would have been noisy by now.

As Aivert marveled at the Chancellor’s intuition, Rodella fiddled with the flowers and muttered, her voice filled with sympathy, “I wish Sir Latine would understand the Chancellor’s feelings too.”

Wasn’t she in the middle of not being able to achieve her own love?

Rodella, who had been saying that, paused.

“During the rebellion, Sir Latine protected the Chancellor, didn’t he? Could something have progressed between them?”

At her words, Aivert looked at Rodella, then at the flower basket, and then up at the ceiling.

“…I thought I expressed myself quite directly, too.”

In other words, he meant, “Why didn’t you know?”

“…”

Rodella, instantly speechless, quietly averted her gaze.

Soon, she heard Aivert’s laughter near her ear.

“You’re just oblivious to your own affairs.”

“R-really?”

Rodella flinched and turned to him. But Aivert’s face wasn’t gloomy.

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Huh?”

Rodella blinked at the unexpected remark.

“You were quite popular back at the academy.”

What on earth was he talking about now? Rodella frowned.

“Those engagement proposals? They all had ulterior motives.”

That “popularity” had never been a good thing.

But what Aivert was talking about seemed to be something different.

“Not those. I’m talking about the guys who were genuinely interested in you.”

Guys? There were several of them?

Rodella tried to recall her academy days.

During classes, the aristocratic faction would whisper, and at other times, she was always with Aivert…

“…There weren’t any guys like that?”

“It’s not that there weren’t any, it’s that they couldn’t approach you.”

Huh? What?

It took Rodella a few seconds to understand his words.

“What did you do??”

He, he had said he had liked me for a long time…!

But Aivert just laughed instead of answering.

***

The dreamlike vacation was over.

The two of them finally returned to the Knights.

“Don’t they seem closer than before?”

“Now that they’re together, going into the same room as them feels a bit… well, like a transgression, doesn’t it?”

And the Azure Knights noticed the changed atmosphere between them.

They had heard the handcuffs were off, but the two of them were so stuck together, never leaving each other’s side, that it seemed as if they were tied with an invisible rope.

Could a couple who had been together for so long become as fresh as if they were just starting to date?

Meanwhile, Rodella, who had made her way back to her room through those puzzled gazes, was in for a shock.

“This is a disaster, wow…”

She stared blankly at the stacks of documents filling her room and muttered.

When a person sees a small failure, they get teary-eyed, but when they see a complete disaster, they find themselves laughing instead.

The amount of work made her want to laugh.

She even wondered why the Chancellor and Latine had approved their vacation.

No, at first she wondered, and then she was sure.

“They wanted us to go before we died?”

So there was no lie at all when they said we wouldn’t have time to play anymore?

“They only sent the most necessary ones.”

The Administration Bureau staffer who delivered the documents bowed his head, his face pale.

Rodella, her hands trembling, checked the documents and her eyes widened.

“What, the dates on these are a month overdue?”

Rodella grabbed the back of her neck.

She instantly regretted not pushing back when the Chancellor had asked for help.

It felt even worse seeing the documents piled up, not just with nearing deadlines, but also with expired ones.

But when she thought about it, it was only natural.

Most of the Administration Bureau staff had been Duke Benerix’s people and were arrested, and the large-scale cleanup of the aristocratic faction had essentially paralyzed the department.

Though Ameris had filled the empty spots with talents she had kept an eye on, there was a limit to what the newcomers could handle.

And this was the result.

Newcomers thrown into the middle of the Administration Bureau with no handover, a Chancellor with no time to train them, and in the middle of all the urgent work…

Rodella, who could handle both training newcomers and processing the work, was placed in the situation.

“I think I’ll have to commute to the Administration Bureau for a while.”

So, Rodella ultimately decided to commute to the Administration Bureau rather than the Azure Knights.

“You must be very busy.”

Aivert looked at the stacks of documents in front of Rodella and understood immediately.

Then, despite being busy with his own work, he escorted Rodella to the main building of the Administration Bureau.

“Welcome back, Dame Syveric!”

And the atmosphere of the Administration Bureau that greeted her had changed dramatically.

The people who truly welcomed her were, of course, all her juniors who had recently joined.

They seemed to have a camaraderie that went beyond fellowship, and every one of them had dark circles under their eyes.

And after a brief greeting with happy faces, they all rushed at Rodella.

“This came from the Treasury Department. They inquired about it a month ago, but since it involves Duke Benerix…”

“There’s a family that owed a debt to the Administration Bureau before, but now the family is…”

They seemed to have no time to talk to the Chancellor, so they all rushed to Rodella.

“Wait, one by one, no, just leave the difficult-looking ones here! You all handle these!”

Rodella ended up passing the relatively easy, repetitive tasks to them and taking on the headache-inducing ones.

After exactly eight hours of work.

“Wow…”

Rodella stared blankly at the familiar sky outside the window.

Just a few days ago, no, just the other day, she had happily looked at the sparkling night sky with Aivert.

“Once you stop doing it, you don’t want to do it again.”

Aivert had said that once.

“…It’s true.”

Before, she would have worked without a moment to look out the window, driven by a sense of responsibility.

Tired? Condition? That’s because it wasn’t urgent enough yet!

‘If I don’t do it, the aristocratic faction will find a weakness and say something again!’

…That thought seemed as distant as a thought that had passed through her mind a long time ago.

“…Is it because there are no aristocratic faction members to find a weakness now?”

Before, the Administration Bureau would have been swarming with people trying to bring her down, but now it was different.

“Dame Syveric!”

“Just, just look at this!”

The department was at a standstill without her, so she didn’t have to worry about being kicked out.

But instead of being happy, she muttered words for the first time in years, or perhaps for the first time since she left the academy.

“I don’t want to do this.”

More accurately, she wanted to do something more fun.

Not things about what the nobles are doing or what the assets are.

For example, just staring blankly at the sky with someone she enjoys being with.

Rodella, who suddenly thought of someone’s face, smiled faintly.

“Why are you coming in through the window when there’s a perfectly good door?”

“It’s illegal to enter here without permission.”

“…Then shouldn’t you be leaving? What if you get caught?”

“I enjoy the thrill.”

“Are you crazy?”

Aivert, surprisingly, had never been caught going in and out of the Administration Bureau.

Now that she thought about it, perhaps it was all thanks to the Royden family’s mysterious information-gathering abilities.

Rodella found it strange that she could smile despite being so tired. And then, as she instinctively looked toward the window Aivert used to come through, just like in a memory…

—Tap, tap.

She heard a knocking sound.

Rodella’s eyes widened, then she smiled broadly.

Unlike the time she had a mix of annoyance and welcome in her voice.

It was a pure, bright smile.