The Treasurer Luena (2)
My dearest Uncle, I trust you are in good health? Casting aside all preamble, I shall come straight to the matter at hand. Have you, by any chance, ever heard the name Reus?
Some time ago, I encountered this man Reus in person. I spoke with him, and even exchanged words and courtesies with him.
And yet, the more I learn of this man, the more it seems he has dabbled in some vile and wicked sorcery — something quite beyond my power to resolve on my own. It is for this reason that I send this letter in such haste.
To defeat a villain of such depravity, surely the strength of the Church must be—
"Sorcery?"
Sorcery — the wicked arts practiced by the wicked. The moment his eyes fell upon that word, Count Jorden, who had gone briefly silent, let out a scornful laugh.
"And here I wondered what grand news might have arrived... So this was it. Nothing but empty, delusional fantasies scribbled onto paper."
"I suspect the sender knew of your deep devotion to the Church, my lord, and sought to provoke that particular sensibility."
"Devotion? Ha."
At his steward's words, the Count scoffed openly — though directly behind his back hung a symbol of the Church.
"We make use of each other, and so we scratch each other's backs. That is all it is."
Hung directly above that symbol, as if to flaunt it, was a full-length portrait of Jorden himself, which drew the eye far more than the icon beneath it ever could.
"Not once, on my way to this seat of power, did I ever beg for the strength of some god. It was only after I became Count that the Church came sidling up to me, parading our 'friendship' as though they had contributed something. Leeches, the lot of them — selling faith to line their own pockets."
His cold eyes brimmed with a fierce loathing for all things pious.
"In the end, the only things worth trusting are people — and among people, only those bound by blood. It is why I went to the trouble of draping the empty shell of a barony over that fool Caraton."
"A most sound judgment, my lord."
"Though there are exceptions. People like you, steward."
"You flatter me."
Jorden reread Caraton's letter and shook his head. Read it again and again, it remained stuffed to the brim with nonsense that made no sense whatsoever.
"He claims the man carried ten sacks of flour in one go, then grabbed a sword by the blade, swung it, struck himself with it, and went flying? A certain measure of exaggeration is only natural when a story passes from mouth to mouth, but... this is beyond excessive."
After all, if a man capable of such feats truly existed, he would long since have stepped into the light under his own name and seized dominion over the world. That much went without saying.
The bulk of Caraton's letter amounted to little more than a child wailing, Punish Reus for me! Waaah!
"Pathetic. If a man holds a title, he ought to carry himself with the dignity that befits it. How can he still be so small a vessel after all this time?"
Jorden folded the letter neatly once more, slipped it back into its envelope, and handed it to his steward. The steward received it and carried it to the fireplace, where he carefully fed it to the flames.
"Shall I take it, then, that no reply is to be sent?"
"No — send one. Write something suitably formulaic, and keep it suitably brief."
"May I ask why?"
"This lord named Reus has piqued my personal interest. Until now, I knew him only as the man who fronted the money for fertilizer development... but for a letter like this to come flying from Caraton of all people, there must be more to him than meets the eye."
Most of the world credited only Nerga, the merchant who produced and distributed the fertilizer. But a handful of cautious souls — men like Jorden — knew the story hidden behind it.
Of course, even they never imagined that Reus himself, the lord, had ground down his own hours and poured his own labor into the development...
"He avoided stepping into the open because he did not wish for his existence to become known — yet he put his own name on the product. Isn't that a contradiction? As if he were deliberately trying to conceal who he is."
"I agree, my lord."
Reus had put his name on it without ever knowing, and only discovered it later to his own bewilderment — so there was no way an outsider like Jorden could ever learn the truth of the matter.
"Which leaves only one answer... he wants only his name to spread. So that when he finishes his preparations and takes flight one day, it will already be on every tongue, and he will be welcomed as the hero of a new age."
"That sounds rather like..."
"Yes. Rather like me, doesn't it?"
Jorden had been quietly bribing the wandering poets, storytellers, and writers residing within his own county to spread tales of his heroism far and wide.
"And yet this young man has succeeded in spreading his name far more naturally, and far wider, than I ever did. His reach spans the entire continent, no less. That is simply impossible without deliberate intent."
It had not been deliberate. Never once, from beginning to end, had Reus intended for his name to spread so far.
"Steward — these are troubled times. The Empire has spent years dragging out its stagnant war with the remnants of the Kingdom Coalition, pouring out resources without end, while the imperial family it supposedly serves cannot so much as settle on a single heir, and the internecine struggle grinds on without pause. All of it merely to line my belly, whatever becomes of the people living at the bottom."
Rising from his seat, Jorden approached the window. Beyond the pane glass — a luxury one could scarcely glimpse outside the great cathedrals — lay the lands he ruled.
