- 3 - Behind the Scenes with the Newcomers and the News Announcement, Part 1
Oliver appeared from the depths of the archives, his lab coat fluttering behind him.
The clock had already passed noon, but Ren greeted him casually as if it were still morning.
“Good morning, Oliver. Have they decided on an assistant for the decryption team yet?”
“Hey, Ren.”
Oliver raised a hand in greeting and gave an exaggerated shrug.
“Yeah, it’s decided. Just like we expected.
Everyone’s sick and tired of getting dragged into those kids’ little romance games.”
Ren let out a sigh and nodded in agreement.
“Can’t blame them.
Anyway, I planned it this way from the start.
I’ve already given them some basic, pre-deciphered material — the kind anyone could read without getting it wrong.
If they can’t produce results within a month, they’ll be reassigned.
Not to this lab, but to the retreat facility built with donations.
They can channel their magic into growing vegetables there.”
Oliver burst out laughing.
“Ren, if the girls hear you say that, they’ll go berserk.”
Ren simply shrugged.
“Better than wasting our time.
Negotiations with professional researchers, and even our restoration work, have been completely stalled because of them.
Even the ‘Goddess of the Cafeteria’ — the one who’s always so kind even when the place turns into a drunken riot — is genuinely pissed off now.
The younger staff are getting dragged down too.
If they’re going to be a disruption, it’s better to have them contribute somewhere they can’t interfere with our real work.”
While unlocking the heavily secured archive room, Ren calmly loaded the target documents into the projector.
His mind briefly drifted back to the recent news.
The leak from one of the magic world’s largest research institutes —
Top-secret information that was never supposed to reach the public.
The cause was simple.
At a year-end party last winter, the institute’s director had jokingly declared, “I’m not stepping down for another ten years.”
Hearing that, the vice-director panicked.
His peers were moving up the ranks, but he was stuck, falling behind.
Driven by desperation, he leaked classified information in an attempt to win favor with powerful allies.
That mistake led him straight into the clutches of a financial giant from the Flame Continent.
To call it “seeking support” would be too kind.
The truth was, he had been trapped.
Introduced at his usual gentlemen’s club by an old university friend,
he was drawn in by the former chairman of a major Flame Continent conglomerate.
They fueled his ambition, skillfully maneuvering him until he was too deep to turn back.
The vice-director himself must regret it.
I once overheard him mutter, almost to himself, “I just had bad luck.”
Since then, he has withered away from a man built like a beer barrel to something closer to a dried-up twig.
Watching him waste away, none of us at the institute even have the energy left to stay angry.
And the reason for all this?
It’s not complicated.
Our nation, Annabel, is a mid-sized power within the Sea of Light Federation —
one of the few remaining kingdoms with a royal line tracing back before the Great War 250 years ago.
The current crown prince is young, unmarried, and strikingly beautiful.
The gossip rags adore him, and aristocratic families obsess over marrying into his bloodline.
The vice-director was targeted by someone who saw an opportunity to link their granddaughter to royalty.
That someone?
The former chairman of the most powerful conglomerate on the Flame Continent.
And the outcome… well, it speaks for itself.
