Chapter 4: A Wind Blows Through the Deficit Trade Route

The Weiss County was windier than I had expected.

The moment I stepped down from the carriage, my hair clung to my face.

There was a scent of the sea mixed in.

A key point of a frontier trade route—close to the ocean.

The lord’s residence stood atop a pass connecting the mountain roads and the port.

The mansion itself was modest.

The stone walls were sturdy, but there were no decorations.

At a glance, it was clearly the home of a soldier.

There was a flower bed, but nothing was planted.

Only dark, damp soil remained.

Lucas opened the carriage door for me.

Silently, he held out his hand.

“…Thank you.”

I took his hand.

It was a hard palm.

A hand accustomed to gripping a sword hilt.

A hand that likely had never been cut by the pages of a ledger.

“The accounting room is further inside.

I’ll guide you.”

Inside, the mansion was just as simple as its exterior.

There were no carpets in the hallways.

No portraits on the walls.

But the floors were polished, and the windows were clean.

It was maintained.

There was simply nothing to decorate it.

The moment I opened the door to the accounting room, I stopped.

The ledgers were piled up like a mountain.

On the desk.

On the shelves.

On the floor.

Unsorted slips were stacked in boxes.

Bundles of receipts were carelessly tied together with string.

The ledgers on the shelves were not arranged by year, but by thickness.

By thickness.

“…By thickness.”

“Ah, that was me.

Sorry about that.”

A voice came from the back.

A man in his mid-thirties peeked out from behind a pile of slips.

A friendly smile.

“I’m Hannes.

I serve as the deputy.

As for the ledgers—honestly, we’re completely lost.”

Lucas’s childhood friend and adjutant.

His name had been written in the letter.

He seemed far more talkative than Lucas.

“We finally have someone who understands numbers… seriously.

Both the count and I get headaches just looking at them.

Every time we try to keep books, I start wondering why addition even exists in this world.”

“Hannes.”

Lucas silenced him with a single word.

I looked around at the mountain of ledgers.

—Terrible.

It could not compare to the ducal estate’s accounting room.

There was no classification system for the shelves.

The standards for bookkeeping differed from year to year.

The storage period for slips was not being observed.

But—

(…Ah.

This is…)

I ended up smiling.

“Eh?

Is this something to laugh at?” Hannes asked nervously.

“No.

—Because this is a treasure mountain.”

In three hours, I grasped the overall picture.

I rearranged the ledgers on the accounting room floor by year and sorted the slips by category.

I made Hannes help.

He was bad with numbers, but he followed instructions accurately.

As a soldier’s subordinate, he was probably excellent.

As a ledger assistant, he would be usable with training.

There were three causes of the deficit.

First, the tariff design of the trade routes was incorrect.

As I had pointed out in Lucas’s ledger earlier, there was double taxation of transit and transaction taxes.

Correcting this alone would increase merchant traffic.

Second, the intermediaries were taking excessive profit.

The fees of the company handling transport from the port to the market were double the market rate.

Either change the contractor or switch to direct transactions.

Third, the procurement routes were too fragile.

They relied on a single mountain path that was closed in winter.

If a sea route alternative were secured, operations would stabilize year-round.

I compiled the improvement plan and brought it to Lucas’s office.

The desk was surprisingly tidy.

There were few documents.

It might only appear tidy because there were no management documents to begin with.

A map was pinned to the wall.

A topographical map of the territory and borders with neighboring countries.

This one was drawn in great detail.

It was a soldier’s room.

“Count Weiss.

I have compiled an improvement plan.

Could you review it?”

I handed over the documents.

Lucas accepted them, glanced through them—

And immediately set them down.

“That’s fine.

I’ll leave it to you.”

“…Is it alright if you do not review it?”

At the ducal house, even the smallest proposal required Lord Alberto’s approval.

Without approval, nothing could move forward.

And yet, all the credit would belong to him.

“I have reviewed it.”

“No, um, you hardly read it just now—”

“I don’t understand numbers.”

His answer was so straightforward that I was left speechless.

“If you say it is correct, then it is correct.”

—You.

Until a moment ago, he had called me “Lady Serena.”

Perhaps his natural tone had slipped out.

Among soldiers, perhaps “you” was normal.

There was probably no deeper meaning.

Even so, that single word caught somewhere in my chest.

If you say it is correct, then it is correct.

He trusted the judgment as it was.

No verification.

No conditions.

No taking credit.

(…What was this called again?)

Trust.

Yes, it was probably called trust.

It felt like a word I had not heard in seven years.

Late at night.

The only light in the accounting room was mine.

I was transferring the details of the improvement plan into a rune book.

Tariff calculations.

Comparison tables of contractors.

Estimates of sea route distances, durations, and costs.

Time dissolved when I worked with numbers.

It had been the same at the ducal house.

Once I opened a ledger, I could not stop until morning.

Then, I noticed a warm teacup placed at the edge of the desk.

Steam was rising.

—Since when?

I looked up, but no one was there.

I thought I heard the door quietly closing.

(Perhaps Hannes was being considerate.)

I took a sip.

It was chamomile.

Gentle, slightly sweet.

It seeped into my tired body.

Another sip.

(…Delicious.)

Whoever had prepared it, I was grateful.

At the ducal house, no one brought tea to me in the middle of the night.

No one knew I was awake.

—Or rather, no one tried to know.

I wrapped my hands around the cup.

The warmth spread to my fingertips.

For some reason, I felt like crying, but I did not.

I did not know why I would cry.

I set the cup down and picked up my pen again.

There was still work to do.

I woke up to the morning sun.

It seemed I had fallen asleep slumped over the desk in the accounting room.

My neck hurt.

There was a mark from the ledger on my cheek.

That was not important.

The problem was the blanket draped over my shoulders.

A thick, military blanket.

Not soft, but warm.

Well-used.

It carried an unfamiliar scent.

Not ink.

Not paper.

Something else—

The wind, and faintly, metal.

The scent of a sword, perhaps.

(Was it Hannes… or perhaps one of the servants?)

As I folded the blanket, the door opened.

Hannes peeked in.

“Oh, you’re already up.

Breakfast is ready.

The dining hall is this way.”

“Hannes, this—”

I held up the blanket.

Hannes narrowed his eyes for just a moment, then returned to his usual smile.

“Ah, that.

Well, someone was being considerate, I suppose.

There are a lot of kind people in this place.”

He said nothing more.

Instead, lowering his voice slightly—

“…Lady Serena.

The day the count went to pick you up—after he came back, he smiled a little.”

“…What?”

“He does smile, you know.

Not often, though.

That night after returning from the viscount house, he was alone in his office, and I happened to see the corner of his mouth lift just a little.”

Hannes shrugged.

“I hadn’t seen him smile in a long time.

That’s all.

Now, breakfast, breakfast.”

I watched his back as he quickly walked down the hallway.

Holding the blanket, I could not move for a while.

Outside the window, the wind was blowing.

The scent of the sea.

Morning sunlight illuminated the mountain of ledgers in the accounting room.

—Here, I can do this.

I carefully folded the blanket and draped it over the back of the chair.