Reborn as a Mind-Reading Empress
Chapter 516: I’ll Give You A Month

Chapter 516: I’ll Give You A Month

[Someone more powerful than His Eminence? No way! He is said to be the most powerful magician in all of Eliora. No, in the whole world.]

"No, Your Majesty."

"Indeed. If there was, that person would have been recruited to the Magic Tower already before they had a chance to apply for the selection. His Excellency had also ensured that none of that would happen. I believe he is known for his attention to detail and he truly did foresaw such things may happen, so he had asked His Eminence for help."

[What should I do?! I didn’t know His Excellency was the one who prepared the selection. Clarisse will get angry and scold me that I’m ruining her husband’s reputation. If she tells Father and Mother, I will be punished.]

’Oh, so they punish her. What kind of punishment do they give her? Her parents seem to be strict, yet she was also pampered. She seems more scared of them than me.’

"My apologies, Your Majesty. I didn’t know something like that was set up," Narcissa admitted.

"This why you should verify with your superiors first before doing something. If you had spoken to me or written to me about your suspicions, I could have enlightened you about these before you made a mistake. Accusing someone without proof is also very dangerous. This could have led to something so much bigger," Arabella reiterated.

Narcissa glanced down at her tea as she was scolded.

"His Excellency was also the one who gave me piles of profiles of exam passers which he deemed were qualified to work as my assistants. I chose from those profiles and the ones I have chosen were summoned to participate in the selection," Arabella added.

"Everyone was already pre-selected?!"

’It seems she’s also sheltered as I was before. Or even more.’

"Of course. Someone who would work for the palace had to be chosen carefully. There is a lot things to be considered so prequalification and preselection were necessary. Their eligibilities and backgrounds also had to be checked for safety purposes.

"Thus, everyone in the selection were already deemed virtuous and capable enough not to do any cheating because everyone there was already the best among the best.

"But we had to choose further because I also had to pick who I think was most suitable for what I needed in my assistants, and I needed to be sure that they could truly perform well. And I could only pick ten even though everyone was capable."

[I didn’t know they had done that in advance!]

"These are the results the four of you had in the selection. The four of you had the best results."

Arabella let Narcissa see that Ivan ranked first in everything. Odette came next, Nadia was third, and Narcissa was fourth.

[They did very well. Why? Why are they so much better than me? I studied all my life. What do they have that I don’t?!]

"Why? Why is everyone better than me?!" Narcissa looked like she might cry in frustration.

"Because that is how the world works. There are simply people who are better than us no matter how good we are," Arabella replied.

That was a truth that Narcissa needed to learn and understand.

"You also did very well on the documents you got from their workload. But Nadia and Odette were even better at it. You also did very well on the selection compared to the others. But these three, did even better.

"At the moment, they seem to be more capable than you. But if you keep working hard to improve, you may be able to surpass them one day.

"I had assigned all of you, different kinds of tasks because I believe you had different specialties though you could also do almost all kinds tasks.

"I assigned you documents related to the social circle because I noticed that you may perform best at it since you and Ryvaleh had maintained a good standing in the social circle and a strong bond with the nobles.

"Ivan, Nadia, and Odette who didn’t have connections here in the capital wouldn’t have done well in it.

"I believed that your connections are your strengths so assigned those tasks to you and you did even beyond my expectations.

"I loved your work. You performed very well in all the tasks I had given you. You are better than the other six of my assistants when it comes to how you did in the selection and how you did your tasks.

"That’s why as I have said earlier, I am reluctant you let you go because you are also very much capable. Yet you still have great potential. You will be even better the more you experience things, so I wanted to keep you by my side.

"However, I am very disappointed in how you behaved while I was away. All of my assistants are precious to me. That includes you. You are all part of grand plans I envision for the future.

"But if you keep hurting others like this because you doubt them, I cannot keep you by my side. I am the Empress, and my assistants need to get along not only with the nobles but also with the commoners. I need you to learn and understand that status is not everything. You must accept that there the people who are above and below you, yet still respect them.

"Moreover, all the assistants I hired are my choices. That means that doubting them meant doubting my decisions as well. If you cannot trust my decisions, you are free to leave my side and work for someone else instead.

"You are suspended for a month so you can reflect on your actions. Think about how you will apologize to everyone you inconvenienced and hurt because of your actions. And think carefully if you still want to be my assistant," Arabella said with finally and Narcissa paled.

"Y-Your Majesty, I’m so sorry. I won’t do it again. Please give me another chance," Narcissa paled and begged on her knees.

"I will not accept your apology now. I need you to reflect and understand your actions first so I am giving you a month to think about everything deeply first."