Fabricated Debt (3)
It takes a crook to know a crook.
Barton, who had once made his living the exact same way these loan sharks did, was proving even more useful than expected. Just how much money were these usurers sitting on, that Barton would risk his neck partnering with me over a mere five-percent cut?
At this point, I was starting to understand why the Emperor wanted them crushed so badly.
"As a rule, these loan-shark types split their money across multiple locations, you see. So beyond the places I've already told you about, there will be several more hideouts still."
Barton kept bouncing his shoulders as he rattled on, clearly giddy at the prospect of a massive payday. The manic gleam in his eyes was almost enough to make me uncomfortable.
"But you needn't worry about that part, sir. These bastards are all paranoid cowards. Poke just one of their stashes and they'll assume the rest have been compromised too, and start moving the money to new hideouts."
"Hmm. So we hit them while they're in the middle of transferring the funds?"
"Yes! Exactly so. We disguise ourselves as bandits, ambush the escort carriages, and that will be that. There's just one problem, though—the quality of the guards protecting each hideout…"
"Plenty of them, and skilled ones at that."
"But of course. Wandering knights, mercenaries—they're crawling with the lot. Some places are even guarded by the knights and soldiers of the nobles who do business with them."
"They can't trust the loan sharks, so they're protecting their own money themselves?"
"That would be my guess. And that's not all. They hire back-alley mages to rig the entire hideouts with defensive magic—illusion spells and the like."
I listened carefully to Barton's briefing, nodding as I sank into thought.
Multiple hideouts… that complicates things.
Picking them off one by one would just mean watching the rest slip away. At minimum, we'd have to hit every location Barton had identified simultaneously, on the same day, at the same hour. On top of that, we'd need to track and observe anyone crawling out of the hideouts we didn't even know about yet.
This was no small job.
Do I even need to go this far?
My original plan had been to flip their entire board upside down. Not the headache of running around on two legs hunting for evidence and witnesses—just steal the money, launder it, and dump it straight into the national treasury. Done.
The nobles who woke up one morning to find their fortunes cleaned out would take one look at the suddenly swollen treasury and start asking where all that money came from. The Emperor, wanting no trouble with the nobility, would play dumb: Don't look at me. The Ministry of Finance brought it in. Every arrow would then fly straight at the Ministry, and Elena would find herself in a thoroughly miserable mess.
But the scale of this is getting ridiculous.
Still, after hearing Barton out—and given that we already knew the locations of several hideouts—wouldn't it be far more efficient to just hit them the proper way? Manufacturing a pretext was easy enough. Claim a public-interest tip had come in, and that would be that.
"Ahem! Er, Special Tax Collector, sir? If you're fretting because the operation's gotten too big… I happen to have one rather good idea…"
As if he'd read my mind, Barton glanced around cautiously and spoke up.
"This is purely my personal suggestion, of course. But what if we enlisted the Imperial Army's help—the same way you did when you collected my inheritance tax last time?"
What kind of nonsense was that? How were these two situations even remotely the same?
I was still sucking in a breath of pure disbelief when Barton flashed a greasy little smile and crooked one corner of his mouth.
"Ah, don't misunderstand me, sir. I'm not suggesting we go to war with them."
"Then what?"
"Heh heh heh. It's quite simple, really. We'd just need to negotiate a little something with an Imperial Army commander."
"Negotiate? What exactly are you getting at?"
"Ah. How shall I put this…"
As I tilted my head and furrowed my brow, Barton rubbed his palms together like a fly and laid out the scheme he'd cooked up.
"If we do it this way, like so, the amount of work on our end shrinks dramatically. So in conclusion…"
And once I'd heard his entire ingenious plan, I slapped my knee and couldn't help but marvel.
"Desserts! Delicious desserts! Always delicious, anytime desserts!"
After yet another hectic day, Rhea was getting ready to leave on her own, slipping the silver coins Rohan had given her as office expenses into her pocket and grinning to herself.
This is why people need to get ahead in life.
Who could have imagined it? The daughter of a dirt-poor farmer, already a 4th Grade Senior Secretariat at her age, buying the kind of expensive sweets nobles ate on her way home from work. Her family and friends back in the village would faint if they knew.
You don't need magic. You don't need a sword. You can still make a living. That's what this means.
