Chapter 376 The Reason for the Accident
"I'm deeply sorry, Your Excellency Purple Diamond. His Majesty is feeling exhausted, so he's decided to recuperate in the palace for a day. The originally planned city tour has been postponed. I apologize for not informing you sooner, and I beg your forgiveness."
At the gate leading to the Rose Palace in the Runnore Academy area, a young knight in black armor bowed deeply to express her apology.
Standing before her were Purple Diamond and the magical girls belonging to the Crown Faction of the Magical Court.
According to the original plan, today and tomorrow are the days when the Queen will personally inspect the city of Lunnore, comfort the people, and hold activities.
The reason why it was scheduled for these two days was because the qualification certification examination happened to be at the magic equipment test, and this test was not convenient for spectators, so the secretaries of the royal court took advantage of the opportunity and arranged the city inspection.
After all, in a few days, when the assessment reaches the last two items, the queen will inevitably have to return to the audience seats in the examination room. When the assessment is over, she will not be able to stay in Runnore any longer - the magical kingdom is so large, and there are many cities waiting for Her Majesty's visit.
With this in mind, the magical girl officials of Runnore took this matter very seriously. After all, it was a crucial opportunity for them to showcase their achievements to the Queen. From the Emerald District to the Academy District, from the magic-free zone to the city's edge, every corner was pristine and adorned with lights. At this moment, they were eagerly awaiting the Queen's arrival at City Hall!
And now, the only protagonist of this event, Her Majesty the Queen, actually said that she wanted to take a day off and would not come?
The Crown Faction magical girls present looked at each other and began to think about how to explain to their colleagues and subordinates. Their eyes first lingered on the Black Knight at the gate, and then in unison focused on the front of the crowd - that is, Purple Diamond.
At times like these, perhaps only the words of the Gem Scepter could calm the situation.
Bathed in the gazes of the crowd, the current Diamond Scepter wore a solemn expression, her demeanor erect, as if she were pondering how to respond to the current situation. After a long silence, she finally nodded to the knight before turning and gazing at the magical girls of the Magic Academy.
"I understand. Then we'll send someone to the city hall to inform them to postpone the event. As for you, lead the way now. I'm going to the Demonic Courtyard."
Her words made everyone in the Demonic Affairs Institute feel a sinking feeling in their hearts.
Here it comes.
They thought to themselves and couldn't help sighing.
All the magical girls belonging to the Five Houses know that the current Purple Diamond is a very strict leader who does not tolerate any injustice and who particularly likes to overstep his authority.
Although she is only the Jewel Scepter of the Ministry of Finance, if a magical girl does something that she does not like, she will criticize her mercilessly and even punish her.
Of the other major houses, the Investigation House and the Research Institute were relatively well-off, thanks to the Yellow-Emerald Scepter's distant relationship with the current Diamond, and the distinct responsibilities of the two houses, leaving Purple Diamond with little room for interference. However, the magical girls of the Civil Affairs House and the Magical Affairs House were in dire straits. Pigeon Blood Red and Purple Diamond of the Civil Affairs House shared similar views and remained relatively indifferent to other matters. The Magical Affairs House, lacking a jeweled scepter at all, was merely a place where power was divided. This led to frequent reprimands from Purple Diamond for provoking the magical girls of these two houses.
Right now, this is the case with these magical girls from the Crown Faction of the Demonic Academy.
The "chaos cheating" incident that broke out during the qualification certification written test a few days ago made Purple Diamond focus on them. He would criticize them for this matter every now and then in the past few days. Now, the other party is obviously going to continue to take advantage of the issue and chase them to the Magic Academy to "guide the work."
Is this the end? Is this your first time as an official? You're so obsessed with power, and I've never seen such an idle and cheap jeweled scepter. What does the work of our Ministry of Magic have to do with your scepter from the Ministry of Finance? Don't you have your own work to do?
This sentence is probably what the many magical girls present are thinking, but no matter how much they complain in their hearts, they can't say it out loud.
Therefore, they could only obey the other party's instructions on the surface and bring him to the Demonic Court honestly.
At this moment in the Magic Affairs Institute, a group of Crown Faction clerks were busy selecting magic costume files.
There were more than a dozen people crammed into the not-so-big office hall, filled with the sounds of conversation, phone calls, footsteps, and printing.
The reason why selecting a file can cause such a mess is because selecting a file is not just about "selecting" a file.
There are thousands of candidates in an examination, and there are at least four digits whose magic equipment scores can reach "Briza" or above. Among these files, which ones are considered to have "potential" is actually a very subjective matter.
Not only does every file that is entered need to be discussed and voted on, but some files that have been notified in advance also need a "reason for being selected."
The daughter of a leader's friend? A junior of a senior executive at the Silver Gallery? A student of a senior faculty member at the research institute? There were countless candidates who were related and therefore required special attention. Since it was difficult to manipulate the scores of other parts of the assessment, this magic suit test became the most important stage for leveraging connections.
However, special consideration doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps. These selected files will eventually be reported to the royal court. If they make too much of a fuss and submit files that are clearly unworthy of the title, then the royal court will blame them and no one will benefit.