"Even the dukes and marquesses tied to the imperial bloodline, far from guarding the throne, are busy eyeing it — wondering if the next imperial seat might somehow fall into their own laps. One day someone falls from power, the next day another ascends... In this chaotic world, where nothing above or below lasts forever—"
Cutting himself off, Jorden crossed the room and looked up at the emblem of the imperial family hanging above the door: a roaring lion rearing up on its hind legs.
Yet above even that emblem, just as before, hung Jorden's own portrait — and beneath it, a single sword.
"If a hero beloved by the common folk were to be born, and a new nation were to rise from the people who gathered around him — would that really be so astonishing a thing?"
Ambition like wildfire burned in Jorden's eyes as he delivered those loaded words. The steward bowed with precise formality.
"You, my lord, are more than worthy of such a destiny."
"But it would be rather troublesome if two heroes sprang up beneath this sky, wouldn't it?"
With a bang, Jorden flung the window open, and the wild gust that rushed in scattered his neatly arranged documents.
"What do you intend to do about this man Reus?"
"First, I must learn what manner of man he is. Seeing him through the narrow eyes of that fool Caraton helps me not at all. If he proves a talent worth drawing to my side, I will win him over by whatever means necessary."
Taking up his letter knife, he snatched one of the flying papers from the air and pinned it to the desk. The document skewered beneath the blade bore a report on Crow's Head Valley.
"And if not... then I shall simply have to take measures of my own."
That troubled times make heroes — this was a truth most people accepted without argument.
But nothing said those heroes must carry upright intentions. Count Jorden was one such man.
What on earth am I looking at? It was the only thought in Luena's head for the entire time it took her to build the estate's financial ledger from the ground up.
Crow's Head Valley's financial situation was such that the more she looked at it, the more she wanted to slap her own forehead. If the estate were a man, it would be one who'd been slashed by blades, run through by spears, and beaten with clubs — every wound, by some miraculous stroke of luck, grazing just past the vital organs, leaving him alive on his last breath alone.
She could well imagine how much agony Laura, the chief aide, must have suffered wrestling with the finances — and how many of her mistakes must have slipped past unnoticed in the process.
And this one — and the timber purchase here, too. Costs that could have been cut in half — no, to a third — and they paid the full price on all of it, like a mule? How much did those middleman merchants skim off in distribution alone?
No single act of outright, large-scale fraud had ever come to light, but the small, constant swindles had slipped beneath notice, nibbling away at the funds grain by grain.
As they say, drizzling rain soaks you through. Take one big hit and you might at least come to your senses — but it's these countless little losses that hurt far more.
Having guessed why Nerga had sent her here in such a hurry, Luena cursed him in her head several times over.
"This concludes the ledger compiling every piece of accounting-related information generated in Crow's Head Valley to date."
Having organized all the financial records in a mere four days, she laid the thick ledger upon Reus's desk.
"Oh... wow."
Reus's eyes gleamed as he went through the ledger page by page. Beside him, Laura, who received it once he'd finished reading, wore an expression of open dismay.
"Good heavens, this much money was leaking out? If we'd plugged just this, we could have had the soldiers' equipment repaired last year..."
Luena waited quietly, watching the two of them pour over the ledger. After this, the reaction usually came back one of two ways.
Those worthless merchant scum...! Ripping me off like this! Drag them in here, now!
One: fly into a towering rage the moment they saw the ledger and leap about demanding she recover every loss immediately — or
Then it wouldn't be much of a problem if I siphoned off a little more from here, would it? No?
Two: start scheming to funnel a portion of the profits recorded in the ledger into their own pockets.
Either way, they were specimens Luena had seen more of than she cared to remember. For a moment, she drifted into the past.
Years ago, she had been scraping by as a camp cook trailing after some no-name trade caravan when Nerga spotted her and brought her in.
"You're good with numbers?"
"Yes. Numbers put my mind at ease."
She'd had a knack for them since she was small. Count them however you liked, one was one and ten was ten, no matter who did the counting.
"Then I think you ought to learn this properly."
"Learn it... properly?"
Going far beyond mere counting, she studied the flow of money in and out, profit and loss, and a whole array of accounting methods — and she grew fast.
To think a world this vast existed within numbers! A world of such variety and depth! Eager to put that talent to use, she left Nerga's side and went out into the world.
At first, it was a joy. But it didn't last. The world refused to leave her in peace — and not in any kind way.
"Excuse me — forgive me, but this sum, where exactly did it go to..."
"Ah, no need for you to know that. It's a necessary expense."
She learned about the slush funds merchants funneled into crooked places.
"Explain yourself, my lord. What is this ledger?"
"Don't poke your nose where it doesn't belong. If you're hired help, act like hired help."
She watched a lord quietly skim a portion of his own manor's budget and pile it into his private coffers.
"What is the meaning of this? You run this place under the name of a trade house and feel no shame whatsoever?!"
"Lower your voice."
