Chapter 19
Viscount Dalleong, who worked as the head of Tax Division 2 at the Finance Ministry—the institution that collected taxes throughout the empire.
He was something of a famous figure in the empire: a man who adhered to principles and rules.
Bribes rarely worked on him, so he was hated by quite a few nobles, but….
“Hmm….”
He was a more flexible man than one might expect.
Whether rich or poor, he offered tax-reduction opportunities to those who gave generously for the sake of others.
There were few nobles like that, so he was hated, but at heart, he was a good man.
Of course, as a human being, there were things he occasionally found difficult to accept.
“What on earth is the purpose of those incandescent bulbs shaped like letters?”
Without exception, every noble who came to the Finance Ministry over unpaid taxes had attached a peculiar mana lamp, with their family name shining on it, to their carriage!
The carriages outside his office window were sparkling madly.
“They call them signs.”
“Then why are they necessary? They could simply use their family crest as a symbol. Why waste incandescent bulbs just to display the family name?”
The so-called ‘Baby on Board’ sign.
What Akion had created to prank his own father had recently become a trend among the nobility.
“These days, they even attach the crest alongside it. There’s one right over there.”
“Good Lord. They’re using incandescent bulbs that extravagantly?!”
More than ninety percent of the incandescent bulbs leaving Enersis were being used for purposes like this.
Dalleong felt his mind growing hazy.
He had also introduced incandescent bulbs for the sake of work efficiency. At present, the Finance Ministry was in the process of adopting them as office lighting.
“They should use that money to pay their overdue taxes!”
“What can you do? That sort of showy dignity is important to nobles.”
Yet, ironically, his subordinates could not understand their section chief.
“Tsk. You only need to spend the bare minimum on things like that.”
Though he was a viscount without a territory, Dalleong lived frugally apart from maintaining a minimum standard of dignity.
His subordinates had wondered where he spent his frequent bonuses, but apparently, apart from savings and living expenses, he donated everything to the church.
They were becoming convinced that he had been a clergyman in a former life.
Of course, as a human being….
- Rattle!
“Chief! Something has arrived from Enersis!”
“Oh! Has it arrived?”
There was one thing he absolutely could not endure.
“At last, I’ll be escaping this wretched cold…!”
The cold.
For a man who suffered from rhinitis and body aches every winter, winter was a season of calamity…!
Thus, the moment he heard about the electric heater, he ordered one immediately.
“Here it is.”
“Chief? Unlike what I heard, the shape is a little different…?”
“Naturally. This is a large heater designed to warm a wide area!”
Of course, he had joined forces with the head of Division 1 and even submitted a formal petition, using the sweet budget he had obtained from an emperor moved by his efforts.
Moreover, he had exercised that vaunted ‘flexibility’ of his and slipped a little imperial order into the purchase request he sent….
“It would be best to place it there. No, would that make it too far from your desk?”
“I think this distance should be fine.”
Akion’s workshop was so startled that they rushed his order through ahead of schedule.
The cylindrical heaters delivered that way were placed throughout the spacious Division 2 office.
Right afterward, Dalleong brought out the ‘fuel’ he had prepared in advance.
“Isn’t that a standard mana stone?”
“Aren’t those only used to light mana lamps?”
“Watch closely.”
In fact, Dalleong had been one of the nobles who attended Enersis’s surprise banquet.
Delford had been screaming happily because of his excessive revenue.
Dalleong had answered the ‘Help!’ Delford sent to the Finance Ministry and visited the banquet on that occasion.
- Click, clack!
- Whumm~!
“Whaaa!”
“Good heavens, what is this heat?!”
Naturally, his subordinates were only now experiencing an electric heater for the first time.
“Hahaha! Chief, what on earth is this?!”
“Damn…! My body keeps getting hotter and hotter!!”
As the Division 2 office grew scorching in an instant, every subordinate twisted their melting bodies, not knowing what to do.
They all realized it.
Why their cold-hating Division 2 chief had acted like a young lady who had fallen in love after visiting Enersis!
“This may be the first extravagance I’ve indulged in my life.”
“I understand what you meant now, Chief…!”
While everyone brought their chairs over near the heater and melted away, the youngest member of Division 2—a commoner who had risen through the tax-officer examination—brought over a kettle.
“Um….”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“I touched it earlier, and the top of that heater was incredibly hot….”
When boiling water, it was common practice to hang a kettle over a wood-burning stove.
But the youngest member placed the kettle on top of the cylindrical heater.
“I wondered if we could heat it this way….”
“What?! So it can be used for this purpose too!!”
“Our youngest is so clever!!”
