27.
"Redo it. It's all over the place, and I can't make sense of a word. You call this garbage a report?"
Rayner, who had been going through the report Blen had written, scowled deeply. Blen had braced himself for exactly this from the start, so by now he could take it with something close to composure.
"Lord Rayner, I'll rewrite the garbage report and bring it back, so today, please, you really must have lunch with me..."
"You talk a lot for someone who brought me garbage."
Blen's words died in his throat. He wanted to argue that it was nowhere near garbage, but he still had to become an aide Rayner would acknowledge, and that hadn't changed, so he swallowed it. Rayner might be handing him work, but he hadn't yet agreed to share everything with Blen or to let him assist him fully.
Before leaving with the returned report, Blen rummaged briefly inside his coat. He set a few neatly wrapped cookies on Rayner's desk.
"More garbage?"
"Not garbage. Cookies. The ones Minister Demiel gave us last time. The other members wanted to eat every last one, but I fought hard to save a few. For you, Lord Rayner."
The scratch of the pen stopped. Rayner kept hold of it and stared at Blen, who looked rather pleased with himself.
"I doubt you like sweets, but please try them anyway. A little sugar now and then is good for lifting your mood, and..."
"Stop babbling and get out."
"Yes, sir."
Back at his desk, Blen was still working out how to fix the criticized report when Ruwen walked in.
"Blen."
"Hm?"
"Got a minute? Finance has summoned you."
"Finance?"
Ruwen said he didn't know why either and nodded with a puzzled look. Blen set aside the papers he'd been reading and headed for the Ministry of Finance.
"Excuse me. I'm Blen, an aide in the Ministry of Mana. I was told you called for me..."
"Ah, there you are. Come over here."
The one beckoning him was a Rank 1 member of Finance. As Blen crossed the room, he noticed the Rank 2 member who had so harshly berated Dion that day. He was seated beside the man who'd summoned him, glancing over with an awkward look.
Blen had a bad feeling about this.
"You wrote this quarter's interim budget report for the Ministry of Mana, didn't you?"
"I did."
It was a duty shared by every Ministry's aide. As the name suggested, it was a midpoint report on the year's budget. Normally, you wrote a brief account of how the money had been spent so far and whether the remainder would go as planned or changes were expected.
"Rewrite it. By the end of today."
The Rank 1 member curled his lip and held out the document.
"...What's wrong with it? Could you tell me the reason?"
"Hmm, how to put it? The content is just a bit thin."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't be so vague. Write it in more detail. Especially this part—how the remaining budget will be spent."
If the reason had been a fair one, Blen would have accepted it without complaint. But he knew at once that this man was nitpicking over nothing. What mattered in an interim report was the budget already spent.
Planned spending was hardly a main point of review, and whatever was spent from here on would show up as spent budget in next quarter's interim report anyway.
Before writing it, Blen had used the format of past Magic Power aides' interim reports as his template, and that was what he'd submitted.
None of his predecessors had ever had one sent back, yet his alone was. There was no reading that as anything but deliberate.
"But as far as I know, this format has never been a problem before. I wrote out the spent budget in detail, and as for the part you pointed out, I understand there's no issue with writing it this way to begin with..."
"Hm, but the Ministry of Mana's budget is so large, you see. You do know this report goes up to the Finance Minister too?"
"..."
So now he was going to drag the Finance Minister into it. How low. Blen wanted to declare proudly that, in that case, he'd take it up with the Minister of Mana. But the words stuck in his throat, because he knew exactly what would happen if he brought it to Rayner.
"Interim budget report? Isn't that the aide's job? Handle it yourself. Why bring it to me? Your problems are yours to solve."
It was guaranteed.
"So, are you telling me you can't do it?"
Blen's brow twitched. He flashed a bright smile and snatched the document right out of the man's hand.
"Of course not. I'll bring you something perfect and thorough."
Blen's refusal to be cowed put a sour look on the faces of both the Rank 1 member and the Rank 2 member who had scolded Dion. Blen, unbothered, even bowed politely before walking out of the Ministry of Finance.
"Petty brats. So this is how you get revenge, huh?"
He glared at the Finance office door one last time for good measure and returned to his seat. He could guess easily enough why they were nitpicking over such an absurd pretext.
It had to be a grudge over what he'd said about Dion the other day. A member of lower rank than us, and from Rayner's Ministry no less, talking back to us? How dare he. That was surely the whole of it.
"Today's the day of reports, huh..."
Blen heaved a deep sigh and looked back and forth between the report Rayner had ordered redone and the one Finance had taken issue with.
His gloom lasted only a moment before he steeled himself again. If it had come to this, he'd write a report so flawless that they couldn't pick at it a second time and wipe the smirks off those Finance bastards' faces.
He threw himself into it with terrifying focus. He still had his regular duties to handle too, and by the time he came back to himself, it was well past the hour when the rest of the Ministry of Mana would have gone home.
