“……Haa.”
Luan set down the pen he’d been holding with an irritable clack and pinched the bridge of his nose.
His head felt like it was splitting open.
Something was hammering away at his temples like a mallet striking over and over.
His vision blurred, and his stomach turned.
It felt like pulling an all-nighter crammed into a packed subway car while running a fever.
Damn. What terrible timing.
Something hot surged up from deep inside, but Luan bit down hard on his lip and forced it back down.
This was not the time to be sick.
Just this…… just get through this and go lie down. Just thirty minutes.
Luan was rubbing his dimming eyes, reaching to pick the documents back up, when —
Knock. Knock.
A cautious knock at the door, and the Head Chamberlain entered with an uncomfortable look on his face.
“Your Majesty. Sir Harkan, Commander of the Northern Knight Order, has requested an audience.”
“……Harkan?”
“Yes. He insists it is urgent and refuses to leave. He looks ready to break down the office door if Your Majesty does not see him immediately……”
The Head Chamberlain’s voice trailed off.
Luan let out a deep sigh without meaning to.
So it’s finally come.
Harkan. The man they called the beast of the north.
He was well known as a man of iron will who didn’t hesitate to speak bluntly even to the Emperor.
He had no doubt come charging in after hearing the announcement of the knight order’s budget cuts, eyes burning with outrage.
The furrow between Luan’s brows deepened.
His head was already throbbing enough to make him snappish, and now the man with reportedly the loudest voice in the entire empire had come calling.
Ugh. Seriously. What a pain.
He considered turning him away, but the fierce killing intent radiating from beyond the door was no small thing.
Avoiding it now would only make the situation worse.
Luan pressed his aching head between his hands and waved his fingers dismissively.
“Send him in.”
“But your complexion looks terribly——”
“I’m fine. Let’s get this over with quickly and be done with it. That’ll be faster.”
The moment Luan gave his permission, the heavy office door was thrown open roughly.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
With footsteps that seemed to shake the floor itself, a massive man draped in bear hide strode in.
The sheer pressure of him was like the bitter northern wind walking in through the door.
“I present myself before His Imperial Majesty the Empress.”
Harkan, Commander of the Northern Knight Order.
He bowed his head with proper courtesy, but his eyes burned with fury and grievance he couldn’t begin to hide.
Were it not for the Empress before him, his expression said he would have grabbed Luan by the collar and shaken him on the spot.
Luan rested his chin on his hand and asked drily.
“You look murderous, Commander. What brings you here?”
“Your Majesty. I will not mince words. I will ask you plainly.”
Harkan raised his head.
His deep, booming voice reverberated through the air of the office.
“The budget reduction plan for the knight order. Is this truly Your Majesty’s intention?”
“It is.”
“Please withdraw it! This is an insult to our northern knights — it is a death sentence!”
The thundering shout filled the office to its walls.
Luan flinched instinctively.
God. My eardrums are going to burst.
The hammering in his skull doubled in speed.
His ears were ringing.
Luan swallowed a curse and pressed firmly at his temples, but Harkan, with no idea of Luan’s state, continued to bellow at the top of his lungs.
“Our men are rolling through snowfields with frostbitten feet, fighting off monsters! If supplies are cut off, they will starve to death or freeze! Even now, they are so short on cold-weather gear they are layering animal hides over their clothes!”
Harkan’s face flushed red.
“And yet you speak of budget cuts! How could Your Majesty, seated in a warm and comfortable chair inside the imperial palace, know the horror of the frontlines! Are you going to trample their blood and sweat just to save a handful of budget coins?!”
Harkan’s appeal was desperate. He was genuinely furious.
He was standing up to the Empress for one thing only — the right of his men to survive, the honor of the soldiers defending the empire.
He was a loyal retainer, without question. Which made this all the more troublesome.
Luan opened his mouth, enduring the steadily worsening dizziness. His voice came out lower and sharper than usual.
“Commander Harkan.”
“Please withdraw it! If you do not, I will not move a single step from——!”
“Lower your voice. You’ll rupture my eardrums.”
Harkan faltered at Luan’s cold, cutting remark.
Luan looked up at him with eyes full of irritation.
“My head is about to split open, so let’s keep this brief. You seem to think I’m trying to starve your soldiers to death.”
“Isn’t that what this is? Cut the budget and the supplies are the first thing to go!”
“Then go find out who is cutting off those supplies in the middle before you come here shouting at me.”
Luan exhaled a long breath and picked up a stack of documents that had been sitting at the corner of his desk.
He shoved them in front of Harkan with a flick of his wrist.
“Being blind and deaf is a sin, Commander.”
“……What did you say?”
“Take a good hard look at what those adjutants you call your ‘boys’ and shelter so fondly have been doing behind your back.”
Harkan snatched up the documents with rough hands, still seething.
“What is…… this?”
“Read it and you’ll know. I sorted through it all through the night, headache and all.”
Harkan’s eyes began scanning down the pages.
It was an audit report on the Northern Knight Order’s expenditure records — something Luan had spent two sleepless nights compiling.
What had started as puzzlement on Harkan’s face began to slowly twist with each page he turned.
The flush of fury drained away, replaced by a creeping pallor.
The food supply contractor was registered under the name of the vice-commander’s brother-in-law.
Beside it, written in red: overcharged at three times market value.
The cold-weather gear replacement costs were something Harkan had known nothing about. Naturally — the receipts for equipment maintenance had been falsified and disguised as purchases of cold-weather clothing.
And the most shocking of all……
“Wh-what is…… this……”
Entertainment venue expenditures filed under the name of combat compensation.
Harkan’s hands trembled so badly the paper crumpled in his grip.
