Chapter 21

The Nodon Company had sunk its roots into every corner of the town’s economic activity, sucking up the sweet profits from all over the place. But when you traced that power back to its source, it ultimately came from the magic stone trade.

That was why whenever Kururu saw me, she always glared at me with a terrifying expression and pressed me on whether I knew the secret of how Nodon was making a fortune without paying taxes.

If we were going to take our fate back into our own hands, we had to remove Nodon.

That was why we explained Nodon’s scheme to Iiria, but her shock was even more intense than when she had witnessed Kururu’s magic with her own eyes.

“…That’s practically magic itself.”

Iiria, who had frozen so completely that I honestly wondered whether she had turned to stone, finally squeezed out those first words.

“And bad magic too… truly vile magic.”

Iiria spat that out and pressed a hand to her well-shaped forehead.

Iiria’s shock was not about the fact that Nodon was not paying taxes.

She was stunned by the fact that the magic stone processors had been injected with the poison of debt and were continuing to have life drained from them by Nodon’s fangs.

Because of her own background, Iiria had probably known very well about the world in which humans ruled over beastfolk, but she showed disgust toward the reality that humans could dominate other humans even more cruelly than they did beastfolk.

“If Iiria-chan were a powerful lord, she might be able to unilaterally condemn Nodon’s misconduct and have him hanged. But with Iiria-chan’s name, we’re nowhere near the stage where something like that can be done. Right now, there are still far too many people who think they’d profit more by joining hands with Nodon than by siding with Iiria-chan.”

“And at least in Nodon’s magic stone trade, there are no profits on paper. So from that perspective, not paying taxes to Iiria-sama is logically consistent.”

As Kengo and I explained it to her calmly, Iiria nodded as if swallowing a lump of fire.

“That’s why, in order to undermine Nodon’s footing, we need to take over the craftsmen’s debts. If we can draw the craftsmen over to our side, Nodon will no longer be able to process magic stones and export them.”

“But this plan needs capital. The craftsmen’s debts are probably in the thousands of gold coins. Diverting prospecting funds alone is obviously nowhere near enough.”

“…”

Iiria, who had been listening in silence, finally opened her mouth.

“Then… what do we do? Prospecting isn’t something that happens over and over.”

Kengo shrugged and said this.

“Iiria-chan, you’re a lord, right? There’s a vein only a lord can mine.”

“A vein?”

“Yes, a vein.”

“Iiria-sama, could you show us the ledgers?”

Several days later, when there was another festival in town and the Nodon Company was closed again, we ended up gathering once more at Iiria’s mansion.

“That’s why I said tax collection really was impossible for me!”

If we wanted to take economic control of this land back from Nodon, then we had to seize the source of wealth that was the magic stone trade. To do that, we had to free the magic stone processors from Nodon’s yoke, which meant doing something about their debts, but in that case simply diverting prospecting funds was nowhere near enough.

And on top of that, the secret of synthetic magic stones was troublesome to handle and could not immediately generate cash.

That was why we had proposed the vein only Iiria could mine: taxation.

“If you two hurt Iiria-sama, I’ll be your opponent.”

Perhaps she really had been sleeping well since that night, because Kururu, restored to her usual vigor, was back to normal and glared at us while holding the shouting Iiria protectively in her arms.

Kengo and I had borrowed the ledgers from Iiria and were reexamining her income as a lord, and as one ugly fact after another came to light, Iiria had grown half-tearful each time.

“No, we’re not trying to blame you, but…”

“Still, I didn’t expect you’d outsourced all tax collection.”

At Kengo’s remark, Iiria became even sulkier, and even the fur on her tail puffed up completely.

“Well, selling off tax collection rights itself probably wasn’t that unusual before bureaucratic institutions developed… Besides, even if Kururu-san went around collecting taxes, there’d be limits.”

Kengo shrugged as he looked down at the documents.

“So there really is such a thing as tax collection contract rights. Is it like NHK fee collection outsourcing? You really do know the weirdest things, Yorinobu.”

“I wanted to make domestic administration parts in a game too, so I looked into all sorts of things about the Middle Ages.”

I was exasperated by Kengo’s relentless obsession with strength training, but Kengo seemed just as exasperated by my antlion-trap-like reading history.

