I’m an Immigration Officer!

One hour later.
The deepest part of the capital. The room where Prince Rasen’s portrait hung.
— Tap, tap.

King Rio heard the sound of footsteps approaching—slow, deliberate, achingly familiar.
And before long—
— Slam! Bang!

The sound of the door being violently thrown open shattered the silence of the room.
Without even lifting his eyes from the documents he was reading, he spoke.
“I believe I told you not to come here, Helena.”

His wife. Queen of the Cross-Line Kingdom.
Helena Castor stormed into the private room, her breathing ragged.
“What the hell are you doing?!”

Even the fan she always held was discarded—her face twisted with rage, confusion, and raw desperation.
Only then did King Rio finally raise his head to look at her.
“So, Incanthus conveyed my intent properly.”

Seeing the Queen seething with fury from head to toe, he quietly organized his thoughts.
‘By now, the situation should be under control.’
She had probably already exchanged words with those leeching priests from the Church.

“Was it really... you? You gave that order to the Proxy?”
The sudden change in how she addressed him made the King narrow his eyes.
Fortunately, no one else was listening.
This private room was accessible only to the Proxy and the King himself, so it was safe for Helena to revert to the way she addressed him when they were alone.

“It was.”
“How could you... No. She nearly brought down the entire castle, and you’re letting her off with exile?!”
“What would you have preferred?”
“Her emotions are the problem—we need to suppress them more, make it stronger!”
The Queen shouted, her voice trembling.
“If not for those damned letters... if not for that Chief Officer, none of this would have happened!”
“And yet, despite the aftermath, you cling to the same failed method.”

King Rio’s reply was cold and blunt.
“Even after witnessing the worst possible outcome, you’re still obstinate.”
“But sending her beyond the castle walls—what will that change?!”
It was then that the Queen’s expression contorted in shock, as if realizing something.

“Don’t tell me... you’re trying to separate Elaine from me?”
“...”
Silence.

Already in a state of panic, Helena continued without waiting for a response.
“Elaine... that child killed our son. How—how could you possibly forgive that?!”
Her voice cracked into a near-scream, reverberating through the room.

But King Rio immediately cut her off.
“You’re wrong. The princess did not kill Rasen, Queen.”
“What did you say?”
He slowly rose from his seat.

“It was the gods who did it.”
Turning his back to the portrait of their smiling son, he looked down at his wife.
“The day Rasen died, I buried both of our children, Helena.”

For the first time, Rio revealed his true feelings.
“That day, it wasn’t just Rasen who collapsed. That cursed day—the day the gods spat on us!”
He had always known.

“...Elaine died too.”
The day their son vanished by their daughter’s hand, their daughter also perished.
The death of the body, the death of the soul.

The day their green-eyed son’s eyes closed, their daughter’s eyes lost their light.
“And yet, even now, you cling to those loathsome beings for answers.”
His face twisted in disgust.

“Wagging your tail for the very ones who killed our son—for the maggots who worship them!”
But Helena had her own words to say.
Choking back tears of hatred, she shouted:

“You have no right to say that! You locked yourself away for fifteen years!”
It struck where it hurt most.
“You never visited your daughter even once, and now you talk as if you care?”

Her words overflowed with years of repressed resentment.
“I was the one who cared for Elaine. I supported this kingdom. I carried the burden of everything!”
Contradictions and bitter truths poured out, all tangled together.

“If not for me, you’d have been dethroned long ago! Don’t you know that?!”
“...”
Faced with that thorned truth, Rio remained silent.
He couldn’t deny that part.

He had run away.
Run from his responsibilities as King.
Run from his duty as a father.

He had fled from the sorrow, despair, and resentment he couldn’t bear.
Helena and the vassals had been forced to shoulder what he abandoned.
The dark age.

The weight of that word could be felt in the air itself.
The nation’s golden era had ended, and now it trudged through darkness.
Because Rio had turned his back, casting everything aside.

His voice was heavy with grief as he spoke.
“I won’t deny it.”
A clear admission of his faults.

“But no longer, Queen.”
No longer would he look away.
He had opened his eyes after uncovering the truth.

The existence of the gods.
Their interference.
And now, the arrival of their favored child.

