Chapter 80. Righteous Tax Farmer (5)

In dramas and movies, even bad guys are portrayed as having loyalty.

But they say such villains appear because there aren't actually such evil characters in reality, so they're artificially created because they look cool.

None of the spice guild executives showed any cool behavior that went against my expectations.

'It's good for me, since those bastards spilled everything easily, making it convenient.'

Mancini sighed as he saw Andante re-investigate the contents I had investigated.

"I knew merchants were lowly characters obsessed with making money, but this is way beyond the limit. How can there be guys worse than beasts wearing human skin, how? How?!"

Chief Justice Mancini slammed both hands on the desk in front of him.

"How could they sell brothers and sisters of faith who believe in Deus to infidels?"

Before that, it seems more problematic that they lent money to serfs knowing they could never repay it, and turned entire villages into slaves to sell.

Like when in Rome, do as the Romans do, by common sense in the Tuscan Empire.

The villagers voluntarily borrowed money anyway, and in return, women becoming sex slaves and men becoming galley slaves is seen as a free choice like 'voluntary enlistment'.

It's thousands of times more vicious and nonsensical than drill instructors at boot camp asking "Were you dragged here?", but still.

'By standards here, selling precious citizens to infidels is the problem.'

"Please calm down, Chief Justice."

"How can this be calmed down? Those poor people will now be oppressed by infidels and forced to serve heretical gods."

No, for those people, having their lives ruined by spice guild bastards is a bigger problem than serving other gods instead of Deus.

"How can spilled water be gathered back? What's important now is bringing down justice's iron hammer on those bastards. Shouldn't you become an executor of justice again with this opportunity?"

Mancini smiled hearing my words.

Seeing how full of desire for promotion he is, that gentleman seems like he'd do anything to become High Court Chief Justice.

'It's helpful to me that he's that kind of person, but.'

He smiled wickedly, then turned his head and coughed dryly, perhaps embarrassed at getting too excited.

"Ahem, I showed an ugly side because it was too unbelievable."

"I fully understand. I was also furious when I received those confessions."

"The shameless act of selling our empire's women to infidels is absolutely unforgivable. And of course, the great merchants leading the spice trade must be entangled in this too."

Chief Justice Mancini started wetting his lips again.

"Great merchants are also beings that interfere with imperial power. So how about expanding this work a bit, to weaken them while we're at it? Completely uproot the spice guild itself, and you eat up that guild entirely. Wouldn't you be able to obtain enormous vested interests?"

Crush the spice guild and then I eat it all up?

Honestly, if I ask the Emperor for permission, he might give it, but afterwards, great merchants will come looking for me with knives to kill me.

'They say if you boast about winning the lottery jackpot in a slum, you'll soon become a corpse.'

I too would meet a miserable end at the hands of unidentified assassins.

Even when stretching my legs in bed, I do it carefully looking at the situation...

"If we crush the spice guild and great merchants, I could rise to the High Court Chief Justice position."

Although High Court Chief Justice and High Court Chief Justice are just one rank difference, in company terms, it's about this much difference:

Executive director of a large corporation and president of a large corporation.

Not just social position, but the amount of clean gifts received from numerous people is incomparable.

'If that gentleman endures until retirement age, he could aim for the nobility of the robe baron position too.'

"Chief Justice, if you eat anything too quickly, you'll get indigestion. Both you and I could face sad events after this case ends."

Mancini became Chief Justice just a few months ago.

But already aiming for the High Court Chief Justice position is crossing the line.

If you're too greedy, you'll really die, sir.

Hearing my words, he put his hand on his forehead and sighed.

"Thanks to you, I rose to Chief Justice 5 years faster than my peers, so I should listen to you if nothing else. Then at what level should we cut it off and report?"

"Let's write up reports saying the spice guild master and executives unilaterally sold the empire's women as sex slaves to infidels and such. Going above that would be counterproductive."

"Well, just revealing this much is achieving enormous merit."

The spice guild is one of the top five most successful guilds in our empire.