To return to the subject, you could say that the position of lord necessarily came with the right to levy taxes, and that it was precisely because a lord could collect taxes that they were a lord.

But tax collection had long been a source of trouble for those in power.

The number of people who could read was limited, trustworthy people who would not run off with the collected taxes were few, and if the territory was large, it was difficult to go around it all on foot. There were many who resisted paying taxes, and many who hid their income as well.

And if you did not have the proper know-how and manpower, then outsourcing the work was the same solution in any era.

Since medieval times, there had been systems in which the right to collect taxes was sold cheaply, and if the purchaser managed to collect the full amount, then the difference became their profit.

The problem was that Iiria had given up from the start on the idea that collecting taxes was impossible for her, sold off all the rights exactly as she was told, and never monitored them afterward at all.

“We don’t even really know the exact tax rates.”

“Kururu-chan, you didn’t record any numbers other than these?”

The sheet in Kengo’s hand contained only the amounts paid to Iiria by the merchant companies that had purchased the tax collection rights. Perhaps thinking she herself was being blamed this time, Kururu bared her fangs and growled at us threateningly.

This document was utterly unfit to serve as a proper tax ledger, but perhaps we should have counted ourselves lucky that it had been recorded at all.

“They probably took advantage of the fact that Iiria-sama wasn’t monitoring them and have been collecting taxes however they pleased.”

“I’d say so. The actual tax rate must be quite high, or there’s no way the compensation for those collection rights would be this cheap.”

“Eh?”

Iiria, who was in Kururu’s arms, let out a startled sound.

“A high tax rate? I didn’t do anything that awful!”

Iiria shoved Kururu aside a little and leaned toward us.

“To begin with, there’s no way a powerless lord like me could impose high taxes. That’s why I sold all the tax collection rights to the townspeople, and the amount I got from it really is low, right? Don’t make me sound like some greedy noble!”

She rattled that off, but the world was cruel, and merchants in every world and every era were grasping. They had surely realized very quickly that Iiria hardly knew the tax rates and had no ability to monitor them, and once that was the case, it was easy to imagine what they did next.

“If they said, ‘This is by order of the lord,’ most people would probably believe them.”

“I know plenty of beastfolk who work outside the mines too, and their lives are probably just as harsh and miserable as the mines were before I came. Actually, don’t people from the rural villages outside town occasionally come here with petitions?”

And it was precisely to prey on such pitiful country folk that swindlers loitered in front of this mansion.

“That can’t…”

The reason Iiria had been indifferent about taxes was because she thought she lacked the power for them. And perhaps she had also thought that if a powerless lord could not collect taxes, then that simply meant the townspeople did not have to pay taxes, and maybe that was fine in its own way.

But things absolutely would not work out like that.

Most humans, if given authority, tried to use it to its fullest extent.

“B-But if people from the villages came to appeal that they couldn’t pay their taxes, I told the merchant companies that had bought the tax rights to reduce the amount they paid me and give that amount to the villagers…”

Partway through saying it, the sharp-witted girl seemed to realize it herself.

She pressed her lips together, the corners of her eyes reddening with anger, and the fur on her tail stood on end.

“Are you saying I’ve been deceived from head to tail?”

She had kept herself inconspicuous, never talked back, kept her head low, and endured mountain upon mountain of hardship.

And yet for better or worse, Iiria had never lost her straightforward nature.

That was probably in part because she had always had Kururu, whom she could trust absolutely, by her side.

If the two of them simply held hands and endured quietly together, most hardships somehow passed.

That was why she had never stretched out her neck to look and see what was happening outside.

“I can’t quite say that with certainty, but—”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

Kengo said that and slapped his knee sharply.

“But well, if it’s this bad, then that just means there’s that much room to reclaim taxes. If we poke at this even a little, endless fraud is bound to come spilling out. And isn’t that exactly what we want?”

That was exactly right.

“Let’s remember our objective. Our goal is to make skillful use of the incredible technology of synthesizing magic stones, earn money, improve the territory, and pursue each of our own aims. But as long as Nodon is here, he’ll suck up all the profit, so we need to do something about him. To do that, we need to take the magic stone trade out of his hands, and that means we need to bring the magic stone processors he controls over to our side.”

