Chapter 110: A Terrible Situation

In the afternoon, I headed to the accounting bureau as usual. I hadn’t felt like eating lunch due to all the stress, and I also wanted to regain some peace of mind by going to work.

The accounting bureau had been temporarily closed that morning for the Queen’s outing mobilization, so work started in the afternoon. When I arrived, it was still before official working hours. The staff who had participated in the outing were still riding high on excitement, talking loudly. Meanwhile, the older ladies were watching the lively group with cold, disapproving eyes. Since the official start signal hadn’t rung yet, they couldn’t complain, but their faces were the very picture of someone biting into a bitter bug.

After greeting the bureau chief, I went to Christine’s spot as usual. There, Christine, Anise, and Marin-sensei were gathered and chatting excitedly. It made sense — the three of them had been right in front of the Queen and had seen everything up close.

The moment they saw me:

"Lord Robby! That was something else, wasn’t it?! I was so worried about how it would turn out!" Christine said.

"Lord Robby, the Queen really doesn’t know anything about the outside world, does she? I suppose it’s because she came from a ducal family and never did any shopping herself," Anise added.

"But she really is so beautiful and elegant! I was surprised. It felt like there was a spotlight shining just around her," Marin-sensei finished.

I completely agreed with the "light" comment. Her aura was completely different from my mother’s. Whether it was something she was born with or something she gained from her position as Queen — probably both — it was incredible. I wondered if that radiance would disappear if she ate that horribly disgusting food, or if it would remain. Part of me wanted to find out, but for Cantoner’s hair and stomach’s sake, I prayed it never happened.

When the bell signaling the start of work rang, the chatter died down like the tide receding, and everyone focused on their tasks. That’s really impressive, I thought.

When I worked in sales, even during paperwork, the office was never completely silent. There was always talking. In comparison, once work started here, everyone snapped into focus. This must be thanks to the bureau chief’s skill.

Inside the accounting bureau, work continued in diligent silence, broken only occasionally by questions about documents.

It’s almost break time, isn’t it? I was thinking when I heard the sound of someone running down the hallway. Everyone turned toward the entrance to see what was happening.

There was a loud BAM! right before the entrance. It sounded like someone had fallen.

"Owww, ow ow ow..."

I recognized the voice. It was unmistakably Cantoner’s. I have a really bad feeling about this...

As the entire accounting bureau stared at the entrance, Cantoner staggered in, rubbing his knee. His hair — which I could have sworn was much thicker just a while ago — was now best described as "thin and silky." To put it bluntly, it looked like a dying grassland.

Suddenly, I remembered something. Right after I joined the company, I once complained that I had too much hair, washing it was a hassle, and I got a lot of dandruff. The section chief who overheard me said wistfully, "Must be nice. I don’t even have enough hair to get dandruff. I wish I could complain about dandruff." Hair can be a long-time friend for some people, but for others, it’s only a short acquaintance. And right in front of me was someone who had just experienced a sudden parting with his hair.

But this wasn’t the time to be reminiscing.

"Lord Robin?! This is terrible!!"

Cantoner screamed. The entire accounting bureau fell into an uproar. Even the bureau chief stood up, looking back and forth between Cantoner and me.

I had a pretty good idea what the "terrible thing" was, so I was only thinking Yeah, I figured as much. But the rest of the bureau had no idea what could be so bad that Cantoner would scream like that, so the room was in chaos.

"T-The Queen...!"

Cantoner stopped himself there, realizing he shouldn’t say more. But everyone seemed to have already guessed: if it involved the Queen and was related to me, it could only be about going out to eat again. The bureau chief now had a face that clearly said I want to go next time too!

Sure, you can come next time. But you’ll probably regret eating there...

—-

It was a certain night. Right now, I was in the security team’s break room. Stevie and Lily were with me. The rest were burly, middle-aged men who looked — and probably smelled — quite rough. The room was filled with a heavy male stench of sweat and body odor. Lily kept a straight face, but Stevie was blatantly covering her nose with a cloth.

The reason I was in the security team’s break room was because the Queen had requested a second outing to eat. She specifically wanted to eat that horribly disgusting food again. Cantoner had panicked and come running to the accounting bureau once more. What exactly do you want me to do about it?

