Episode 3Â
He really does have a scary face.
Good looks aside, the overall vibe is just intimidating. Now I get why, despite being adored by all women from noble ladies to palace staff, no one ever actually approaches him.
âWhy?â
âYou really need to fix that attitude. You’re the only one who talks to me like that.â
Even as he said that, Ron didnât seem particularly offended. For a world with such a rigid class system, he really was surprisingly laid-back.
âThis came earlier, from the royal courier.â
âWhat is thisâŠ? That golden envelopeâdonât tell me itâs from the Audit and Oversight Bureau?â
âLooks like it, doesnât it?â
What Ron handed me looked like a letter in a gold envelope, but it was clearly a warning notice. I recognized it because Iâd seen one before when I (as Ail) received a pay cut warning from the same bureau. That one had come from the internal audit team, but who knew where it came from this time.
Anyway, nothing good ever comes from departments with names like âoversightâ or âaudit.â
With trembling hands, I took the envelope. Ron gestured for me to open itâas if he wasnât the one who shouldâve opened it first and told me what was inside.
âIâm not really good with budget stuff,â he said, scratching his head and smiling sheepishly.
I sighed deeply and opened the envelope. The paper inside was smooth and high-quality. I read the elegant cursive writing.
âAn audit of the Royal Knights will be conducted over three days starting on the 25th of this month. Please make the necessary preparationsâŠâ
âWait, the 25thâŠ?â
âThatâs next week.â
âNEXT WEEK?!â
Unbelievable. We still had piles of receipts to go through, and now this?
When it comes to audits, I couldnât afford to overlook anything. Every single receipt used for things like unauthorized outings or personal expenses had to be flaggedânot just the recent ones, but the ones from years back.
Letâs see. They want two yearsâ worth reviewedâŠ
Iâm doomed.
[D-7]
Audit prep began by kicking Mien out of the office.
She looked totally baffled when I told her to leave, but I didnât have time to explain. I just packed up her stuff, shoved it into her hands, and pushed her out.
Then I turned to the mountain of paperwork filling one side of the office.
Iâve only been employed in the Royal Palace for two months. Logically, I shouldnât be responsible for receipt mishandling from before I was hired.
Right. If this were a normal Korean company, that might be the case.
But this is a world with a rigid class system. The higher-ups will gladly pin everything on a lowly employee like me just to avoid any personal inconvenience.
Every stack I sorted stirred up dust, showing just how long theyâd been neglected.
So, day one was spent coughing and sneezing as I sorted two yearsâ worth of documents by date.
[D-6]
âHow the hell are there so many unauthorized outings?! What was Ron even doing?!â
While cross-referencing receipts with outing logs, I ended up screaming and hurling my pen.
This one? Unauthorized. That one? Unauthorized. That one too? Totally unauthorized.
And all of them had been processed as if they were legitimate expenses. I had to correct them and submit revisions to have the costs deducted from this monthâs salaries.
The knightsâ paychecks were about to get sliced in halfâbut hey, not my problem.
[D-5]
âAil! Why wonât you let Mien back into theâwhoa! What is all this?!â
Some knightâwhoâd recently started acting overly friendlyâopened the office door, only to immediately recoil. He almost knocked over a massive stack of paperwork and barely managed to catch it in time.
He stared at me, clearly overwhelmed.
What was this guyâs name again?
âSir Happy, please stop bothering me and leave.â
ââLeaveâ?! That hurts, you know. Anyway, what is all this?â
âWhat do you think it is? Audit prep, obviously.â
So shoo, shoo.
I even waved my hand like I was warding off a fly. He stepped back with a wounded expression but showed no signs of actually leaving.
Finally, annoyed, I gave him a look that asked, âWhat now?â
âMy nameâs not âHappy,â itâs âHeppy.â Thereâs a subtle difference in pronunciation. âHappyâ sounds like a dogâs nameâŠâ
âŠSeriously, whatâs the difference.
[D-4]
Even the knights who used to barge in to ask why I kicked Mien out had stopped showing up.
Canât blame themâmost took one look at the towering stacks of documents and noped right out before even saying a word.
âJust how much did Lynolf drink? If I removed just his receipts, Iâd cut this pile in half.â
Okay, maybe not literally half, but you get the point.
It was that bad.
Lynolf, Lynolf, Lynolf.
