Chapter 19: New Adventurer Bern (17). Promotion Request
Sergio, the Chief Secretary of the Golden Cloud Palace who served the Crown Prince, was a veteran official with over forty years of experience in the imperial palace.
He had worked through the reign of the previous emperor—grandfather to the current Crown Prince—and had assisted numerous members of the royal family over the decades.
When the Emperor began transferring some of his administrative duties to the Crown Prince under the pretext of succession training, Sergio was dispatched to assist him. At the time, Sergio’s colleagues regarded the appointment with concern.
“Wait, isn’t the Crown Prince still in the middle of his succession education? There’s no way he has time to handle actual governance. You’ll end up doing all the work yourself.”
“You’d be lucky if all you did was work. If something goes wrong and they need a scapegoat... sigh.”
Even among officials like Sergio, the education of the imperial family in Aizern was so grueling, “harsh” felt like an understatement.
There’s only so much one human can learn at once, yet they were expected to master every field under the sun. Most royals ended up focusing only on subjects they liked, studying the rest just enough to save face—or skipping them altogether.
But the current Crown Prince wasn’t skipping anything. He was diligently completing every subject that others treated as mere formalities.
The teachers, who had spent years dragging half-hearted students through classes, were thrilled. The officials assigned to assist the Crown Prince, however—including Sergio—were much less enthused.
Even though the Emperor had only handed over a portion of his work, it still required the paperwork capacity of a count managing their own territory.
For someone like the Crown Prince, who had no practical experience, it was an impossible volume—especially while continuing his full education.
Just as his colleagues had warned, it would fall on Sergio and the other officials of the Golden Cloud Palace to handle most of it.