"If you do not halt this at once, I will submit a formal petition to the Guild."
"Stop spouting such naive nonsense. The Guild already knows! That's precisely why they turn a blind eye — as long as nobody overdoes it, it's tacitly permitted."
"They... already know?"
She heard how trade houses committed fraud while the Guild looked the other way.
More than a full year had passed wearing away at Luena's heart — a heart that had wanted nothing more than to help people through her own honest talent.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, well... I suppose I've learned to match my stride with the world now."
Changed almost beyond recognition, she returned and went straight into the Guild's internal audit department.
Her job there was to root out fraud and corruption within the Guild — but the world had taught her otherwise, and so she did not.
Moderately. Moderately, above all else. Try your absolute best, and the only fool at the end of it would be you.
Work just enough, skim just enough for yourself, and play at diligence just enough. Wasn't that simply the way of the world?
She had heard Nerga's glowing words, but she'd assumed this lord Reus would prove no different from any other. Greed changes people, after all. The moment he learned how much he'd been losing, surely he would choose one or the other.
"This is excellent work. I can entrust the finances to you with total peace of mind. Right, Laura?"
"Yes, I agree. I never dreamed anyone would be this thorough."
"I look forward to working with you, Luena. We'll discuss your salary in more detail tomorrow."
Three. A third option had appeared — passing over everything without so much as a flicker. Having heard it all, Luena blinked.
"Forgive me — is that all?"
"Hm? As far as the financial paperwork goes, that's everything."
"No — no, that's not what I meant..."
"It's your first day, isn't it? I've seen your skill for myself, so don't overdo it — rest today. We'll prepare a guest room for you, so stay there tonight."
She had assumed, of course, that she'd be set to some task that would profit the lord himself — yet not one word from Reus landed where she had predicted.
"How... how can you be certain I will actually do my job properly?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"It doesn't occur to you that I, your treasurer, might commit fraud?"
Self-loathing lifted its head inside the chest of a woman who had lived a withered life.
Could you truly trust someone like me? Do you even know what kind of person I am? Despise me. Let's just use each other and be done with it.
Reus's answer ended in a single line.
"Are you that kind of person?"
"Ah... I, um, that is..."
Struck by those few, fierce words, her mind went blank, and for a long while she could only fumble for a reply that wouldn't come.
"It's written in your letter of recommendation. That you are a trustworthy person. And I trust the words of the people I trust."
"N-no, that's not it... I, in the past..."
"I'm sure you have your past, your circumstances. I can't know what effect they had on you, or how they changed you. But."
Reus cut himself off mid-sentence and held the ledger back out to her — the one she had poured such care into organizing.
"Isn't the proof that you're an honest person right here? For me, that's more than enough."
The words he offered with a light smile rang through Luena like a blow to the heartstrings, echoing on and on.
For those four days spent sorting the ledger, she had done no fiddling, no filthy little scheming about skimming shares or covering up corruption. She had calculated nothing but numbers.
For the first time in so very long, she had thought of nothing at all and immersed herself purely in the accounting itself.
And it had been so very, very joyful.
A place that will rekindle your worn-out dreams — and the place where the man who taught me hope resides.
Only now did she understand that what Nerga had said was no hollow flattery or pretty ornament of language, but words spoken with genuine care for her.
Here — beneath this man — perhaps she could reclaim the days and the self she had lost. She found herself truly believing it.
"What I said just now was out of line. If it isn't too much trouble, might you hire me as your treasurer after—"
"Hm? You're already hired? We just talked about your salary, didn't we? Don't tell me you've had a change of heart in the last minute?"
"Ah! Y-yes, of course! I'm sorry — my head's all over the place."
Flustered, Luena hugged the returned ledger tight against her chest. So a place like this actually existed.
A small paradise where she could nurture her dream all over again. It sounded like an exaggeration, but to her, it was unmistakably reality.
"Then... I look forward to working with you!!"
For the first time in ages, a smile bloomed across her gloomy, weary face. A smile born of happiness, sincere and true.
"And with that, the financial problem is solved too."
"Yes. Her ability is beyond question. Nerga has sent us a thoroughly capable person."
"Then you can finally breathe a little easier, hm?"
"If I may speak plainly, my lord — I haven't drawn an easy breath once since I entered your service."
"Yeah, yeah. I ask nothing of you."
After Luena left the office, I found myself rejoicing that the three sacred treasures of estate governance — chief aide, knight, and treasurer — were finally complete. And then my eyes snagged on one of the documents.
Whenever my attention turned fully to running the manor, there was one thing I tended to forget.
This...
The fact that in this world, there were monsters only I could stop — and they were hiding, waiting.
Successive discoveries of corpses in the lake have spread unease through the surrounding area. Fishing activity is being scaled back.
An ominous feeling lurked within those few short lines. The mage's instincts prickled, stinging at my skin like needles.