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Chapter 13
And about twenty minutes later—
“Um, senior, I’ve finished sorting everything.”
Aaron peeked his head out from behind a mountain of documents.
“Oh! Great, thank you for your hard work. Please deliver those to the Duke’s office. From here on, His Grace will give you direct instructions.”
“Ah, yes!”
Finally, I’m going to meet the Duke.
I tried to calm my heart that was pounding like crazy. If I kept reacting like this every time I saw him, I’d end up with a nervous breakdown before long.
Nerves aside, I was also… a little excited. Just how awful of a person would he prove to be today?
“Please grant me your wisdom again today, Your Grace!”
Knock, knock.
With high hopes, I knocked on the office door—but there was no reply.
I gently opened the door and peeked inside.
‘Not here.’
As expected, the office was stark and lifeless. The space of a man who only lived for work.
Not even a single family photo on the desk—no trace of personal taste anywhere.
As I set the pile of papers down, a familiar scent caught my attention.
It seemed he hadn’t been gone long; steam still rose from the teapot.
‘But these tea leaves… they’ve been steeped way too long.’
Not to brag, but I’d run plenty of tea errands for my uncle before.
“If you served me tea like this, I’d say you lack the refinement of a noblewoman!” he would’ve yelled, “You don’t even know the basics of tea etiquette!”
I hesitated for five seconds before deciding—oh well, I’ll just brew it again.
Managing what goes into your superior’s mouth is part of a secretary’s job too, right?
‘Perfect.’
Satisfied with the golden color of the freshly brewed tea, I checked the clock again.
‘Why isn’t he coming back…?’
Would I have to throw this tea away too?
While pacing around the office aimlessly—
‘Ah, dust.’
The moment I saw it on the window sill, my hand moved automatically.
It wasn’t as if my uncle was around to scold me for letting the maids slack off.
After wiping away a few irritating specks, I looked at the clock again.
‘Seriously, when is he coming back?’
I was standing there awkwardly in the Duke’s office when—
“Why’s the door open? Your Grace, here’s the repor—wait, Miss Violet!”
Aaron, who had entered the office, widened his eyes at me.
“Looks like His Grace hasn’t returned yet. Oh dear, you must’ve been waiting quite a while. The meeting’s running long. Hand me the papers and go rest for a bit. I’ll check them in the meantime.”
“Ah, yes! Here they are.”
I quickly handed over the stack. Aaron checked the top sheet and frowned in confusion.
“Hmm? Miss Violet, this…”
He trailed off, then made a strange noise.
“Huh.”
What?
“Eh?”
Why are you making that face?!
His hands trembled as he flipped through the papers, one by one.
My heart started trembling with him.
‘Did I do something wrong?’
This was my first real assignment since officially starting work—I wanted it to be perfect.
And today, I hadn’t even brought Pipi with me for moral support.
“M-Miss Violet. This, uh…”
Aaron looked between me and the papers.
“How long did it take you to sort these?”
“About twenty minutes…” I answered nervously.
Aaron muttered under his breath, “Twenty minutes… twenty minutes…” like he was in a trance.
“Um, Miss Violet, please take a break in the lounge—or explore the Mage Tower, if you’d like.”
“Huh?”
“Ahem. I have something to discuss privately with His Grace. I’ll call you when you’re needed.”
“Ah… okay, understood.”
I felt uneasy, but it’s not like I could defy my senior.
I nodded quickly and left the office.
Creak.
Duke Cayenne opened the office door with a grim face.
His fine, ivory-carved features were marred with fatigue and irritation.
As he stepped inside the quiet office, he froze.
‘What is this?’
Something felt… off.
He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was a strange sense of wrongness.
Then, he realized.
‘It’s unusually clean today.’
Normally, there was always a thin layer of dust somewhere—on the window sill, between bookshelves.
It annoyed him, but he was usually too tired to summon the servants over something so trivial.
Yet now, everything within sight sparkled like a model home.
‘Did we hire a new cleaner?’
Whoever it was, he appreciated their professionalism.
Thinking that, Cayenne sat back in his chair and took a sip of tea.
‘Hmm?’
His hand stopped midair.
Was tea always this smooth?
The light yet deep aroma melted away his fatigue almost instantly.
His furrowed brows relaxed without him realizing.
Then—thud thud thud—rushing footsteps approached.
“Y-Your Grace! You’re back!”
Cayenne frowned as Aaron burst in.
“Why don’t you just roll in next time? Might be faster.”
“Your Grace, it’s about Miss Violet—the one you hired as your new secretary!”
At the mention of her name, Cayenne recalled yesterday.
Her fluent imperial speech and those bright, eager eyes.
In that monkey-chattering Mage Tower, she’d been a rare reminder of human conversation.
“So what about her? Did she already cause trouble?”
Cayenne’s baseline trust in humanity was essentially zero.
Even Frisia, who at least seemed intelligent enough, was no exception.
“Trouble? No, not at all! Please, look at this!”
Aaron slammed the thick stack of documents onto the desk.
Cayenne raised an eyebrow.
“This morning, I asked Miss Violet to organize these papers in ascending order—they were completely jumbled before.”
The reports contained calculations of elemental mass, now neatly arranged from lightest to heaviest.
It was much easier to read than simply sorting them by experiment date.
“She recalculated all the formulas and reordered the results in just twenty minutes! Twenty minutes!”
Aaron snorted like an excited rhino.
“And remember how she restored all the lost data overnight yesterday? She must be incredibly sharp!”
“Hmm.”
Cayenne lazily ran his fingers along the edge of the papers.
Indeed, this was competent work—unlike the usual monkey-brained staff who earned high salaries only to cause daily disasters.
“And here, Your Grace—the report you requested about Miss Violet.”
Aaron handed over another document, his expression serious.
“As you can see, during her time at the academy, she barely avoided failing every term and spent most of her time trailing after her fiancé.”
If Frisia had heard that, she would’ve burst into tears at the unfairness of it.
Aaron shook his head.
“It makes no sense. Someone this brilliant barely passing exams? There must be a secret behind it.”
“A secret?”
Aaron leaned closer and lowered his voice.
“What if Miss Violet has been hiding her genius all along?”
A hidden prodigy pretending to be ordinary.
Cayenne narrowed his eyes.
Had his subordinate, who snuck fantasy novels into work, finally lost his mind?
“Did the newbie get kicked in the head by a horse? Why would anyone waste their talent like that?”
“Well, as you know, women still struggle to gain recognition in the Empire. Maybe she tried to help her fiancé succeed instead—to achieve her ambitions through him. I heard she supported him tirelessly.”
As he spoke, Aaron nodded, convinced by his own theory.
“But it turns out, the fiancé was a total scoundrel. So, realizing he was worthless, she left him and applied to be Your Grace’s secretary!”
“Why my secretary, specifically?”
“Why else!” Aaron exclaimed, eyes shining.
“She must’ve fallen for you, Your Grace!”
“…What?”
Cayenne’s hand, which had been rubbing his temples in irritation, froze midair.
