Internal Cleaning (1)
Four days had passed since the special envoy incident was resolved.
Every dawn, I would swing my sword in the secret training ground, and when the sun rose, I would teach Felix the basic forms. It wasn't so much "teaching" as transferring what I had mastered the night before into the morning routine.
“Master, what is the core of this movement?”
“The tip of the foot.”
“The tip of the foot?”
“Before twisting your waist, your feet must move first. If you change the order, your balance will collapse.”
It was a fact I had learned the night before when I couldn't maintain my center and fell over three times in the training ground.
Felix nodded with admiration in his eyes.
“Master, how do you manage to point it out so precisely?”
“...Experience.”
The cheat key of Bloodline Awakening and the experience from twelve hours ago was a secret.
***
Something more urgent than swordsmanship was needed. Internal cleaning.
To explain: It was the task of sifting out the internal elements of the disorganized Grand Duchy. When a family is on the decline, people tend to try to skim off something.
After morning training, I called for Lucas.
“Lucas, I need to look at the Grand Duchy's ledgers.”
Lucas froze.
“Regarding the ledgers, Master?”
There was bewilderment in the butler's tone. The young master who held a sword was now saying he wanted to see the ledgers; it was puzzling.
“After my father passed away, who was in charge of financial management?”
Lucas paused briefly before answering.
“During the Grand Duke's lifetime, the Chief Treasurer Wolff oversaw it all. After the Grand Duke's passing, the three managers under Wolff took over the duties.”
“Wolff?”
“He resigned two months after the Grand Duke's death, citing poor health.”
The financial officer had left the moment the master died. Using health as an excuse.
In the original story, I don't recall the name Wolff, but there was a description that the Grand Duchy's finances deteriorated rapidly before its demise. The author didn't explain in detail, but there was a sentence like 'the rate at which the treasury was emptying was abnormal.'
Abnormal.
That word gnawed at me.
“Bring all the ledgers. From after my father's death until now.”
“All of them, Master? The quantity is considerable, but...”
“All of them.”
Lucas lowered his head and withdrew.
An hour later, the ledgers arrived at my room.
Lucas, this guy... This is beyond just considerable.
Fourteen thick leather-bound ledgers occupied the desk and the floor.
I never imagined that the experience of staying up late at the company poring over Excel sheets would be used here. I thought of it as an investment for my future.
I opened the first ledger.
***
Six hours had passed.
In the middle, Stella opened the door and shouted, “Oppa, eat!” and I answered “Later,” but under the coaxing that was almost a threat of “Now!”, I gave in, put a piece of bread in my mouth, and returned to the ledger.
To cut to the chase, the Grand Duchy's treasury wasn't emptying; it was leaking.
It was fine to say it was simply gushing out without restraint.
The income items were simple: taxes from the northern territories, tolls on trade routes, direct mine revenues. Comparing with the records during the Grand Duke's lifetime, the taxes and tolls showed no significant changes.
The problem was the expenditures.
The costs for repairing the estate walls, replacing the knights' armor, operating the fortresses. The items themselves were normal. But the numbers didn't add up.
The armor replacement cost for the knights had been executed three times in the span of three months. What reason did they have to replace the armor three times in three months? Were the knights using their armor as disposable?
The same went for the wall repair costs. Summing the repair costs for four months after the Grand Duke's death made it more expensive than demolishing the walls and building new ones.
In the third ledger, the decisive item appeared.
Records of grain purchases for the estate residents. There were three purchase sources, and one caught my eye.
Heinz Trading Company.
A name I had never heard of. But purchases through this company accounted for half of the entire grain budget. The price per unit at Heinz Trading Company was uniformly half that of the other two sources.
Half was too large a discrepancy to be a mistake.
I calculated the total of the abnormal expenditures over the four months after my father's death.
“......”
One-fourth of the Grand Duchy's annual tax revenue.
In just four months, one-fourth of the annual income had vanished.
These rats had been eating the Grand Duke's wife and young children.
My hand tightened.
This was anger, but before that, it was a calculation issue. Think without emotion.
To stabilize the Grand Duchy, money was needed. Rebuilding the knights, maintaining the territories, preparing for long-term conflict with the Marquisate. All of it required money. But with a hole in the treasury, no matter what, it was a bottomless pit.
First, I had to plug the hole.
“Lucas.”
Lucas, who had been waiting outside the door, entered immediately. This guy had been pacing in front of the door.
“The three managers of the Grand Duchy. What are their names?”
“Food supply manager Müller, military logistics manager Becker, and facilities manager Schmidt.”
“All three worked under Wolff?”
“Yes. They were personally selected by Chief Treasurer Wolff.”
So, people planted by Wolff.
