The Treasurer Luena (1)
So, to state my conclusion once more — should you happen to know anyone skilled in financial management, I would be grateful for an introduction.
Anyone vouched for by you, Nerga, I could trust without hesitation, and so I swallow my pride and ask this of you.
Lord Reus of Crow's Head Valley
P.S. — I beg of you, do not send money. If you do, I will find myself reaching out to you first whenever trouble arises, and that would do neither of us any good.
"Oh, what a world we live in."
Nerga, who had just received the letter from Reus, let out a long, heartfelt sigh. From Reus's point of view, it was nothing more than a casual question — 'Do you happen to know anyone good with finances?'
But to Nerga, whose affection for Reus had long since blown straight past its maximum limit, the words read entirely differently.
"To think the benefactor's domain has fallen into such a dire crisis, while I remained blissfully unaware…!!"
To the humble Nerga.
The finances of our domain have withered and sunk deep into a quagmire of despair.
While my farmers suffer, I find myself unable even to offer them the comfort they deserve.
Should you fail to introduce me a talent versed in finance, everything will surely collapse into ruin.
But on no account send money. I intend to weather this storm by my own strength alone!
"Even in such desperate straits, he refuses to surrender and insists on solving everything with his own two hands — truly, how magnificent! Then let this unworthy Nerga summon every capable soul at his disposal…!"
Just as Nerga, having single-handedly reinterpreted the letter's contents as a Declaration of Unbending Will, was about to gather every finance-related talent he knew—
"No, no, that's not it. This is wrong."
Having worked himself into a frenzy alone and then calmed himself down upon some new realization, Nerga tapped the desk with his finger — tap, tap-tap — in a steady rhythm.
"What nonsense am I entertaining here? This is Lord Reus we're talking about, not some stranger. He would never deign to write such a letter by his own hand merely to acquire a few ordinary financial officers."
Had Reus heard this, he would have snapped, What on earth are you on about — send me as many as you can, we're desperately short-handed — but alas, no such intention ever made it across the distance.
"Considering the temperament of the aide who serves at his side… mediocre people would never satisfy him. A lord who keeps a strong-willed soul by his side would hardly welcome a flock of meek nodders either."
Had Laura heard this, she would have groaned that she was dying from the workload and begged him to send literally anyone — but alas, in this world, the only means of long-distance communication were letters and messengers.
"The best of the best, and yet no empty-headed simpleton — that is the kind of talent I must find. Well, well. What a dilemma this is."
Nerga, now more careful than he had ever been choosing a marriage partner for his own children, rose from his seat and paced around the room, lost in thought for a long while.
"Ah…!! Yes — that girl! If it's her…!"
With a sharp snap of his fingers, Nerga's eyes lit up. Someone more perfectly suited to Reus's present circumstances than anyone else alive — and possessed of a stubborn, unbending conviction that would never kneel easily.
There was exactly one person who fit.
"Hey, Luena!"
"Yes…? What is it?"
A woman with a weary, tired-looking face answered between yawns. The merchant from another trading house who had called for her blew up on the spot.
"Why in the world is my house the only one slapped with a fine? Huh? Is this discrimination, or what?"
"Discrimination? From me? Why would I ever discriminate against you?"
The woman — Luena — replied with perfect equanimity, heedless of the merchant's fury. With a man practically itching to throw a punch standing right before her, she even took the time to tie back her hair.
"If you keep pulling these stunts that disadvantage our side, I'll formally file a complaint with the guild—"
"Ah, if it's no trouble, could we step over there and talk for a moment? Please."
Compared to the merchant in full bluster, Luena was the picture of passivity. To any observer, she looked cowed, yielding a step — right up until the moment the two of them rounded the corner together. But the instant they turned it—
Thud. She was the one who grabbed the merchant by the collar and slammed him against the wall. Thick veins bulged across the back of her iron grip.
"Wh-what is the meaning of—!"
"Listen here, you rat. Am I a joke to you? Want me to lay out exactly why your house got fined — right in front of everyone?"
"Do you believe such insolent words will be forgiven?!"
"Turns out you people built a hidden compartment under your coin chests, didn't you? Took the standardized boxes set by the guild, smuggled them out, and had them modified. They made the gap so fine I nearly missed it myself. And you didn't do it alone, did you?"
Gulp. The merchant, who had been so full of fire a moment ago, clamped his mouth shut like a dying fish. With a single remark, the balance of power had flipped.
