Chapter 33 - Becoming the Family Head
Chapter 33 - Becoming the Family Head
The tragic fate of the original story had already been twisted beyond recognition.
Originally, Saintess Azelia should have given life-risking advice to Prince Leopold, and the Prince, captivated by that noble light, should have obsessed over her, revealing a possessive madness.
But the current Leopold was different.
Thanks to his loyal aide Edric, the Prince had come to his senses early on. To him, the Saintess was just a "respectable being chosen by God who sacrifices herself for others," not an object of romantic desire.
Instead, what caught the Prince's eye was an unexpected person.
Kael, the nun who had been guarding the Saintess like a shadow since the Southern riot incident.
Her calm eyes, neat lips, and quiet movements that considered others were enough to evoke the lingering image of Empress Merien, the mother who had been sleeping deep in the Prince's memories.
The only difference was the hair color, perhaps?
Empress Merien's was pink, like Camilla's.
Except for that, she was the very embodiment of the sanctuary the Prince had longed for his entire life.
After meeting his ideal type, the Prince began to stare out the office window and mutter blankly quite often.
"... Kael. A truly warm name. Surely, her heart must be warm too..."
It happened to be spring.
It was the time when the flowers in the garden bloomed most beautifully, and a good time to get lost in thought while looking at them.
The problem was that the Prince, who didn't usually do that, was doing it.
"His Highness the Prince has been lost in thought quite often lately."
"Tell me about it..."
"He's... okay, right?"
"For now... I suppose so?"
I talked with Jiren while watching the Prince look out the window.
They say when a person starts acting out of character, it's a sign they're about to die. I wonder if he's okay?
The only silver lining was that, unlike the original story, he wasn't acting like a scumbag and trying to kidnap and imprison the heroine, which was a huge relief.
And right now, I didn't have even a speck of spare time to give the Prince dating advice.
Because my own feet were on fire right now.
And it was a fire so massive it could be compared to the Pompeii Eruption.
The day after the medal ceremony, I was summoned by my father, Albert, to the main house.
I didn't even know why I was called.
Was he going to nag me again?
Thinking that, I entered the main house, and Albert said something shocking.
"I will hand over the position of Family Head to you."
"... Pardon?"
Handing over the position of Family Head so suddenly?
To me, who was genuinely bewildered, my father, Albert, scoffed.
"What is that look? Are you going to keep acting until the very end?"
"Th... That's not it, Father."
"What do you mean it's not!"
Bang-!
Albert slammed his desk and shouted.
This guy really didn't want to hand it over, huh.
"You investigated the corruption regarding me, pretended to be loyal to the Prince, and used the fact that you saved the Princess to create this situation, and now you're playing innocent until the end!?"
"I really don't know anything about that, Father."
Albert seemed genuinely pissed off.
Well, even if I were in his shoes, I'd probably be angry too.
Looking only at the situation, as Albert said, it could be seen that I had staged a coup within the family...
But, I was genuinely innocent!
I didn't do it!!!
"Congratulations, Edric. In the end, you've dragged this father of yours down and taken the position of Family Head just as you planned, so you must feel like you're flying, right?"
"Th... That's not it."
Albert didn't seem to have any intention of listening to me.
Ha... Should I just act like a mastermind and say, 'Yes, it was my plan'... But I couldn't do that because I really hadn't done anything, so I didn't know anything.
At my aggrieved expression, Albert said.
"Hmph! It's impressive that you don't show your inner thoughts until the end... I've raised quite the monster."
"Thank you, Father."
"That's not a compliment!"
"..."
Albert snorted and gestured to the butler standing next to him.
The butler, as if waiting, forcibly shoved the family seal and a bundle of ledgers into my chest.
The heavy weight pressed down on my arms.
"Father... what is this?"
"It is the proof that you are the head of the Noel family, and the responsibility you must bear."
"Is this all?"
I had only looked at it for a moment, but the documents contained incredibly complex details.
Albert kindly explained it to me before I could grasp it all.
"Three direct territories of the Noel family, two merchant guilds within the capital, and a VIP list that requires constant greetings every year."
The territories and guilds were a problem, but the family list with the VIPs seemed to number at least 100.
My god... I have to manage all of this!?
That old man didn't look like it, but he was working insanely hard behind the scenes.
I felt a slight sense of respect for my father, Albert.
"Go ahead and feel in your bones how heavy the position of Family Head is. From now on, it won't be your petty little brain, but these vast numbers that will choke you."
"I will try my best, Father."
"You talk well until the end... Get out!"
Albert left the office with a sneer, as if to say, 'Let's see you die.'
It wasn't an intended situation, but since I had become the head of a noble family, I didn't feel bad.
One territory received from the Emperor, plus the three direct territories of the Noel family.