The financial officer left, leaving behind his three people. And those three were manipulating the ledgers in harmony.
This wasn't a problem that could be resolved within personal deviation.
“Müller was purchasing grain through a place called Heinz Trading Company.”
Lucas looked at me without moving.
“Have you heard of it?”
“...No. It's a company name I've never heard before.”
“The price is half that of existing suppliers. Yet they're buying half of the entire grain.”
Lucas's face hardened.
“Impossible...”
“It's not impossible. The armor replacement costs and wall repair costs all follow the same pattern. The items were made to look plausible, but the amounts were all inflated.”
Lucas slowly clenched his fist. The veins stood out under the white gloves.
“These bastards... have been eating the madam...”
The old man's voice trembled.
“Lucas.”
“Yes... yes, Master.”
“It's not your fault.”
Lucas raised his head.
“Financial management was within the purview of the Chief Treasurer, and after Wolff left, the managers would have reported. Manipulating the ledgers would make it seem normal that they didn't know.”
I had no intention of comforting him; I was just stating facts. It was out of bounds for the butler to delve into the financial ledgers in such detail, and the Grand Duchess wouldn't have had the leisure to read the ledgers. She had been busy protecting her three children.
That's why these rats had been able to run the table.
“I need more evidence. Can you check if the Heinz Trading Company actually exists or if it's a ghost company?”
“I will check directly.”
“Quietly. We can't let the managers notice.”
“Of course.”
After Lucas left, I opened the ledger again.
In Becker's military logistics expenditure records, the name 'Martin Weapon Merchant' repeated. In Schmidt's facility repair records, there was the company 'Nord Stone'.
The pattern was completely the same. Each had created a ghost company and pocketed the difference in the inflated amounts.
At this point, it was clear that Wolff had designed the system and left. The Chief Treasurer had received the tribute and disappeared under the guise of 'poor health'.
In the original story, this hole wasn't filled. Until the Grand Duchy was destroyed, the treasury continued to leak, and that was one of the causes of the knights' collapse.
The author just wrote 'the rate at which the treasury was emptying was abnormal' and moved on. Since he didn't investigate the cause of the abnormality, the abnormality continued.
I would dig it out and pull the roots. To live comfortably, the family finances had to be normal first.
There was a knock. It was quicker than Lucas's usual return.
“Enter.”
The door opened and it was Violeta, not Lucas.
“Ah, Mother.”
I stopped trying to cover the ledgers with the unexpected visitor. Since I had already seen the ledgers spread all over the room, hiding them would be even more suspicious.
Violeta scanned the ledgers scattered on the floor and desk, then looked at my face.
“Killian, I heard you hadn't eaten.”
“I ate some bread.”
“Eating half a piece of bread and spitting it out is eating?”
It seemed Stella had informed her. That little information source had a pretty fast reporting system.
Violeta entered the room and picked up one ledger. The page with the amounts was open.
Her eyes slowly scanned the numbers.
“This is...”
Violeta's face hardened.
“Mother, did you feel it too?”
“The wall repair costs... were there this much?”
The Grand Duchess didn't know the overall structure, but she had the sense to feel something was off in one item.
“I will report the details after the investigation is complete.”
Violeta set the ledger down and looked at me again.
For a long time.
“...Killian. Are you really Killian?”
This question, I would probably hear often from now on.
“Yes. Of course.”
“An eighteen-year-old kid looking at ledgers for six hours without eating...”
“I did eat. Bread.”
“Half a piece of bread!”
Violeta's voice rose. It was closer to being dumbfounded than angry.
She let out a long, deep sigh.
“Eat your meal. You'll get sick.”
“...Yes.”
After Violeta left, I thought.
This person comes all the way here to check on her son's meals even though she lost her husband and cries every night.
It was the action of a living person, not a character from a novel.
I was about to open the ledger again when the door opened once more.
“Oppa, Mom says she's eating.”
Stella stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.
“...Alright.”
Yes, let's finish cleaning the ledgers after eating. This guy's household is harder to feed than to starve.
After finishing dinner and returning to my room, Lucas was waiting in the hallway.
The old man's expression was serious.
“Heinz Trading Company has been confirmed.”
“Result?”
“It doesn't exist. When I went to the address, it was an empty warehouse.”
As expected.
“Check Martin Weapon Merchant and Nord Stone too.”
“I already sent people.”
Lucas continued quietly.
“Master. One more thing has been confirmed.”
“Tell me.”
“Müller sent a letter to someone last night.”
Lucas's eyes had darkened.
“The recipient is the administrator of the Lawrence Marquisate.”
Corruption was just the tip of the iceberg.
It was connected to the Marquisate as well.