The hall was no longer as it had been only moments before. With each new appointment, something invisible seemed to be pulled away from beneath the nobles' feet, until the atmosphere settled into a heavy numbness that bordered on disbelief. The dukes—the kings of their respective regions—sat with rigid expressions, watching the circles of their influence shrink one after another.
The quietest among them was the Duke of the East. He concealed his disappointment behind a mask of pride. He had believed that the Ministry of Agriculture would naturally fall under his authority over the farmlands, only for Silas to walk away with it instead, leaving him with nothing but the role of a spectator. He showed nothing... except for a sigh that died inside his chest before it could ever be heard.
The silence remained. The law had been established first... then the grain had been secured... and now all that remained was what no nation could exist without, even if it possessed both justice and abundant harvests.
Rei cleared his throat softly, drawing every eye back to him before deliberately turning the next page.
He needed no speech. The scene itself explained what was about to come.
This was no longer about courtrooms or fertile fields, but about the smoke rising from towering chimneys, the mines within whose depths the strength of empires lay sleeping, and the markets where sweat was transformed into gold.
["Ministry of Industry and Commerce: Responsible for markets, the regulation of crafts, and the administration of major factories... the heart where raw resources are transformed into power."]
Rei paused for a moment and raised his head, as though searching for a man whose place everyone already knew. His gaze swept across the rows without haste.
It was not the gaze of someone making a choice...
It was the gaze of someone affirming a decision that had been made long before today's ceremony.
And when he spoke the name, whispers rippled through the hall like iron shifting just before the hammer falls.
["Duke Victor Iron... please step forward."]
He was not a man known for frequent appearances at court, but for the weight of his presence wherever he stood.
His duchy stretched along the edges of the greatest mountain ranges in the Empire, where wealth was measured not by the number of fields... but by the depth of the mines, and where authority was preserved not by the number of soldiers... but by what emerged from the furnaces.
There, where blacksmiths worked day and night, and where glowing stone was forged into steel, stood the Empire's greatest weapon and metal workshops.
Victor's name had long been associated with that silent power—one unseen in council chambers... yet decisive on the battlefield.
The duke rose with measured calm, carrying neither the impatience of the ambitious nor the hesitation of the uncertain.
He stood like a mass of stone that had long belonged where it rested, then walked toward the platform with heavy, unwavering steps—steps that made it seem as though even the floor of the hall acknowledged him.
He approached and bowed before the throne without exaggeration, without attempting to decorate the moment with anything beyond his own nature.
Sislin stepped forward carrying the ceremonial box. Inside rested a symbolic key engraved with the title (Industry), and a heavy pen bearing the inscription (Steel).
The symbols were not ornaments...
They seemed like natural extensions of the man standing before them.
Morgana remained silent.
She simply opened the ceremonial box and took out the pen, leaving the words to the throne alone.
The man standing before them was not a subordinate who required recognition...
He was a ruler who, if he wished, could simply turn his back and walk away.
Ray looked at Victor for a long moment before speaking, as though weighing every word more carefully than usual.
"Duke Victor... raise your head."
Ray smiled faintly before continuing.
"You are a man who, if you wished to close the mountain passes and declare your borders an independent kingdom... no one in this hall would be capable of stopping you."
Several nobles shifted uneasily, turning toward Ray in an attempt to grasp the meaning behind his words.
Ray, however, continued without sparing them a glance.
"You possess iron. You possess men. And you possess land that does not need the capital's treasury in order to survive."
It was a simple acknowledgment of reality.
If there were any territory capable of rivaling the lands of the East, it would be those of the South.
"That is why I did not summon you because you need this position...
I summoned you because the Empire needs the man who chose to remain, despite never being forced to do so."
Ray continued.
A different silence settled over the hall this time—not one of tension, but of anticipation.
"Remember this.
The Ministry of Industry will never become your chain.
It will become the bridge that keeps this nation together...
Until history decides whether we shall rise... or fall with honor."
Morgana stepped forward only a single pace and offered him the pen without a word, as though she were witnessing the oath rather than granting it.
"I will not ask for your loyalty...
You proved it the moment you chose to stand here."
Victor paused briefly—not because he searched for an answer, but because he carefully chose words that could never be misunderstood.
Then he spoke in a steady voice, free of flattery.
"Your Majesty, I stand here because you are fighting collapse, not because you are distributing offices.
If you endure, you will find me behind you.
And if you fail...
No title will change that.
I offer my gratitude with the edge of my sword to the Sun of the Empire."
looked toward Morgana, and added,
"And to its Moon."
Morgana smiled.
That acknowledgment carried more weight than the recognition of every noble gathered in the hall.
Everyone knew that after losing her father's support and having her reputation stained, Ray had placed her beside him to rebuild her standing.
