Chapter 26
The many businesses in Count Enersis’s domain ultimately owe their success to its solid population base.
When this many people gather, even in the medieval era, public order is bound to become a mess,
and the previous count’s great achievement was massively increasing the number of guards by throwing money at the problem.
“Y-Young Master….”
“Akion…?”
Perhaps thanks to that, only about one person a week tries to steal and sell the incandescent bulbs distributed for free.
Even by medieval standards, Akion considered the domain’s public order excellent.
Excellent, but….
“The streetlamp compartments shouldn’t open without a key. That means there has to be an inside man somewhere in the count’s domain….”
“Young Master, your face is scary…!”
“It looks like you’re about to bury someone.”
This time, the scale was considerable.
Judging by the incandescent bulbs removed from the streetlamps, they had taken only the ones on alternating sides.
Looking at the pattern, it was a zigzag. Almost as though they had been removed for maintenance.
On a street that had turned from a date into an investigation of a crime scene, Akion began questioning people himself.
“Why, of course!”
“Young Master Akion will solve everything!”
There were two advantages to this.
First, Akion’s face was known all over the count’s domain.
The second was,
“They said they were collecting them for maintenance! It was a bit forceful, though…!”
“I saw it clear as day with my own two eyes! They were wearing the Enersis crest!”
In this era, nobles were the kings of their domains, noble beings with blue blood.
To commoners, they were judges, tax collectors, estate managers, and so on, who solved everything for them.
Thanks to the synergy of these two points, most of the domain’s residents answered honestly.
“Don’t tell me someone impersonated our Enersis people…?!”
“So they smuggled out dozens of incandescent bulbs with accomplices disguised as Enersis guards… They had the nerve to do it, but the scale of their crime is pitifully small.”
Apparently, someone from Akion’s workshop who led the Enersis guards had ‘collected’ the incandescent bulbs.
“What? You let those people into our house even though they weren’t Young Master’s men?!”
“Well, honestly, how were we supposed to tell them apart unless the guards wearing helmets showed their faces…?”
“Now, now, calm down.”
“If Young Master Akion says so….”
They had impersonated the family and committed theft besides.
In this era, it was a crime to be dealt with severely.
And more than anything, this was….
“Goldie, please contact Father for now.”
“Yes! I’ll go to the mansion!”
The head of the household had to step in and tear them apart personally.
They had overlooked it when someone did it once or twice, imposing a light punishment and recovering the stolen goods… but they had committed it so brazenly and on such a large scale?
“How will you deal with it?”
“I intend to make them regret being alive.”
“Oh-ho…….”
It meant they had ignored Enersis.
And power, by its nature, did not tolerate that.
*
The accomplices were caught more easily than expected.
To begin with, no one but the workshop employees possessed the keys to lock the streetlamp cases and prevent the incandescent bulbs from being stolen….
“C-Count, Count, Count, Count, Count! I swear! I didn’t do it of my own accord!!”
“Please, spare me just this once…!!”
The two guards who had been patrolling the streets at the time.
It was confirmed that they had conspired with a craftsman from Akion’s workshop to commit the crime.
“Take them away.”
“Hwaaagh!!”
“My loooord Count!!”
A little pilfering was tolerated according to various customs, but this time they had crossed the line far too blatantly.
The count could not tolerate it. Therefore….
“I have returned, my lord Count.”
“Good. What did you find?”
He immediately sealed off Ridasid.
Many people protested, but they all clamped their mouths shut over the theft of dozens of incandescent bulbs.
The incident had happened earlier that day. Quite a few people had witnessed the theft disguised as maintenance work.
“The home of Tobi, a tanner affiliated with Akion’s workshop, was empty. We believe his family has already been moved outside!”
“Is that so… Have the merchants’ baggage searched.”
“Yes, sir!”
Even the guards could not be trusted in this situation.
How many of them had conspired with the workshop master?
Perhaps they had already smuggled the goods out and wiped their mouths clean.
“Captain of the Guard.”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
- Crack! Crackle!
From the count’s perspective… there was no one among his subordinates he could trust right now.
- Crackle!
- Rumble…!
“Starting with you, I would like to personally drive a thunderbolt into the head of every single guard….”
“Gasp! I swear! I know absolutely nothing!”
“Is that so?”
Then he had no choice but to reveal his power.
Though he had yet to reach the tenth tier, mages were monsters who entered the realm of the superhuman from the seventh tier onward.
- Crackle!
- KABOOM!! Boom!!
