episode_0191

Late that night when Yom went there.

Marius waits for his son Lucius to return late at night.

The Archduke’s secretary who is said to be capable of dropping birds.

Marius is clearly satisfied that his son has achieved success, but he considers it unfair to follow the archduke.

‘Whoa… what should I do?’

Since Yom is like the savior of his life, he wants to help in any way he can, but he is afraid that if anything goes wrong, it will cause great harm to his son.

“Damn… that guy is the enemy.”

There would be no problem if Job’s son had not had an accident, so Marius curses Job’s son in his heart.

at that time.

-Squeak.

“I’m here.”

Marius saw that Lucius had come home.

He speaks to Lucius.

“Are you here?”

“Yes, but what’s going on dad?”

Lucius looks at the liquor bottle and half-filled glass in front of Marius and speaks with concern.

“No. What is my job…”

Seeing Marius trailing off, he speaks as if he is worried about Lucius.

“You don’t look good?”

‘When did my once cute son become this big?’

Seeing his son grow up, Marius feels that a lot of time has passed.

My son, who loved taking me on a wooden horse when he was young, has now become an adult.

-Squeak.

Lucius takes out a chair and sits down, pouring alcohol into a glass and speaking.

“Why? Is it so bad that I can’t even tell my son?”

Seeing his son worried about him, Marius wonders if he can really ask for this.

“That…”

As Marius hesitated, wondering if he could ask his son to do favors and forge official documents, Lucius laughed and said,

“What is this? Did you gamble without your mother’s knowledge?”

Marius also bursts into laughter at those words.

“Don’t tell me how broken you were back then.”

There was a time when Marius went to a gambling house with a friend.

At that time, Marius was caught for being a brat, lost a lot of money, and remembers being scolded by his wife.

He opens his mouth with a wry smile.

“Do you remember Uncle Yom?”

“Of course I remember. I heard you’re having a hard time because of Connell?”

Marius falls into deep trouble at those words.

‘Is it really okay to say this?’

As I was thinking about it, Lucius asked with a worried voice.

“Father?”

“Huh?”

“Isn’t something really going on?”

Marius soon made a decision.

He opens his mouth.

“Lucius, I have something to say to you.”

Marius is emotionally distressed because of Job’s situation and because he is indebted to Job.

When he revealed his whole situation…

Lucius says with an awkward expression.

“All you need is certification from the Ministry of Information?”

In fact, Lucius has several powers to carry out the archduke’s orders.

Not only that, but he is also responsible for delivering the Archduke’s orders to each department, so if he forges the Archduke’s orders, he can easily create the Intelligence Department’s seal.

‘You can receive it if an anonymous intelligence agency certificate is issued in the name of His Highness the Archduke.’

However, it is not at the level of being cut off if caught.

Forgery of official documents is punishable by several decades in prison, but since Lucius is quite close to the Archduke, he nods willingly.

“Father, don’t worry. I will make it for you.”

Lucius gladly accepted. Rather, he speaks as if he is worried about Marius.

“Are you really… okay? If you get caught…”

Lucius spoke firmly to those words.

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t work.”

When Lucius thinks. Because the Archduke completely believes in himself. I expect it won’t get caught.

‘Of course… if it gets caught, it will break a lot.’

However, Lucius is not anxious.

Because it’s just a matter of slightly changing what you’ve been doing so far.

***

At dawn the next day.

Lucius heads to the imperial palace in the carriage that came to pick him up in the morning.

Since he is a grand duke who makes overtime work like eating, he is considerate of this convenience.

Of course, Müller, who has left for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tells Lucius that it would be better to reduce overtime rather than provide such convenience…

Anyway, Lucius enjoys working under the Archduke.

It’s a lot of work… but it’s also rewarding.

Currently, the empire is economically prosperous on the surface.

Although the reputation is a bit poor, I still feel satisfied that the lives of the people of the empire have improved.

-widely!

Soon the carriage stopped for a moment.

“Lucius, did you sleep well?”

I reply as Maximilian gets into the carriage, yawning.

“Yes, I slept well.”

So the two of them cursed at the Archduke together…

Arrived at the imperial palace.

Lucius, who arrived at the Grand Duchy, also said hello to Senna, an extremely beautiful woman.

Head to the Grand Duke’s office.

‘I’ll have to get rid of him quickly before he comes.’

So he found an order form in the archduke’s desk drawer and wrote down what he wanted…

“Now… let’s see.”

The Archduke’s approval stamp is stamped.

Change the date on the stamp for administrative purposes to today…

-thud!

I stamped my name and quickly left.

‘With this, it’s easy to authenticate to the Ministry of Information.’