It was the sort of method that, if Akion saw it, would make him shout, ‘It’s that method they said our fathers’ generation used!’
Those who had brought packed lunches also began using the heater as a food warmer in light of the youngest member’s novel idea.
“Even Young Master Akion couldn’t have thought of this use!”
“He may have anticipated it when he made the top of the cylinder flat…!”
“Indeed, that young master even made the incandescent bulbs we use.”
The Finance Ministry employees no longer had to worry about their cold working environment.
“Whew… whew-whew.”
“To think I’d be able to eat food that wasn’t cold…! Sniff!”
“Why are you so moved? Whew, still, it is wonderful to be able to keep drinking warm water.”
All of them began to feel, for some reason, that they wanted to make tax matters easier for Enersis.
* * *
By the time late winter arrived, Akion had come up to the capital.
“I’m telling you! It’s impossible because we don’t have any cash!!”
“Agh.”
Yurintsev or Yegachev.
That damn marquis house was digging in its heels to avoid paying the money.
Things had gone so badly that Akion, the person directly involved, had come all the way to the capital, yet some viscount or whatever who had come as the marquis’s representative was still acting high and mighty.
“I can’t exactly rough him up….”
“What did you say? You’re holding Professor Anton, the marquis’s precious younger brother, hostage and making such outrageous remarks?! Fine, our Yurintsevs will also─.”
“You took that eunuch back to the main house. And… it seems the Tower Master of Ridasid does not want a war.”
“The Tower Master only says that for show, just words….”
“The two of you, please calm down for now.”
That was why an imperial mediator had even been sent down to negotiate the matter.
The problem was that Akion was under considerable stress because the marquis kept exploiting every opening whenever he got angry, urging him to start a war.
“Akion, my lovely disciple.”
“I told you I’m not your disciple.”
“I am always ready for war! Just call me!!”
“We don’t need a war.”
On top of that, the Tower Master seemed to be enjoying the situation and had been gently coaxing Akion to start a war even before he came up to the capital.
According to the history books, this Tower Master had once destroyed an entire territory single-handedly.
“Viscount, let’s be frank. Marquis Yurintsev has no intention of paying the compensation, does he? To be honest, I don’t want to start a war with the Tower Master on my side either, you know?”
“Ugh.”
For reference, that territory had been a duchy, and those traitors had actually driven the imperial court into a corner until the Tower Master truly entered the war.
Of course, once the Tower Master joined the war, they were swept away in a single day….
“I may be the person directly involved, and I was even given permission by Father and the Tower Master to go as far as war. But can innocent commoners be allowed to die?”
“Just because a few commoners die─.”
“Think about it. Even if just ten thousand of a territory’s people die, the year’s farming and businesses will stagger. And in a territorial war on the scale of fighting over an entire domain… I don’t even want to imagine it. Besides, can you guarantee that you won’t be caught up in it too, Viscount?”
Akion hated the Tower Master.
Why had the Tower Master handed him the right to deploy an asymmetrical force in a war?!
Because of that, Akion had been forced to coax the viscount for an absurd amount of time. If war broke out, he would obviously be dragged into it as well.
As Akion gently coaxed him, the groaning viscount let out a deep sigh before speaking again.
“In fact, the marquis would not have cared even if Anton Yurintsev died.”
“He was bait.”
“He only needed a pretext, whether he won or lost the duel… But the fact that the Tower Master of Ridasid was protecting Enersis put a stop to that.”
Just as Akion had said, it would be a war to destroy a territory in which the viscount’s own life was not guaranteed.
He did not want a war either.
But if he simply signed a contract promising to pay all the compensation at once, the marquis would slit the viscount’s throat this time.
“A massive punitive tax is also imposed on the party making the payment when compensation is paid… The marquis is even more reluctant because of that. So please, couldn’t you reduce the compensation by the amount of that punitive tax? I beg you! I’ll purchase Akion-made magitech devices in bulk later!”
“Well… we have to pay some of it too, don’t we?”
That did not mean Akion had any reason to accommodate the viscount.
As far as he was concerned, both the marquis who had made him postpone his research and the viscount serving him were equally detestable!
Not only had they interrupted his research, they had dragged him here to engage in politics, which was far outside his field. How could he look kindly on them?
He did not want to kill them, but his honest wish was for them to live in such poverty that they could barely afford two meals a day.
“Young Master Akion, punitive taxes are handled by Tax Division 2 of the Finance Ministry. If you wish, I can call an employee here so that you may negotiate.”
“If you would do that, I would be grateful.”
“Thank you!”
In that sense, the mediator’s proposal was welcome news to both sides.
