The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success-Chapter 13

“Juan?”

It was Namia’s voice—tinged with suspicion.

Juan... that would be...

‘Her twin brother mentioned in the report?’

Right after that, footsteps trailed off along with a frantic fuss about something serious happening to their parents.

Kiaros furrowed his brow, and the aide beside him tilted his head, commenting absently,

“Her twin brother came looking for her? Now I’m really curious what kind of serious trouble could’ve hit the family of such a sharp young lady.”

Kiaros lifted his head at once.

“Is that so? Then go investigate the Roafi barony in more detail.”

“...Pardon?”

The aide, not the quickest on the uptake, looked dazed. Kiaros spoke with a commanding tone.

“If you’re curious, your efficiency will drop.”

“Well, it’s not that serious of a curiosity...”

“If it keeps nagging at you, you'll get distracted and start failing to follow my orders properly.”

“I doubt I’d get that distracted...”

“For the sake of your mental health and welfare, I’ll allow this much.”

“That seems like an excessive effort for such a minor personal interest...”

“Investigating a minor noble family in the capital doesn’t exactly take much effort.”

Placing a firm hand on the aide’s shoulder, Kiaros issued the order.

“Not just the surface-level stuff like last time. Go deeper. Mobilize the ‘Crows.’”

The “Crows” were the Crown Prince’s personal intelligence organization.

In other words, he intended to dig up everything about the Roafi barony.

“Yes, Your Highness. Understood.”

And the aide, overwhelmed by Kiaros’s consideration for him, looked like he was about to cry.

***

“Dad.”

My very first memory was of dozing off in my father’s arms, fussing in my sleep.

“Dad... this is all because of me, right?”

He had the same silver hair and blue eyes as me—the kindest man in the world.

Dad was born the second son of the Roafi barony.

But the Roafi family had already collapsed, a ruined noble house, and the title was meant to pass to his older brother. For all intents and purposes, he was a commoner.

“I’m really sorry... I shouldn’t have been born...”

Dad used to be an ethics teacher at a rural school.

He was a humble young man who rode his bicycle to work, taught children, and loved reading on the grass.

He met a woman through a parent’s arrangement and married her.

[What the hell? I thought you were nobility! What kind of noble lives this poor? I thought you just liked living simply!]

But the moment they married, she changed—furious that he had so little money.

Soon after I was born, she ran away, throwing the baby—me—into Dad’s arms.

That woman, my mother, had no choice but to flee. She was buried in debt.

Loan sharks came knocking soon after.

[Sucks that you got tricked into marriage, but that’s not my problem. If you file for divorce, you don’t have to pay. But hand over the girl. The debt's on her. We’ve already got paperwork signed in her name.]

But Dad refused to give me up, even as a newborn.

[What? You won’t give us the girl? Then you’re responsible for the whole debt. Got it?]

We knew what these notorious loan sharks were capable of.

So Dad quit his job—poorly paid though it was—and started working every job he could find, from manual labor to mercenary work.

“My precious girl, don’t say things like that. You’re the most important treasure in the world to me. I’d do anything for you.”

No matter how hard he worked, the debt kept growing. The interest was too much.

But Dad never gave up on me.

I was passed around during the day, only seeing Dad at night.

As more time passed, the more cuts and bruises he had, the more he wasted away... and when I cried seeing him like that, he held me tight and told me the most beautiful stories.

“One day, when all this is over, let’s go stargazing together.”

“Stars? We can see them from here.”

“No, there’s a special place, far away—an observatory. When you’re older, I want to take you there.”

I told him everything, too.

All the little things that happened to me throughout the day.

“Really? But this makes you see stars better?”

“...What is this, sweetie?”

“It’s a magic scroll. I read about it in a book at the library and tried making one.”

“You... made this? A magic scroll? By yourself?”

When no one could take me in, Dad would leave me at the library.

Just in case the loan sharks «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» tried to take me, he made sure I wore a tight hat to hide my hair and a mask that covered half my face.

It was uncomfortable, but I endured it. I never took it off.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Then, one day, I stumbled across a book about magic scrolls—and it was so fun that I started making them myself.

“...What the...”

When I activated one of the crude scrolls I’d drawn, Dad was stunned.

“It actually... works?”

“Yup. Told you it would.”

I was eight years old at the time.

Normally, only Academy students had the training to create scrolls, so his shock made sense.

“Namia, this isn’t your first scroll, is it? Have you made others?”

“Yup!”

I beamed.

“I even saved a kid today with one.”

“...Saved?”

“There was a boy in the back garden of the library. A knife flew at him, and I saw it through the window. So I blocked it with a scroll.”

“...What?”

“He was dressed real fancy, but his attitude sucked. Didn’t even say thank you properly.”

Dad frowned and asked urgently,

“Wait. You didn’t tell him your name, did you? You didn’t, right?”

“Of course not! You always said never to tell strangers. I kept my hat and mask on the whole time!”

“Good job, my smart girl.”

Dad let out a huge sigh of relief. I kept babbling.

“Oh, but he told me to come visit Count Kalto’s estate.”

“Really? That family doesn’t have any sons, so he’s probably the child of a high-ranking servant.”

“Think he’d pay if I went? I was thinking about it, but I wanted to ask you first.”

I made a little money gesture with my fingers. Dad shook his head firmly.

“Don’t go. Let’s stop going to that library too. If they find out who you really are, we’ll be in trouble. And a few coins won’t change anything anyway.”

“Okay. But, Dad.”

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“Yeah?”

“...If we stay like this, will anything change?”

Deep down, we both knew.

We couldn’t live like this forever.

Eventually, the swelling debt would swallow us whole.

“Dad... but if I got taken away, I think I’d be okay with it.”

I wiggled in his arms as I spoke.

“Then you’d finally be free, and that might be nice too.”

“Namia.”

Dad’s voice turned stern.

“Never think like that again. It breaks my heart.”

“...Okay. But actually, I have another plan.”

“Another plan?”

I clenched my fists, ready to share the big scheme I’d been brewing lately.

“I’m going to marry a super rich guy. You got into debt because of marriage, so maybe I can fix it with marriage. I’ll marry someone super, super, super rich.”

To me, it was a perfectly logical plan.

“I call it the Cinderella Operation! Cinderella’s not really my style, but if I can pay off the debt, who cares!”

“Don’t say that. My Namia should marry someone she loves.”

“But...”

“No more talk about debt. That’s not something a child should have to worry about.”

But that night, Dad didn’t sleep.

When I woke in the early hours, I saw him staring at my scrolls.

He looked at them long and hard, sighing with the most troubled expression I’d ever seen.

“...Our daughter’s too smart... I can’t keep raising her like this...”

Then one day, Dad didn’t go out for his usual early morning work.

Instead, he bought me new clothes and treated me to delicious food.

It made me uneasy, but I smiled my hardest.

Somehow, I had a feeling I wouldn’t see him again for a long time.

I was even ready to smile if he handed me over to the loan sharks—just to make it easier for him.

But the place Dad brought me, hand in hand, was somewhere entirely unexpected.