On top of that, inheriting two merchant guilds in the capital meant I had become very, very rich.
And a beautiful fiancée... The happy fantasy life I wanted was already complete.
At this rate, can't I just retire and live the good life?
Thinking such happy thoughts, I took the family seal and documents and went home.
And one week later...
"Aide Edric-nim... please save me."
"The work... the work won't end."
"Be quiet... I feel like I'm going to die too."
I... was trapped in an endless hell of paperwork.
To talk a bit about this place, it's a fantasy medieval era.
It has some things, but in many places, it remained stuck in the medieval or pre-modern era.
One of the representative examples was 'paperwork'.
The administrative system of this era was truly primitive itself.
Every ledger had no unified format, no graphs or statistical figures, just a list of long-winded texts listing expenditures and income that occurred day by day.
It was like that before, but back then, I only had to manage the budget and operating expenses of the Prince's aide office, so I could endure it.
But here, the tax and operating budget documents for the Livia territory were added,
the land tax and taxes to be paid for the Noel family's direct territories were added,
and the sales and income ledgers flying in from the two merchant guilds were added.
Roughly speaking, it felt like the workload had increased by about 30 times compared to when I was in the Prince's aide office.
"Fertilizer purchase cost for the territory: 32 gold, carriage repair cost: 5 gold... No, why do I have to read these one by one! Where is the total, the total!"
I, who had been staying up all night for a week, eventually exploded.
People who had done this kind of paperwork from the beginning might have been fine.
But I was someone who, in my past life, used a convenient tool called Excel to work on these numerical documents in a very neat and orderly way.
To me, this kind of paperwork was enough to stimulate the limits of my patience, and I eventually exploded.
"Edric... now is not the time to get angry. There are still so many documents left to process."
Nataliya said with a hollow face.
As my wife, she had decided to help with the housework and look over the documents with me.
As a result, Nataliya hadn't been able to sleep for 2 days, and dark circles had settled heavily under her beautiful eyes.
"If we go on like this, the work won't end until we die, Nataliya."
"But... there is no other way."
"No, there is."
"?"
I recalled the Excel system from my past life.
After getting some sleep with Nataliya, I summoned all the tax accountants the next day.
"From now on, we will organize the data as follows."
"You want us to organize this much data again!?"
Looking at the data filling the room, the tax accountants' expressions darkened.
I said firmly.
"If we work like this, it's impossible to process the documents for over 2 months, but if you do as I say, we can finish in 2 weeks."
"What should we do? Edric-nim."
"It's not difficult. Everyone, organize the data according to the format I say."
I told them the Excel organization method I used in my past life.
Everyone's eyes turned to me.
"Classify all figures by category. Since each category should not overlap, record it on that blackboard whenever it's added. And on a monthly basis, organize it into a graph like this so you can see it at a glance, with the X-axis as the figure and the Y-axis as the date."
As I explained the new data organization method based on the Excel graphic format, the tax accountants' expressions began to brighten.
Since they were also people who dealt with numbers, they seemed to understand the value of this method at once.
"My god..."
"How can such a method..."
I explained all the specifications and, just in case, wrote down the document format on the blackboard.
The tax accountants who saw it looked at it with eyes as if they were seeing a new world.
"From now on, we will focus only on organizing the data for 5 days. You can do it, right!"
[ "Yes!" ]
"Good, then... Start!!"
With my signal, about 10 tax accountants were all put into organizing the data.
The data began to be organized quickly according to the format, and Nataliya, who was watching from the side, was surprised.
"Amazing, Edric... This is the first time I've seen such easy-to-read data."
"Right! Even Nataliya finds it easy to read!"
"It's not just easy to read... If this existed, Father wouldn't have suffered from paperwork either!"
No matter how much of a warrior the Northern Grand Duke is, he would have needed paperwork for territory management.
And no matter how much he left detailed organization to others, there must have been parts he absolutely had to check himself, and he must have suffered tremendously from that.
Nataliya wanted to teach this to her father, as it was a data format that could solve that.
"Edric! Can you teach this method to Father next time?"
"Of course, it's fine. It's something that will help the Grand Duke, who is Nataliya's father."
"Thank you, Edric."
Chu-!
Encouraged by Nataliya's kiss, I worked even harder.
We succeeded in making all the data of the 4 territories and 2 merchant guilds into an Excel format in just 4 days.
After that, it was instantaneous.
We started by organizing the most urgent tax payment documents with the data organized for easy viewing at a glance.
Tax payment was very important.
Just as the most famous mafia in the world was brought down for tax evasion, this empire was also handling taxes very strictly.
While organizing to pay taxes without any mistakes...
"... Huh?"
I uttered a forbidden word that should never be said in the office.
Why are these figures like this?