Then Lord Ashwood hastily opened his mouth.

“I’ll do it! I’ll be an attendant, Assistant Saliche!”

Since I got his consent.

Now it was time to use Lord Ashwood to roll the entire Summer Palace around.

*

To be honest, if it had been any assistant other than Lord Ashwood, I wouldn’t have helped at all.

Because I had already assessed their individual work capabilities through the documents they had pushed onto the Winter Palace.

It was clear they would be too frustrating for me to teach.

‘Let Lord Ashwood deal with the frustration.’

There was no way my fragile mentality could handle it.

So I planned to transplant some demon blood into Lord Ashwood.

Teaching him everything would be a loss for the Winter Palace, but leaving things as they were would also bring me and Cassian one step closer to death by overwork.

‘Life becomes easier when you reduce unnecessary expenditure……’

Even if that expenditure is labor.

“Assistant Saliche, I’ve finished organizing the documents as you instructed.”

I started him with raw data organization, just as we train new administrative officers.

“Here and here, do it again. If you don’t understand, grab one of the administrative officers and ask questions.”

Just like my truly fair self, I treated him no differently from the administrative officers.

Ah, I’m really too kind. Truly.

*

Francis accepted these ridiculous conditions thinking otherwise he would tarnish the Ashwood ducal family’s reputation.

Of course, the other assistants causing an uproar also played a part.

‘At this rate, Her Highness the Imperial Consort’s strict orders will come down.’

‘We asked the Rose Palace assistants for help too, but they looked at us like trash! Saying we’re not the only ones busy.’

‘I even tried talking to an acquaintance I’ve known since childhood among the Sun Palace assistants…. But they said who has the capacity to help others these days.’

‘That’s not all. When I brought it up, the Sun Palace assistant said that because of you guys, the work that the Winter Palace should handle keeps getting delayed, and told us to get lost unless we wanted to take the scolding from His Majesty the Emperor in their place.’

‘How rude they all are, does nothing work without the Winter Palace’s witch?’

When they were having this conversation, Francis clearly heard a Sun Palace administrative officer who happened to come by to deliver work speak mockingly:

‘It’s not working. Everyone except here knows even His Majesty the Emperor has stepped back, tsk.’

Though the other assistants seemed not to have heard since the voice was so quiet.

At that moment, Francis Ashwood felt deeply humiliated.

Despite being born as the eldest son of a ducal family and raised thoroughly with the education of an heir, he was being outdone by a baron’s daughter from an obscure place?

He especially didn’t want to acknowledge it since he had received harsh criticism from his grandfather, Duke Ashwood, when he withdrew under the Imperial Consort’s orders during the previous cruise ship incident.

‘At this rate, it would be better for the second son to inherit the duchy. Did you think I gave you up just to be the Imperial Consort’s puppet?’

Whether Assistant Saliche did this intentionally or not, his grandfather would probably not protest or intervene even if he knew about this situation.

‘He would say this too is a measure of my capability.’

Francis sighed deeply and headed to the administrative officers with the materials that Roselita had rejected.

Since he wasn’t blind or deaf, he couldn’t help but notice how busy Roselita was.

Of course, he felt anxious about missing various heir lessons to make this time, but…

‘Why does it feel like what I’m seeing and hearing here is more helpful?’

Despite having carefully selected all the instructors one by one,

Francis carefully held out the materials to ask about the parts Roselita had checked.

“Ah, this is tough when you first do it. But considering you’re new, this isn’t bad.”

He paused momentarily at those words.

‘Not bad considering I’m new?’

He, who was known as an outstanding talent and had even been appointed as the First Prince’s First Assistant by the Imperial Consort?

Actually, until Roselita arrived, he had never missed being among the top performers each quarter.

He had only started falling behind the Winter Palace assistants and administrative officers after she arrived.

Whether they knew Francis’s feelings or not, the administrative officers laughed and said:

“Still, Assistant Saliche has become much kinder compared to when we first came in.”

“Right, back then she was so busy we couldn’t even approach her, she wouldn’t answer and just sent back red check marks.”

“When we were slow to interpret things, she was so rushed she’d handle everything herself…. We wished she would at least scold us for being slow.”

“Ah, I actually have the next materials for the work assigned to Lord Ashwood. How fortunate.”