But before this acknowledgment and after it...
They were two entirely different worlds.
Ray merely smiled.
He offered no comment.
There was nothing in that moment that required one.
Victor had not come to receive an office...
He had reinforced another pillar within a structure on the verge of collapse.
When he accepted the pen, no applause echoed through the chamber.
No voices offered congratulations.
The silence itself served as acknowledgment—
A silence like the sound of iron cooling after the hammer's final strike.
Sislin slowly closed the ceremonial box and handed it to the duke.
The soft metallic sound drifted through the hall once more, as though drawing that moment to its conclusion.
Only then did Ray turn the next page.
No haste...
No intermission...
A nation that waits for its ceremonies to end before continuing its work...
Is a nation that has already chosen to fall.
He raised his eyes toward the assembly once again.
This time, however, his gaze was directed neither toward the mountains, nor the fields, nor the courts of law.
It was fixed upon something else...
Something invisible.
Yet if it were to collapse, everything else would collapse with it.
His voice did not become harsher.
Its very nature changed.
Like the voice of a man moving from erecting the pillars...
To governing everything that lay between them.
["Next...
The Ministry of Education and Culture: Responsible for schools, universities, the organization of knowledge, and directing what is taught to the children of the Empire."]
No one moved.
This was not a ministry coveted by dukes, nor one by which fortunes were measured.
And yet many felt a heavier weight from this announcement than they had from Industry itself.
A sword may decide a battle...
But words alone decide which battles will ever be fought.
["Before announcing the next name, there is one point that must be clarified."]
Rei paused, lowered his eyes to the documents before him, and gestured calmly.
["There is a difference between a Pillar and a Ministry. I mean the Pillar of Knowledge and the Ministry of Education."]
["In short, the Pillar is the 'guiding mind.' Its role is to establish the higher curriculum and determine the Empire's strategic educational objectives."]
Rei explained only the distinction.
He did not elaborate on the Pillar's duties themselves, considering its authority over the Ministry relatively limited compared to its more fundamental responsibilities.
He merely clarified the difference before continuing.
["The Ministry of Education and Wisdom, on the other hand, is the executive instrument.
Its authority lies in enforcing the laws established by the Pillar.
The minister is not the one who makes decisions...
He is the man who ensures those decisions become reality."]
Rei paused there, not to search for words, but to allow the meaning to settle throughout the hall.
The explanation was simple.
Like placing a single stone into its proper place within a vast and complicated structure.
He closed the registry slightly before adding in a calm voice,
["Therefore, this position is not given to the man who possesses land...
It is given to the one who has spent his entire life possessing nothing except knowledge."]
Rei raised his eyes toward the back rows and announced,
["Elias Wise... step forward. You are among those qualified for this position."]
The name was spoken.
Yet no objections followed...
Instead, something heavier than opposition descended upon the hall.
Silence.
Not the silence of respect.
Nor the silence of shock.
But that brief emptiness that appears when the mind cannot immediately classify what it has just heard.
Several nobles exchanged glances—not because they failed to recognize the name, but because they recognized it all too well.
And that was precisely what made it so unsettling.
A man without a title.
Without land.
Without a banner.
His presence in the hall had been little more than part of the background.
The Duke of the West unconsciously turned the ring on his finger—a habit he had whenever he considered voicing an objection.
Yet he said nothing.
Because, quite simply, he had found no argument.
The position had never been offered to any of them in the first place.
Toward the rear rows, the confusion was even more obvious.
The attendees turned toward the man whose name had been called, as though seeing him for the very first time, despite the fact that he had been present among them since the beginning.
An ordinary figure.
Unremarkable.
And that, more than anything else, made his selection unsettling.
As for Elias himself, he hesitated for no more than half a heartbeat—not out of uncertainty, but like a man making sure the summons had truly been meant for him.
He swallowed quietly, lifted his head, and looked directly at Rei before rising and stepping forward.
There was no exaggerated bow.
No silent apology of the sort offered by those summoned beyond their station.
He walked forward like a man called to perform work he understood...
Not to receive an honor he did not.
After all, positions may be bestowed in a single day...
But once ideas have been planted,
Who possesses the power to uproot them?
--------------------------
End of Chapter
-------------------------
[Side Note: Excerpt from the Imperial Administrative Records — 18 Years Before the Collapse]
— Number of officially registered public schools: 312
— Number currently capable of operating: 6
— Three entire provinces have not sent a single student to the capital in the past seven years.
— The last unified edition of the Empire's textbooks was published under an imperial decree long ago, and its contents have not been revised for an entire generation.
— In some provinces, trade guilds have become the ones teaching people how to read... not the state.
[When a state loses its right to educate, it begins to lose its right to rule.]