Chapter 5

When I arrived at the lord’s mansion, the bitter memory of being tested in the courtyard to see whether I could use magic came back to me.

I had experienced that look of being written off as useless plenty of times in my previous job too, but it was not something one ever got used to.

As I trudged forward and tried to enter the mansion, the men loitering in front of the entrance turned unabashed stares toward me.

Apparently they were swindlers, and they would catch ignorant people who had come to petition at the lord’s mansion, tell them that they needed the swindlers’ guidance in order to meet the lord, and cheat them out of a fee.

Even so, I could not help thinking that it was ridiculous for swindlers to be loitering so boldly right in front of the lord’s mansion, but that in itself showed just how low the current lord’s standing was in this town.

I knew their trick because Kengo had told me about it, and they also knew that I worked for the Nodon Company, so they did not make a move on me.

Because it would mean getting into trouble with Nodon.

Of course, that was not because Nodon cared for his subordinates, but simply because he was a barbarian who loved getting into disputes with anyone, so the swindlers wanted nothing to do with him.

That was how things went in this world, in every respect.

It was like a rough provincial junior high school, and in that sense Nodon held the position of the delinquent boss and acted more important than the lord.

Pretending not to notice the suspicious looks in the swindlers’ eyes, I slipped between them.

There were no guards at the lord’s mansion, but neither were the doors shut.

As usual, I passed through the dim hall, deserted and silent, and headed for the inner courtyard.

There were two figures in the courtyard.

Kururu with those frightening eyes, and the ever-listless young lord, Iiria.

“My lady, it is time for work.”

Kururu apparently stood in the position of Iiria’s adjutant.

She was in her mid-teens. With well-proportioned features, nearly white silver hair like a snow-covered mountain on a cloudy day, and green eyes, she carried an atmosphere like some fairy from another world.

Her slender, delicate build brought a cat to mind, and so did her ears and tail.

She was a head shorter than me, a delicate girl, but the sharpness of her gaze gave her tremendous force.

Or rather, even her canine teeth were absurdly sharp, and a cute name like Kururu felt almost fraudulent.

And the Iiria whom Kururu had so pointedly called “my lady” lazily waved a hand at us from the hammock hanging from a fruit tree planted in the courtyard.

“It’s approval for the magic stone trade, right? Kururu, you handle it…”

Her voice was sleepy and devoid of spirit.

Kururu sighed, walked over to me, took the bundle of papers as if snatching it away, turned on her heel, and stood beside her mistress’s hammock, then brought the stack down against her mistress’s face.

“Bwah!? Wh-what!?”

“It is one of your few duties. The Araratom family name is weeping.”

These two were supposed to be mistress and servant, but more than anything they looked like a strict tutor and a poor student. Letting out a groan, Lady Iiria Araratom raised herself from the hammock.

“You say the family name is weeping, but it’s not like there’s anyone left to cry for it anyway.”

Iiria’s listlessness came from her bitterness toward the world.

“A pen.”

When Iiria said that bluntly, Kururu let out another sigh, then carried a quill pen and an inkpot from a small table nearby over to her mistress.

The inkpot was made from cowhide, and it was only after the merchant company started handling leather goods that I learned leather could become astonishingly hard depending on how it was processed. Leather armor showed up in RPGs, and I had been oddly impressed to realize that, yes, it really could function as armor.

“Is the Nodon Company still making enormous profits as usual, I wonder.”

It sounded almost like a mutter to herself while she signed, but after finishing, Iiria looked at me.

Brown eyes that suited her dark brown hair.

Apparently listening to sarcasm and barbed remarks was part of a salaryman’s job, both in my old world and in this one.

“W-well… probably, yes.”

While acknowledging it, I at least showed enough loyalty to blur the details of my employer’s affairs.

For various reasons, despite being a newcomer, I had been entrusted with all of the Nodon Company’s ledgers and contract preparation, so I knew its internal affairs well.

Or rather, in this world, where there was almost no public education system to speak of, the level of calculation and writing ability needed to get through university entrance exams was effectively a cheat ability in itself.

Nodon and nearly everyone else in the company conducted business by instinct and experience, so I probably knew better than Nodon himself just how many gold coins were flowing into his pockets.

“Hmph. And yet the taxes he pays amount to a sparrow’s tear. Strange, isn’t it. As for this quantity of magic stones too… who knows whether it is really correct…”

That complaint was not directed at me, but since my wages were being paid from Nodon’s profits, I was still implicated at the edge of the criticism.

Once she finished signing, Iiria shoved the papers at Kururu and returned to the hammock. Since she had turned her back to me, I could clearly see her fluffy doglike tail hanging down.