This meant the Queen had asked the King, her request was granted, and Cantoner had received official orders from the Queen to proceed with the executive committee. How pitiful... When I was summoned by the Queen, I set two conditions for guiding her to the shop.

The first condition was to remove Cantoner as the chairman of the Queen’s next outing committee. I told her that if she saw Cantoner’s 500-yen bald spot, she would understand how much stress he was under, so please replace him with someone else. She immediately agreed and appointed the person next to him. Cantoner didn’t even bother wiping away his overflowing tears as he thanked me profusely, while the newly appointed chairman stood there stunned, his soul seemingly having left his body.

The second condition was that I wanted to join the night security patrol. The Queen approved this immediately as well, but there was apparently a huge commotion behind the scenes. It took five days before I was actually allowed to participate. By the way, the Queen’s visit to that disgusting-food cafeteria had already been scouted by an advance team. I heard stories of people crying from how bad it tasted, spitting it out, or somehow managing not to.

The security team members knew I was the 11th Prince, so they were quite tense. However, they clearly disapproved of me bringing two young women as escorts — one a slender girl (who might look like a boy due to her stick-like figure) and the other a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties (but was actually over forty — quite the deception). I could feel their strong "What the hell, man? You’re bringing girls to hang out?" vibes.

Even in that heavy atmosphere, when it was time to depart, everyone shuffled out of the break room. I thought patrolling the noble district would be relatively relaxed, but the security team members actually looked quite tense. The air was heavy. Are they in a bad mood because they have to babysit me? I wondered, when the captain approached me.

"Lord Robin, sorry to keep you waiting. We will now begin the patrol. It can be dangerous, so please be very careful. I am Captain Copeland."

He bowed. I returned the gesture.

"No, I’m the one who should apologize for making unreasonable demands. Thank you for today."

Captain Copeland was startled.

"No, no — having a prince bow to me is... I’m very sorry!"

He became flustered. Behind him, the other team members were grinning. It must be extremely rare for a prince to bow to someone like them.

"Also, you have escorts with you (he glanced at Stevie and Lily), but even though this is the noble district, please do not let your guard down."

While thinking Isn’t that obvious?, I replied,

"Yes, of course."

"The noble district may seem safe, but I actually believe it is more dangerous than the commoner district."

The captain said something unexpected. It was true that the security at that one duke’s mansion had been excessive, and I had nearly been killed there.

"Really? I thought the noble district was quite peaceful?"

The captain shook his head.

"Most people think so, but that’s not entirely the case. There have been rumors of thieves appearing in the noble district for some time. However, the noble families don’t publicly report the incidents, so it’s said that quite a few mansions have actually been broken into. Because the victims don’t file reports, we don’t know exactly how many thieves are active."

The captain spoke with a troubled expression.

"Why don’t they report the damage?"

"If they publicly admit they were robbed, it would damage their reputation — people would say their security was lacking or they weren’t vigilant enough."

"That makes sense."

"Taking advantage of that, the thieves plan their routes carefully, infiltrating from the commoner district, climbing over walls, and so on. We can assume they operate in fairly large groups. Our patrol only has about 20 people. If the thieves outnumber us, I’m sorry to say we wouldn’t be able to capture them. The most we can do is monitor their movements and observe where they escape. Please keep this in mind."

He bowed again. I was a bit surprised by how frank he was being.

"I see. That can’t be helped then."

When I said that sincerely, he asked in surprise,

"Eh?! You’re okay with that?"

"What do you mean ’okay with that’?"

"I mean... the fact that we let the thieves go without apprehending them."

"It can’t be helped, right? If they outnumber your team, trying to capture them would only get you killed instead. It’s better to survive and face them with proper numbers next time, isn’t it?"

Captain Copeland’s eyes widened in shock. When I looked at him, his stats showed:

Stewart Copeland, 34 years old, Security Team Captain, Sword Skill 2, Spear Skill 2 — roughly the same level as me. The other team members were similar, with many even lower. Basically, they had just gathered whoever was available to patrol. Expecting them to catch thieves was unrealistic.

Of course, if they did nothing, they could be accused of neglecting their duties — or worse, abandoning them. But anyone who criticized them would probably do the exact same thing if they were in the captain’s position.