With just the career of uncovering all corruption in that guild and judging all its leaders, that gentleman Mancini could sufficiently rise to High Court Chief Justice.

'If he can't achieve major merits afterwards, he'd probably serve briefly 1 month before retirement.'

Anyway, it's an achievement he can milk for the rest of his life.

"And write this in the report."

"What do you mean?"

"There were confessions that the four great merchants including the Medici Trading Company ordered and condoned the atrocities committed by the spice guild. But all these statements are judged to be perjury to reduce their own sentences."

In this era, if you have power and wealth to give appropriate gifts to responsible officials, you can do anything.

Someone like Duke Visconti can even release a murderer as completely not guilty, but that's a method possible because he's a 'duke'.

Even at my level, I can quickly dig up all statement records, evidence, various details, and even investigators' personal and family information related to crimes I'm indicted for.

So there's no way great merchants can't see this report we wrote.

'Although they're not nobles by status, they're high-ranking people that even ordinary barons can't raise their heads in front of.'

"Then the great merchants deeply involved in this case will have no choice but to realize Chief Justice Mancini's mercy."

"Well, what they said isn't actually perjury but 'truth' if you look at it. They can't not know that we deliberately covered it up as perjury."

This kind of thing happens often in any country.

Some good prosecutors or judges deliberately showed they cut off a high-ranking person's crime at an appropriate level.

The magic of someone whose personnel evaluation was originally going to be 'promotion omission' suddenly changing to 'promotion candidate' and being inserted into a key position among key positions.

If great merchants don't want to experience the unfortunate event of the 'truth we deliberately hid' being revealed to the world...

They'll try to shut our mouths by giving appropriate compensation.

'Maybe suspicious gifts will pour in for me too?'

Even if not, they'll at least send signals to get along well from now on.

"Good, let's handle this case just to this extent."

"That's a wise thought. Then how long do you think the sentences will be?"

Mancini started tapping the desk with his finger in front of me.

After pondering for a moment, he said:

"Most things end at my level as High Court Chief Justice. To put it bluntly, if I use my power, covering up one murder charge is nothing."

Other ordinary court judges don't have prosecution rights.

But High Court judges have prosecution and judicial rights, so it's a trick that's possible.

"But this case is too big. It will probably go up to the High Court Justice, no, His Excellency the High Court Chief Justice level, so it's not exact, but..."

Mancini deliberately lowered his voice and said:

"Not just the spice guild master, but the entire families of all directors will be annihilated. If religious trials are involved, the principal offenders will be burned at the stake, the rest beheaded. Even if religious trials aren't involved, it will be hard to avoid beheading."

Even families who aren't principals will die?

Well, I don't particularly feel sympathy.

Those bastards cut off sugar supply and tormented me grabbing my lifeline, and they'll undoubtedly try to touch Chloe later too.

How do I know? The whole industry is like that.

'They don't negotiate or consider the other party, but ruin them.'

That's how you can have everything.

"I see, understand."

"This is the best result for both you and me. And haven't those spice guild bastards committed so many crimes? So I told the High Court clerks and other officials to focus only on organizing documents directly related to the truth of the crimes and such."

It's a strange measure if you think about it a little.

To secure physical evidence of tax evasion and slave trading, they should also collect things like money or valuables in warehouses.

It's not normal to not touch such things at all.

'Are they saying to take a cut from the goods in those bastards' warehouses on our own?'

They're probably saying to do some appropriate document manipulation on real estate and various assets too, 'launder the source of assets' and swallow them up to make some profit.

I like how the give and take is very clear.

"Come to think of it, I haven't done punitive tax collection yet. I'll hurry and do that."

True close friends are those whose hearts communicate without speaking.

"Go quickly."

I had a fruitful conversation with the Chief Justice and quickly left my seat.

Eating up the assets held by the spice guild is good too, but there was a more important matter than that.

"That damn Albert bastard, it seems he just watched those spice guild bastards cause all that trouble to screw me over."