King Rio spoke lowly.
“Cut ties with the Church.”
“What...?”
“You know it now too. You saw what happened to the Pope during the trial. Cast them aside.”
His eyes flicked toward the hundreds of names scrawled across the documents before him.

“We have to tear away that cancer clinging to this kingdom.”
Sitting back down, the King’s gaze landed on his wife, resolute as if cementing his decision.
“This may be the last warning I give you.”

Cancer.
That ominous word made the Queen’s face twist in shock.
“What exactly... are you planning to do?”
“...”

Rio offered no reply.
It was too soon to speak of his plans.
Like a predator holding its breath just before sinking its teeth in, the small predator before her remained utterly silent.

But that silence only deepened Helena’s unease.
The capital was already buzzing with ominous rumors.
The Minister of Finance and the Inspector General had reportedly been summoned by the King for a secretive undertaking.

‘Come to think of it, the Finance Minister and Inspector General haven’t come to see me recently...’
She’d been too overwhelmed to notice.
They were the same officials who once wagged their tails, scrambling for favors, visiting her every few days.

Since King Rio awakened, neither had come near her.
Suddenly, Helena recalled the words Rio had shouted when halting the First Holy War.
[Our own swords are more than enough to destroy us!]

Back then, it was a declaration to protect the kingdom.
But now, the icy look in his eyes said something entirely different.
This would not be a gentle plan.

And then, Helena arrived at the most fundamental question.
“Why... why did you send Elaine to the Chief Officer?”
 

****
At the same time, at the capital’s entrance.
Everything progressed astonishingly fast.

The princess’s loss of control was officially declared to be ‘an earthquake triggered by volcanic activity in the western region.’
Restoration work on the devastated corridor began immediately.
Elaine and Hannah hurriedly packed their belongings to depart for the Southern Border.

Only Nathan and Incanthus waited for them at the capital’s entrance.
“...”
“...”
The Proxy, his face hidden behind a veil, stared directly at Nathan, who stood off to the side pretending with every ounce of strength not to acknowledge him.

The two men stood there in that strange, tense silence for nearly an hour without exchanging a word.
“Uh... Proxy.”
The silence was finally broken by the Chief Officer.

He turned his head to look at the Yongin as he spoke.
“This punishment... is this really my punishment? Escorting the princess back to the Southern Border?”
He finally voiced the question he hadn’t dared ask for the past hour.

“My understanding is that defying royal orders results in immediate suspension and severe disciplinary action.”
His tone betrayed how little sense this made to him.
But the Proxy cut through the doubts without hesitation.

“Do not question the intent behind His Majesty’s orders.”
“...Yes, sir.”
Nathan’s head hung low again, his expression as miserable as ever.
The Proxy gazed at him quietly.

‘Chief Officer...’
Such a strange man.
That was all Incanthus could think.

When King Rio requested the Intelligence Bureau’s documents, Incanthus had also read through many of them.
And among those files, there were, of course, materials concerning the Chief Officer—the person who most caught the King’s attention.
A man lowly, ordinary, and without a single remarkable trait.

One who, though blessed by the gods, rejected them.
A man who risked his life for principles and rules over his own safety.
A man who broke after experiencing a single loss.

And yet—a man who forced himself to rise again, determined never to break a second time.
‘Why is His Majesty so fixated on this man?’
The answer was obvious.

Because he was blessed by the very god Rio despised above all else.
But that alone didn’t fully explain it.
If that were the case, the King could have simply sentenced him to death at the trial, and it would have been over.

‘But His Majesty didn’t do that.’
On the contrary, he’d only observed the Chief Officer with heightened interest.
And as the Chief Officer himself had said, this royal order was highly unusual.

Why specifically entrust the princess to the Chief Officer at the Southern Border? Why send her there of all places?
‘At the Southern Border currently resides the former Saintess, temporarily in asylum. And there is also the Chief Officer, who is blessed by the gods.’
Why send the princess, a Talent Emerged who had just violently lost control, to that very place?

It certainly wasn’t out of kindness, nor for his daughter’s sake.
The King who despised the gods.
Perhaps this was a test.

