FERH 30

Chapter 30

“Let me ask you bluntly. What is your relationship with the late Empress?”

“Huh?”

“What on earth is your connection…?”

Could it be that someone who looks so much like her is tormenting me?

As soon as the special audit ended, Asil called Rianel to his office. Seeing her stiff and awkward demeanor, he finally realized what he had done.

“Ha…”

“Director?”

Only then did Asil admit to himself that he had been pushed to his limit.

“At first, I just thought she was a woman who overheard a lot of information.”

He had assumed her knowledge of the Special Taxation Bureau came from what she had heard from her father. But then…

“I never said anything. That girl may be my daughter, but why would I tell you about my personal matters?”

Added to the subject’s denial…

“You resemble Encilen.”

The Emperor’s words became the catalyst, and the doubts Asil had been suppressing sprang to life.

Moreover, after observing her behavior in the Ministry of Finance, he realized that this woman resembled his mentor in every small detail he remembered.

“Perhaps I’m going mad, thinking this way.”

The season marking his mentor’s passing was approaching, and maybe Asil’s insomnia made him unusually sensitive around this time.

He tried to console himself, yet the suspicion that had grown would not subside.

“No matter what I do, Rianel looks like my mentor.”

So, even knowing it was a crazy question, he had to ask.

“Who are you, really?”

Is she my mentor? Or a spirit imitating my mentor?

“Who on earth are you, to torment me like this?”

Is she here to scold me for living poorly, or to mock me knowing my past?

He could not discern the correct answer or the truth. Everything in his mind became tangled and chaotic.

“…Ah.”

Having long ago lost his mentor’s guidance and become lost himself, Asil regained composure under her calm gaze.

Seeing someone who, like a lighthouse, remained steadfast without being swayed by others’ emotions—someone who reminded him of his mentor—he finally spoke.

“I won’t take much of your time. But would you listen to my story?”

He admitted to his desire to share the long time he had endured alone.

“…What?”

“I have one confession.”

A faint smile appeared on Asil’s lips.

“I was an ungrateful man…”

‘What’s gotten into him?’

To the person involved, it was an abrupt story.

The story began at a somewhat unexpected moment.

“Do you know that I was taken in by my mentor?”

Rianel momentarily failed to maintain her expression.

“You know.”

‘Asil.’

Feeling a sense of crisis, as though he might strip her bare like the Giving Tree, Rianel let out a small cough.

“What did you mean earlier? When you said you became director for your mentor.”

“Ah.”

Asil smiled.

“Exactly as I said.”

Yet a tinge of bitterness lingered in that smile.

“In this vast palace, this was the only place where traces of my mentor remained.”

Regardless of the rumors, this was the record of someone who had been an Empress.

High-ranking officials had tried to erase all traces of her immediately after her death, and the Emperor did nothing to stop them.

Most of the reforms carried out under the name of progress wiped out what was deemed the late Empress’s old habits.

Asil, who entered the palace after belatedly hearing of his mentor’s passing, could only cling to one institution left intact—a hollow shell of a bureau.

“I don’t understand.”

Rianel said,

“Even if it was to preserve your mentor’s legacy, I think becoming the head of an institution was an excessive choice. That position isn’t just about protecting—it’s a role that requires enduring a lot.”

“Of course, one could see it that way.”

Asil himself didn’t fully know why he had made that choice.

“Perhaps it was guilt.”

“Guilt?”

“My mentor once told me about going to the palace. It was quite a sudden decision.”

With a feigned smile, he recounted details Rianel hadn’t known.

“At that time, I was truly a worthless man. Even when I didn’t agree with my mentor’s conclusion, I should have accepted it, yet I got angry and spoke foolishly. And not only that, I even cursed that my mentor would never get what they wanted or be happy.”

Then he added,

“I regretted it, but I didn’t have the courage to face my mentor.”

So he avoided her, never meeting her.

“Until I heard that she had passed away, it remained so.”

Asil’s guilt lay in ending things with the mentor he respected—not with a good final memory of mutual encouragement, but with immature complaints, tantrums, and bitterness.

‘Why do I regret it?’

To Rianel, it was a completely absurd story.

She was not hurt at all by his words.

Everything he said was true, and even the Emperor had analyzed it properly.

As a scholar, shouldn’t she feel pride that her deduction was correct?

Instead of questioning that, she asked something else.

“Why are you telling me this story?”

“I just wanted to unburden myself.”

“….”

“I wanted to apologize.”

If she were the only one left in the world to remember her mentor’s footsteps,

And if Rianel, who resembled the mentor most, was the one listening,

Then even as a stand-in, he wanted to speak.

“I am not your mentor.”

Rianel, looking at him, said what she needed to say.

“I know.”

Asil was already an adult student.

Just as a child raised in an ordinary home leaves their parents, so it was not proper for Rianel to continue a teacher-student relationship with him in any form.

However…

“The late Empress did not die because of you.”

“I know that too.”

“So the late Empress would not have blamed you.”

This was something she could say.

“Even if her life in the palace was difficult, she was not petty enough to blame someone else for it.”

In truth, she hadn’t intended to say this, but just this once, she spoke sincerely.

‘I hope you find some peace.’

Living while holding onto the past is an unhappy thing.

Rianel, who hadn’t observed her student for so long, finally did.

“…Thanks, but could you move this hand a bit?”

After realizing what she had done, she withdrew her hand that had been patting Asil’s head.

‘Ah, my mistake.’

Ten days have passed since the special audit.

Finally, the Ministry of Finance’s disciplinary actions were decided.

“They all got fired, right?”

The Special Taxation Bureau staff were thrilled.

Watching someone else’s house burn is fun, but this fire was at an enemy’s house.

“And they had to pay back all the embezzled allowances too.”

“There was so much embezzlement that some even went to prison.”

“Ha! That’s justice!”

The Empress Dowager delivered somewhat extreme but justified punishment.

Given the level of corruption, she assumed the organization itself was rotten through and through and dismissed all Ministry staff.

Of course, there were exceptions.

“It’s none of my doing. If it’s my fault for failing to stop the lower officials, so be it—but I was in no way involved!”

Minister of Finance, Royhem.

Having bribed the Emperor handsomely, he shifted all blame onto his subordinates and survived alone.

“Justice feels a bit lacking.”

“Damn it.”

“Still, we won’t get in trouble anymore, right?”

“Our lives are too harsh to settle for just that…”

“But at least it was fun to crush the Ministry.”

“That fun is only temporary.”

They wistfully missed the dopamine rush they had felt.

Still, being able to talk about such trivial things meant they now had some breathing room.

So…

“Where are we heading this time?”

“To visit the princess’s residence.”

Rianel had made up her mind.