She was genuinely proud of herself. Back at the Academy, how many people had pointed fingers at her for burying herself in the library and doing nothing but study for the civil service exams? But in the end, her choice had been the right one. Enduring all those harsh stares and dismissive comments had been worth it. Some of her Academy classmates were only just starting to prepare for the exams now.
And me? I'm already a 4th Grade Senior Secretariat, thank you very much!
If there was one single drawback, it was the difficulty of the work. Even as a clueless newcomer, she could tell that the workload at the Special Tax Collector's Office was downright murderous. Of course it was—her superior, Rohan, only ever took on jobs that could actually get someone killed.
But that was fine. The work was hard, but the returns were just as big. Look at what had happened in Richmond alone: a fat performance bonus and even a medal recommendation. What was there to complain about?
Still… getting mixed up with loan sharks never ends well. What on earth is he planning?
Mulling over this and that, she shrugged on her coat and stepped out of the office—
—and her face sank into something soft and yielding.
"Ugh…!"
Startled, Rhea stumbled backward and looked up. And what should she find but the most enormous chest she had ever seen in her life. For a moment she could only gape at the overwhelming size of it, the uniform buttons looking ready to burst free at any second—and then her eyes met those of the woman above them: a captivating beauty with short reddish-orange hair and a strangely magnetic presence.
"W-who…?"
Judging by the uniform, she was a fellow civil servant. But what business did she have coming here at this hour? Even a rookie like Rhea knew that showing up at quitting time was a breach of unspoken etiquette bordering on rudeness. How urgent could it possibly be?
And yet the woman was looking at her with an oddly unpleasant expression, as if looking down on her. Rhea's face crumpled.
"I'm sorry, but the Special Tax Collector is currently away on official business."
There was always the chance the other woman outranked her or was a noble, so Rhea steadied herself and bowed politely. But for some reason, the woman didn't so much as acknowledge her—just kept staring straight through her.
What's her problem? We've never even met. How rude…
Then Rhea spotted the nameplate pinned to the woman's chest.
Marien
A nameplate with only a given name—no family name. That meant she was a commoner, not a noble. And as far as Rhea knew, among the commoner-born staff at the Ministry of Finance, no one outranked her.
What? So someone lower-ranked than me is…
Rhea was known for being easygoing, but this time she couldn't let it slide. Quitting time had come and gone ages ago. It seemed the moment had arrived to demonstrate the dignity of a 4th Grade Senior Secretariat.
"Just what kind of rudeness is—!"
"Unforgivable…"
"Huh?!"
Before Rhea could even finish, a completely unexpected word tumbled from the woman named Marien's lips. Rhea doubted her own ears.
Is this woman insane?
Looking closer, Marien's eyes were not normal. Good heavens, how terrifying. In an instant, Rhea's carefully managed temper snapped, and she rolled her eyes this way and that, at a total loss.
"Um… your rank, perhaps…?"
She squeezed out the last of her courage to ask, but Marien only bit down hard on her lip—chewing it, almost—and strode boldly into the office. Eyes blazing, she scanned the room. Then her gaze locked onto the large sheet of parchment Rhea had used for an earlier report, the one covered in the names of the loan sharks.
"Ah—hey! You can't touch that!"
Rhea yelped and scrambled over to snatch the parchment away. She had reached her limit.
"What is the meaning of this rudeness?! What's your rank? Which department are you even from?!"
"Unforgivable. The seat beside Senior… that's my seat…"
"W-what did you just say?! Speak properly! If you keep this up, I'm calling the guards!"
"This is all your fault, you little—"
"Huh? A-all of a sudden?"
"Just you wait…"
The murderous edge in Marien's voice made Rhea flinch despite herself. But backing down here would mean failing as the Special Tax Collector's one and only aide.
The Tax Collector always says it—as his sole aide, I have to act in a way that matches the weight of the position!
As Marien turned and headed back out of the office, having said only what she wanted to say, Rhea squeezed her eyes shut and bellowed after her.
"Hey! What grade are you?!"
But Marien was already long gone.
"What the hell is wrong with that crazy woman?!"
Thoroughly furious, Rhea fumed to herself—completely unaware that the parchment she'd set aside had vanished. Swallowing her anger, she shut the office door behind her and left.
Whatever else happened, she still had to go home.