I think Lucius committed the perfect crime.

***

“Hmm?”

Financial statements reported by each department.

It is a report record of monthly unusual contents and how much progress has been made on the orders I have given.

“It’s strange?”

I never asked for Ministry of Intelligence certification?

Looking at the date, it was about two weeks ago now.

I am puzzled by the fact that the Ministry of Defense issued a certification order in my name to the Ministry of Information.

What is it? Did I forget something?

I rummage through my desk drawers to find the command log, wondering if I might have forgotten or forgotten something.

This is a record book where I write down the date and reason each time I issue an order.

This is a ledger made secretly because someone could possibly forge my orders.

“Let’s see…”

The order issued before moving…

“Hmm… I have never given an order like this to the Ministry of Intelligence.”

That means someone must have forged my order.

Because it means that an order that I did not issue flowed into the intelligence department.

“Damn… what kind of guy is this?”

At the moment, I wanted to send an order and instruct them to retrieve all the orders I sent this month, but…

then. I pause for a moment, thinking that the people working at the Ministry of Education will find out.

“That’s not possible.”

I don’t know who it is, but I feel very, very bad that there are people within the Grand Duke’s Ministry who are trying to satisfy their own self-interest.

If you are a public official, you must have integrity and obey the law.

This is a very important matter to deal with.

First, I have to visit the Ministry of Information myself.

With that in mind, I leave the office.

***

Inside the moving carriage, we begin to infer which kind of person did the forgery.

Think of the people with the highest potential.

After I married Theodora, I formed a grand duchy with people selected from each department.

I never would have thought that one of them would commit such a big incident.

To be honest, I think it’s time to show up.

If we were to pick a political system that is similar to the Ministry of Grand Duchy, it would be similar to the Ministry of Finance in the past.

The old empire had a structure in which the prime minister was placed directly below the emperor and the major institutions of the country were concentrated on the prime minister.

The evil that occurred there…

No matter how clean the Prime Minister is, the Prime Minister may not be clean.

In other words, it is safe to say that something similar to that happened at the Grand Duke’s Office.

First of all, it is important to check the forged order.

And it’s not too late to search for the culprit.

-Squeak.

After seeing the carriage stop, I enter the Intelligence Department building.

-Tap…tap.

“Is Carol inside?”

The guide responds to my words with a puzzled expression.

“Great… His Highness the Archduke?! Well… the Minister hasn’t gone to work yet.”

“What? What time is it now and the Minister doesn’t come to work?”

The guide looks puzzled at my words.

“Ha, I will wait for Carol in her office, so tell her to come right away when she comes.”

It’s a mess, it’s a mess.

As I wait for Carol in her office, I get lost in thought.

1 year and 6 months.

It’s only been a short time since I took power, but everyone has fallen into this situation.

It doesn’t matter whether low-level civil servants come to work on time.

Because they also do it to make a living.

However, it is not easy to understand why high-ranking public officials do not come to work on time and are late.

Where does their green salary come from?

In order for the people of the empire to lead the empire well, they use the money they do not have as taxes.

“Whoa… let’s calm down.”

Yes, there are so many things Carol did for me in the dark.

He risked his life to take the lead in punishing Valorant, and even when playing around with bonds, there was a time when he got into trouble because his expectations were too high.

Anyway, I did it faithfully.

Although he is a bit lazy, he is also very talented.

So wouldn’t the Ministry of Information be led like this?

How long did we wait like that?

-Squeak!

“Your Majesty the Archduke! Are you here?”

I see Carol entering the office with a big smile on her face.

“Haha I’m really late, right? When Rebecca became pregnant, they tormented her a lot.”

Rebecca was previously killed during the assassination of Valorant. She is an active female assassin.

I heard that after Karl took office as Minister of Information, the two got married and were doing well.

“Congratulations on that. But it doesn’t look good if a minister comes out late, so I hope they correct it.”

As I tried to speak calmly, Carol scratched the back of her head as if she was sorry.

“I’m sorry about that… but what happened?”

I reply to Carol’s words.

“I wanted to check because there was a forged order among the orders sent by the Ministry of Grand Duke to the Ministry of Intelligence this month.”

Carol’s eyebrows twitch at my words.

“What kind of guy with a big liver… would do something like that?”

In response to those words, I speak in an effortless manner.

“Well? Should I look for it from now on? First, can you bring me the order?”

At my words, Carol gives an order to the staff outside the office.

“Is there an order from the Grand Duchy this month? Bring all of that.”

-yes? Everything?

“Yes, everything.”

Carol said that and looked at me.

“Your Highness, it will probably take a while to get it, so why not have some tea.”

I nod my head at those words.