Chapter 359: The Reason for the Unexpected Occurrence

"I am deeply sorry, Your Excellency Purple Diamond. Your Majesty feels fatigued and has decided to rest within the palace for a day. The originally scheduled city tour has been postponed. We apologize for not notifying you in time; please forgive us."

At the gate leading to the Rose Palace in the Rune Norre Academy District, a young knight clad in black armor bowed deeply to express her apology.

Standing before her were the Purple Diamond and the magical girls of the Huangguan Sect belonging to the Ministry of Magical Affairs.

According to the original plan, today and tomorrow were days for the Queen to personally tour the Rune Norre city area, comfort the people, and hold events.

The reason these two days were chosen is that the qualification certification assessment happened to be at the stage of Magi-Armor testing, and this particular test was inconvenient for spectators. Therefore, the secretaries of the Wang Ting seized the opportunity to schedule the city tour.

After all, in a few days, when the assessment reaches the final two items, the Queen will inevitably have to return to the spectator seats of the examination hall. And after the assessment ends, she cannot possibly continue to stay in Rune Norre—the Magic Kingdom is so vast, and many cities await Your Majesty's visit.

Considering this, the magical girl officials of Rune Norre attached great importance to this matter, as it could be described as a crucial opportunity for them to demonstrate their governance results to the Queen. From the Emerald District to the Academy District, from the Zero-Magic District to the city outskirts, every corner was spotless and decorated with lanterns and banners. At this very moment, they were waiting anxiously in the City Hall for the Queen's arrival!

And now, the sole protagonist of this event, Her Majesty the Queen, actually says she needs to rest for a day and simply won't come?

The Huangguan Sect magical girls present exchanged glances, 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 simultaneously converged on the very front of the crowd—that is, on the Purple Diamond.

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

Bathed in everyone's gaze, this current Diamond Scepter maintained a solemn expression and an upright posture, as if pondering how to handle the current scene. After a long silence, she finally nodded to the knight before her, then turned around and looked at the magical girls of the Ministry of Magical Affairs:

"I understand. Send someone to the City Hall to notify them to postpone the event. As for you, lead the way now; I am going to the Ministry of Magical Affairs."

Her words made the hearts of the Ministry of Magical Affairs crowd sink.

Here it comes.

They thought silently in their hearts, unable to help but sigh.

All magical girls affiliated with the Five Institutes knew that the current Purple Diamond was a very strict leader who tolerated no sand in her eyes and particularly enjoyed overstepping her authority.

Although she was merely the Gem Scepter of the Treasury Institute, as long as a magical girl did something that displeased her, she would criticize them without mercy, even punishing the other party.

Among the other major institutes, the Investigation Institute and the Research Institute were fine; because the Yellow-Green Gem Scepter and the current Diamond had a distant relationship, and the jurisdictions of the two institutes were clearly defined, the Purple Diamond had little room to interfere. But the magical girls of the Civil Administration Institute and the Ministry of Magical Affairs were in big trouble. The Ruby of the Civil Administration Institute shared similar stances with the Purple Diamond and did not involve herself in miscellaneous matters; the Ministry of Magical Affairs had no Gem Scepter at all, merely a power that had been carved up. This resulted in magical girls in these two institutes frequently being severely scolded by the Purple Diamond for offending her.

At present, these magical girls of the Huangguan Sect in the Ministry of Magical Affairs were exactly in such a situation.

During the written test of the qualification certification a few days ago, the "Chaos Spell Cheating" incident erupted, causing the Purple Diamond to fixate on them. These past few days, she had criticized them every now and then regarding this matter, and now, the other party was obviously going to continue to make a fuss out of nothing and come to the Ministry of Magical Affairs to "guide the work."

Will it ever end? Is this your first time being an official? You love to escalate issues and get your official thrill so much. Never seen a Gem Scepter so idle and yet so cheap. What does the work of our Ministry of Magical Affairs have to do with you, a scepter of the Treasury Institute? Don't you have your own work to be busy with?

This sentence was probably the inner voice of many of the magical girls present, but no matter how much they criticized in their hearts, they could not possibly say this sentence out loud.

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

At this very moment in the Ministry of Magical Affairs, a group of clerks from the Huangguan Sect were working themselves to exhaustion selecting Magi-Armor files.

In the not-so-large office, more than a dozen people were squeezed in; voices of conversation, phone calls, footsteps, and printing sounds created a cacophony.

The reason selecting a file could cause such chaos is that selecting a file is actually not just "selecting" a file.

In an assessment of thousands of candidates, at least four digits of those with Magi-Armor scores reaching "Briza" or above existed; among these files, which ones were considered "having potential" was actually a very subjective matter.

Not only did every file entered need to undergo discussion and voting, but some files that had been pre-arranged also needed a "reason for being selected."

The daughter of a leader's friend? A junior from the Silver Corridor high-ups? A student of a senior instructor at the Research Institute? Too, too many candidates with connections who were requested to receive special care. It was difficult to tamper with the results of other links in the assessment; this Magi-Armor test, conversely, had become the most important stage for using personal connections.

