Lord of Charm



"Must be your first time here, here are the offices of those in the Chief rank or above."

Kisuke followed the guard inside and was led to an office on the first floor. The hallway was a long corridor, with white walls and nothing to see. It emphasized efficiency, and the inside of the building didn't waste space on decorations.

"Make sure to be extra respectful when you talk to Chief Shirokami. Only magi can have the position of a chief, so besides being higher ranked, he is also extremely powerful and talented. If you can get into his good books, you can only benefit from it in the future."

"Yes, Sir. I will do my best to leave a good impression on him."

The guard knocked on the door and opened it as soon as he got a response. He saluted to the man inside before speaking. 

"Sir, Urara Kisuke is here to report."

"You may go now, leave us alone."

"Yes, Sir."

The guard who led Kisuke to the chief's office left the place, leaving Kisuke alone with the chief.

"Kisuke, no need for formalities, we're here alone. Come have a seat, you've done great merit for the dynasty today."

"Thank you, Sir."

The magus had long white hair, and his body was ripped with muscles. The uniforms sat tightly on him, and his squared head fitted his body proportions.

Kisuke was wondering if he needed help to close those uniforms every day or if he could shove himself into them all by himself. Kisuke sat down on the chair that Shirokami pointed at and waited for him to speak.

"Can you tell me again how you came to know of the guards' plan to attack the prince?"

"Sir, I arrived early today because I didn't want to be late, and that was when I heard the guards whispering about their plans."

Kisuke was ready for this question to pop up; it was indeed weird that he knew to warn the guards outside in advance. However, he simply had to stick to his initial story. As long as there were no contradictions, he was safe.

"What did they say?"

"Sir, their words were offensive to the imperial family."

"Don't worry, you only need to repeat their words."

"Yes, Sir. They said that they were tired of guarding the spoiled prince for a low wage and that they want the prince to stop staying in his room so they can get more merit points by guarding him outside."

It wasn't even a complete lie. They did complain about the fact that the prince never left his house to go outside, preventing them from earning more merit points.

"Is that all?"

"No, Sir. They agreed that one of them would enter the prince's house with a mask and heavily injure him, while the other would wait outside and come in the nick of time to save the prince and get many merit points. I assume they planned to share it later, but I already left to report this matter to guards outside and didn't hear the rest."

Shirokami gave Kisuke a contemplative look while thinking about what he just described.

'Are they really this stupid? Even if the other guard saved the prince, he'd still be executed for letting a suspicious man enter the prince's house and beat him up.'

Although Kisuke knew that the Chief would find the story weird, the guards were already dead, and the only evidence they had was reality and his words. Since they didn't contradict each other, they had no choice but to accept it.

"I'm going to put some pressure on you to make sure you speak the truth, do you want to say anything else before we do it?"

Shirokami gave Kisuke one last chance to add facts that he might have "forgotten" to mention.

"I'm ready, Sir. I've said everything I had to say."

Kisuke had nothing to be stressed about. Since he had done a meritorious deed, the Chief wouldn't break his mind with too much pressure. Since the Chief thought he was only a magician, he wouldn't use pressure stronger than 1 MSU.

Kisuke distorted his face in pain as the Chief pressured his mind.

"Tell me everything you didn't mention earlier."

"Sir, I've mentioned everything earlier!"

'I guess they were really just stupid.'

The Chief thought to himself as he canceled the pressure. The possibility that Kisuke was an advanced mage who could resist pressure higher than 70 MSU never crossed his mind.

"For your merits, you deserve some prizes. First, for warning the guards in advance, you get 10,000 merit points. Second, for protecting the prince with your body despite the threat of death, you get 15,000 points. Keep up your hard work and you can advance to the next rank soon."

"Thank you, Sir."

"You're free to go."

Kisuke left the chief's office with a smile on his face and returned to his room.

'I need to climb the ranks as fast as I can. With a high enough rank, I can easily find a way to the treasury. Once I take what I need, I can just run away from the dynasty to the empire.'

Right now, Kisuke had 25,170 merit points in his account. The other recruits had 0 since they couldn't even take missions. He would get to the Sergeant rank much faster than the normal year and a half most people needed.

Since he had a sixth-rank sword, he didn't need to spend hundreds or thousands of points to upgrade his weapon, and since he didn't practice normally, he didn't have a reason to buy resources to advance.

'I can't orchestrate such events in the near time, or else it will become too suspicious. Since the prince listens to everything I say, I should instruct him to go outside and ask for me to escort him.'

Despite learning how to use a sword in the morning, he didn't mind missing some lessons. After all, he already developed his fighting style and didn't plan to switch it with the Chijakor's style.