CHAPTER 3: YOU ARE QUALIFIED TO BE THERE (VIII)
Part 047
After the festival, the days when a rather chilly wind began to blow followed. The exciting training period at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had come to an end, and today was the first day of work at the Ministry of Finance. Three of her classmates and she were sitting in a small office waiting for a senior administrator to be in charge of education. Their faces were full of tension. The Ministry of Finance receivd the same training schedule minus the interview. The lower departments are not as diverse as other departments, so there are only three departments, the budget department, the executive department, and the reserve department. And the infamous Miss Tina was in charge of training this rider. Yes, she was the one who had a fight with her when she went to take an exam last summer. She gave her back her test papers, saying that she had finished too quickly in math, so she said to review it, and Damian, who was so tired that she couldn’t see it, even graded the dog by hand.
Why did she do that? She should have said something like: ‘Oh my, senior. Ho ho ho, no. I hit really hard. However, since the senior recommended it, I will try to calculate it one more time. I should have said ‘ho-ho-ho’.
She was scratching her head as she was thinking about whether she should really seriously think about changing her desired department, but four seniors, including senior Tina, entered with a bunch of documents. And with a very businesslike face, he put down a bunch of papers in front of them. Everyone was dumbfounded, but Miss Tina started pouring out scary words in a very businesslike tone.
“A total of 25 people who passed this summer’s exam, and one person who has been disqualified so far, you know. Because you were eliminated from your group. And there are four people who gave up their qualifications themselves during the Treasury training. That number now includes you. That’s 20 people, but I’m very curious what will happen after 25 days.”
Saying that, she looked at her.
Why did she do that? Why did she do that? It was because she didn’t like the hostility she didn’t know why. Why did she look at her like that? She took her as this or was it really because she was a woman? If that’s the case, she was really upset.
“You guys only have one thing to do. Review the paperwork I’m giving you and look for errors. You’ll be reviewing the paperwork from the fall/winter quarter of last year to the fall/winter quarter of last year. It’s a valuable test to see how accurate your eyes are. It will be time. Then, one by one, each of you follow your seniors to the assigned department. Check the documents you reviewed every day before leaving work, and receive new documents from here every Monday when you come to work. Do you have any questions?”
He talked so hard, he had no questions to ask. The thickness of the pile of papers she glanced down at was unusual. She meant to review all of this in one week? It was unclear whether this was the daily workload of the Treasury Department or whether it was a campaign of thirst. When she glanced up at Miss Tina out of desperation, she had a face that seemed like she would get rid of everything in one night. Her personality and demeanor aside, seemed like those of a person who was likely to get things straight. When her trainees didn’t answer, Tina and her colleagues standing behind her took her blushing classmates out one by one.
Oh, this was ominous. Just as expected, only her and Miss Tina were left.
Miss Tina looked at her without expression and called out to her.
“It’s surprising. Lady Ethard. I thought you wouldn’t come this far.”
“Why did you think that?”
“I heard you’re dating the military commander, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
She didn’t know what she was talking about, so she tilted her head and answered, and Miss Tina also tilted her head and asked again.
“It’s not like the commander didn’t notice, so it wouldn’t be meaningful to stay longer, right?”
Aha, so she thought that because she caught a big fish, she didn’t have any more reasons to stay there?
She answered while trying not to appear ferocious.
“I came here because I wanted to be an administrator. I didn’t know who I associate with was important.”
Tina looked at her with a pout at my answer, then asked again.
“What is the young lady’s goal as an administrator?”
“It’s the treasurer.”
The answer came out without her knowledge. Her head belatedly shouted out the correct answer, wanting to grow into the same amount that would contribute to the development of this country, but her mouth was always quick to say anything.
Tina said with a puzzled face, ‘What?’
Now that she couldn’t come and pick a different answer up, what could she do? She answered shamelessly.
“I want to be the first female Treasurer.”
She didn’t answer, she didn’t even sneer, she squinted her eyes and looked at Damian for a long time before turning her head around and walking ahead and talking.
“I don’t know what the lady’s intentions are, but I won’t say anything for now because I’ve had the experience of being embarrassed for making judgmental decisions. It’s a matter of waiting and seeing. The lady’s seat is in the office where I work. Please follow me.”
She followed along with her bundle of papers, and Tina pointed to the desk across from her. It looked like she’s stuck and looking at papers.
The atmosphere was in the mood to make dried flowers out of ridicule that Adrian sent flowers. She sighed inwardly and quietly sat down and opened the papers. Then she also held her breath. The title of the document she received was <Hegemony 418 Fall/Winter Quarterly Budget Execution Proposal 4>. All the budgets distributed to the four departments were organized by item. For example, in the part related to the ‘military department’, in [general administrative expenditure], how much was the salary of commanders, how much was the salary of soldiers, etc. [materials and facility reinforcement] how much was the cost of repairing the official residence, how much was the cost of replacing horseshoes, etc., [Training] how much was the training fee, how much was the 2nd training fee… These endless items were lined up in an endless line.
