Get off work and become a magical girl

Chapter 376 The Reason for the Accident

"I am very sorry, Your Majesty, His Majesty is feeling tired and has decided to rest in the palace for a day. The planned city tour has been postponed. I apologize for not informing you in time."

At the gate leading to the Rose Palace in the Rune Nore Academy district, a young female knight in black armor bowed deeply to express her apology.

Standing before her were Purple Diamond and magical girls belonging to the Crown Faction of the Magical Institute.

According to the original plan, today and tomorrow were the days when the Queen would personally tour the city of Runenore, comfort the people, and hold events.

The reason it was scheduled for these two days was that the qualification certification assessment was currently in the stage of magic armor testing, and this test was not convenient to observe. Therefore, the royal court's secretaries took advantage of the opportunity to arrange the city inspection segment.

After all, in a few days, when the assessment reaches the last two parts, the Queen will inevitably return to the audience seats in the examination hall. And after the assessment is over, she will not be able to stay in Rune Nore any longer—the magical kingdom is so vast, and there are many cities waiting for Her Majesty's visit.

With this in mind, the magical girl officials of Runenorre took this matter very seriously, as it was a crucial opportunity for them to showcase their governance to the Queen. From the Emerald District to the Academy District, from the magic-free zone to the city's outskirts, every corner was spotless and decorated with lanterns and colorful decorations. At this very moment, they were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Queen and her entourage in the City Hall!
And now, the only protagonist of this event, Her Majesty the Queen, is saying that she needs to rest for a day and is not coming?

The Crown Faction magical girls present exchanged glances, already pondering how to explain to their colleagues and subordinates. Their gazes first lingered on the black-clad knight at the main entrance, and then unanimously focused on the very front of the crowd—namely, Purple Diamond.

At times like this, perhaps only the words of the jeweled scepter can put order.

Bathed in the gazes of the crowd, the current Diamond Scepter stood solemnly, her posture upright, as if contemplating how to handle the current situation. After a long silence, she finally nodded to the knight before her, then turned to look at the magical girls of the Magic Academy:
"I understand. I'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 Magic Academy."

Her words sent a chill down the spines of everyone at the Demon Affairs Institute.

coming.

They thought to themselves, and couldn't help but sigh.

All the magical girls belonging to the Five Academies know that the current Purple Diamond is a very strict leader who cannot tolerate any wrongdoing and has a particular fondness for overstepping his authority.

Although she is only the Jewel Scepter of the Finance Institute, she will reprimand and even punish any magical girl who does something that does not meet her standards.

Among the other departments, the Investigation Department and the Research Department fared relatively well. The Amethyst Scepter and the current Diamond were distant, and the two departments had clearly defined powers, so the Amethyst had little room to interfere. However, the magical girls of the Civil Affairs Department and the Magical Affairs Department were in dire straits. The Pigeon Blood Red of the Civil Affairs Department shared a similar stance with the Amethyst and didn't concern herself with trivial matters; the Magical Affairs Department, on the other hand, didn't possess a Gem Scepter at all, merely a figurehead whose power had been divided. This resulted in magical girls in these two departments frequently being severely reprimanded by the Amethyst for offending her.

Right now, these magical girls from the Crown of the Magical World are just like that.

The "chaos spell cheating" incident that broke out during the qualification certification written test a few days ago has made Purple Diamond keep an eye on them. They have been criticizing them every few days for this incident. Now, it is clear that they want to continue to use this as an excuse to come to the Magic Academy to "guide their work".

Is this ever going to end? Is this your first time being an official? You seem so eager to escalate things and indulge in your bureaucratic fantasies. I've never seen such a leisurely and degrading gem scepter. What business is the work of our Magic Affairs Institute with your Finance Institute scepter? Don't you have your own work to do?

This sentiment likely reflects the feelings of many of the magical girls present, but no matter how much they internally complained, they could never voice it aloud.

Therefore, on the surface, they could only obediently follow the other party's instructions and obediently bring him to the Demon Affairs Institute.

At this very moment, within the Demon Affairs Institute, a group of Crown Faction clerks were frantically busy selecting demon armor files.

The not-so-large service hall was crammed with more than a dozen people, their voices, phone calls, footsteps, and printing noises creating a chaotic cacophony.

The reason why selecting a file can cause such a commotion is that selecting a file is not actually just about "selecting" a file.

An assessment involves thousands of candidates, among whom at least four figures can achieve a magic armor score of "Briza" or higher. Determining which of these candidates "has 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 given prior notice also need a "reason for selection".

The daughter of a leader's friend? A junior colleague of a high-ranking official at the Silver Corridor? A student of a senior faculty member at the research institute? There were far too many candidates with familial ties who were asked to receive special treatment. Since it was difficult to manipulate the scores in other assessment stages, this costume test became the most crucial stage for leveraging personal connections.

However, special consideration does not mean that shoddy work can be accepted. These selected files will eventually be reported to the royal court. If things go too far and files that are obviously not up to standard are sent up, no one will benefit from the royal court's repercussions.

