The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 359 Crown Prince Alondre (21) - Work, work, work. Let's get to work. When interpreting any statement, it's important to first consider who said it. For instance, if a diligent model student who had never once uttered a harsh word in their life suddenly unleashed a torrent of curses and slang, one would have to worry about their mental health. But if a delinquent student did the same, there would be no need to be particularly surprised or flustered. That was simply how they were. In the same vein, the Greater Demon Lucidra rarely found herself shocked no matter what the Crown Prince said. Because the Crown Prince was, by nature, a madman. Being shocked by every single thing he said would only wear herself—or rather, her true demon self—down. "Hm, it seems like I haven't been working enough lately." "......" That said, even so, wasn't this a bit too much to simply brush off? (E/N: I am almost literally rolling on the floor laughing right now) As Lucidra glanced sidelong at the stacks of documents piled high on the desk, the Crown Prince calmly continued. "Originally, the reason I started acting through a Clone was simple. Being cooped up in the palace, doing nothing but work every day, was no fun—so I sought out new joys and romance." And it had been a success. The Crown Prince had been able to enjoy countless adventures that his status as Crown Prince would otherwise never have allowed, and thanks to that, he had grown all the healthier mentally. The question of whether his overall activity had actually increased—since it wasn't as if his True Body was slacking off, and the Clone moved independently even while the True Body was working—was a meaningless one to ask. Because the Crown Prince hadn't been overwhelmed by his workload—he had simply been sick of a situation where work was "all" he could do. "But people, by nature, can't easily break free from inertia. At some point, without even realizing it, I found myself moving around doing this and that like work, even in my Clone state." "Well, that's... true enough, I suppose?" "There's truly nothing less efficient than working while playing and playing while working. And someone who has truly given their all to work would hate to even look at it while resting. In other words, doesn't that mean the harder one works, the more fulfilling and enjoyable one's leisure becomes!" It was the kind of logic that any ordinary office worker in the world would hear and immediately call nonsense. And for that matter, Lucidra, who had occasionally handled his work in his stead, wanted to point that out too. And as always, the Crown Prince paid no mind whatsoever to the Greater Demon beside him wearing an expression like she'd bitten into a bug. "Until now, I held myself back, since as Crown Prince, overstepping what I was assigned could give rise to a power struggle with Father. But lately, he's been showing signs of wanting to hand over various matters to me, so I've been thinking it might be fine to work a 'little' more freely and passionately." That "little" was surely an entirely different term from the "little" found in the dictionary of common sense the rest of the world used. Lucidra sensed it instinctively. A person with common sense and good manners would stop the Crown Prince right here. But while Lucidra had common sense and good manners, she was not human. And so she said— "That sounds like a great idea." "You think so too?" "Yes. Let's do it right now." *** The Eizern Empire. The capital, Kalastia. The Golden Cloud Palace. This building, considered among the most beautiful even within a capital full of splendid architecture, was an object of envy for officials throughout the empire. After all, it was where the empire's Crown Prince himself resided, and the workplace of those who served him. Those called elites across the entire empire. A place where only a handful, even among those elites, could belong and work. A guaranteed path to advancement, an ample salary, and excellent benefits including family perks. This much was generally shared by Golden Cloud Palace staff throughout its history, but the current generation of workers there were often singled out as especially blessed bastards even among that group. Alondre Arcandel Eizern. All because of the current Crown Prince's working style. "Overtime? Almost never happens, honestly. Not unless you slacked off yourself, or you're having a particularly bad day." "To begin with, the work to be done each day is clearly laid out on a daily basis—if you can't even manage that, aren't you unqualified to be an official in the first place?" At a normal workplace, if you're in the middle of Task A, your boss shows up and dumps additional Task B on you. Does that mean you get to drop A? Of course not. Task A has to be finished exactly within its deadline without any drop in quality, while Task B also has to be perfect in its own right, and every so often C or D keeps coming in on top of that. (E/N: That's utter nonsense. You forgot task E and bullshit F. Then your boss' boss come and dump G on your desk...........I'm just going to cry in the corner.) The line between a good company and a bad one lies in whether it properly compensates you after piling on that much excessive work—but the practice of stacking task upon task is common as dirt at any workplace. But not at the Golden Cloud Palace. You only had to do exactly as much work as the schedule laid out, and approvals and feedback came back with tremendous speed. The sight of an employee stuck twiddling their thumbs because their boss wouldn't sign off on an approval simply didn't happen at the Golden Cloud Palace. Even the Crown Prince himself had made it a habit to process approvals swiftly for the sake of those below him—so for a middle manager to delay approvals over their own personal business was no different from asking someone to cut off the thing sitting on their shoulders just because they wanted to lose some weight. "More than anything, whenever His Highness gives an instruction, exactly what he wants is always crystal clear, isn't it?" "Right. You have no idea how much easier that alone makes working." And there was none of that typical higher-up mentality of "even if I explain it like garbage, you'd better understand it perfectly." ─About this proposal. Polish it up so it feels original without standing out too much, and simple yet elegant while still being flashy. You know what I mean, right? ─The proposal itself is excellent. Just condense the core message here into a single sentence, and it'll be easier to understand if you pair the data with a radial graph—please revise it accordingly. Which