Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1182 The Civil Servant's Career in the Imperial Guard (First Update)

The Royal Guard was a magnificent genetic engineering feat. Even Maya Hansen, who helped the Emperor create them, couldn't fully comprehend its technological principles. Her greatest invention, the Extremis virus, was merely one of many tools used in the third stage of modification, involving tens of thousands of steps. Subsequent tests on test subjects demonstrated that the Royal Guard's genetic engineering encapsulation ensured its genetic information wouldn't leak. Ordinary blood-sucking insects showed no change in response to the Royal Guard's blood; in fact, they would flee from the compounds secreted by the Royal Guard's sweat glands for protection and cleansing.

Some research suggests that more advanced factors may play a decisive role. The Sora Redlin Druids discovered that even with sweat gland secretion of compounds that keep insects away from the Praetorian Guard's body, the compounds' effectiveness in repelling mosquitoes diminishes to varying degrees. Considering the Sora Redlin Druids' involvement in genetic engineering, they believe that the radiation emitted by the Praetorian Guard's shaped souls might be forcing mosquitoes away.

High Priestess Mary believed this was because the Emperor had elevated the Royal Guard through his own soul. As a perfect human being, the Emperor would influence all species in the food chain, and the Royal Guard possessed some similar potential abilities. However, this claim lacked empirical evidence. The Emperor would not allow them to dabble in genetic modification processes controlled by others; anyone who did so would face the punishment of complete obliteration from the material universe and the sea of ​​souls.

Regardless, the Royal Guard had no need to worry about encountering naturally evolved blood-sucking insects. Therefore, Constantine simply laughed off Supiluliumas's joke. Even the Royal Guard's portion of supplies sent to South America didn't include mosquito repellent or malaria treatment. The Royal Guard's presence was so strong that even a blind person hundreds of meters away could sense them. Without stealth and holding their breath, the Royal Guard wouldn't even have the chance to catch wild animals for food. However, according to Constantine, Supiluliumas's powered armor's life support system wasn't consuming as much nutritional paste as expected, indicating that his daily life in the South American rainforest wasn't monotonous.

"Give my regards to Camilla, Supilulius. She mentioned your help several times in her briefings." Constantine ended the call on the communication network, sat behind the main desk in the monarch's office, and continued to handle official business. The desk and chair, specially designed to accommodate the superhuman physique, allowed Constantine to sit comfortably in his armor. The extraordinary ergonomic design made the user very comfortable, unlike the uncomfortable throne in the hall.

Now that neither the monarch nor the regent is in the castle, Constantine, who also holds high-level authority, has to liaise with Stephanie Malik, the chief of the Council of State in the Ministry of the Interior, to approve some of the instructions and work reports that the monarch had previously given to various departments, and then hand them over to the staff for numbering and archiving so that people with the corresponding authority can access them in the future.

This part of the work was not complicated; it was mostly repetitive, as it was all done by the departments below to fulfill the emperor's tasks. For example, the system of preachers was retained after the war at the request of the regent, and a group of educated scholars, garrison officers, and full-time preachers who came to Latvia from the Immortal City entered the free adult night school.

While educating the vast majority of Yugoslav people in skills and knowledge to secure jobs in the ever-growing factories and solve their basic needs, they explained the emperor's decrees to them in the most direct way possible, avoiding the malicious distortions of social media in the information age. They used materialism, science, and rationality to explain to these commoners the emperor's grand ideal of uniting the people of the world, and the necessity of waging war to reclaim them from the modern system of slavery constructed by the comprador class and hypocritical politicians. They cultivated support for the emperor among the common people and provided pathways to join his cause—a union dedicated to the liberation of all humanity, an organization that united everyone regardless of class, race, or other external factors.

This was no easy task, but the Regent demanded that these preachers be deployed to every free school in the country. This order came with a massive amount of infrastructure construction, orders for book printing plants, desks and chairs, power grid layout, and the arrangement of labor camp courses, among other things. Stephanie Malik and Diana Lister, with their genius for coordination, managed this long and arduous task, breaking down the order into different parts and distributing them to various departments. The Ministry of the Interior ensured that the departments worked in sync with each other at an extremely high efficiency, making them as coordinated and efficient as the legs of a long-distance runner.

In this newly formed union, the efficiency of the Ministry of the Interior was key to the initial realization of the Emperor's grand vision. For this reason, the Ministry of the Interior's authority was second only to the Regent. Stephanie Malik, who had almost all of the Emperor's trust, was also keen to exercise the power in her hands—such as putting drugs that could reduce personal desires into the drinking water of lower-ranking civil servants. This was not the first time Stephanie Malik had thought of doing this. She also planned to adjust the civil servants' chairs so that they could sit comfortably while maintaining an uncomfortable recline, so that they could work more efficiently.

Comfort means ease, ease means laziness, laziness means obesity, obesity means laziness, laziness means dereliction of duty, and dereliction of duty is the crime that the Malik family cannot tolerate the most.

Even though Constantine had anticipated the extent of Stephanie Malik's madness, the reality far exceeded his expectations. Stephanie Malik seemed to know that neither the Emperor nor the Regent was at the castle, and that Constantine, the Commander of the Guard, was handling official business. Therefore, she rushed into the office, trying to persuade Constantine to approve her extreme ideas, emphasizing that these measures would significantly improve the efficiency of the entire administrative system. However, Constantine did not agree to her seemingly absurd proposals until Stephanie Malik's next meeting began. Stephanie Malik promised to return, and the Commander of the Guard pessimistically believed that the disturbance would not stop until the monarch or the Regent returned.

After finishing the repetitive tasks at hand, Constantine began to try out another challenge.

But he soon regretted it.

The previous work was just the tip of the iceberg of endless tasks. Besides these, there were issues concerning the military, industry, culture, and public security; twelve discussions on judicial regulations with legal scholars and judges; five conversations with the provincial garrison commander and political commissar; and talks with the transportation department on developing a cross-provincial high-speed maglev train network… The tedious numbers on each schedule, forecast, and suggestion document were raising Constantine's blood pressure. The countdown to their arrival at the castle continued relentlessly, and every second that passed on the schedule made Constantine more irritable. If he had to attend meetings in place of the monarch, it meant he had to thoroughly understand the meaning behind these numbers.

He couldn't fathom how a monarch could so quickly and precisely conjure up the most suitable solution from a blank slate, then magically identify the most appropriate person to carry out the order and the method of execution, before issuing directives to coordinate the necessary resources. Just looking at the documents—problems arising from the bottom of the administrative system, petitions from the common people, disputes between departments—made him irritable, to the point that his power armor's life support and temperature control system had to activate to lower his body temperature and blood pressure in his non-exercise state. Constantine seriously doubted whether humans would suddenly die if they took over this work.

He knew that these tasks should have been handled by the administrative system established by the emperor, but there was a severe shortage of manpower available. Many people who could have entered the system were still receiving education. Therefore, both the emperor and the regent had to help the administrative system share the workload to prevent all the available personnel from being overworked.

"I'm back, Constantine. How's your civil service career going?"

The monarch's voice came from behind the guards. Sure enough, Constantine turned to see the monarch's sly smile. He stood up with a sigh of relief; nothing today felt as pleasant as this. Standing felt even more comfortable than sitting in his office chair. "Very bad, my lord," he sighed. "You must not have endowed me with any talent for handling official duties when you created me, otherwise why would I feel those numbers biting my skin?"

"I assure you you have that talent, Constantine. I assure you, what I was holding back then was definitely not a pepper shaker."

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(End of this chapter)