Although Iiria held the position of lord, her status was apparently somewhat complicated, and the more accurate way to put it was that she had been pushed off into this remote frontier land.

Kengo had told me that the reason lay precisely in those adorable ears and tail.

In this world, beastfolk stood lower in status than humans.

I had not seen one yet, but apparently only humans could use magic, which became an overwhelmingly powerful military advantage, so beastfolk were regarded as an inferior race.

And according to this world’s mythology—or rather, the legends preserved by the church—the world once belonged to the beastfolk, and they ruled humans by strength of arms. In fact, it seemed they had even used humans as food.

Then one day, the god granted magic to humans, and their positions were reversed.

So from the human side that could use magic, ruling over the beastfolk who could not was considered a duty entrusted to humanity by god.

Within that worldview, Iiria was apparently the illegitimate child born when a great noble in the center of the empire had relations with a beastfolk.

Most likely, because of her family’s public reputation and the tensions in status surrounding beastfolk and humans, she had been cast off here to the frontier territory of Jirenu.

That was why Iiria had no real authority at all, why none of the island’s people paid her any respect, and why she was little more than a decorative lord.

The island’s true power holders were the merchants led by Nodon. They had even taken nearly all the profits from the magic stone mine, which should originally have belonged to the lord.

If Iiria wanted to aim for a dramatic reversal, in this world there was only one option: to take into her service a mage, a member of the privileged class.

That was why it connected to the test in that courtyard, and to the cold, dismissive eyes she gave me when it became clear I could not use magic.

And now that I worked for the Nodon Company, I had been demoted further—from a reincarnated person who was useless because he could not use magic, to a lackey of a corrupt merchant house that did not pay taxes to the lord.

Being met with irony and sarcasm might actually have been the better outcome.

And because the circumstances surrounding its mistress were like that, the atmosphere of this mansion could not honestly be called good either.

Perhaps because Kururu diligently cleaned it, it was clean enough, but there was simply nothing here. No people either. It was empty and chilly, and there was not the slightest trace of the dignity one associated with a lord’s mansion.

I wanted to receive the certificate quickly and return to the merchant company, but Kururu was sprinkling sand over the document bearing Iiria’s signature. That act had surprised me at first, but the quality of the ink was nothing compared to modern ink, and she did it to help it dry faster.

And while waiting for the writing to dry, Kururu pressed closer to me.

Standing before me as I faltered, Kururu fixed me with that sharp gaze without the slightest restraint.

Her name was cute, and her features were beautiful, but her eyes were frightening.

Up close, I could see that she had the narrow vertical pupils peculiar to felines.

“You actually know the trick behind Nodon’s outrageous profits, don’t you?”

When she stared at me without even blinking, the pressure was tremendous, made all the stronger by how beautiful her face was.

The eyes she had used on me when it was found that I could not use magic—the look she had given me as if I were trash—brought back memories of the sharp-tongued girl from the stylish girls’ group back in high school.

And as for whether it was true that Nodon, who made enormous profits from magic stones, was evading the taxes he ought to have paid, it was true in broad terms.

Nodon was a heavy drinker and bad with women, but he was clever in a crooked way and knew how to maneuver.

A lord who could not even drive off the petty swindlers loitering in front of her mansion would likely have a hard time cracking down on Nodon’s misdeeds, and it would probably be difficult even to uncover the mechanism by which he falsified the numbers.

And if the question was whether I knew Nodon’s trick, then yes, I did.

If you were entrusted with the ledgers and checked the calculations in transactions, the flow of numbers became visible whether you wanted it to or not.

But even if I explained the trick to these two, the problem surely would not be solved.

More likely, I would simply be fired as an informant and cast out onto the street.

So, faced with Kururu, who was glaring at me like an old-school delinquent, this was all I could say.

“…I’m just a hired hand…”

“…”

I did not think of myself as pathetic for being cowed by a younger girl. When someone glared at you coldly from point-blank range and you could not help looking away, that went beyond age or gender—it was a difference in rank as living creatures.

Kururu continued staring at me, but before long, whether she gave up or simply decided that a small fry like me could not possibly know anything, I could not tell; she snorted through her nose, then finally looked away.

“There is still a little time before the ink dries. It is the Araratom family creed to treat even the most boorish guests with courtesy. Eat before you go.”

Entertaining visitors with food was an unmistakably old-fashioned custom, and there was something equally outdated in the way they valued honor.

Kururu did not even try to hide that this hospitality was reluctant, but her home cooking was unexpectedly delicious, and it also helped me save on expenses.

“…Thank you for the meal.”

Even if I had been reincarnated into another world, I was still just an ordinary small man.

Thriving spectacularly and overwhelming another world… that was nothing more than the fantasy I indulged in at night while sleeping in the warehouse.