Reborn as a Mind-Reading Empress
Chapter 45: Work

Chapter 45: Work

It had been a week since Arabella was working as one of Raymond’s assistants. He actually had ten more since he simply had too much work.

There were twelve people in Raymond’s office every day. Raymond, Arabella, five of his assistants, and five of Ferdinand’s.

Raymond’s other five assistants were always sent outside to do other tasks.

While he was away, five of Ferdinand’s assistants worked in Raymond’s office to make discussions faster.

Walking from the Emperor’s office to the Prime Minister’s took a lot of time. Thus, as per Raymond’s instructions, they just brought all the work they needed to discuss with him to his office and did it there so he wouldn’t constantly get asked for an audience and delay things.

In addition, they were all men. Thus, they were happy with Arabella’s presence since the only female who goes in there was Raymond’s wife Clarisse.

From their thoughts, Arabella learned Clarisse only visits when she had free time or when she has something urgent to discuss with Raymond. But she was currently running errands for Raymond, so she was busy.

Since Arabella was there, her maids bring snacks and refreshments for everyone during break time.

The assistants were delighted since her maids were also pretty. The assistants were always busy so they didn’t have the time to meet with the ladies.

She learned from everyone’s thoughts, it was currently especially hectic because they had been busy with the wedding preparations for an entire year.

And yet, just a month after the wedding, Ferdinand left for the borders so Raymond had to do most of his work too.

However, Alwin delivers some of the work to Ferdinand at the border since there are a lot of matters only the Emperor himself could decide upon and sign.

Arabella learned that even when Ferdinand was at war somewhere, Alwin would go back and forth from the palace to his lord to deliver work for him to do.

After all, matters regarding the Empire need to be given attention and pushed forward even if Ferdinand was at war somewhere.

From Raymond’s thoughts, Arabella learned that despite currently being human, Ferdinand still had a very strong body and could go several days without sleep. He doesn’t tire easily too and could go without food for a few days.

After all, dragons usually hunt, eat, and sleep. And she learned Ferdinand was the slumbering type.

He had spent most of his time as a dragon; hibernating. He didn’t even care about eating since he wanted to die but didn’t die no matter how long he slept or starved himself.

A dragon’s body was sturdy after all.

Ferdinand could sleep for an entire decade, century, or even more.

’He truly is very much older than me, isn’t he.’

But she surmised that for long-lived dragons, Ferdinand wasn’t old yet since he had just gotten married to her recently.

Trying to learn more about her husband, Arabella had also been borrowing books about dragons and reading them in her room every night. She might be able to understand Ferdinand more if she learned more about dragons.

After all, Ferdinand in her previous life was the silent cold type who barely said a word so even if she lived a long time with him in the same palace, she barely knew him. She had misunderstood him a lot which led to her mistakes.

She had to understand him more and the same goes for his subjects.

Ferdinand was working hard without his people’s knowledge.

Even most of his knights, except for the highest-ranking ones knew he actually does his work even when he was at war with another territory.

’The people should know he is working hard. Especially his subjects. They should know he is receiving work even in the military camps or forts instead of resting at night.’

In her previous life, a lot of Ferdinand’s subjects turned their backs on him and supported Icarus since they thought Icarus would be a better Emperor than he was.

They thought Ferdinand only ever focused on war and did not care about the details concerning the good of the people.

’I truly have to focus on socializing and try to make Ferdinand attend some events. It would be good if he was in events and mingle with everyone.’

But for a month, Arabella was buried with work in Raymond’s office.

They had so much work to do that she could not even think of socializing or redecorating her room.

Thankfully, the mountain of work that had piled up, gradually decreased until they finally had time to truly enjoy tea time without having to be distracted by the lumps of work they had to do.

"Your Majesty, you are truly good at this. So much work has been done since you were here. I am grateful to have you with us," Raymond said after a sip of his tea.

[Her presence alone boosted the morale of everyone and challenged them to work harder. The assistants were overwhelmed to work with the Empress herself so they made sure they did so much better than they usually did.]

"Oh my, you praise me too much. It’s because everyone worked hard so the piled-up work had greatly diminished," Arabella didn’t want to take the credit since everyone did so much more work than she did.

She worked at a slower pace compared to everyone else so they wouldn’t be suspicious of her.

Raymond still seems to be impressed though since he assumed she would have a hard time learning. He thought that in Lobelius, Arabella was more busy taking care of her beauty than working.

But in Lobelius, she actually had a lot of responsibility as the first princess. Socializing was a normal part of her routine since she was little.

She also had to organize and attend charity events to boost her parents’ image and make her look like a responsible princess.

Though, as a young innocent girl, Arabella was filled with love. She was once kind and gentle so she truly wanted to help people in need and took charity events seriously.

She even had several orphanages built for children without parents. They were now being taken care of by her younger siblings.

Arabella had fulfilled her duties and responsibilities as a princess without a fail.

And to stop her tears after the news of Andrew’s marriage and his only response to her letters; she had thought of marrying Ferdinand as part of her duty even if she was terrified of him.

After all, a strong ally like Valeria was beneficial to their people. The coveted fertile land of Lobelius said to be blessed by the Goddess of Earth herself would have a strong guardian once it was allied with the Empire.

But Arabella forgot all about it when her son died and she mistakenly thought it was true that Ferdinand was the mastermind.

She abandoned her homeland to pursue her revenge which, unknowingly did not have any meaning as she persecuted the wrong person.

In her previous life, Arabella, Ferdinand, and Icarus all died. Which meant no one was left to lead but whoever was secretly in control of the Secret Alliance. And whoever it was probably attacked Lobelius as well.

Arabella prevented herself from sighing as she realized how truly foolish her actions were.

She should have at least thought of Lobelius before ruining the Empire. Making Valeria fall meant making Lobelius vulnerable to attacks after staying under the Empire’s protection for two decades.

"Your Majesty is so humble. You truly did well though," Raymond smiled.

[Everyone did so much more work than the Empress but she greatly performed even though she just began helping us a month ago. She didn’t bend under the pressure of too much work or seeing everyone who could do much more than she could. She diligently worked at her own pace and she grew more efficient little by little. This is already very much praiseworthy for a beginner. No, I can’t even call her a beginner with the quality of her work. There were only a few mistakes and were easy to correct.]

’He is so keen. I did those on purpose so they wouldn’t be suspicious of me.’

Arabella was being careful so they wouldn’t think she was a spy sent by Lobelius. It was possible after all.

If her parents were part of the Secret Alliance, Arabella could have been sent to seduce Ferdinand, gather information, and weaken him.

However, none of the members of the Secret Alliance wanted to use their daughters to try something so dangerous due to the rumors about Ferdinand killing people every single day.

They thought of it as a waste of effort and resources to try since they cannot even predict where Ferdinand usually was if he was not in the palace.

After all, when Alwin was still with him, Ferdinand teleported everywhere.

"Thank you. It must have been because I helped the King and Queen, or the Crown Prince every now and then back in Lobelius," Arabella smiled back politely.