Therefore, "how to package files with nepotism" has become a problem for many Crown faction employees. Everyone is B-rank, so why recommend you? Highly impressive files naturally go without saying and will be selected through normal procedures. But at the same time, what kind of explanation can be used to infiltrate those relatively ordinary magical gear that doesn't show many distinctive features?
These messy and chaotic things, mixed together with the normal assessment process, naturally made what was originally a simple task incredibly complicated.

When Purple Diamond arrived, several clerks in the office were arguing fiercely about whether a file they had already informed them of could be submitted. Initially, no one even realized that the short, magical girl who had quietly walked in was Purple Diamond. After all, the Gem Scepter held a high status, and most magical girls had never seen Purple Diamond's face before. Some employees even tried to declare, "Unauthorized personnel are prohibited from entering."

However, when a few employees who recognized Zizuan suddenly fell silent, and the magical girls behind Zizuan slowly entered the office, most people sensed that something was amiss. And so, the entire office fell silent.

No one spoke; only the intermittent sound of the printer spitting out paper could be heard.

—What do you mean by 'this candidate's family is a major sponsor of Silver Gallery, so we must submit her file no matter what'?

Zizuan stood in the doorway, arms crossed, 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, each with their heads down, afraid of being recognized.

"Since no one is going to explain, I'll just have to handle it according to my own understanding."

Zizuan glanced around at the people in the office and slowly raised her voice: "Is this the attitude you intend to use to present this kind of achievement to His Majesty?"

An employee sitting next to the printer secretly reached out and pressed the printer's operating button, and suddenly, the entire office was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

"If I hadn't come, how many of these 'must-report' files were you planning to slip in? You bunch of trash, you can't even handle the smallest things normally, but now that you've got a benefit, you're all so quick to scheme?"

Zizuan stretched out a hand and knocked on the door frame beside her, the "knock knock" sound echoing in everyone's ears: "Speak up? Weren't you so good at talking? You don't even want to explain anymore? You're all afraid to risk your lives for great things, but you forget righteousness for small gains. That saying perfectly describes you bunch of good-for-nothings!"

On the way here, this Purple Diamond had already given the magical girls accompanying her a thorough dressing-down for the previous cheating incident. Just when she seemed to have finished her tirade and her anger had subsided somewhat, she witnessed this scene at the Magic Academy. This was like adding fuel to the fire of her waning anger, making Purple Diamond's sharp rebuke audible across two corridors.

The numerous Crown employees present were subjected to every insult imaginable, for over ten minutes, without repeating themselves. And when the Purple Diamond employee had finished berating them, he showed no sign of leaving, instead taking a few more steps forward to one of their workstations:
"Get out of the way. If you can't do it right, then I'll do it."

"Your Excellency... This is the work of the Demon Affairs Institute. From the perspective of the division of authority, you cannot..." the employee who was called out stammered.

"I don't need trash to teach me how to do things. Get out of my way, or do you want me to tell you to get lost?" Purple Diamond looked at her with icy eyes.

An ordinary clerk from the Fifth Academy would never dare to disobey the jeweled scepter, so the employee left his seat with tears in his eyes.

“Selecting candidates from the archives and recommending promising juniors to His Majesty is a very sacred and serious matter.”

Zizuan turned to look at all the employees of the Demon Academy present and said, word by word, "I will investigate your problems later. From now on, do whatever I say."

At the time she uttered those words, Emerald was still unaware of what was happening in the Silver Gallery.

Objectively speaking, there was nothing wrong with the plan to use emeralds to hide Lin Xiaolu's file.

The plan involves overwhelming and even polluting the vision of the "Crown Faction" members with a large amount of information to prevent Lin Xiaolu's file from being seen immediately. Then, the access permissions for the file are quickly increased so that even if the other party searches the archives later, they will not be able to find any trace of it. The file is then transferred to the research institute under the guise of "for a confidential research project," thereby blocking any possible follow-up inquiries.

If the operation is compliant, the process is discreet, and everything goes smoothly, no one will even know that such a file has been secretly accessed. Even if someone discovers some clues, they are unlikely to cause trouble for the Gem Scepter over such a "trivial matter."

Emerald believed that while the plan wasn't foolproof, the chance of it being exposed was virtually nonexistent. To gather evidence, a jeweled scepter would need to personally travel to the Demon Academy within ten minutes of Lin Xiaolu's file being uploaded, overstepping the Royal Court's authority, illegally interfering with the Crown Faction's work, using their own identity to access the Demon Academy's archives, and precisely find Lin Xiaolu's file among that vast sea of ​​records. At this point in time, it was simply impossible for any jeweled scepter to have the time to do such a thing.

Of course, all of this is based on the premise that "there are no unexpected events".

When Zizuan forcibly accessed the Demon Academy's database using its privileges and insisted on filtering out all the "unqualified" files, it kept tracing back to the source. Finally, in a very hidden directory, it discovered the file marked "S+". This marked the arrival of the "accident".

Purple Diamond, who had been frowning ever since entering the Demon Academy and seemed unable to find joy in anything, had her expression turn blank upon seeing the file.

"...What is this thing? Did the people at the research institute make this up?"

(End of this chapter)