9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 155 - Idiots and Fools (3)

Friedrich Kruger stood within a room decorated in gold.

No, this place was more like one vast space than a room.

From the transparent glass ceiling poured light that was neither dark nor blinding, and the pure white marble floor was polished so smooth it reflected shadows.

Massive sculptures made of pure gold gazed down at him from all around.

Tick, tick.

The leisurely sound of a clock’s second hand echoed from somewhere.

The most distinctive feature of this breathtakingly beautiful space was the endlessly lined bookshelves.

Bookshelves tall enough to reach the ceiling and long enough to form their own alleys stretched far into the distance.

Like an ocean of books.

Kruger walked slowly and approached a bookcase. As he raised his arm, a thick book lodged in the highest compartment naturally flew down and was sucked into his hand with a soft thud.

The pages turned smoothly, and clear print showed a message from the western front.

「Batalland Occupation Complete」

「East Etrastan Occupation Complete」

「West Etrastan Occupation Complete」

「Pontinell Occupation Complete」

Kruger closed the book with a bored expression. Then he left the mountain of bookshelves and entered the open hall.

A map was attached to the table placed in the center of the hall.

A continental map.

The massive continent, surrounded by seas on all sides and seamlessly joined as one body, was about half-stained red.

Kruger’s finger moved along the red coloring and stopped at the edge.

The part that still remained white and clean. The small name written there, Rubellia. And the countries beyond it.

Kruger moved his hand this way and that, as if sweeping away grains of sand on a beach.

Blood-colored stains spread across the white paper.

And Kruger flopped down on the marble floor with no carpet laid. As he wiggled his finger, a book appeared in midair and opened wide.

Blank pages were revealed, then letters began to be inscribed at rapid speed as if someone were typing.

「Mother, Father. I hope you are well. I am in Hakleon.

Did news of the recent battle make it into the newspapers? I’d like to tell you exciting stories, but unfortunately I fainted in the middle of the battle, so I can’t.

Right now I’m sitting on a hospital bed writing this letter. Don’t be alarmed. I’m just being treated for a broken leg. Many people were hurt much worse than me, but I was lucky enough to get a bed when a spot opened up in a decent hospital.

From what I hear, they’re busy preparing to advance into Rubellia, but since I’m just lying here, I feel a bit guilty.

Still, hospital life isn’t as boring as I thought. I’ve gotten along well with Corporal Wolf, who’s in the bed to my left, and we’ve shared many stories. He’s a really cheerful person. He even shared cookies with me—I don’t know where he’d been hiding them.

On the other hand, Private Schiller in the bed to my right is a bit difficult to deal with. At first he was chatty enough to make your ears ache and laughed a lot, but after a few days he started wailing every night in pain. Some patients in the ward receive a medicine called canil every morning to drink, and it seems like that was the side effect.

Yesterday the military doctor finally amputated Private Schiller’s leg. When I looked scared, he told me not to worry since it depends on one’s constitution.

Ah, I didn’t realize I was only going on about depressing things. Don’t worry too much. Once my leg bone heals and I’m discharged, I’ll probably move to Rubellia. I want the war to end soon so I can come home. Stay healthy until then.

— Ralph, who loves Mother and Father」

Once the last letter was inscribed, the pages closed and the book flew away to nestle obediently in some bookshelf.

Kruger closed his eyes with a satisfied expression.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

The clock’s second hand, which had been flowing slowly, grew faster and faster, and the space began to shake. The floor cracked and the glass ceiling shattered, scattering fragments. The kingdom of millions of stacked books collapsed.

Friedrich Kruger’s palace containing all his knowledge and information, the ‘Hall of Memory,’ was thus destroyed, and he fell into darkness.

“Ahahahaha!”

And when he opened his eyes, Kruger was lying diagonally on a sofa, looking at documents pulled from a typewriter and laughing.

Moonlight instead of sunlight shone through the window, and he saw the simple room scenery with no golden decorations in sight. His laughter echoing through the cold air pierced his own ears.

Standing beside him, Supreme Leader Secretary Eve Clothier looked down at the heavy bundle of documents.

Most letters sent from the western front to Schufaben passed through the Supreme Leader’s residence before reaching their addresses.

From Commander Lucas Redan, who commanded the western front, to the letters of the lowest-ranking privates—they all gathered in Eve’s hands before departing.