Trading houses of the era used boxes built to guild-mandated specifications to carry their goods — the only way to transport exact quantities and weights with any certainty. And of all of them, the coin chests were regulated with the harshest scrutiny. They were the very bedrock of commerce, and precisely because of that, there had never been any shortage of men who tried to cheat with them.
"Th-then how did you…"
"You tampered with it cleverly enough that I missed it at first. But the more I thought about it, the stranger it got. The totals kept coming up slightly short, every single time — and it wasn't an error on our side. So there was only one answer left. Someone was playing games."
"And that's all you had to go on?"
"Well, that's my job, isn't it? So I investigated each and every case personally. And what do you know — there was a hairline gap under the coin chests your house uses. You slipped an iron plate in there to fudge the delivery weight, didn't you?"
With every sentence out of Luena's mouth, the merchant's face drained whiter. Each point was precise, leaving not an inch of room for excuse.
"Which means you tampered with the currency itself — in practice, you're an accomplice to the circulation of counterfeit coin. If the guild catches wind of this, they won't let it slide—"
"S-stop! What do you want…?"
She spread open her left hand. It meant one thing: hand over the cut. The moment he produced a small pouch and set it in her palm, Luena tucked it straight into her coat.
"Listen. One piece of advice — don't get greedy. If you'd skimmed a little at a time, you wouldn't be in this mess."
The merchant shot her a look of pure venom and stalked off, leaving Luena alone. She strolled out from around the corner with a whistle on her lips—
"There you are, Luena."
"Oh, you startled— Master Nerga? What brings you to a place like this?"
Nerga, who had been waiting nearby, walked straight up to her. Did he see what just happened? Her heart pounding, she bowed with careful courtesy.
"And what, pray tell, is a guild audit officer doing in a place like this?"
"Just having a friendly chat with an acquaintance."
"A friendly chat, is it — one where you grab your friend by the collar and collect money? Modern times, indeed."
It became unmistakably clear that Nerga had asked while knowing full well, and Luena clicked her tongue and dropped the polite act on the spot.
"What now? What lecture are you about to give me this time?"
"Anyone overhearing might conclude all I ever do is lecture you."
"Because that is literally what you do. As far as I'm concerned."
"That's because you're the only student of mine who learned accounting under me and didn't go on to become a proper merchant."
Nerga walked out onto the street alongside the curt Luena, and the two began strolling. All across the city, merchants were hawking their wares at the tops of their voices.
"Noisy, isn't it."
"Commerce breathes again because agriculture — the foundation of everything — has come back to life. It's a good sign."
"How very like the developer of that fertilizer to say."
"I always say this, but I'm merely the developer on paper. The true credit belongs to someone else entirely."
Still trading idle chatter, the two arrived at the bridge crossing the river. They stopped at its midpoint and watched the water flow past beneath them.
"That friend of yours back there — he's already been caught pulling the same trick in half a dozen places. He'll be run out of business within the week, I'd wager."
"Figured as much. A bowl that leaks inside can't help but leak outside, can it?"
"And a woman who quietly milks such people for pocket change has no business pointing fingers, does she? If you ever get caught, you of all people — working in the audit department — know better than anyone what happens next."
"Then I'll quit. And don't act like I'm the only one taking kickbacks in the audit department."
There wasn't a trace of expectation or hope in Luena's eyes. The moment an audit officer charged with rooting out corruption starts taking hush money from the very merchants committing it, responsibility — even the bare minimum — has already gone out the window.
"And if you quit, do you have somewhere to go?"
"I suppose I could become a war profiteer — the kind who trails armies and sells supplies to soldiers and sellswords. They say the front between the Empire and the Kingdom Coalition is bogging down by the day. I could make a proper killing."
"Then let me ask you this. If I introduced you to a position that suited you — would you go and take a look?"
"Where?"
"A place that could rekindle the dream you let wear down to nothing. A place where the one who taught me hope resides."
If you hire this woman as your treasurer, you will never regret it. On my own name, I guarantee that she is someone you can trust.
Arriving with Nerga's letter of recommendation in hand, the weary woman with the striking ponytail looked the place over with cautious eyes.
"Your name is Luena, yes?"
"Y-yes, that's right."
"Did you hear what duties you'd be taking on here at our estate?"
"I heard you were in dire need of someone to look after your finances."
Why does she sound so unenthusiastic…? Did Nerga actually send me someone competent? No — I'm the one who asked for her, so why am I doubting anything?
"My lord. Perhaps we should start by handing her a few simple tasks to try?"
