Searching for the Culprit

We cut short the interview plans and decided to investigate the embezzlement of soup kitchen funds.

We returned to Princess Tianis's chambers to revise our plans.

I sent word to Kanon to go back to the hospital.

I really wished she would stay there until she was fully recovered.

We considered having the princess use her authority to order the council to investigate, but the current council had factions that opposed Princess Tianis unconditionally, making it slow to act.

Moreover, there was a possibility that one of the council members was involved in the embezzlement, which could mean information would leak.

If they destroyed evidence, solving this would become difficult.

If we couldn't catch them this time, nobles eager to build slush funds would certainly try again once things cooled down.

We needed to thoroughly root out this corruption.

It would serve as a warning to others.

"For now, solving this ourselves seems fastest and most reliable."

"It seems so. It would help to know clearly who's an ally and who's an enemy."

"That's hard to determine. Nobles are connected through marriages between houses, and they choose sides based on factions, so yesterday's ally can easily be today's enemy. I'd like to think the chancellor isn't involved in this, but…"

"We commoners are the ones who get jerked around."

"As royalty, I am sorry about that."

Princess Tianis wasn't to blame. If anything, she was doing well.

The ones at fault were those committing these wrongs.

This time, the princess was on our side. Even nobles couldn't talk their way out of this.

"So what do we do? Let me hear any ideas you have."

"Let's see…"

First, I wrote down the possible methods on paper.

I had Azu and the others offer their opinions too.

From those, we eliminated the inappropriate or unlikely ones.

"I don't think they skimmed the allocated budget directly. The budget committee should be checking how it's used."

"Right. The Finance Minister at the top is thorough about that, so I agree. There should be records of what was spent on what. I remember reading reports about it."

That was probably why the discovery had been delayed.

I recalled the old man who served as Finance Minister.

Just talking to him had sent chills down my spine.

He held the Kingdom's purse strings and would use any means necessary to bend people to his will, from honey traps to money. His cunning made him Princess Tianis's most formidable opponent.

He must have co-opted nobles using similar methods.

While the military affairs secretary and chancellor had larger factions on the surface, the Finance Minister might actually hold the most influence behind the scenes.

But he probably wasn't involved this time.

I couldn't imagine him creating vulnerabilities through such petty profiteering.

He would use more complex, harder-to-trace methods where even getting caught wouldn't be a problem.

In a way, because he dealt with money, that aspect of him could be trusted.

"So the budget was used to purchase soup kitchen supplies?"

"That's what it seems. Is the report you mentioned earlier still available?"

"Let me see… these two."

Turning her back to me, Princess Tianis pulled two documents from her organized files.

I looked them over.

The first listed the budget allocated solely for the soup kitchen, approved for six months.

In terms of the time period, there should still be plenty remaining.

The budget amount was calculated based on the expected number of people to be fed, and a sufficient sum had been provided.

With this budget, there was no way they should be reduced to stale bread and watery soup.

The second document detailed what the budget had been spent on.

Salt, meat, vegetables, fish, all purchased. Also large quantities of bread and barley.

The prices didn't seem suspicious either.

If the ingredients listed here went directly to the soup kitchen, they should have been more than enough to fill the bellies of struggling citizens.

I could see Princess Tianis's hard work.

It was truly pitiful that despite all this effort, she'd be viewed negatively by the people.

That made me all the angrier that someone was embezzling this budget.

"It's certain that the person in charge received the budget and purchased the necessary supplies. So the embezzlement must have happened after that."

"Something happened between receiving the supplies and actually delivering them to the soup kitchens."

"Yes. They must have been diverting the supplies. At first it was probably small amounts. That way no one would notice. But whoever did this is either brazen or thoughtless. They lost all restraint and ended up selling off almost all the supplies they received."

Princess Tianis sighed.

She probably never imagined the soup kitchen she'd organized with good intentions would end up like this.

Whoever came up with this scheme had no human decency.

"Would punishing the person in charge solve it?"

"No, we need to catch them in the act. Contradictions will pile up, but if they insist they didn't do it, we can only produce circumstantial evidence. If someone's behind this, they'll just do it again."

"True, there could be someone pulling the strings."

I remembered when our shop had been shoplifted.

As the saying goes, innocent until proven guilty. Suspicion alone wasn't enough.

Princess Tianis, being royalty, could punish someone without evidence, but doing so at this stage would only cost her allies.

It would leave a grudge.

Perfect ammunition for attack. The nobles wouldn't let that slide.

"If it would damage Princess Tianis's image, it's better not to act at all. But I don't have that kind of authority. We should catch them in the act of embezzlement, catch them red-handed."

"You're right… I'll prepare proper credentials for you. What's next?"

"We need to find out where they're selling the goods. They're probably using a market that doesn't leave records, but to sell this much, they'd need someone well-connected."

In the capital's market, the state collected only a location fee, and transactions within were completely tax-free.

That was why goods could be purchased cheaply, and the market thrived.

The scale was large, with an enormous number of vendors coming and going, making investigation difficult.

If only I had an acquaintance who knew the market well.

I didn't know anyone like that.

As I was wondering what to do, Azu had an idea.

"How about asking that girl? You know, the one selling skewers and red melons."

"Come to think of it, she did seem familiar with the market. She has an employer too, so it might be a good place to start. Is that alright?"

"I told you I'm leaving it to you. If it's decided, let's go."

"Understood, Your Highness."

Calming the fired-up Princess Tianis, we set off to find that energetic girl.