of the two above would be easier for a subordinate to grasp went without saying. Of course, considering that one reason bosses everywhere used vague language was that they themselves lacked the ability to explain things concretely, it was really the Crown Prince—capable of spotting a solution in any field at a glance—who was the strange one here. But from the subordinates' standpoint, there was no need to take that into consideration. No dumping additional work in the middle of existing tasks. No creating bottlenecks within the organization through delayed approvals. Instead of vague, hard-to-grasp requirements, work was assigned with a clear direction and method of solution laid out. This was precisely why officials of the Golden Cloud Palace drew the envy of every other official, and why, when other departments competed over "we suffer more than you!", they could simply answer "sure, you go ahead and suffer, we'll be sitting pretty," earning themselves curses as insufferable bastards. That was how it was supposed to be, surely. "Hm. You know the Territories under the Crown Prince's direct rule. I think it'd be good to tweak the administrative system a little." "I beg your pardon?" What on earth was this. One day, at the document the Crown Prince held out to him, Witten, a capable official of the Golden Cloud Palace, stared blankly as he looked over its contents. And soon his face turned pale. "Y-Your Highness. Do you truly intend to carry this out?" An absolute monarchy. Talking back to a document handed over by the Crown Prince of the world's mightiest nation was never an easy thing to do. But the contents of the plan the Crown Prince had presented were unconventional enough that he'd forgotten that fact and blurted out the question without thinking. [Provide administrative manuals to Lord Deputies dispatched to the provinces.] [When a specific incident occurs, if the matter is covered in the manual, handle it accordingly and report on it through regular reports.] [However, for matters beyond what the manual can cover, the Lord Deputy is permitted to act first at their own discretion and report afterward.] Even a glance at the outline was enough to immediately grasp what this was all about. Administrative reform. Put bluntly, a plan to significantly elevate the authority of local governors in order to relieve the excessive workload of the central government, the Crown Prince included. If this were carried out, the administrative burden on the central government would surely be greatly reduced. Put that way, it sounded like an excellent reform that should be implemented right away—but in truth, there were a great many problems with it. This nation was an absolute monarchy ruled by the Emperor, and as such, all power was meant to be concentrated in the imperial family. Strengthening local autonomy could all too easily translate directly into a weakening of the central authority—that is, the imperial family's power. After all, with as many capable people as the empire had, it wasn't as if no one had ever realized the country's administrative structure was inefficient and simply failed to fix it. It was simply that no one could bring themselves to say it, because merely suggesting a fix would end up looking like a check on the imperial family's power. And yet here was none other than the Crown Prince himself—the very embodiment of imperial legitimacy—proposing just such a reform. "...C-Could this be a loyalty test?" Even knowing, from the Crown Prince's usual character, that he wasn't the type to pull a stunt like this, Witten couldn't help but feel a chill run down the back of his neck. Even if the Crown Prince himself took no retaliation whatsoever, the moment his fellow colleagues at the Golden Cloud Palace branded him as "the bastard who dared try to curtail His Highness's authority," his life was bound to become unbearably difficult. Witten himself was a Golden Cloud Palace official too, but among his colleagues, there were far, far too many fanatics devoted to the Crown Prince. "It's not a loyalty test, so don't worry." "Kuh-hack! Cough! Cough-hack!" "Ah, sorry about that. I considered phrasing it more gently, but I could already tell that if I did, you'd just end up agonizing over it in your own head all the same—so I decided to just say it outright." "M-My apologies!" "No need to apologize. Just read it over a little more carefully." When he'd been told as much as this, what more could Witten possibly add? Feeling his shirt soaked through with cold sweat, Witten began once more to carefully examine the contents of the document. And then he realized something. "...There's nothing to fix?" The instant he thought that this part might cause such-and-such a problem, the very next page already had the solution written down. How to secure the budget, how to allocate personnel, how to respond in the event of unexpected situations, cooperation with neighboring departments, and all manner of other details had been recorded in painstaking detail, practically at the level of a rulebook. This, too, was exactly the Crown Prince's usual working style. Personnel had been split off separately to focus solely on this task, so there was no additional workload to speak of. You just had to keep doing what you were already doing. Every point that might cause an approval delay along the way had already been pre-approved in advance, so there was no section left to create a bottleneck. You just had to push straight through. The requirements were clear enough that even a novice official could handle them just by following what was written down. Anyone who couldn't manage that had no business calling themselves a Golden Cloud Palace official to begin with. Yes. It was work handled in a way that was overwhelmingly, quintessentially the Crown Prince. It was just that the workload, ordinarily at 10, had exploded to 100. He couldn't even voice a complaint. Because the Crown Prince himself had already done 900 of it in advance. When your boss has already handled 90% of the work and tells you that you don't even have to do the remaining 10% alone—just together with your coworkers—the moment you dare whine "this is too much work," you deserve to drown yourself face-down in a puddle. And if you don't do it yourself, your coworkers will do it for you. The Crown Prince placed a hand on Witten's shoulder and patted it. "Well then, do your best." [Race: Crown Prince], in his mercy, asked no more of [Race: Human] than that they merely accomplish 10% of what he did himself—and from that day forward, every administrative official of the Golden Cloud Palace entered a state of unlimited overtime in order to preserve their human dignity.