By placing the princess, the former Saintess, and the Chief Officer together—he wanted to see what would happen.
And the grace period granted: exactly two months.
Precisely matching the remaining duration of the former Saintess’s temporary asylum.

When Incanthus’s thoughts reached this point, he realized the King’s true intent behind the royal order.
‘Rio... you’re about to cross a line you must never cross.’
For the first time in decades, Incanthus whispered the name of his old friend.

At the end of sorrow comes rage, and at the end of rage comes destruction.
And Rio was now approaching the end of his rage.
The furious blaze had cooled, replaced by a cold, silent resolve.

A quiet resolve.
‘Rio wants to erase the existence of the gods from this kingdom completely.’
He was preparing for a purge.

To eradicate anyone even slightly connected to the Church.
To take revenge on the being who allowed his son to die.
The only way to blaspheme, to mock, to defile the gods.

That’s why he’d buried himself in Intelligence Bureau documents, why he’d entrusted the Finance Minister and the Inspector General with top-secret missions.
‘This will undoubtedly be a path that demands blood.’
Chaos would come.

Chaos that would destroy and rebuild everything.
And it was not coming from outside—but from within.
And perhaps, as a final chance, as the last opportunity to stop his resolve, the King had sent the princess to Nathan.

To another man who rejected the gods.
Hoping he would find a path different from his own.
‘If that’s what you wish...’

His reawakened friend must not be allowed to walk the wrong path again.
Incanthus made his decision.
“Chief Officer Nathan Kell.”

The large hand of the Yongin slowly removed the veil covering his face.
“...!!! P-Proxy, sir!”
Startled, Nathan gasped sharply at the sight.

Those burning crimson eyes hidden behind the veil now ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) met his dark pupils directly.
For the Proxy to reveal his face carried great weight.
It meant that, at least in this moment, he was speaking not as the King’s voice, but as a man—one individual with his own words to convey.

He was briefly setting aside the duties he had upheld for decades.
The Yongin slowly opened his mouth.
“I hope we may find our path through you.”
“...Sir?”

Incanthus was the King’s Proxy.
As a Yongin, he could not break his sworn oath.
— I, Incanthus Vermotem, pledge my life to you and to this nation.

If the King wished for destruction, he had to walk toward destruction. If the King wished to stand again, he had to stay by his side.
That was his duty, his obligation, his loyalty as Proxy.
‘I cannot stop my old friend. But this man can.’

It was possible.
This man, who defied the Pope, who rejected the gods, who chose to remain human.
Though Nathan and Rio stood at opposite ends, they shared an uncanny resemblance.

And so—
Here, in this place, another vow was made.
“I, Incanthus Vermotem, believe in Chief Officer Nathan Kell.”

Just as his old friend had gambled on a purge—he, too, cast his own gamble.
— Crack.
Incanthus clenched his large hand over his chest, his teeth grinding audibly.

It was the distinctive Yongin ritual for a sworn oath.
Realizing the weight of what was just performed, Nathan froze in place.
The Yongin’s oath was as binding as their own heart.

Incanthus now believed in the Chief Officer.
No words would shake that faith. He would unconditionally support him.
That oath would never break—unless Nathan betrayed him first.

“I believe in you.”
That you will rescue the King from his cold resolve.
That you will heal the princess’s wounds.

That you will offer this nation another path—a path of communication, not one of blood and slaughter.
I believe in you.
Sixty days.

That is the final deadline—the last remaining line.
“Go, and follow your will. I will block all interference from the capital and the Queen.”
“P-Please, wait! Proxy, sir! What do you mean by that?!”
Nathan raised his voice in panic at the sudden vow.

“W-What do you expect me to do? You say you believe in me—but in what? Why do you trust me?!”
The Proxy offered no reply.
Instead, he quietly covered his face once more with the veil.

Then, he gently placed his hand on Nathan’s shoulder.
“Find it.”
Find the answer.

The right path that no one else could find.
So that my old friend’s rage and keen mind may find a different direction.
“Chief Officer, we’re here!”

And by the time the princess and Hannah arrived, dragging their heavy luggage to the capital’s entrance—
The Proxy’s figure had already vanished down the distant corridor.