There are several small rooms—by our company’s standards—adjoining the dining hall.
I head into one of them.
Duke Gaillure goes to another room. He’ll probably talk business with some of the other executives.
Maybe discuss whatever business book is popular right now.
The small room is, as always, enormous, with an impossibly high ceiling. Hanging from it is a small chandelier—by our company’s standards.
Huge sofas and chairs have been arranged around the room with exquisite precision.
“Lady Zofi. It has been some time.”
“Yes! I’m so relieved to see that Your Majesty is well!”
“You were concerned about my health?”
“Of course! When Father told me Your Majesty was taking time to recuperate, I nearly had a carriage prepared so I could rush here at once!”
Zofi en Gaillure is the duke’s eldest daughter.
She’s only fourteen.
Her long, dark brown hair is pinned up, and she wears an elegant deep-green dress.
She has the look of a girl from the founding family of some giant conglomerate who attends an exclusive girls’ school.
But I repeat.
She is fourteen.
Combined with her small stature, it feels as though a child has been placed wholesale inside an adult outfit.
Above all else, she’s energetic.
A friendly smile.
A fearless personality.
The kind of girl teachers like, who is always at the center of the group.
Not the sort who says, “Huh? Gross,” every other sentence.
You had girls like that in your class, right?
Incidentally, Zofi inherited plenty from her distinguished-looking father and has striking, deeply sculpted features, so if she actually went to school in Japan, she’d probably attract all kinds of attention.
And when a girl like that grows up—
She turns into someone like Kobayashi from General Affairs. Twenty-four years old.
She came at you full force.
Whenever we passed in the hallway, she’d cheerfully start a conversation.
A young, rank-and-file female employee talking to the company president.
“President, that tie looks pretty good on you today!”
Things like that.
You can hardly blame a man for getting the wrong idea.
Then I later heard from Yoshinaga, the forty-eight-year-old General Affairs Director, that she was apparently the daughter of some major local company owner.
So that explained it.
That was why she could go head-to-head with the formidable members of the secretarial department without batting an eye.
Incidentally, she apparently got along spectacularly badly with Misawa from the secretarial department.
Women with nerves of steel and wealthy families behind them are strong.
“Your Majesty, I’ve been allowed to stay in Strois a little longer! I’m going to the famous Rue Centre too! Father gave me permission!”
Rue Centre is the main avenue that runs through the capital city of Strois and leads to Victory Square.
It’s prime real estate lined with clothing stores and jewelers catering to the wealthy.
In other words, Ginza.
I want to go too.
I haven’t gone shopping in ages.
Of course, I can’t.
There are too many problems with a king casually walking around town.
And if an actual problem occurs, various people end up disappearing.
Physically.
I wonder if there’s some way I could go incognito.
Take this watch I have.
A gold pocket watch small enough to fit neatly in my palm.
The sensation when you wind it is wonderfully smooth, almost like silk. The guilloché on the dial has beautifully sharp edges too.
This thing is one hundred percent handmade.
I want to visit the shop of the craftsman who made it.
Apparently his name is Blague.
I wonder if Blague’s shop has some kind of secret room too.
Choosing watches in those private rooms at Ginza boutiques while drinking champagne like water was incredibly fun.
The perfect form of escapism.
And what’s more!
Unlike Japan, here in Santeneri, watches, clothes, jewelry—everything that would get the tax office interested back home—can be written off as expenses.
I could even ask for a receipt.
Though when I calmly consider my current position, I’m basically the head of the tax office in the first place.
And visiting the shop is still impossible.
Suppose I tell my attendants, “I want to visit Blague’s shop.”
Naturally, they ignore that.
Then the next day, when tea time arrives, Blague himself is waiting for me.
Summoned to the palace for a custom order.
That’s how it would go.
No charm in that at all.
“Oh, I envy you, Lady Zofi. I admit I’m somewhat curious myself, but in my position, I can hardly move about freely. Your exceptional initiative is truly admirable.”
“But Mother is always scolding me... She says I ought to behave more like a proper young lady.”
“Lady Zofi, there is truth in that as well. But your vitality brightens my days.”
“Really?!”
Yeah.
I understand.
She’s cute.
She looks almost ready to jump for joy.
But she’s fourteen.
If I weren’t “His Majesty,” she’d be at exactly the age where she’d avoid eye contact, stare at her phone, and whisper to her friends, “Isn’t this guy creepy?”
“Your Majesty does like cheerful girls, don’t you? Being around someone who does nothing but nag all the time would become suffocating. If I were allowed, I would always stay by Your Majesty’s side.”
You probably understand now.
Braune and Zofi have, well...
A somewhat delicate relationship.
That applies to the two of them personally.
But their families are also...
Well.
What the court of Santeneri needs are capable financial bureaucrats, politicians skilled at balancing competing interests, and diplomats capable of calming a situation where enemies surround us on every side.
What I need is Yoshinaga, the forty-eight-year-old male General Affairs Director.
◆
There is nothing I can do in this other world of Santeneri.
What could a foreigner who was dumped here for some inexplicable reason two months ago possibly accomplish?
The Excel keyboard shortcuts that the older lady in administration at my previous job thought were practically magic are useless here.
So is the little bit of landscaping knowledge I picked up from books after inheriting my father’s company.
The only thing that’s useful is something like “the skill of standing back and watching.”
Once people become even slightly important, they get fired up thinking they have to act the part.
You become captain of your school club.
President of a university club.
A team leader at work.
A section chief.
Or maybe company president.
And then you start trying to demonstrate what people call “leadership.”
But leadership is something some people are suited for and others aren’t.
And an organization that has already been firmly established is much more rigid than you might think.
You see it sometimes in history, don’t you?
Kings who purge their subordinates one after another.
I used to think, What kind of idiot would do something like that?
But changing a completed organization means exactly that.
It isn’t about pouring out your passion and getting everyone to sympathize with you.
You have to break it.
Physically.
That’s why those purge-happy kings usually know exactly what they’re doing.
Most of them fail and die horribly.
But every once in a great while, one succeeds spectacularly.
Those are the ones who become great rulers.
I can’t do that.
And if I can’t, there’s only one action available to me.
Stand back and watch.
People more capable than me will do everything.
So I become the guy who stamps the paperwork.
Here, it’s signatures rather than stamps.
Don’t underestimate the paperwork-stamping guy.
There are few things more painful than realizing your own existence is meaningless.
Being able to endure that emptiness and continue stamping paperwork is a talent in itself.
Because most people go crazy.
They either start interfering half-heartedly with their subordinates’ jobs, throw everything away and drown themselves in women, or escape into alcohol.
I already failed once.
I’ll probably fail this time too.
In my previous life—if that’s what it was—I must have caused a fair amount of trouble for the people I left behind.
I didn’t leave an heir, and I didn’t have a will.
When a company president suddenly jumps to his death, a life insurance policy worth only around a hundred million yen isn’t remotely enough to cover the damage the company must suffer.
I do feel sorry about that.
But it was impulsive.
If I’d planned it, I would have handled things more properly.
I would have increased the insurance coverage and carefully worked out how the shares should be distributed.
But it was impulsive.
When you’re on the balcony of a thirty-second-floor apartment, having drunk far too much wine, and suddenly realize how little value you have...
There’s only one thing you can do, right?
So this time, I’ve decided to be the paperwork-stamping guy while causing as little trouble as possible.
Thinking about things like that, I fell asleep.
In a bed so soft it felt as though my body might drown in it.