Tick-tock.

Scratch-scratch.

The Crown Prince’s office.

Only the sound of the clock hands turning and the fountain pen scribbling on documents echoed throughout the office.

Despite having just passed three in the morning, bright lights remained on in the Crown Prince’s office.

With my eyes half-closed, I mechanically processed work from the mountain of documents piled high like a small range. As always, I gulped down the strong coffee that had already gone cold, trying to rein in my mind that wanted to fly far away.

“Ugh……”

The bitter taste of the cold coffee spread throughout my mouth, forcing my eyes wide open.

It had already been half a year since I started working as First Prince Ian’s First Aide. Outside, the year-end festival was in full swing, yet here I was, fighting against documents that seemed to multiply no matter how many I processed.

Although the contract didn’t explicitly mention annual leave, I never imagined there would truly be no vacation days. I had seriously considered suing the Crown Prince for employment fraud in the Imperial Department of Justice.

But I couldn’t do that because of the ridiculous working conditions that far exceeded the Empire’s labor standards: the high basic salary, dignity maintenance allowance, unlimited overtime hours, double-rate extended work compensation, and provision of housing and commuting carriage.

Of course, it wasn’t that I lacked money, but after taking the job as the Crown Prince’s aide against my family’s opposition, I was no longer receiving any financial support from them.

The Empire’s current power structure was largely divided into three factions: the Imperial faction, the Noble faction, and the Neutral faction that belonged to neither side. Among these, my family, the Weiana family, belonged to the Noble faction.

My becoming the Crown Prince’s aide, as the eldest daughter of the Weiana family—a major family in the Noble faction—was essentially a declaration that I would walk a completely different political path from my family.

Despite my father, who had never once been angry with me during the more than a year since I transmigrated into Ilena’s body, erupting in fiery rage, I ultimately left my family and took the job as the Crown Prince’s aide.

I knew that the moment Ian abandoned his position as Crown Prince and fled, the Empire would be drenched in blood by the insane male and female leads, and I would clearly be the starting point of it all. Therefore, I had to try my best to twist the original story as much as possible.

I too had dropped the original novel midway, and it wasn’t as if I could confide these circumstances to anyone.

How had Ilena become the Second Prince’s aide in the original story? How could Ilena, who belonged to the Noble faction, become an aide to Callian, who was clearly part of the Imperial forces? The answer to that question became clear as I worked here and personally experienced the power struggles among the nobility.

When Ian fled, the Imperial faction, led by the Violet Ducal family—the Empress’s family—greatly faltered.

Seizing that opportunity, the Noble faction, headed by the Rosemond ducal family—the family of the original female lead Fleur—planted a spy in the Second Prince’s office. That spy was me. And in the original story, I had tried to escape from the insane Callian only to die miserably by his sword.

Currently, it was the time to finalize the year-end accounting and draft plans for Imperial-led projects in the new year.

Having started the job in summer, I had been returning home just before midnight almost every day due to quarterly performance reports, budget execution, additional budget planning, audits of each department, and regular quarterly tasks. The commute by carriage took barely ten minutes.

It was truly exhausting then, but I endured each day with the hope that I could at least go home. However, in December, the final month, since reporting for duty on the 1st, I had only gone home once.

Just once. Not one day, but once.

When I said I would go home to get some clothes to change into, and returned to the office in less than an hour with a month’s worth of belongings, Ian, buried under a pile of documents, remarked:

‘You could have just bought them with the Crown Prince’s Palace budget.’

‘……’

‘Did you really need to waste a precious hour like that?’

Despite returning within an hour after stuffing clothes and necessities into a large bag as soon as I arrived home, I could only offer a bitter smile and acknowledge my mistake in the face of his criticism.

I would have given Ian an unfriendly look too if he had suddenly left his post for an hour, considering the flood of work that would pile up. It would have been a look so disrespectful that anyone other than those familiar with the Crown Prince’s Palace might have thought it bordered on treasonous.

After about three weeks without going home, I finally had to acknowledge why the Crown Prince Ian in the original story had to flee in search of freedom, and how reckless I had been to jump into this hell with the intention of preventing his escape.

“Mmm……”

As I made a sound after gulping down the bitter coffee, Ian, who had been sleeping while leaning back in his chair, stirred. Worried that he might wake up, I held my breath and froze in place. I tried not to make any noise, hoping he would fall back asleep.

During the past three weeks without going home, Ian and I had tacitly agreed to take turns sleeping for one hour each after midnight to maintain our minimal life functions.

Unlike me, who rested in my dedicated duty room that Ian had created right next to the office, Ian always slept while leaning back in his chair.

When I asked why he slept so uncomfortably when his bedroom was right behind the office and he never used it, Ian smirked at my question and said:

‘I need to keep watch.’

‘……’

‘Who knows if my aide might submit her resignation and run away while I’m resting.’

Even while listening to Ian’s unpleasant remarks, I had no choice but to stay by his side to prevent the original story from unfolding.

He didn’t even realize who was really keeping watch over whom as he made such comments.

I had certainly pondered why the Crown Prince’s Palace was suffering from such an excessive workload.

The one who whipped the irreplaceable Crown Prince Ian, with his legitimacy, harder than anyone else was neither the Emperor nor the original male lead Callian, but his mother, Empress Violet.