"Mm, let's do that."
Someone recommended by Nerga was bound to be capable, but for the time being I wanted to see her skills firsthand, so I pulled the finance-related papers out of Laura's stack and handed them over.
"Um… where are the ledgers? The accounting ledgers with the records of income and expenditures, I mean."
When I gathered the papers into a single stack and passed them over, Luena asked, in a tone that clearly said, and why exactly are you handing me this? Together, Laura and I dug out every last finance-related document tucked away in the cabinet in the corner.
The light died in Luena's eyes. Those lightless orbs seemed to be silently asking, …What am I looking at.
"Well… this is how we've handled every financial document until now. One at a time."
"How in the blazes did you people get away with this insanity?!"
Whoa. Vile words came flying out of Luena's mouth. Watching that reaction, it finally sank in that we might have been doing something very wrong all along.
"You aren't… playing some joke on me because it's my first day here, are you…?"
"What reason would I have to play a joke on someone I met today?"
"You're saying this isn't a joke?! How did you people commit such madness!!"
"Now, now, don't be too harsh. Our Laura did her level best to handle it all in her own way."
It felt as though everything Laura had worked so hard for was being trampled, so I did my best to cover for her. Judging by how Laura turned her head away with a flushed face — I think it might have… worked?
"My lord. Assets, capital, revenue, expenses, liabilities. Do you happen to understand the meaning of even one of these?"
"Er… aren't assets and capital the same thing?"
Crunch. Luena's rage-filled hand crushed the paper in her grip. A vein throbbed visibly at her temple; this was the sort of moment where one wrong word could end very badly indeed.
"Then I take it you've also never heard of double-entry bookkeeping."
"Double… as in, clothing?"
Crunch-crunch. Good grief — now Luena was crumpling the papers with both hands. One more slip of the tongue, and those hands might well find their way to my throat.
"How — how… how on earth has this estate survived until now?!"
At Luena's murderous question, I turned my eyes — only my eyes — toward Laura. Laura cleared her throat and spoke up.
"I have little formal training in this field, so I managed things crudely with knowledge picked up over someone's shoulder. I ask for your understanding that, to a professionally trained eye, it must fall far short."
"N-no, not at all. If it's no imposition… may I ask how many years you've been doing this?"
"Oh, four or five years or so, my lord?"
"Roughly that, yes."
Thud. Luena sank to her knees on the spot. Barely a dozen words had passed between them, yet her face had gone corpse-pale, and she rose again with her whole body trembling.
"The unworthy Luena shall write these ledgers — starting this very moment. I… I simply cannot look at this and walk away. I simply cannot!!"
Luena, shouting without warning, balled up the entire mountain of financial documents that had accumulated until now, then pulled a thick leather ledger and a quill from her own luggage and began transcribing in a frenzy.
"Master Nerga, how dare you recommend a place like this to me? Fine. Fine then! I'll do it! I'll do it and be damned! I shall deliver this land from its mire of ruin with my own hands!!"
It was as if some engine had roared to life inside her — the listless woman from minutes ago had vanished utterly, and she was now swinging that quill hard enough to send her hair whipping about. One thing, at least, became perfectly clear.
Financial troubles would never darken our domain again. Laura appeared to feel exactly the same; we exchanged a glance and shrugged our shoulders in perfect unison.
Just as Reus believed the arrival of his new treasurer had let him finally breathe again, a different affair had quietly begun to stir in the dark.
"Count Jorden."
"What is it."
Cropped short and combed back, hair that lent him a hard, imposing bearing; a deep scar carved above his brow; thick black hair with the faintest hint of blue-green sheen.
His upward-tilted eyes gave off something close to a faint bloodlust. It was before this intensely striking figure, Count Jorden, that his butler presented a letter.
"Baron Caraton?"
"A distant relative of yours, my lord. You personally conferred his barony upon him some time ago."
"Ah, that creature with no talent but for rolling in coin. What business could he have, sending word when it isn't even the new year."
Speaking as though he'd known the sender the instant he heard the explanation, Count Jorden slit the envelope open with his letter knife.
"Do you know the name Reus?"
"Yes, my lord. One of the provincial lords governing a small estate within your county."
"If that were all there were to him, I doubt I'd be holding this letter."
"I believe you may have heard the name Reus Compost at least once, my lord."
Ah, that Reus. So saying, Count Jorden began calmly reading the letter through.
It was at this very moment that the curtain quietly rose on the incident that would soon herald Reus to the entire continent — by the name of Mage.