If Iâd known itâd come to this, I wouldâve blackmailed him for something more useful.
Even that stingy bastard Pynens, who tried to expense a broken supply cabinet, had multiple suspicious entries.
Other knights were no different. Unauthorized outings, personal entertainment expenses.
What is it with these knights and their obsession with booze and gambling?
ââŠWho the heck is Rohail?â
I picked up a receipt with that name on it.
Since I was tagging every receipt by name (for future leverage, of course), I had the list of knight names in front of meâbut no matter how hard I looked, I couldnât find anyone named Rohail.
Even the list of retired knights didnât have that name.
While I sat there puzzled, the office door suddenly burst open.
Only one person had the guts to barge in during this chaos.
âAil! I know youâre swamped with audit prep, butâwhoa, what is all this?â
âCareful, sir! That stack could collapse!â
âYouâve been organizing all this alone? No wonder they call you a prodigy.â
âOh, now Iâm a prodigy? You still assigned me here just because Iâm a commoner.â
I didnât mean anything by it, but Ronâs face turned serious.
Apparently, that did bother him a bit.
Not that I cared what he was thinking.
Instead, I held up the receipt and asked,
âDo you know someone named Rohail?â
âRohail? Who⊠Oh.â
âSo you do know him? His nameâs on a lot of receipts, but I couldnât find him on the knight roster.â
Receipts under Rohailâs name were numerous, and the amount he spent was on par with Ronâs own budget.
If Rohail was a ghost knight, this could be serious. Thatâs basically embezzlement.
I vaguely remembered the penalties for embezzling knights: maybe suspension, maybe termination.
Better double-check the policies to make sure I donât get dragged into this mess.
As I waved the receipt, Ron groaned and sat on the sofa.
I quickly moved my papers out of the way so he wouldnât squash them.
âThatâs Little Kashian.â
âLittle Kashian? And Iâm supposed to know what that means?â
Ron gave me that âyou idiotâ look againâthe same one he made when I once asked what the name of this empire was. (Itâs the Kashian Empire, by the way.)
Wait a second⊠Little Kashian. Kashian Empire.
If someone uses the empireâs name as part of theirsâŠ
âYou donât mean heâs royalty?â
âNot just any royaltyâheâs the second prince.â
So thatâs why you called him Little Kashian. Then I guess the first prince is Big Kashian? What a silly nickname.
Still, what would a prince need with knight squad funds?
I fluttered the receipt again, showing I wasnât satisfied with the explanation.
Ron rubbed his temple and said,
âRohail Missi Kashian. The second prince is part of our knight order. He doesnât actually train with us, though.â
ââŠHuh? But his nameâs not on the roster.â
âYou donât just write royal names down casually. If you check the official records at the main palace, heâs listed.â
Ah, that makes sense.
âŠWait, no it doesnât.
Why would a prince, who should be rolling in gold, be using the squadâs budget?
Is he secretly broke?
Ron mustâve read the expression on my face because he shook his head.
âYou really donât know anything about the royal family, do you?â
âNo one ever told me anything!â
I donât know if the real Ail had known this stuff, but the only intel I had came from my roommate, Rose.
She did mention the first prince being handsome or whatever, but nothing about the second prince.
Letâs think. Even if the second prince were a cheapskate, using knight funds like this would look really bad.
So maybeâŠ
âIs the second prince poor or something?â
âHa⊠Only you would dare say something like that. Be grateful youâre talking to me. Say that elsewhere and youâd be charged with treason.â
âI said it because you wonât kill me. Iâm not stupid enough to say it to anyone else.â
Ron looked like he had more to say but just sighed instead.
âSo in the end, thereâs no issue with the princeâs expenses?â
âHmm. Not really. He didnât spend it on alcohol or unauthorized outings like the others.â
âWhat? Whoâs drinking all this alcohol?â
Waitâhe didnât know?
I handed him the audit reports Iâd compiled so far. He needed to see how much trouble the knights had caused me.
As he read through it, Ronâs brows twitched in irritation, crumpling the paper slightly.
Hey, thatâs my precious document!
âThe princeâs receipts were all for swords, repairs, or training gear. Sometimes food or basic suppliesâbread, clothes, things like that.â
He didnât seem like a prince. More like a poor trainee struggling to make ends meet.
It wasnât hard to imagine the truth: a second prince, sidelined in a brutal succession war.
That painted a clear picture.