Therefore, "how to package those profiles that suggest nepotism" has become a difficult problem for many Crown employees. Everyone is B-rank, so why recommend you? Those with sufficiently impressive profiles will naturally be eliminated according to the normal process. But at the same time, how can those relatively ordinary, unremarkable magical suits be excused to blend in?
These messy and foul things mixed with the normal assessment process naturally make the originally simple work become extremely complicated.
When Zi Zuan arrived, several clerks in the office were arguing fiercely over whether a file that had been notified could be reported.
At first, no one even realized that the short, unnoticed magical girl was actually Purple Diamond. After all, the Jewel Scepter held a high position, and most magical girls had never seen Purple Diamond's face, so a few employees even tried to declare "No unauthorized personnel allowed."
However, when a few of the employees who recognized Purple Diamond suddenly fell silent, and the magical girls behind Purple Diamond slowly walked into the office, most people felt that something was wrong with the atmosphere. Thus, the entire office fell silent.
No one spoke, only the intermittent sound of the printer swishing paper.
"What do you mean by 'This candidate's family is a major sponsor of the Silver Corridor, so her file must be submitted no matter what'?"
Purple Diamond stood in the doorway, arms folded, eyebrows raised. "Is anyone going to explain this to me?"
Still no one spoke. The magical girls who had been arguing earlier now acted more innocent than anyone else, lowering their heads for fear of being recognized.
"No one is going to explain, so I'm going to handle it based on my own understanding."
Zi Zuan glanced around at the people in the office and slowly raised her voice, "Are you planning to present this kind of result to His Majesty with this attitude?"
The employee sitting next to the printer secretly reached out and pressed the printer's work button. Now, the entire office hall was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
"If I hadn't come, how many of these 'must-report' files would you have planned to slip in? You rubbish, normally you can't even handle the smallest things, and now that you've gotten something in return, you're being so frivolous."
Zi Zuan reached out a hand and knocked on the door frame nearby. The "knock knock" sound echoed in everyone's ears. "Speak up? Aren't you quite talkative? You don't even want to explain? You cherish your lives when doing great things, and forget your principles when you see small gains. This is what I mean by that, a bunch of losers!"
On the way here, Purple Diamond had already lashed out at the Magical Girls accompanying her for their previous cheating incident. Just when she thought she'd had enough and her anger had subsided a bit, she saw this scene in the Magical Affairs Institute. This, like adding fuel to her waning rage, made Purple Diamond's shrill rebuke audible across two corridors.
The numerous Crown employees present were subjected to every insulting word they had ever heard, and they were scolded for over ten minutes, each word repeated. When the Purple Diamond had finished scolding everyone, he showed no sign of leaving. Instead, he took a few steps forward and walked over to one of the employees' workstations.
"Get out of the way. If you can't do it well, I'll do it."
"Sir... This is the job of the Magic Affairs Institute. From the perspective of division of power and responsibilities, you can't..." The employee who was named stammered.
"I don't need a loser to teach me how to do things. Get out of the way, or wait for me to tell you to get out of the way?" Zi Zuan looked at her with an icy gaze.
An ordinary clerk from the Fifth Academy would never have the courage to disobey the Gem Scepter, so the employee left his seat in tears.
"Sifting through archives and recommending promising young people to Your Majesty is a very sacred and serious matter."
Zi Zuan turned around and looked at all the Demonic Affairs Institute employees present. He spoke each word with emphasis: "I will investigate your issues later. From now on, you will do whatever I say."
When she said this, Emerald in the Silver Corridor was still unaware of it.
From an objective point of view, there is actually nothing wrong with Emerald's plan to hide Lin Xiaolu's file.
Use a large amount of information flow to impact and even pollute the vision of the "Crown Faction" personnel, so as to prevent Lin Xiaolu's file from being seen for the first time; then quickly increase the viewing authority of the file, so that even if the other party browses the archives later, they will not be able to find any traces; then transfer the file to the research institute, under the pretext of "using it for a confidential research project", so as to block any subsequent possible inquiries.
If the operation was legal and the process was secret, and everything went smoothly, no one would even know that such a file had been secretly withdrawn. Even if someone discovered any clues, they would not bother the Gem Scepter for such a "small matter".
Emerald thought that while this plan wasn't foolproof, the chances of it being exposed were slim to none. To obtain evidence, a Gem Scepter would have to personally visit the Institute of Magic Affairs within ten minutes of Lin Xiaolu's file being uploaded, bypass the Royal Court's authority, illegally interfere with the Crown Faction's work, access the Institute's archives using their own identity, and then find Lin Xiaolu's file amidst the vast sea of files. At that moment, it was impossible for any Gem Scepter to be free to undertake such a feat.
Of course, the premise of all this is "no accidents".
When Purple Diamond used his own authority to forcibly access the database of the Demonic Affairs Institute and stubbornly wanted to filter out all the "unqualified" files, he kept tracing back to the source, and finally found the file marked "S+" in an extremely hidden directory. This marked the beginning of the "accident".
Purple Diamond, who had been frowning since entering the Magic Academy, as if nothing could make her happy, became dull after seeing this file.
"...What the hell is this? Did the people at the research institute make this up?"
(End of this chapter)
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