‘The Crown Prince must always be perfect. As the future ruler of the great Empire, you must always prove that you are without deficiency, Crown Prince.’

In other romance fantasy novels I had read, villainous empresses or imperial consorts typically cherished and loved their own sons, throwing trials in the protagonist’s path. But this novel, true to its depressing nature, had the Empress herself throwing trials in her own son’s path.

Moreover, unlike the Empress, who was the eldest daughter of the Violet ducal family—one of the Empire’s two ducal families with the noblest blue blood from birth—the current Emperor, Giltian Ricard, was born of an Imperial Consort from a humble viscount family. He had ascended to the throne by joining hands with an Empress he didn’t even love, and thus couldn’t go against her wishes.

The fact that in the original story, the power structure was divided into three parts with the Imperial faction vaguely described as the “Imperial faction” rather than the “Emperor’s faction” was sufficient evidence of how much of a puppet the current Emperor was.

‘Still, something seems off.’

Even so, something felt strange. The look in Empress Violet’s eyes when she gazed at Ian during the state council meetings I often attended with him was hardly the look one would expect from a mother toward her only son—it felt distinctly uncomfortable.

‘Could there have been other settings in the original story that I don’t remember?’

“What do you mean, ‘keep watch’?”

As I covered Ian’s body with a blanket—he who often skipped even our mutually agreed rest periods—I unconsciously muttered, and suddenly found myself looking into Ian’s wide-open eyes.

“Hmm? Is it already time to switch?”

“Ah…… well.”

How tired must Ian have been to fall asleep, when he rarely showed signs of sleeping? Having already gulped down coffee and no longer feeling sleepy, I had intended to be considerate and let Ian sleep longer. Contrary to my intention, Ian checked the clock and said:

“It’s already 3:01. I’m sorry. The shift change time has passed. Ilena, you should also rest until 4:01.”

“……Thank you.”

Although I hadn’t planned to wake him, now that he was awake, I had to claim the allotted rest time. Others might think it was just one minute, but I expressed deep gratitude in my heart for the extra minute of rest Ian had given me as I jumped up from my seat.

That one minute was more precious than blood. Rather than dwelling on the original story that I could barely remember now, my priority was to lie down on the bed and fall asleep as quickly as possible.

As Ian stared at Ilena’s retreating back, he tightly gripped the blanket covering his body and muttered with a bright smile:

“It’s not a lie that I’m keeping watch, Ilena.”

***

“……”

“……”

I pushed aside some of the documents that densely filled the long conference table in the center of the spacious office and dipped bread into the beef soup provided for breakfast. While maintaining an expressionless face as I pushed the bread into my mouth, I snatched the document from Ian’s hand and said:

“Please focus on your meal when eating, Your Highness. Isn’t today a happy day?”

“A happy day, you say.”

“Yes. If Your Highness wins at today’s state council meeting, these tiresome tasks should decrease somewhat.”

All the documents covering the table were the proud results of our labor day and night. The fruits of our hard work, which felt like they had shaved years off our lives.

Looking at the documents containing all the results of the year’s work, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought, ‘Today I might finally be able to go home.’

However, contrary to my hopeful wish, the face of my boss Ian, who had spent ten years in the Imperial Palace, was filled only with bitterness.

“The workload will decrease?”

Saying this while completely abandoning the dignity of a Crown Prince, Ian emptied his bowl of beef soup in one gulp, slurping it down as if he were eating not to taste but to survive, and then grinned:

“Ilena. How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty-one in a few days.”

“Right. Then you should know well. You must have had your debutante ball too.”

“……??”

Looking at Ian who suddenly mentioned debutantes, I tilted my head in confusion before quickly realizing something that sent a chill down my spine, making me shudder involuntarily.

“How many young nobles do you think will come of age in the Empire this year?”

“Don’t tell me……”

“We still have the New Year’s ceremony ahead of us.”

“But that’s…… clearly the Empress’s Palace’s responsibility……”

“And sadly, my mother, who is in charge of the internal affairs of the Imperial Palace, has never once in the past ten years.”

“……”

“Handled such troublesome matters herself, the stubborn person she is.”

“Oh…… no!”

Seeing Ian’s bitter face as he pronounced the doom of more overtime work, I forgot all dignity and clutched my head, lying down on the sofa and kicking at the air.

“Still, it’s a rewarding task in its own way.”

“……Your Highness, I apologize for my impertinence, but have you finally gone mad?”

“Isn’t it rewarding? It’s an event to bless the future of noble youths who have come of age.”

My boss must surely have already gone mad. To work day and night for three weeks, then hear about new work coming in, and still try to find fulfillment in it.

“If I don’t think this way, well, Ilena, as you said, I might truly go mad.”

“……”

“How about going home today?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking that I might have been too harsh. If my one and only aide trembles in fear and submits her resignation, I would be very sad. Go home right now.”

I stand corrected. Ian doesn’t seem to have gone mad yet. He was just an idealistic and rational future monarch trying to find even small fulfillment to barely hold onto his sanity amidst the overwhelming workload.

Before Ian could possibly change his mind, I quickly stood up, bowed my head deeply, and fled through the office door that had imprisoned me for three weeks.

“Wait for me, my home! I’m coming!”