Sloppy Management

After the New Year's celebration, Elza spent several days chanting something in front of the small altar where the Elemental Stone fragment was enshrined.

After continuing for a while, the air around it seemed to change.

"It's safe to move now. Since it'll be less hassle, shall we take the whole thing?"

With a heave, the altar was lifted.

I had it loaded onto a cart and had Elza push it.

Azu supported it to keep it from tilting.

With that, we departed for Luido.

We went through the portal, traveling via the Royal Capital.

The dead of winter had passed, and with the warmth when the sun was out, foot traffic was starting to return.

Along the way, I looked up at a large signboard hanging above a shop in the city.

How much money would it take to open a shop this size in this location?

And how much were they making?

It was probably a scale the current me couldn't even imagine.

I wasn't envious.

For now, I just had to do what I could.

We arrived in Luido and first headed to the place Alexia had cultivated.

We found a cave in a small hill and made our way there.

The terrain wasn't suited for pushing a cart, but Alexia solved that by magically manipulating the ground.

When we set up the altar deep in the cave, the Elemental Stone fragment naturally floated upward.

"There's a ley line running through here. The magic power probably won't need replenishing."

"Yes. I thought it was a good spot."

Elza and Alexia cooperated to set up barriers around the cave.

To keep monsters from sneaking in, and to prevent anyone from touching the Elemental Stone fragment if they came to steal it.

They put up simple barriers, then concealment barriers to make it hard to spot from outside.

"Can you see it, Azu?"

"No… if I concentrate on my right eye, I can vaguely make it out."

"That's probably thanks to the Water Elemental. Even a mage wouldn't notice unless they were looking for it."

"Is that so."

The place where the cave had been now looked like flat ground.

But when I touched it, it was there. Strange.

It was also far enough from the cultivated areas that no one would go out of their way to come here.

"Barriers weaken over time, but there's no worry about that here. It's set up to alert us when the Elemental Stone returns to its original state, so we can leave it alone for now."

"I see… it helps that we don't have to worry about it."

I'd heard that for the Earth Elemental Stone to return to its original state, it needed repeated bountiful harvests.

The more crops grown in this area, the closer it would get.

We returned to Luido and talked with the tenant farmers.

I hadn't expected the ledgers to be completed so quickly, but I realized they were having more trouble than anticipated.

Apparently many of them couldn't count beyond their fingers, causing delays.

Since childhood they hadn't studied, instead helping with the family business.

Since that hadn't caused any problems for so long, the concept of learning was foreign to them.

It seemed they had similar problems to the serfs working on the Empire's manor estates.

Those who served as representatives were somewhat better, but…

This kind of thing led to fudging numbers and reduced productivity.

With the upper echelons having been purged en masse, there were plenty of vacant homes in Luido.

I bought up an old but sturdy house at a bargain price and decided to make it a branch office.

I never thought my first branch would come about this way.

I had miscellaneous goods brought over from a nearby general store to be able to live there.

So it could serve as a base.

I turned toward Azu.

"Azu."

"Y-Yes."

"You've been getting tutored by Elza and Alexia, right?"

"Of course. I'm still keeping it up."

"Good. What's 15 times 11?"

"Um…"

Azu looked at her own fingers while thinking a bit.

"165!"

"Correct. If you can do that, you're fine."

"Um, fine for what?"

"If we leave it to those guys, the ledgers will never be done. We need to finish it ourselves quickly so we can move on."

"Ehh?!"

Elza was fine.

Alexia had also received education befitting a noble.

Finn had apparently learned a bit from her mentor who was like a parent to her, but this time I had her stay by my side as an escort.

I'd promised to have at least one person as a guard, so I kept that promise. Seen through their eyes, I probably looked like a frail merchant.

I dispatched one person to each group that was falling behind.

Split into four groups, we should manage somehow.

Perhaps because many had been struggling, or maybe because they wanted to push the work off on us, this was readily accepted.

While discussing the local climate and what crops grew here, I checked the numbers at the warehouses.

This was supposed to be the job of tax-collecting officials, but I heard the lord was just a figurehead and never even took up the post.

That princess really intended to dump everything on us.

It certainly meant no interference, but it also meant more work.

I felt like we were being conveniently used.

We'd probably end up collecting taxes ourselves and sending them to the castle.

On top of that, we had to deliver the required crops.

"… Isn't this too little? How does this compare to previous years?"

Going around and counting, I recorded numbers in the ledger.

What stood out was how little wheat there was compared to the quota.

Maybe it had been a poor harvest.

"No, that's not the case. It's the usual amount."

"But this isn't enough for the quota, is it?"

The Kingdom demanded a fixed amount of wheat.

It should have always been this way.

"If you combine all of Luido, it's barely enough. That's how it is every year."

"Then you can't be making any money."

"That's why we do secondary crops that sell for more in between. That's how we break even."

The price for wheat delivered to the Kingdom was fixed.

Since that wasn't profitable, they made just barely enough and did as they pleased with the rest.

And that went into the tenant farmers' pockets. It had become normal.

Despite having such vast farmland, they weren't utilizing it. Wheat had come to be seen as cheap.

From experience, I knew that properly growing wheat alone was enough to make decent money.

If they produced more than the quota, it could serve as insurance against poor harvests.

Barely scraping by was a problem. My neck was physically on the line.

When I met up with the other three and exchanged information, it seemed similar everywhere.

"I wanted to move on to potato cultivation quickly, but… first we need to have some discussions."

"Wheat flour is an important food that satisfies hunger, after all."

"What were the people making decisions thinking?"

I sighed at the sloppy state of Luido, which was supposed to be the Kingdom's breadbasket.

The people involved probably didn't even realize it themselves.