“Ahahahaha! Writing all those worrying things and then telling them not to worry—isn’t that really funny, Eve?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

When the Supreme Leader asked with a giggle after copying the letter to his ‘Hall of Memory,’ Eve immediately answered.

“Then we should take measures so they won’t worry, shouldn’t we?”

“Of course, Your Excellency.”

As he extended his hand, Eve pulled a quill pen and ink from her inner pocket and handed them to him.

Scratch, scratch—the sound of the pen tip fiercely scraping across paper could be heard.

After putting down the pen a moment later, the Supreme Leader showed Eve the paper with a bright smile like a child who had finished coloring. Sentences here and there were painted over with black ink.

“Send orders to the post office. Organize a list of words and sentences to watch out for.”

“I’ll proceed without delay.”

The Supreme Leader patted Eve’s shoulder with satisfaction and went to watch the antics of the gold dragon Chryseus.

Eve briefly touched the shoulder where the Supreme Leader’s hand had rested. A faint flush had risen to her cheeks.

***

Schufaben’s civil service system was faster, more modern, more efficient, and more solid than any other country on the continent.

From the top of the hierarchy—1st-grade civil servants equivalent to central ministry administrators or regional mayors—to the bottom—9th-grade civil servants guarding archive rooms in district offices while receiving meager salaries.

All job series and ranks from 1st grade to 9th grade took on work according to thoroughly divided work assignment charts.

They memorized the procedures specified in the Civil Servant Conduct Guidelines and Work Regulations by heart, following them exactly when specific situations arose.

Of course, it wasn’t like this from when the country of Schufaben was first established.

Rather, until just a hundred years ago, Schufaben administration was hell itself. It was worse than—certainly no better than—Rubellia, which Schufaben people now curse so much.

Due to low salaries, each agency engaged in selling offices and positions, embezzlement and misappropriation were daily occurrences causing blind money to leak from the national treasury, there were no unified document formats when processing work, and half the documents that were created would wander in circles through related departments before disappearing somewhere.

Of course, it wasn’t always such a hopeless state—it was because the kingdom was declining—but things didn’t particularly improve during the revolutionary government period either.

Such pathetic behavior was finally eradicated when Friedrich Kruger rose to Supreme Leader.

Kruger was not only a genius knight but also a genius administrator.

He reformed the system that was rotten from the roots. He boldly cut down the civil servant group that had only grown in size chaotically and reformed the inefficient rank system, organizing it cleanly into 9 grades.

He created conduct guidelines for civil servants so anyone could work easily, and the Supreme Leader’s office handled all difficult decisions.

「I swear loyalty and obedience to Friedrich Kruger, Supreme Leader of the Schufaben Republic, and will faithfully fulfill my duties by observing the law. May God help me.」

So according to the oath of loyalty that any civil servant should be able to recite upon waking, all civil servants had no choice but to obey Supreme Leader Kruger.

Schufaben finally had a proper civil service group. Fittingly for a people who pursued efficiency and practicality.

“Hm, so you’re saying we should erase the things on this list. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“Yes!”

Lüdelheim District 13 Post Office.

At the elderly postmaster’s words, the clerks in gray uniforms all replied in unison.

“This is an order from His Excellency the Supreme Leader, so don’t slack off and work diligently! If you make a mistake, it’s your neck on the line!”

“Yes!”

“Good. Now get to work!”

The clerks scattered to their respective positions. The office supervisor, who had worked at District 13 Post Office for 15 years, also returned to his shabby desk.

And he looked at the heaps of letter envelopes stuffed in a large sack and sighed.

To process all of that by the end of the day, he’d obviously have to skip lunch and work.

“Can’t be helped.”

He quickly poured out the envelopes and removed the seals with skilled hand movements. He pulled out the letter paper, skimmed through it quickly, and unhesitatingly painted over it with a small brush given to him instead of a quill pen.

After finishing his work and tossing the letter paper and envelope aside, a colleague would put the letter back in the envelope and seal it again. Another colleague took charge of checking addresses and sorting by neighborhood.

Their simple, regular movements looked almost cheerful. Thanks to this, the mountain of piled letters was steadily shrinking.