Match the amount and total of each item, find duplicates and filter them out, correct miscalculations… and go home. She wanted to have this finished in a week? What was the 4th plan? How many times had she written the final draft?
She wanted to cry. It was the hope of the Ministry of Finance anyway, and this was what the Ministry of Finance did. So she had to be able to do it.
She worked hard and her eyeballs almost fell out. She worked too hard. Except for asking Franz to go outside for a while during lunchtime and tell Adrian that no flowers, no cookies, no letters, no visits, she stayed at her desk. When it was time to leave work, she barely finished reviewing the ‘Ministry of Home Affairs’ section. When I went to Miss Tina and told her about the amount reviewed today, she looked a bit surprised. But she quickly hid her expression and asked.
“How many errors did you find?”
“Five in total.”
As she answered, she held out a piece of paper on which she wrote down the errors she had discovered. Tina read it quickly, then raised her head and looked at her.
“Good find. The young lady is definitely good at counting. She’s fast. But, there was one more error in that document.”
“Is it part of the special activity expenses?”
“Could you elaborate?”
“The welfare and planning departments’ special activity expenses were the same at 724 gold and 48 silver. It was strange that the same amount came out, but it wasn’t impossible, so I didn’t write it down.”
“Doubting and doubting the numbers, that’s Treasury’s first job. Good find.”
Tina must have looked at her kindly for a second, then she sighed and returned to her cold face. She then looked at her without saying a word. After complimenting her, she looked at her again and asked her why she was curious.
“Is there anything else I haven’t found?”
“No. Among the trainees, the young lady is the first to discover all the errors at once.”
“But why…”
“Does it look like this?”
As she couldn’t answer, she asked Tina another question.
“Lady Ethard, do you know the average length of service for young ladies?”
“Yes?”
“The average service period for ladies of counts or higher who successfully completed their education and became official administrators is less than half a year.”
“Is that so?”
“My attitude is suspicious and you will not like it. I don’t like it when young girls take the administrative officer exam. If I teach them through hard work, most of them will quit their jobs because of marriage. Do you have a single body?”
“Yes? I-“
“I’m sure you’ll say yes now. Everyone said that, but it didn’t mean anything. Things will change. Aren’t you dating someone who overthrew an entire Marquis family, even if it wasn’t enough to print the young lady’s mistake? Marriage? If you do, do you think he will let the young lady work?”
No, crazy Mario and the former Marquis of Talus have a rich relationship and embezzlement was a different story. She was not saying that Adrian was going to avenge her and ruining a whole family. What kind of rumors were there?
“I haven’t discussed that with the commander. However, no one else will decide whether I will continue or not. I have no intention of marrying someone who opposes my dream. By the way, the two cases you mentioned are separate. I really want to give it to you.”
They looked at each other as if they were having a snowball fight. She hadn’t even thought about getting married yet, but to retire after marriage? It felt like a long way off, but she didn’t think Adrian would ignore her wishes and set out to decide her future. She liked Adrian a lot, but she didn’t think she could let him do that. Listening to the story, it seemed that most of the young ladies became administrators as an extension of social circles, and then retired after getting married. And if you didn’t like those ladies, was it because she had a lot of pride as an administrator, or was it just envy?
According to Laurel, she was 32 years old, gay, unmarried, and even though she was a commoner and a woman who had no choice but to fall behind in promotion, she was almost certain to be promoted to the 5th grade next year, so she must be proud of her work. When she heard about it, she thought she was an eccentric spinster, but today it didn’t seem like she’s doing this out of envy. Even so, it’s hard to understand the ruthless hostility.
It was Tina who avoided her gaze first. She read the paper she had arranged once again and said with a softer face.
“Anyway, you did a good job today, young lady. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She said goodbye to Tina, packed up her things, and left the office. Looking back at Tina, who hadn’t yet to leave work after a full day’s work in her almost empty office, she was focusing on her paperwork. There’s a workaholic the size of Adrian here too. At first glance, the amount of paperwork processed per day was no joke. She shook her head and left the Ministry of Finance. Her eyeballs were tight and her shoulders were also aching.
Adrian shimmered in front of her eyes, but today the bed comes first. As she approached the carriage with a tired face, Franz opened the carriage door with a surprised face. He said that he would go home right away, but he couldn’t close the door and hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something.
She looked at Franz, who had fallen halfway down on the carriage chair and was wriggling around. Franz was startled again, quickly closed the door and drove the carriage. The situation was not a word, but when she arrived and got off the carriage, Jenny, who had smiled at them and approached, screamed.
“Who hit my lady?”
Okay. What kind of face was she making?
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. Thank you very much for reading.
Next chapter will be relased on July, 21 😉
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