However, special care did not mean one could pass oneself off as something one is not. These selected files would eventually be reported to the Wang Ting; if it got too out of hand and files that were obviously unworthy were sent up, everyone would suffer when the Wang Ting blamed them later.

Therefore, "how to package those files with nepotism" became a difficulty for many Huangguan Sect employees. Everyone is Grade B; why recommend you? Files bright enough naturally need no further explanation; they would be selected through the normal process anyway. But at the same time, what arguments should be used for those relatively ordinary Magi-Armors with no obvious characteristics to sneak them in?

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

And when the Purple Diamond arrived, several clerks in the office were arguing heatedly over whether a pre-arranged file could actually be reported.

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

But when a few employees who recognized the Purple Diamond suddenly fell silent, and the magical girls behind the Purple Diamond slowly walked into the office, the vast majority felt that the atmosphere seemed a bit off. Thus, the entire office fell silent.

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

— "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'?"

The Purple Diamond stood at the door, arms crossed, eyebrows raised: "Is anyone planning to explain this to me?"

Still no one spoke; those few magical girls who had been arguing previously now acted more innocent than anyone else, each lowering their heads, afraid of being recognized.

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

The Purple Diamond scanned the people in the office once, slowly raising her voice: "Do you intend to present such results to Your Majesty with this attitude?"

The employee sitting by the printer secretly reached out and turned off the printer's operation key; now, the entire office was so quiet that a pin dropping could be heard.

"If I hadn't come, how many of these 'must-be-reported' files did you actually plan to mix in? You trash, you can't even handle small matters properly; now that you encounter benefits, your minds are so active?"

The Purple Diamond extended one hand, tapping on the nearby door frame; the "knock, knock" sound echoed in everyone's ears: "Speak up? Aren't you quite talkative? You don't even want to explain? To cherish one's life when doing great deeds but forget righteousness for small gains—that phrase describes you lot of useless things!"

On the way here, this Purple Diamond had already scolded the accompanying magical girls dog-bloodily over the previous cheating incident. Just when she seemed to have scolded enough and her anger had subsided somewhat, she encountered this scene in the Ministry of Magical Affairs. This was like adding fuel to the gradually extinguishing fire, causing the Purple Diamond's sharp scolding to be audible even across two corridors.

The many Huangguan Sect employees present could be said to have been described by every insulting vocabulary they had ever heard or never heard, scolded for over ten minutes without repeating a single phrase. And when this Purple Diamond had finished scolding people, she still showed no sign of leaving; instead, she stepped forward a few more steps and walked to the workstation of one person:

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

"Y-Your Excellency... this is the work of the Ministry of Magical Affairs; from the perspective of jurisdictional division, you cannot..." the named employee stammered.

"I do not need trash to teach me how to act. Move aside, or do you want me to tell you to get out?" The Purple Diamond looked at her with an icy gaze.

Ordinary clerks of the Five Institutes simply did not have the courage to disobey a Gem Scepter, so this employee left her seat with tears in her eyes.

"Selecting files and recommending promising juniors to Your Majesty is a very sacred, very solemn matter."

The Purple Diamond turned to look at all the Ministry of Magical Affairs employees present, enunciating every word: "I will investigate your problems later. Starting now, whatever I say, you will do."

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

From an objective perspective, the plan used by the Emerald to hide Lin Xiaolu's file actually had no problems.

Use a massive flow of information to overwhelm and even pollute the vision of the "Huangguan Sect" personnel, preventing Lin Xiaolu's file from being seen immediately; then rapidly upgrade the viewing permissions for that file, so that even if the other party reviews the file archive afterwards, they cannot find traces; next, transfer the file to the Research Institute, euphemistically calling it "for confidential research projects," thereby blocking any subsequent inquiries.

The operation was compliant, the process was secret; if everything went smoothly, no one would even know that such a file had been secretly withdrawn. Even if someone discovered some clue, it would be impossible for them to trouble a Gem Scepter over such a "small matter."

In the Emerald's view, although this plan could not be described as foolproof, the possibility of exposure was almost non-existent. To catch evidence, within ten minutes of Lin Xiaolu's file being uploaded, a Gem Scepter would have to personally go to the Ministry of Magical Affairs, bypass the Wang Ting's permission restrictions, illegally interfere with the Huangguan Sect's work, access the Ministry of Magical Affairs' file archive using her own identity, and happen to find Lin Xiaolu's file amidst that vast sea of files. And at this current time point, it was impossible for any Gem Scepter to have the free time to do such a thing.

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

When the Purple Diamond forcibly accessed the Ministry of Magical Affairs' database using her own permissions, stubbornly wanting to filter out all those "unqualified" files, so she kept tracing back, and finally, under a very hidden directory, discovered the file marked "S+," it marked that the "accident" had finally arrived.

And this Purple Diamond, who had been frowning ever since entering the Ministry of Magical Affairs, as if nothing could make her happy, upon seeing this file, had all expressions on her face turn into blankness.

"... What the heck is this thing? Did the people at the Research Institute just make it up?"