Rhinoceros and Unicorn
To run a workhouse, I first needed to be able to provide jobs.
And to provide jobs, I needed a company.
Buying a few factories wasn't that difficult in itself, but nobles rarely ran factories with their own hands. Even if they held the shares, they left the actual operations to agents.
I was already busy running the orphanage.
And I had no experience managing a company to begin with.
So first, I needed to find a manager I could entrust both the company and the workhouse to.
Well—it wouldn't be easy.
"So the company dumped wastewater without authorization, it mixed into a well, and dozens of people died?"
"Yes."
"But they were found not guilty on the grounds that there was no direct causal link between the wastewater and the contamination of the well?"
"To be precise, they only received a fine for unauthorized discharge of wastewater."
These crazy bastards.
In this world, the mindset of anyone who ran a company or a factory was exactly like this. The concept of human rights simply didn't exist. As long as the manager brought in money, that was enough. That was how most of them thought.
Thanks to that, every kind of horrific act was carried out without the slightest hesitation.
"What about this merchant?"
"What kind of man is he?"
"He invited the native chieftains to a banquet under the pretense of hospitality, lured them into his trading company's territory, killed every last one of them, seized their gold, and used it as capital for the triangular trade. Seems he has a certain talent for it."
"What a son of a bitch."
Treating the natives as beasts rather than people—
That was only natural in this world.
There were so many other bastards as well. A plantation owner who talked farmers into a joint farm and then stabbed them in the back to steal their land; a factory martial artist nicknamed the Master of the Whip; an accounting wizard who could change the very units of the numbers the moment he laid a hand on the ledgers…
As if it weren't a fantasy world already, there were plenty of people whose heads were pure fantasy.
Truly magical.
"Ah, fuck."
Running a company in a world like this?
You wouldn't even be able to tell whether it was a company or a labor reformatory. Because there wasn't a single person with the concept of human rights stuck in their skull!
"It'd be better just to leave the company to you, Engels."
"I am busy as well."
"Why is there only one Engels…?"
"I do possess a rather unique charm, do I not?"
"Bullshit."
To properly run a workhouse, just keeping one factory running smoothly wasn't enough. I needed people who understood the system I had in mind and could sustain it over the long term.
The kids won't work. This isn't charity—it's a matter of capital.
I couldn't put one of my orphanage children in charge. The children believed that whatever I said was absolutely right. They wouldn't be able to compromise with reality at all. In the end it would just become another extension of the charity work.
But this had potential beyond that.
Scientific management was the pure essence of Earth's capitalism. I needed someone who could interpret it and apply it in this world's terms.
"I need someone who can compromise with reality, understand the vision I have in mind, and who possesses long-term foresight and real managerial ability…"
"Would it not be faster simply to search for a horned horse?"
"There's a rhinoceros."
"Is a rhinoceros not a cow?"
"It has a horse's neck."
"Pardon?"
While Engels sank into grave contemplation over whether a rhinoceros could reasonably be considered a unicorn, I was thinking something else entirely.
Should I try using Rosente Devi?
Rosente Devi.
The villainess of the original novel, the legitimate daughter of the Devi Family, and a madwoman with a massively inflated ego. For some reason, the more I turned the problem over, the more her face kept rising before my eyes. I didn't know much about her abilities, but she wouldn't be completely incompetent.
She would already be used to managing subordinates, and she would have received a proper education from the Devi Family.
It's not as if Rosente has a bad nature. If anything, having grown up watching Kalt Devi, her moral standards are higher than most people's.
In this world, the ability to understand morality was an extremely rare talent. And Rosente was one of the few who possessed it.
Of course she wasn't a flawless saint like Kalt Devi—but that was precisely why she would be better suited to management.
Her network as a noble is fairly wide, and as a family of shepherds her relationship with the Church is good as well.
The Church's savior is a shepherd. Priests compare themselves to shepherds, sinners to lambs, and the traditions of the Church are steeped in the ways of shepherds. That is why, unusually for a noble house, the Devi Family got along well with the Church. The Devi Family was the family of shepherds, and the Orthodox Church was the church of shepherds.
