Chapter 359: The Reason for the Unexpected Accident

"My deepest apologies, Your Excellency Purple Diamond. His Majesty feels fatigued and has decided to rest in the palace for the day. The originally scheduled city tour is postponed. I am very sorry for not notifying you in time, and I ask for your understanding."

At the gate leading to the Rose Palace in the Lu Ennuo Academy District, a young knight clad in black armor bowed deeply to express her apologies.

Standing before her were Purple Diamond and the magical girls belonging to the Crown Faction of the Ministry of Magic Affairs.

According to the original plan, today and tomorrow were the days for the Queen to personally tour the Lu Ennuo city area, comfort the citizens, and hold events.

The reason these two days were chosen was that the qualification assessment happened to be at the magical equipment testing stage, and this particular test was inconvenient for public viewing. Thus, the secretaries of the Royal Court seized the opportunity to schedule the city tour.

After all, in a few days, when the assessment reached its final two stages, the Queen would inevitably have to return to the audience seats of the examination hall. Once the assessment concluded, she could not possibly linger in Lu Ennuo—the magical kingdom was so vast, with many other cities awaiting Her Majesty's visit.

Considering this, the magical girl officials of Lu Ennuo attached great importance to the matter, as this could be said to be an important opportunity for them to showcase their governance achievements to the Queen. From the Emerald District to the Academy District, from the non-magical zone to the edge of the city, every corner was clean and decorated with lanterns. At this very moment, they were waiting anxiously in the City Hall for the arrival of the Queen's party!

And now, the only protagonist of this event, Her Majesty the Queen, actually said she was resting for a day and just wasn't coming?

The Crown Faction magical girls present looked at each other, already beginning to think about how to explain this to their colleagues and subordinates. Their gazes first lingered on the black-clad knight at the gate, then unanimously converged on the person at the front of the crowd—that is, Purple Diamond.

At a time like this, only the words of the Gem Scepter could stabilize the situation.

Bathed in everyone's gaze, this current Diamond Scepter had a solemn expression and an upright posture, as if she were thinking about how to deal with the scene before her. After a long silence, she finally nodded to the knight in front of her, then turned around and looked at the magical girls of the Ministry of Magic Affairs:

"I understand. Then send someone to the City Hall to notify them and have them postpone the event. As for you, lead the way now; I am going to the Ministry of Magic Affairs."

Her words caused the hearts of those from the Ministry of Magic Affairs to sink.

Here it comes.

They thought to themselves, unable to stop themselves from sighing.

All magical girls belonging to the Five Ministries knew that the current Purple Diamond was a very strict leader who could not tolerate any flaws and was exceptionally fond of overstepping her authority.

Although she was only the Gem Scepter of the Ministry of Finance, if any magical girl did something that did not meet her expectations, she would criticize and even punish the other party without any regard for their feelings.

Among the other major ministries, the Ministry of Investigation and the Ministry of Research were fine because the Yellow-Green Gem Scepter and the current Diamond were distant, and the two ministries had clear-cut duties, leaving Purple Diamond with little room for interference. But the magical girls of the Ministry of Civil Governance and the Ministry of Magic Affairs were out of luck; the Pigeon Blood Red of the Ministry of Civil Governance had a similar stance to Purple Diamond and did not concern herself with miscellaneous matters, while the Ministry of Magic Affairs had no Gem Scepter at all and was merely a place where power was carved up. This resulted in magical girls in these two ministries often being severely reprimanded by Purple Diamond for offending her.

At this moment, these Crown Faction magical girls of the Ministry of Magic Affairs were in exactly that situation.

The "Chaos Spell Cheating" incident that broke out during the written exam for the qualification assessment a few days ago had made Purple Diamond target them. She had been criticizing them for it every few days, and now, the other party was clearly going to continue using it as a pretext to follow them to the Ministry of Magic Affairs to "guide their work."

Is there no end to this? Is this your first time being an official? You love to make a mountain out of a molehill and play the official; I’ve never seen a Gem Scepter so idle yet so degrading. What does our work at the Ministry of Magic Affairs have to do with you, a Scepter from the Ministry of Finance? Don't you have your own work to do?

This sentence was likely the inner voice of many magical girls present, but no matter how much they grumbled, they could not possibly say it out loud.

Therefore, on the surface, they could only obediently follow the other party's instructions and honestly lead her to the Ministry of Magic Affairs.

At this moment in the Ministry of Magic Affairs, one group of clerks from the Crown Faction was busy to the point of exhaustion selecting magical equipment files.

The office, which was not very large, was packed with over a dozen people, and the sounds of conversation, telephone calls, footsteps, and printing were a chaotic mess.

The reason why selecting files could be so chaotic was that selecting files was not actually just "selecting" files.

With thousands of candidates in one assessment, at least four digits of them had magical equipment scores reaching "Briza" or higher. Among these files, which ones counted as "having potential" was actually a very subjective matter.

Not only did every file entered need to be discussed and voted upon, but some files that had been given a heads-up beforehand also needed a "reason for being selected."

The daughter of a leader's friend? A junior of the Silver Corridor’s upper management? A student of a senior instructor at the Ministry of Research? There were too many candidates with connections who were requested to be given special care. It was difficult to tamper with the results of other parts of the assessment, so this magical equipment test became the main stage for utilizing personal connections.

However, special care did not mean one could pass off inferior goods. These selected files would eventually be reported to the Royal Court. If things went too far and files that were obviously undeserving were sent up, no one would benefit when the Royal Court blamed them later.