While he himself had been at the front, grinding through moldy, hardened bread to get by, the adjutants he had trusted like younger brothers had been living in luxury, embezzling public funds.
They had drunk away the money meant for his soldiers’ winter gear.
Gambled away the money meant to repair their weapons.
And all of it done by trading on his name.
“You find it hard to believe?”
Luan asked, tilting his head with a sideways look.
“Do you know why I bothered to dig through those reeking ledgers? Because I knew you were clean. Because I was certain it wasn’t you who took the money.”
“……”
“You are an excellent general, Commander. But a negligent administrator.”
Luan’s voice was cold, but the substance of what he said was precise.
“The imperial treasury has been hemorrhaging money because you placed blind faith in your subordinates. And you came here to shout at the very person who plugged that hole. You couldn’t be more off the mark.”
At Luan’s cutting words, Harkan fell silent.
He had nothing left to argue.
Shame, betrayal, and self-reproach for his own ignorance crashed over him in waves, and he could no longer lift his head.
The Empress was not the person he had thought him to be.
He had been trying to root out the parasites and return what rightfully belonged to the soldiers.
And not knowing any of it, Harkan had come here and caused a scene.
Thud.
Harkan dropped his massive frame to his knees on the floor. The impact rang out loudly enough to shake it.
“……Kill me.”
Harkan’s voice trembled.
“It is my failure. I failed to keep my subordinates in check, wasted the imperial treasury, and committed an unforgivable offense against Your Majesty. This crime…… I will pay for it with my neck if I must.”
It was a sincere apology.
Luan let out a tired sigh.
At least this was someone he could talk to. If it had been a corrupt official with his head stuck in stubbornness, this would have been far more exhausting.
“Keep your neck.”
Luan waved a hand.
Now that the business was done, he desperately wanted him to leave.
Perhaps because the tension had broken, the nausea surged up rapidly.
His stomach lurched and he wanted nothing more than to lie down this instant.
The edges of his vision flickered black.
“Go back, round up the ones who embezzled, and accept the revised budget. And……”
Luan tried to rise from his seat and swayed.
He caught the edge of the desk, but there was no strength in his hand.
The ceiling spun and the floor seemed to lurch upward.
Ah, damn. I’m spinning.
Cold sweat ran down his spine.
Sour bile pooled in his mouth.
“……And, please get out of my sight. The noise is making my head ring.”
Luan’s voice trembled, just barely.
“Your Majesty?”
Harkan, who had been raising his head, went wide-eyed.
The Empress who had been calmly and coolly dressing him down just moments ago had gone the color of a corpse.
Bloodless lips. A forehead damp with cold sweat. Breathing in ragged gasps, bracing against the desk with a grip that looked ready to give way at any second.
Anyone could see it — this was serious.
“Your Majesty! Are you alright?!”
Harkan shot to his feet in alarm and rushed toward Luan.
From Luan’s perspective, this was the worst possible development.
He was already dizzy enough to die, and now a bear-sized hulk was barreling toward him, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
The sheer pressure was overwhelming. The dizziness worsened.
“Don’t come near…… I’m dizzy……”
Luan staggered backward.
Harkan’s massive shadow bearing down on him was suffocating.
But to Harkan’s eyes, Luan’s retreat looked like a person flinching away in fear from his own shouting.
Convinced that his rudeness had driven the Empress to collapse in distress, Harkan reached out all the more frantically.
“Pull yourself together! I’ll call the physician! Someone! Is anyone out there!”
Harkan’s thunder-like voice shook the office walls once more.
“Uggh……”
Luan screwed up his face as though his eardrums were tearing, and clapped both hands over his ears.
His head felt ready to explode.
He staggered, face twisted in pain.
Harkan flailed in a panic, completely at a loss — unsure whether to support him, call for a physician, or whether touching him would only make things worse.
But from the outside, the scene looked entirely different.
It looked like an enraged knight commander cornering a frail Empress, shouting threats while closing in.
The Empress, pale with terror, covering his ears and backing away.
BANG —!
At that moment, the firmly shut office door was thrown open so hard it nearly flew off its hinges.
“What is the meaning of this!”
A voice laced with killing intent that seemed to freeze the very air.
The Emperor.
And behind him, Kael’s eyes snapped cold in an instant.
What they had walked in on was a grim sight.
The Empress — pale as a sheet, hands over his ears, on the verge of losing consciousness.
And before him, the hulking commander with a fearsome expression, shouting, arm outstretched in a threatening manner.
“……Harkan.”
The sound of reason snapping in Kirian’s red eyes was almost audible.
“How dare you. Are you threatening my Empress?”
Kirian’s hand moved to the sword at his hip as he strode forward.
He looked ready to take Harkan’s head off on the spot.
“No — Your Majesty! It’s not what it looks like! I was only trying to help His Majesty the Empress——!”
Harkan went white as a sheet and scrambled to explain himself, but the words didn’t reach Kirian’s ears.
Kirian had already lunged forward and caught Luan in his arms before he could fall.
“Luanisiel! Are you alright? What did he do to you?”
Luan, cradled in Kirian’s arms, pressed his aching head between his hands and swallowed a string of curses.
Ugh, why does he have to show up and start yelling too. Two of them being loud at the same time, honestly……
He had no energy to clear up the misunderstanding. No energy to even feel annoyed.
Harkan was beside himself with injustice. Kirian was burning with intent to kill. Kael was already drawing his sword and charging forward.
It was an absolute disaster.
Luan simply buried his forehead in Kirian’s chest, squeezing his eyes shut, and wished for the world to just go quiet.
I don’t care anymore…… whatever happens, happens. I’m clocking out.