The office supervisor, who had been concentrating on his work for a while, stopped his hand at the groaning sounds coming from behind him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

In the back row sat a new office clerk who had only been on the job for a month. He muttered with a pale face.

“Ah, Supervisor, it’s… difficult.”

“What’s difficult about it?”

“But…”

“How do you expect to get by being so slow? Empty your head and just follow orders.”

The office supervisor snatched the letter from the newcomer’s hands and drew black lines through it.

“See there, easy as that!”

“Ahh.”

But then the sentences make no sense at all.

The newcomer’s timid objection couldn’t make it past his throat.

The letter already in the next person’s hands was sealed in its envelope. He stamped a large seal on the envelope and passed it along.

「CENSORED」

The red letters stamped on the white envelope were excessively conspicuous.

“Come on, let’s get energized. We have to eat lunch, don’t we!”

“Y-yes.”

The newcomer answered awkwardly and picked up the next letter. After a moment, his hands began moving faster and faster. The soul disappeared from his expression and his eyes lost their light, vacant like a dead fish.

Thanks to this, they could finish the entire quota before quitting time.

And at some ordinary household in District 13.

“Honey, look at this! A letter came!”

“Oh my! Hurry up and open it!”

“Censored? What’s this?”

“Hurry!”

The middle-aged couple tore open the letter excitedly, then soon became stupefied.

「Mother, Father. I hope you are well. I am in Hakleon.

Did news of the recent battle make it into the newspapers? I’d like to tell you exciting stories, but ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ I was able to get a bed.

(omitted)

On the other hand, Private Schiller in the bed to my right is a bit difficult to deal with. At first he was chatty enough to make your ears ache and laughed a lot, but ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ he told me not to worry since it depends on one’s constitution.

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Once my leg bone heals and I’m discharged, I’ll probably go to Rubellia. I want the war to end soon so I can come home. Stay healthy until then.

— Ralph, who loves Mother and Father」

***

“Ah, I tell you, there were black marks all over it so I couldn’t understand what he was saying!”

“Huh, why?”

“I went chasing after the post office and you know what the clerk said? That our son might leak sensitive information, so they censored it!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. So the boy should have been more careful. Even if it’s a battlefield, how could he carelessly write and send such things?”

“Are you badmouthing our son right now?!”

“Nina, another drink? Nina?”

Nina Perez, who had been resting her elbow on the bar table and propping her chin at an angle, suddenly turned her head at the bartender’s words.

“How much have I had?”

“Just one glass. What were you staring at so intently that you couldn’t hear me?”

When the kindly-looking bartender asked, Nina grinned and gestured with her chin.

“Those men fighting.”

“So our son turned out rotten?”

“Then are you saying the clerk was wrong?”

The men were bickering over their petty argument.

“Day after day.”

The bartender spoke casually while pushing another beer toward Nina and approaching them.

“Gentlemen, shall I bring out another snack?”

At the mention of free snacks, they quickly quieted down. Nina yawned and drank her beer.

It was a shabby place with lukewarm alcohol, but it was reasonably cheap and the bartender was good-natured, so it had many regulars. There were plenty of stories flowing around discreetly too.

After downing the beer in one shot, Nina put money on the table, got up, and left the bar.

As she touched her flushed face, she took off her narrow-brimmed bread hat. Her burning red hair that had been hidden under the hat fluttered in the cold wind.

“Perez?”

A familiar baritone voice. She turned to see a young man with an empty newspaper bag standing there.

“Oh, kid.”

When Nina acknowledged him, the young man bristled.

“How long am I going to be ‘kid’?”

“Until you become older than me.”

“It’s only a one-year difference!”

Nina looked at the fuming Georg Roman with an indifferent expression.

“Go inside quickly, kid. It’s already night.”

“What are you doing out here at this hour?”

“What do you think? I was drinking.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. Why, curious about something?”

“No…”

He often frequented this bar too, so they bumped into each other occasionally. It was also common for him to stop people like this when he had nothing particular to say.

Nina shook her head and opened her mouth.

“Want me to tell you what I heard in there earlier?”

“What’s that about all of a sudden?”

“You like hearing all sorts of stories, don’t you? You even tell your gang to go collect rumors.”

As Nina shrugged while adjusting her hat, Georg nodded blankly. His face was flushed like hers, as if he’d already had a drink somewhere.