■ The Art of Catching Big Fish □
Assuming the Beautiful Girl Mask is a Hero, I deduced the reason why she suddenly visited my house last night.
Since I usually leave most of my money with the Governor’s Office and the bank, there wasn’t much cash at home aside from the small amount I occasionally use for drinking outings.
Even though I hadn’t gone out drinking recently due to being busy, the amount of money that had accumulated was not significant enough to attract someone as notorious in the countryside as the Beautiful Girl Mask.
So, it must have been something else she was after. Among the items I had acquired recently, the only one with high monetary value was the Orichalcum ingot.
However, if the ingot were suddenly released into the market, it would be too easy to trace back to me, so that was unlikely. This left just one other possibility.
“An encrypted letter, huh.”
I retrieved the encrypted letter, which I had partially decoded, from the drawer of my desk and brought it to the Governor’s Office, confirming my suspicion.
It seems that one of the individuals mentioned in this encrypted letter has some direct or indirect connection to the Hero.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have come personally to retrieve it last night.
Due to their sudden attack last night, I hadn’t managed to fully decipher the list of names written here.
Given the gravity of the situation, I felt I needed to complete the decryption by the end of today.
Just as I was deeply engrossed in decoding the cipher on the encrypted letter,
“Director of Finance, here’s your coffee.”
“Ah, thank you.”
As the coffee, essential to any office worker, was delivered, I glanced around the empty Finance Management Room.
It was the second day of the special audit period.
Although we collected 300 million gold in taxes yesterday alone, restoring the Governor’s Office finances, we were still starving.
Perhaps because we’re now cracking down on those who previously avoided paying taxes, everyone seemed more energized than ever.
After making a copy of the encrypted letter, I stored it in the secret compartment of the second drawer of my desk as a backup.
If this letter were to be exposed, it would undoubtedly cause bloodshed across Oz. Even without the Beautiful Girl Mask, many Royalists would surely be hunting for its whereabouts.
All I had to do was exploit this situation thoroughly.
“Agnes, I won’t be going on a business trip today. There’s something I absolutely need to do.”
“Ah, understood.”
“Dorothea will probably be playing in the staff lounge. Please take her along and buy whatever she asks for. I’ll cover all the expenses later.”
With that, I dismissed Agnes, who bowed slightly before leaving the finance office.
Now completely alone in the office, I rotated my stiff shoulders and continued decoding the encrypted letter from where I had left off yesterday.
My goal for today was to crack the code before leaving work.[[#]] “Done!”
It took another eight hours, but I finally succeeded in decrypting the letter.
As expected, it was a cipher that substituted sacred characters with hieroglyphs, but omitting spaces and initial sound rules made the process of converting the characters extremely time-consuming.
After replenishing my brain with some honey water to compensate for the sugar loss after eight hours of intense focus, I transferred all the names of the nobles listed in the encrypted letter to another document.
The decrypted list contained far more names than I anticipated.
Indeed, Marquis Quillern deserved his reputation.
Being one of the most influential Royalist factions currently, it was clear how many people had aligned themselves with him.
Thanks to this, we could now handle them all in one fell swoop.
After memorizing the names of the forty tax evaders listed in the encrypted letter, I waved to Agnes, who had just returned from a business trip.
She removed her coat, tilting her head in confusion.
“What is it?”
“Well, to help our subordinates with their work, I’ve discovered something useful.”
Saying this, I showed her the register I held in my hand.
“…What is this?”
“This is a list of Royalists supporting the Oz Independence Association.”
And with this in hand, half of the key Royalists currently imprisoned would be game over.
In contemporary Oz, supporting the Independence Association constitutes treason.
This adds an entirely separate charge to the already difficult-to-prove offense of insulting the governor.
Furthermore, interrogating these individuals would allow us to sweep up the Resistance and members of the Oz Independence Association hiding in the shadows.
A true two-for-one deal.
Agnes looked at me with a bewildered expression upon receiving the data, then nodded and said,
“I’ll take care of it by tomorrow.”
“Good job.”
I immediately picked up my bag and stood up.
After using my brain so intensely, I was exhausted and decided to leave right on time today.[[#]] The next day.
Oz was thrown into chaos.
Evidence emerged revealing that Royalist nobles had secretly supported the Independence Association, causing a storm of upheaval.
Rebels were forcibly taken away, old noble families were dismantled for treason, and most of the figures associated with Marquis Quillern, who had been imprisoned for insulting the governor, were now also charged with treason and sent to trial.
Some newspapers criticized the Governor’s Office’s actions as a “Bloody Wednesday,” but soon after, police raids uncovered evidence that these same newspapers had been accepting bribes from nobles all along, sparking further controversy.
Meanwhile, ordinary citizens remained silent amidst the tense atmosphere, criticizing the nobility for plotting rebellion to secure the throne.
Despite the country’s declining prestige, the prevailing opinion was that these nobles had sought personal gain instead of supporting the rightful heir, Prince Tipetarius, who was very much alive.
Of course, most of the intellectuals who voiced such opinions were pro-Ozma officials friendly to the Governor’s Office, but perhaps it’s best to overlook such uncomfortable truths?
Anyway, intelligence reports began coming in that Duke Munhen, one of the leading figures of the Royalists, had started moving since the removal of Marquis Quillern and his followers.
Duke Munhen, cousin to Prince Tipetarius, was the man closest to ‘king’ in this country, aside from the prince, who had renounced his claim to the throne.
Thus, he naturally became the next target for the Governor’s Office.
Of course, before that, we’d need to capture the newly emerged Hero presumed to be the Beautiful Girl Mask.[[#]] In the middle of a chess game, I suddenly asked,
“Dorothea, do you know how to hunt foxes?”
Thud!
“What? What kind of random question is that?”
“Foxes are timid and cunning creatures. They usually retreat into their burrows at the slightest sound of human footsteps. Then, there’s no way for people to catch them since fox burrows are only big enough for foxes.”
Saying this, I captured Dorothea’s bishop with my knight.
“So hunters use a different method to catch foxes.”
“Are you just trying to distract me because you’re about to lose?”
Next, Dorothea’s queen captured my exposed knight.
I moved my rook forward.
“Foxes typically dig two entrances to their burrows. If one collapses, they can escape through the other.”
Check.
“So what?”
Dorothea blocked my rook by moving her knight.
“Hunters, when catching foxes, light a fire at one entrance to fill the burrow with smoke and set a net at the other.”
Saying this, I moved my bishop into the space Dorothea’s knight had just vacated.
“The startled fox, panicking from the smoke, rushes out of the burrow and gets caught in the trap.”
“…”
Dorothea, attempting to move her queen to capture my bishop, suddenly realized something.
She seemed to have figured out that no matter how she moved, my king would be captured in six turns.
“Let’s play again.”
Clearly upset about losing, Dorothea glared at me with a pout.
Though I used to get trounced by her every time, we were now almost evenly matched.
After all, parallel thinking training wasn’t exclusive to her.
“I’m sorry, but I actually have something to do from now.”
Shrugging, I explained while tidying up the disordered chessboard.
It wasn’t that I was running away after winning a single game after so many losses; I genuinely had work to do today.
Knowing this, Dorothea trembled with frustration before saying, “I’ll definitely win tomorrow!” and ran off with the chessboard to the break room.
That girl remains childlike despite growing older.
Well, that’s part of her charm.