I emphasized once again that we were absolutely not trying to blame Iiria for her sloppy territorial management.

“And to get the craftsmen to cooperate, we need money, and the mine prospecting funds alone aren’t enough. That’s why we need to collect taxes. But just like Kengo said, this sloppiness should actually work in our favor.”

“…What do you mean?”

Kururu asked in place of Iiria, who was half-crying and sulking.

“We wouldn’t be imposing a new tax. We’d be taking back taxes the people have already paid, from greedy merchant companies. Compared to collecting additional taxes from the poor, what do you think?”

Kururu’s emotions ran hot, but she was a smart girl too.

She pictured the situation she had just been told and seemed convinced.

“But first we need to understand the current situation. Who’s collecting how much, and what kinds of taxes they’re collecting.”

As Kengo said, there were countless kinds of taxes.

And the only thing Kururu had left in the records were the amounts paid when the tax collection rights were sold.

There was nothing written about the tax rates, or even what kinds of tax rights they actually were.

We had no idea at all what should be collected, from where, under what name, or in what amounts.

“Why not just go ask the merchant companies that bought the tax collection rights?”

Perhaps feeling guilty about the missing records on the tax rights, Kururu said that irritably.

“In principle, yes, but…”

Kururu, once again feeling as though her thinking had been rejected, lifted one eyebrow, but the one who soothed her was Iiria, who was finally beginning to regain her composure.

“Because that would be like going to ask the thief who stole something where the stolen goods are, right?”

There was still some irritation left in her, but it seemed that opening her mouth had let some steam out.

She took a deep breath and continued explaining.

“And on top of that, we don’t even really know what was stolen from us. So there’s not a single reason for the other side to speak honestly.”

“Yes. That’s why we should first interview the townspeople. It’ll be more effective to press them in the order of asking why, if they’re taking this much tax from the townspeople, the amount passed to us is so small.”

Kururu nodded reluctantly.

“The problem is, who’s going to do that?”

“That’s why I’ll—”

Kururu began to insist, but she must have remembered the triangular ears on top of her head and the tail growing from her waist. Iiria gave a sorrowful little smile, stroked Kururu’s long slender tail with her hand, and said:

“If the two of us asked the townspeople about taxes, they might dump water on us.”

Just the fact that a decorative little lord with beastfolk blood, considered a second-class citizen, was collecting taxes would already be infuriating enough to the townspeople. If she then appeared with a carefree face asking how much tax they were paying, it would only stir up anger that she had been squeezing taxes from them without even knowing anything herself.

“And if Iiria-chan and the others were the ones going around asking, the people who bought up the tax rights would start moving to erase evidence of their fraud.”

“…But even so, it’d be strange for you two to go around asking too, wouldn’t it?”

When Kururu shot that back, Kengo and I nodded together.

The synthesis of magic stones had worked, and we had a plan for what to do to defeat Nodon.

But whenever you tried to accomplish something, the problem of manpower always rose up in front of you.

That was the whole story of why staffing businesses in the modern world made so much money.

We needed to gather a convenient number of people who understood the town’s circumstances and could get people to talk about taxes—but if Iiria had had such people in the first place, she would have been able to collect taxes on her own from the start.

“Or once we get the prospecting funds, we could use that money to hire someone.”

The problem of how to find such people would remain, but surely there were people who would work in exchange for pay.

“The prospecting funds are our ace in the hole. We need to preserve them as much as possible. Besides, for now, it’s still just counting chickens before they hatch.”

“That’s true, but…”

As Kengo and I were discussing it, Kururu spoke.

“So what we need is someone who has connections with the townspeople and can get around, right?”

Not only Kengo and I, but Iiria too looked at Kururu in surprise.

“Y-You have friends like that?”

But Iiria’s surprise seemed a little different from ours. The reason Iiria looked so shocked was probably because she herself had no friends other than Kururu.

The reason I understood that feeling was because I did not have any friends either.

“They’re not friends.”

Whether or not Kururu understood how Iiria felt, she answered with a troubled smile.

“But there are some perfectly convenient people who fit the bill.”

Iiria still seemed unable to imagine who she meant, and in that, we were the same.

But the people Kururu named were ones we knew very well too.