I Was Threatened To Go Out With Her Majesty the Princess

1 – Candidate for Magic Professor to Princess

“I’ll smack it away.”

“What?”

“I’ll retire.”

“Think that’s possible?”

The Minister scoffs. I tossed down the resignation letter I was holding.

Just as the quickly flying resignation letter was about to hit the Minister’s face.

“What’s this?”

The Minister easily snatched my resignation.

Ah, what a shame.

I wanted to smack his face with the letter.

‘This guy’s hands are too quick.’

The Minister waved the white paper containing all my hopes.

I gritted my teeth.

“Anyway Minister. Today I will retire.”

This is already my 35th resignation letter. If he rejects it again, I’ll have to take a dump in front of his house.

“Aren’t you sick of submitting resignations? Stop blabbering and go do your work.”

The Minister tore up my resignation without hesitation.

Riiip.

My hopes are torn apart.

Watching the resignation flutter away like snowflakes, I shrieked in panic.

“Why are you tearing up my resignation letter?! I said I’ll retire!”

“Think you can retire?”

The Minister openly ridiculed me. I know too. It’ll be hard for me to retire. But still.

“Don’t we have the freedom to retire?! Please accept my letter!”

“Freedom to retire?”

The Minister smiled as if saying ‘This guy says such funny things.’

“That ended with the Royal Guards. Inma.”

“Urgh…”

I couldn’t retort back.

“If you want to retire that badly, why not go talk to your father instead?”

“If my father hears I want to quit my job, what do you think he’ll say?”

He’ll drag me to the Emperor after getting all our family’s private soldiers to arrest me and subject me to torture, before pardoning me.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Normally my father wouldn’t care if I retired, but after the big incident last year, if I say I’ll retire he’ll impale my forehead.

Hearing my words, the Minister chuckles.

“See, someone who knows well is saying that. Why do you want to retire anyway? Just stay.”

My 35th resignation letter submission.

Rejected again.

Seeing the tattered remains of what was my resignation letter, I sighed.

The Minister casually waved away my sigh.

He points forward with his thick fingers.

“If you’re done, sit over there.”

“Why did you call me here?”

Sigh… I sat in the chair he pointed at.

I did hand in my resignation as soon as we met, but I was originally called here by the Minister, not to resign.

“Read it.”

The Minister plopped a piece of paper he was reading onto the desk. A familiar paper rolled over and stopped in front of me.

I looked at the Minister in puzzlement. The Minister’s expression seems a bit odd. As if

saying ‘Your difficult path is clearly visible. You’re done for now.’

I carefully picked up the paper.

Only a few lines were written on it.

[…Therefore, for these reasons, Cardian de Judat is registered as a candidate for Her Highness the Princess’s Magic Professor.]

“What the f…”

“Come back safely.”

The cleanly shredded resignation letter flutters to the ground.

The Minister collects all the torn pieces of my letter and throws them in the trash can, then pats me on the shoulder.

“Congratulations on becoming the Princess’s professor.”

“Ah, not yet… it’s not definite yet.”

I’m only registered as a candidate for professor. There’s still a chance I won’t become the professor.

“Think that’s possible? If you don’t become the professor, your father Count Judat will immediately come charging in to kill you.”

I barely stopped myself from nodding.

Our father really might do that.

With the empire’s successor still undecided, the First Princess was the most likely heir.

It’s a chance to become the teacher of the next Emperor. If I turn down this opportunity, my father will immediately come charging in to behead me.

Well… it’s halfway a joke, but still, my father would tell me not to miss this chance.

Woo woo woo.

The communication orb on the Minister’s desk vibrated.

While I was distracted by the paper, the Minister had connected the orb.

And he slid the orb in front of me.

“Huh…? Why are you giving this to me…”

As I was startled by the orb suddenly pushed to me.

A familiar face appears through the orb.

[It’s been a while.]

A thick voice.

Eyes sharp enough to kill with a glance, and an expressionless face as cold as winter.

That familiar face was none other than my one and only father.

[I just heard the news.]

“Yes…Father.”

I glared at the Minister. If my father heard before me, he would’ve contacted my orb. The fact that he called the Minister meant he had business with the Minister and heard my news from him.

[I heard you became a candidate for the First Princess’s Magic Professor?]

“Yes, that’s right.”

[Then do your best to become her official professor. And even if you don’t make it, don’t be too disappointed. And try to stop by home sometime soon.]

“I understand.”

My father spoke in a curt tone.

[Give the orb back to the Minister.]

Without hesitation, I passed the orb to the Minister.

“Count Judat. What business?”

My father and the Minister’s conversation began. I quietly slipped out of the office.

And upon leaving, a deep sigh leaked out.

I returned to my seat. The wiped desk was full of thick documents.

I rolled up my sleeves and picked up a pen. Resignation or not, work is work.

As I processed the piled up work, it wasn’t long before knights came to the Magic Department.

With the palace right next door, the knights’ errands were very quick.

“Cardian de Judat. Congratulations on becoming a candidate for Her Highness the Princess’s Magic Professor. However, because there are too many excellent candidates…(abbreviated)…so to reduce the number of candidates, a problem has been sent from the palace.”

In short, the knight’s long speech meant:

There are too many candidates so they want to cut down the numbers.

The knight held out a magic screening problem to weed out those below a certain level.

“Solve this problem.”

[Find the ‘real magic circuit’ hidden within this magic circuit, and describe in detail the process of finding and solving how to dismantle the ‘real magic circuit’.]

Honestly, if it was hard I wasn’t going to try, but…it was so easy I just solved it straight away.

If it was difficult, I could’ve used lacking skill as a reason not to solve it. But with something this easy, not solving it would just raise needless doubts.

‘Why make the problem so easy?’

It’s a problem any decent magician could pass.

Even if it’s to screen people out, they should’ve made it harder…with something like this, I have no choice but to solve it…

Having to write down the solving process for a problem I could just write the answer for took some time.

But moving my hands quickly and scribbling away, after about 5 minutes I could write up the full solving process. I handed the paper to the knight.

“Please take this.”

“You’re done already?”

“Yes, finished.”

It was a problem with no difficulties whatsoever. Just blatantly screening out magicians below the bar.

Taking the paper, the knight said.

“If the written answer is correct, another knight will come again in two weeks.”

With that, the knight left. And I went up to the Minister’s office again to submit another resignation letter.

…

……

………

Time really flew by. It feels like only a day has passed, but it’s already been 13 days.

The appointment exam is tomorrow, but the professor candidates enter the palace early. Before the exam starts, the First Princess wants to interview us once.

Since I was at the location closest to the palace, I was the first to enter.

“Cardian de Judat. Follow me.”

People from the palace guide me.

I look up at the sky.

A bright, refreshing sky.

Birds are chirping and flying. The lazy sunlight shines warm rays that naturally make me squint.

My arms feel heavy. On my way to submit my 50th resignation letter, half of the 100 white papers, after submitting one letter every day since the 36th letter.

I’m headed to the palace.

“Damn it.”

Can’t even retire when I want.

Should’ve retired after that incident 3 years ago.

Of course, even if I retired, an imperial order would still have to be followed, so whether I retired or not, if I was living in the empire I would’ve ended up dragged to the palace like this anyway.

Thud, I entered the palace.

The palace was glamorous. It would be hard to find a palace this lavish anywhere in the world. But having seen this magnificence so many times, I don’t really feel anything anymore.

Wanting to quickly take care of business and leave, I first headed not to the pre-exam interview location, but to the Intelligence Division.

Since I came early, there was still time left. So.

It was time to go meet the undead that descended on the people.