They were a little distant from the pious faction that actually ran workhouses, but if the Devi Family announced they were opening one, the Church would at least pass on some know-how.
The real question is whether Rosente Devi is willing to help me.
It didn't matter if she failed to grasp my vision perfectly. Once scientific management was applied, the results would be visible with the naked eye.
But if Rosente had no intention of cooperating, all of this fretting was meaningless. Even if she said she would help, if she simply did whatever she pleased, it would be pointless.
"Engels."
"Yes, Young Master. After some consideration, I have concluded that since a rhinoceros has two horns, it would properly be called a bicon."
"…You're still thinking about that?"
"Is it not an important question?"
"There are rhinoceroses with only one horn to begin with."
"Really? Is that true?"
"No. That isn't the important part."
What mattered right now was not a horned horse—it was the workhouse.
"Do you think I could borrow Young Lady Rosente's abilities?"
"Well… from what I have observed, she would lend you her body if you asked."
"Ah."
"She is completely smitten with you, is she not?"
Isn't that a little different?
It looked more like terror and an inflated ego had gotten mixed together until she was no longer in her right mind. Could you really call that being "smitten"? Well, there was the suspension-bridge effect, and Stockholm syndrome. If that counted as love, then yes, it was love…
But I wasn't particularly keen on the love of a villainess. Not really.
"I know a thing or two about a woman's heart, and Young Lady Rosente clearly likes you, Young Master."
"Ah, is that so."
"Haa. Really, Young Master—you understand nothing of a woman's heart."
"Hmm."
She had openly declared that she wanted to have an affair and bear my child. If I failed to notice that, that would be the strange part. No—come to think of it, Engels, you bastard, you were there at the time too. What the hell are you talking about?
I couldn't tell whether he thought I was an idiot, whether Engels himself was the idiot, or whether he was simply out of his mind.
My head was starting to spin a little.
"…Why did you decide that Young Lady Rosente likes me?"
"Well, one can tell simply by looking at her face. The way she looks at you is exactly the gaze of a young girl who has fallen in love."
To me it looked like the face of a vampire about to devour someone. No—more than that, is that even the issue?
Openly announcing she would commit adultery, that she would make me fall for her, that she would bear my child—
You're just ignoring all of that? Was this bastard dozing off and not listening at the time?
"…Sigh. Fine. Anyway, I should call her over first."
"Miss Rosente. I'm planning to establish a workhouse, and I would like your cooperation—"
"I'll do it!"
"…I haven't explained anything yet."
"You need my capable assistance, don't you?"
"Uh… well, yes."
"You decided I would be more helpful than Her Highness Adini, didn't you?"
"That… is true?"
"Meaning that I, your mistress, am more useful to Dante than your fiancée?"
"Why are you my mistress."
I had never raised one of those.
"Haa. Really now. It can't be helped. It's all because I'm so capable, isn't it? That Dante would rely on me, Rosente Devi… Heh, I have no choice but to help you."
"Miss Rosente, you weren't originally this kind of person, were you?"
It felt as if her condition had deteriorated since last time. Why did she seem weirder every single time we met?
"What was my original personality like?"
"If you put it that way, I don't have much of a reply… but I get the sense you've become more frivolous."
Saying she used to be more demure… I hadn't exactly seen her being demure. All I had ever witnessed was her bursting into tears like a child. The demure version existed only in the original novel.
"Doesn't it simply mean we've gotten closer?"
"…Was there any basis for us to get close?"
Bursting into tears. Offering advice by letter. Suddenly sucking blood from someone else's finger. Declaring an affair in front of the fiancée. Talking nonsense about wanting to have a baby.
Somehow we hadn't met all that many times, and yet every single meeting had been catastrophic. Wasn't there zero basis for getting close? If anything, it seemed like only things that would shatter a relationship had ever happened.
"Anyway, this time you called me because you need me, right?"
"Ah. Yes."
"Heh. That's enough for me."
"…"
No. She hasn't even heard the explanation and she's already fine with it.
I'm the one who's anxious.