The mediator went outside to call someone, and
“Young Master Akion, may I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“That electric heater of yours. Was the top made flat as a gesture of consideration, so people could warm their food on it?”
“…Tell me more.”
Akion listened intently as the viscount explained the unusual way people were using the electric heater he had made.
In short, people were placing kettles of water or packed lunches on top of the electric heater to boil or warm them.
The imperial public institutions that had purchased electric heaters often used them that way, and the practice had become popular among the nobles who received the heaters.
At this point, Akion said,
“People are the same wherever you go.”
“Young Master, what do you mean by that…?”
“Nothing. I’m simply delighted that everyone is making good use of them.”
“As expected, Young Master, you had this in mind! In that case, would it be possible to purchase an electric heater─.”
He remembered the old school culture of his previous life and found it rather amusing.
People thought similarly there and here, and it was quite satisfying to see daily life enriched by things like that.
As he chatted idly with the viscount,
- Rattle!
“I have brought him.”
The mediator brought in a middle-aged man.
“Huh? Viscount Dalleong?”
“Ho ho, Young Master Akion! It’s been a long time!”
He was Viscount Dalleong, who had resolved the Enersis family’s tax problems!
Not an employee of the Tax Division, but the section chief himself had come all this way?
Akion was merely puzzled, but from the viscount’s perspective, this was a bolt from the blue.
“C-Chief Dalleong…!”
“You must be the Marquis Yurintsev’s representative.”
Wasn’t that the famously strict head of Tax Division 2, Dalleong?!
Now that he had descended upon them, he would surely impose the punitive tax to the full!
Just as the viscount was despairing, thinking that it was all over,
“Very well. For Young Master Akion’s sake, I’ll waive your punitive tax. And as for Enersis… perhaps thanks to all the goodwill you’ve built up until now, I can waive yours as well!”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“I’ll also extend the payment deadlines for your other taxes. I’ll need to coordinate further with the imperial court, but I’ll do my utmost to have the taxes related to the compensation waived as much as possible.”
He had dealt with them extraordinarily generously, unlike the Dalleong they knew.
“Waaaaah─!!! Young Master Akion!! I’ll never forget this kindness!!!!”
“Yes, I, um, understand, so please let go of my hand.”
“And, Young Master Akion, please deliver this document to the count. It is a tax-reduction document approved by the Imperial Administrative Office, and the period is five years─.”
Akion had become a merciful young man without even realizing it.
Along with the compensation, he had also received tax reductions on the sale of engineering products.
*
Though something wonderful had happened,
“Research, research, research…!”
For a man immediately plunged into research-deficiency syndrome, even taking time to sightsee around the capital felt wasteful.
Panting from withdrawal symptoms, he slept so soundly that his dark circles vanished completely!!
So, as soon as the late-winter weather began to thaw, he hurried back to Enersis, and
“Son.”
“Father.”
Akion discovered that the mansion had been flooded.
“What on earth have you done?”
“The, uh, boiler exploded….”
A boiler with a kill switch had exploded?
Why?
“What were you doing?”
“I added some pipes to make a bathhouse, but I removed the kill switch because it couldn’t be allowed to stop operating….”
Because that switch had been removed!!
As a deep rage rose within Akion,
“A-actually, the Tower Master forced me to do it! I couldn’t resist the coercion─.”
“Delford! You swore an oath to me, yet you dare sell me out?!”
When he heard that elders three times his age at minimum—and more than a hundred times his age at maximum—had joined forces to cause this disaster….
“Both of you, shut up.”
“I’m sorry….”
“I’m sorry….”
He finally exploded.
Akion could not understand.
Why had they blown up the boiler over something as trivial as a bathhouse?!
“Well, the thing is… Akion, we wanted to try that public hygiene thing you mentioned….”
“Oh?”
And the words ‘public hygiene’ coming from his sister, Hermione, had a more commendable reason than he expected.
“To wash the people of the territory?”
“Yes….”
“Well, if that’s the reason….”
As luck would have it, the weather was gradually beginning to thaw.
At the same time, the filth frozen on the streets, along with the stench of the unwashed residents, would soon fill the roads.
It was the perfect environment for an epidemic to run rampant.
Akion did not want to experience the abnormality of the COVID season again.
“A public bathhouse. Shall we build one?”
“A public… bathhouse?”
“I’d also like to try setting up a sewage treatment facility while we’re at it….”
So, a public bathhouse.
As a secondary objective, Akion also planned to build a sewage treatment plant dedicated to the bathhouse.
In that sense, the mediator’s proposal was welcome news to both sides.
The mediator went outside to call someone, and
“Young Master Akion, may I ask you something?”