“Then bring that thief before me at once. You useless fool.”
“Huaaagh!”
“And from this moment on, if even one person affiliated with Enersis disappears… he will not live out his natural lifespan!”
He was an opponent the captain of the guard, who could barely use mana, had no hope of facing.
With lightning striking right in front of him, the captain of the guard dashed outside to catch the culprit.
“Wow.”
Akion had watched it all from the side.
Fortunately, during Akion’s eighteen years, his father had never been the sort of person to lay a hand on his child.
Instead of his trauma switch, Akion’s flattery switch had been flipped.
“Father, you look especially magnificent today.”
“Ahem, do I?”
“You were more manly than any man I’ve ever seen.”
“Ahem, of course. As your proud father, I can’t simply sit back when my child and family have been harmed! Absolutely not!”
It was a slight flaw that Akion’s father was so easily swayed by praise, but anyway.
There was nothing bad about it from Akion’s perspective, either.
The power of Enersis ultimately came from Delphord, his biological father and the head of the family.
Akion could leave the troublesome work to his father while skimming off a sweet budget and a few favors(?) on the side.
“Yes, yes, Akion. What is it you want?”
“I would like you to grant me command authority over the criminals involved in this incandescent-bulb theft.”
All Akion had to do was slaughter the criminals who had pilfered his precious little incandescent bulbs.
In other words,
“Hmm. That can be arranged, but… what do you intend to use it for?”
“Since they stole incandescent bulbs, I intend to work them as slaves making incandescent bulbs until their sentences are over.”
Slaves working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for no pay!
It was work Akion himself had done for two or three months once.
He had wanted to tear that vicious professor limb from limb so badly….
“What good would beating them to death do? I’ll put shackles on them and make them work!”
“Like working the estate, is that it? Good! Once all the thieves are brought in, work them as you please!”
Akion wanted the criminals to experience that misery themselves.
Human rights? Would criminals have anything like that in this era?!
“Eeeek, Tower Master…!”
“Goldie, do not be afraid. Would Akion really reduce you to a slave?”
Of course, both Goldie and the Tower Master knew how thoroughly the workshop artisans were worked to the bone.
They could only pray for the souls of the criminals who were about to be brought in.
*
“Gasp, gasp…!”
Tobi, a tanner affiliated with Akion’s workshop.
He had his reasons for causing such a major incident.
“Run, run faster!!”
There was a workshop belonging to a genius alchemist where one’s skill and knowledge increased by leaps and bounds simply by entering?
And if you joined the workshop, you could rent that work tool, the electric screwdriver, free of charge for life!
He had been lured in by the other artisans affiliated with the workshop,
“Run before that lunatic Akion gets here!!”
and had nearly gone mad from the eighteen-hour-a-day crunch mode!
Some might ask whether serfs were any different, but guilds banned crunch mode in the first place because it lowered quality.
To begin with, it was difficult to work once the sun had set.
“Damn it, Tobi! If we have these, we can feed our families too, right?!”
“We’ll live like kings!”
But the incandescent bulbs hidden in his clothes had made that possible.
The artisans affiliated with Akion’s workshop, the direct beneficiaries (victims) of it, were shedding bloody tears.
“Run faster!! Like when you got caught visiting the red-light district behind your wife’s back! Move those legs like a colt with its reins cut!!”
“Aaaah!!”
This was no good.
No matter how much money they were paid, it wore their bodies down.
And did they even fire you for it? They brought in a cleric and healed you completely!!
“I’ll never go back there again…!!”
For the first time, Tobi felt a fierce desire to live,
and after stuffing a few guards’ hands full of money, he put his plan into action.
Thanks to that, he managed to steal around thirty incandescent bulbs.
He entrusted the other thirty to a black-market dealer, but Ridasid had been sealed off, so they could not get out.
But that didn’t matter.
He had already smuggled his family outside, and he could live like a king simply by secretly selling these incandescent bulbs one by one.
“Anyone employed for more than a year will also receive severance pay.”
“Y-Young Master. What is severance pay…?”
Then Tobi suddenly remembered the ‘severance pay’ Akion had mentioned.
“How could that possibly be real…!!”
Would a vicious employer who made people work in crunch mode for one month, then two months straight, really give them something like that?
By the standards of medieval common sense, it made no sense at all,
so Tobi had intended to take his share and run.
And then,
- BANG!!
“Huaaagh?!”
It was only natural that karma came calling.
“There!!!!!!!!!!”
“Our question bundle is over there!!!”