Fortunate?

His pride cracked once more.

Even more so because they had already passed the later parts to someone else, assuming he wouldn’t make the deadline.

“That’s right, it means Assistant Saliche has finally acknowledged that we can function as proper people.”

Francis became even more confused by the administrative officers who laughed heartily while saying things without a shred of pride.

“……Don’t you get angry?”

Too curious, he blurted out words that would surely have earned disapproval if said in front of Roselita.

The administrative officers’ eyes widened at those words.

“Angry? Aren’t we lucky?”

“Lucky?”

“Lord Ashwood, you’re an assistant yourself so shouldn’t you know? For administrative officers, which assistant we meet practically determines our career path.”

“I know that much.”

After all, it was typically the assistant’s role to decide whether to give important work to administrative officers and to direct their work approach.

“It’s been three days now, Lord Ashwood, you should understand after receiving Assistant Saliche’s review.”

One of the administrative officers with a somewhat sharp attitude spoke with slight sarcasm.

Though he would have called it disrespectful normally, Francis Ashwood suppressed his ego as he was starting to understand the atmosphere.

“First of all, our assistant actually teaches us work.”

“Plus, Assistant Saliche doesn’t get angry when teaching newcomers.”

“……What?”

“Other assistants don’t even teach in the first place, they just assign work and get angry if it’s not done the way they want.”

Francis recalled the Summer Palace administrative officers at those words.

Come to think of it, had he ever done anything besides giving them work instructions?

He had thought administrative officers should naturally know how to do things, and had only internally suppressed his irritation when they didn’t meet his expectations.

“She even checks everything despite being busy. She doesn’t ask why we’re so slow. She just keeps having us do it until we get it right.”

“She even gives detailed explanations when she has time. It’s just that she has no time to breathe right now because it’s the settlement season.”

Thinking about it, Roselita had spoken at length yesterday.

‘You don’t need to classify everything so minutely. For this data, what we need are just the business type, years of operation, and proportion to the total.’

And he couldn’t deny that it had changed his perspective on viewing materials.

Actually, he had felt Roselita’s serious expression soften a bit as he adapted to that method.

“Also, Lord Ashwood, isn’t our report format convenient?”

Francis closed his mouth slightly.

Actually, at first he had wondered why it was so simplified.

Usually reports always had polite modifiers front and back, and overview expressed in formal language.

But Winter Palace reports were almost just the necessary overview and main points.

They inserted only truly necessary content, to the point where some documents even omitted the table of contents.

It was common for them to end in just one or two pages.

“This row would be easier to read with some adjustments. Delete this row.”

While he was following that train of thought, an administrative officer kindly explained in detail which parts of Francis’s document needed correction and why.

At that sight, the administrative officer who had been sarcastic earlier spoke again.

“It’s all in the manual, but since you couldn’t find it, we have to spend time during our busy schedule.”

“Tsk, that’s enough. Assistant Saliche won’t be pleased if you keep that up.”

The chided administrative officer just pouted and focused on work.

Francis decided to just accept the administrative officer’s impudent attitude now.

That was because the other’s work processing speed shut his mouth. He had realized that far from helping, he was just a burden.

Though he certainly wanted to see the Winter Palace’s already written manual.

‘After having no shame, you have no conscience either?’

Now he could even predict what Roselita would say.

That it was a favor that never needed to be given in the first place, quite emphatically.

Looking at the documents piled up throughout the Winter Palace offices, he could realize how shameful his actions had been until now.

‘We made such a fuss over less than a quarter of this workload….’

Roselita was somehow managing by teaching even the administrative officers and attendants.

Moreover, he couldn’t even resent her as he came to understand why she had no choice but to give him an attendant position.

‘……Because there are so few assistants, they can’t increase administrative officers.’

As a duke’s son, he wasn’t ignorant of the power struggles in the palace.

He felt deeply ashamed of himself for having only known Roselita through rumors and regarding her as just an overstepping assistant who meddled everywhere without shame or courtesy.

Meanwhile, his mind gradually cleared. About how he should act as the Summer Palace’s First Assistant as well.

*

“……You’re telling me to stop coming to the Winter Palace?”

On the fifth day now, Francis showed a shocked face at what was said around six o’clock.