"Ugh, my shoulders."
It looked like he'd be skipping dinner tonight. He was clutching his empty stomach and polishing the budget report when Rayner came in from the archives. Anyone heading to the minister's office had to pass through here.
"Lord Rayner, the report you told me to redo is on your desk."
Rayner didn't even answer, too busy studying the papers in his hand. But before he reached the office door, he stopped short and looked at Blen.
"Didn't I tell you to study if you had spare time? Why are you playing with numbers?"
"Oh, this? It isn't playing with numbers. It's the interim budget report."
"That's what I'm asking. Why are you doing it now? Wasn't it due last week? Don't tell me you missed the deadline."
Rayner's eyes sharpened. Realizing what he'd misunderstood, Blen hastily waved his hands.
"That's a misunderstanding. I turned it in on time. It just got sent back..."
"Sent back? How badly did you write it to get rejected over something that simple?"
"If I may add a word in my own defense, there are, um, extenuating circumstances."
Rayner said nothing. It looked like he was telling him to go on, so Blen cleared his throat.
"Put simply, I seem to have made an enemy of someone in Finance. There was a bit of a personal issue."
"What on earth goes on in your heads, you ordinary members, that you end up pulling such pathetic stunts?"
You ordinary members? Blen wanted to ask why he was being lumped in when he'd done nothing wrong, but he had no wish to explain the whole business with Dion.
"Looking after your relationships so that such problems don't arise is part of the job too."
"..."
Blen stared at Rayner.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Y-you knew that? And knowing it, you still, Lord Rayner, behave the way you..."
He couldn't believe it. He'd learned something astonishing today: Rayner understood that avoiding friction mattered.
Blen kept staring at him in naked disbelief, and Rayner's brow twitched.
"If you don't want to bother with that sort of thing, climb to a high position like I did."
Ah, of course. As the head of a Ministry, he didn't have to care about such things. That was what he meant.
"Enough. The rejection is your responsibility and your work. Just make sure it doesn't interfere with what I've assigned you."
With that, Rayner went into his office. He set down the materials he'd brought, sat down, and the cookies Blen had left that morning caught his eye.
"..."
But he soon looked away and threw himself back into his work.
About an hour passed. He was rubbing his stiff neck, a habit by now, when the cookies pushed their way into his vision again.
"...How infuriatingly distracting."
Even while working, something that kept snagging his eye grated on his nerves more than he'd have thought. Maybe it would be better to just give them back. Rayner snatched up the cookies and stepped out into the aide's office.
"You..."
He couldn't finish the sentence, Take these back. Blen was asleep, sprawled across his desk.
Rayner shook his head. He'd been about to bark at him to wake up, but found it all too pathetic and gave up. Still, he didn't go straight back to his office. He walked over to Blen's desk instead.
Among the stacks of materials lay two bundles of the interim budget report that Blen had been working so hard on. Rayner went through both. One was clearly the document already submitted, and the other seemed to be the rejected one, still being revised.
He studied the first submission most carefully. There was nothing in it worth criticizing, which suggested the claim about earning a grudge was true. What kind of personal trouble had he stirred up to bring this on himself?
On the memo pad on the desk was a scrawled curse: Damn the Ministry of Finance! Hope a bird poops on you while you're walking down the street. In Rayner's jet-black eyes, Blen slept on, oblivious to the world.
"..."
Rayner put the documents back where they had been. He had no reason to involve himself in this, and no desire to. However Blen had gotten tangled up with Finance, he had to answer for his own actions, whether by resolving it or by standing his ground.
Rayner left the dozing Blen where he was and went back into his office.
---
"But, Senior, are you sure this is really okay?"
"What's with you? You're the one who said you wanted to put that Mana aide in his place for being rude to you."
By sheer coincidence, two Finance members stuck with night duty were gossiping under the pretext of taking a break.
"I did, but... I'm worried he might go tell Minister Rayner."
"Hey, we're talking about the Mana Minister, not just any minister. He's the man who doesn't care what his people do or what happens to them, wherever they are. He only cares about his own work. Everything else, he couldn't care less about. Even if the kid tells him, nothing changes. Besides, the Magic Power members can barely even speak to him."
Writing the interim budget report was the aide's job, the senior went on. Did anyone really think Rayner would care whether it got sent back? Even if Rayner somehow learned they'd done it on purpose, he wouldn't lift a finger. The Rank 2 member relaxed at his words.
"But what if the aide writes it up properly this time?"
"You think there won't be a single thing to pick at? Bounce it back twice and he'll realize he shouldn't have gotten smart with us."
The two giggled gleefully.
And at that very moment, both doors of the Finance office flew open, rather roughly. The two members jumped, flinching in unison.
"Who barges in without knock... M-Minister Rayner?"
The Finance members' eyes went wide. Their mouths hung open, and as if in a trance, they both shot to their feet. Rayner walked in with an utterly blank face.
And in his hand was the interim budget report.
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