Therefore, "how to package those files with nepotism" became a difficult problem for many Crown Faction employees. Everyone is Grade B, so why recommend you? Naturally, files that were sufficiently eye-catching didn't need to be mentioned and would be selected according to normal procedures. But at the same time, what kind of rhetoric could be used to mix in those relatively ordinary magical equipment files that lacked distinct features?

These messy, foul-smelling matters mixed with the normal assessment process naturally made the originally simple work incomparably complex.

And when Purple Diamond arrived, several clerks in the office were arguing incessantly over whether a file that had been given a heads-up could be reported.

At first, no one even realized that the short magical girl who had walked in silently was Purple Diamond. After all, Gem Scepters held noble status, and the vast majority of magical girls had never seen Purple Diamond's face, so a few employees even tried to declare, "Unauthorized personnel are prohibited from entering."

However, when the few employees who recognized Purple Diamond suddenly fell silent, and the magical girls behind Purple Diamond slowly walked into the office, the vast majority felt that the atmosphere was somewhat wrong. Thus, the entire office fell silent just like that.

No one spoke; only the sound of the printer spitting out paper was intermittent.

—"What do you mean by 'this candidate's family is a major sponsor of the Silver Corridor, so her file must be reported no matter what'?"

Purple Diamond stood at the door, arms crossed, eyebrows arched: "Is someone planning to explain this to me?"

Still, no one spoke. The few magical girls who had been arguing earlier now appeared more innocent than anyone else, each lowering their heads, fearing they would be recognized.

"If no one intends to explain, then I will handle it according to my own understanding."

Purple Diamond scanned everyone in the office and slowly raised her voice: "Is this the attitude you intend to use to bring these results before Her Majesty?"

The employee sitting next to the printer secretly reached out and pressed the printer's stop button. Now, the entire office was so quiet that a pin drop could be heard.

"If I hadn't come, how many of these 'must be reported' files were you planning to mix in? You trash, you can't handle even the smallest task, but now that there's a benefit, your minds are suddenly so active?"

Purple Diamond reached out a hand and tapped on the nearby door frame. The "tap-tap" sound echoed in everyone's ears: "Speak! Weren't you quite capable of talking? Don't even want to explain now? 'Cherishing one's own life while doing great things, forgetting righteousness upon seeing small profits'—this saying describes you bunch of losers!"

On the way here, this Purple Diamond had already scolded the accompanying magical girls to pieces because of the previous cheating incident. Just when she seemed to have scolded enough and her anger had dissipated somewhat, she encountered such a scene in the Ministry of Magic Affairs. This was like adding fuel to the dying fire, making Purple Diamond's sharp reprimands audible across two hallways.

The many Crown Faction employees present could be said to have been described by every insulting term they had ever heard in their lives, and they were scolded for a full ten minutes without a single repetition. When this Purple Diamond had scolded enough, she still showed no signs of leaving, but instead took a few steps forward to the workstation of one of the people:

"Move aside. If you can't do it well, then I will do it."

"Y-Your Excellency... this is the work of the Ministry of Magic Affairs. From the perspective of the division of authority, you cannot..." the named employee stammered.

"I don't need trash to teach me how to do my job. Move aside, or are you waiting for me to tell you to get lost?" Purple Diamond looked at her with an icy gaze.

Ordinary clerks of the Five Ministries could not possibly have the courage to defy a Gem Scepter, so this employee left her seat with tears in her eyes.

"Selecting files and recommending promising juniors to Her Majesty is a very sacred and very serious matter."

Purple Diamond turned back to look at all the Ministry of Magic Affairs employees present, enunciating every word: "I will pursue your problems later. From now on, do whatever I say."

When she said these words, at the same time in the Silver Corridor, Emerald was still unaware.

From an objective point of view, Emerald's plan to hide Lin Xiaolu's file actually had no problems.

Using a massive influx of information to impact and even pollute the vision of the "Crown Faction" personnel, avoiding Lin Xiaolu's file being seen at the first opportunity; then quickly raising the viewing permissions of that file so that the other party could not find any traces even if they flipped through the file library later; then transferring the file to the Ministry of Research, under the guise of "using it for a confidential research project," thereby blocking any subsequent inquiries.

The operation was compliant, the process was secret, and if everything went smoothly, no one would even know that such a file had been secretly transferred. Even if someone discovered some clues, they could not possibly go and trouble a Gem Scepter for such a "small matter."

In Emerald's mind, this plan could not be called foolproof, but the possibility of exposure was almost non-existent. To catch evidence, one would have to have a Gem Scepter personally go to the Ministry of Magic Affairs within ten minutes of Lin Xiaolu's file being uploaded, bypass the Royal Court's permission restrictions, violate regulations to interfere with the Crown Faction's work, use their own identity to access the Ministry of Magic Affairs' file library, and happen to find the one belonging to Lin Xiaolu among that vast sea of files. At this point in time, it was impossible for any Gem Scepter to have the leisure to do such a thing.

Of course, all of this was based on the premise of "no accidents."

When Purple Diamond forcibly accessed the Ministry of Magic Affairs' database with her own permissions and, out of stubbornness, wanted to filter out all those "unqualified" files, she kept tracing back to the source. Finally, when she discovered that file marked "S+" in a very hidden directory, it signaled that the "accident" had finally arrived.

And this Purple Diamond, who had been frowning ever since she entered the Ministry of Magic Affairs as if nothing could make her happy, saw all the expressions on her face turn to dullness after seeing this file.

"...What the hell is this? Did the people from the Ministry of Research make this up?"