“M-Madmen?!”
“Mages are flying after usssss?!”
The mages affiliated with Enersis had pursued them using all sorts of magic.
There were knights and soldiers too, of course, but the reason the mages were more enthusiastic was….
“Young Master said he’d allow one question for each incandescent bulb!!”
“Hand them over!!! I’m asking all the questions!!!!”
“Huaaah?!”
Akion had whispered to them.
He had promised to answer one science and engineering question for every incandescent bulb they recovered.
“Young Master Akion whispered the answer to us! Kill that bastard right now─!!”
“Wait! Young Master said his arms must not be injured!”
“Then that means we can blow the thief’s legs off, right?! Yee-haw─!!”
- Fwoosh!
- Boom, boom, boom!!
Because of that, the Enersis mages went berserk and pursued them with everything they had,
and they caught up with Tobi in less than half a day.
“You damn bastard!! What the hell do you mean, run away and survive!!!”
“Who knew every mage would come after us!! Gasp?! Gah! Gyaaaagh?!”
And so Tobi and his accomplice gradually withered beneath the mages’ tightening encirclement.
*
“We have recovered everything.”
The counter-pilfering operation for the incandescent bulbs was over in an instant.
Once every mage affiliated with Enersis and the Mage Tower had been mobilized… it ended far too anticlimactically for Akion.
“I never expected you to do such an excellent job…. Very well. Enersis team, Mage Tower team? I want every one of you to attend the special lecture I’ll be holding soon.”
“Science-yaaahooo!!”
“Haa, haa! Science! Scieeeence!!!”
“Engineering study is goooood~! Goooood~!”
Still, they had done their job well.
Akion was happy to hold a special lecture for everyone.
It was a little embarrassing to see people approaching middle age act like that, but anyway.
“Tobi.”
“Y-Young Master….”
It was time to scold the escaped slave… no, lab employee.
Fortunately, Tobi had been captured with all four limbs intact.
He met Akion’s eyes as Akion looked down at him,
“Gasp.”
and shrank beneath that gaze, which held no emotion whatsoever… making it all the more frightening.
“Mr. Tobi. I believe I clearly told you to let me know if the work became too difficult.”
“Th-That was….”
“As a slave… no, as a graduate student… no, as an employee of my workshop, I was planning to give you severance pay as well. You’ve truly disappointed me.”
Every word Akion spoke stabbed into Tobi like a dagger.
Especially at the noble young master’s one word—‘disappointed’—Tobi felt as though his heart had stopped.
“P-Please forgive me just this once, Young Master! I only─.”
That was why he slammed his head against the ground.
He had to do anything to stay alive!
“Ah, yes, I understand. Crunch mode and all must have made things difficult. So….”
- Plop!
- Clink.
A pouch dropped in front of him.
“Th-This…?”
“Your severance pay.”
“What.”
It was Tobi’s severance pay!
Inside the pouch that had naturally fallen open was a heap of gold and silver coins!
“M-My goodness. How much is all that?”
“He really did intend to give it to him…?”
“Heavenly Lord have mercy. How kind must Young Master be…!”
The amount was generous enough to make even the onlookers gasp.
“Take this home with you. You’re going to quit your full-time position, after all.”
“Y-Young Master…!”
- Burst!!
Still clutching the pouch in both hands, Tobi began to weep.
“Th-Thank you so much! You’re really giving severance pay to a wretch like me…! And you’re even forgiving me…!!”
How could an artisan run away with the count’s family assets just because he had been made to work overtime every day, when his young master was this merciful?!
And yet the young master was forgiving Tobi’s crime!
Tobi’s vision blurred with tears.
“Huh? I didn’t forgive you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ll have to compensate us for the full amount of the damage caused by this disturbance.”
- Thud!
That was until he saw the contract lying on the table in front of him.
Having grown accustomed to various documents while spending time with Akion, he naturally picked up the contract.
“‘Tobi shall pay thirty percent of his salary as compensation until he has reimbursed Enersis for the full amount of the damages. Until this compensation is complete, he may not resign except in the special case that his body becomes incapable of movement.’…?”
Tobi was a more capable artisan than one might expect.
His skill at working leather was truly excellent.
“For reference, this includes the cost of hiring the mages too… It comes to about this much.”
“Gasp.”
Akion had no intention of letting him go.
For roughly twenty years.
“I said sign it. If you don’t, I’ll really refer you to trial.”
“I-I’ll sign it….”
And so, everyone except Tobi lived happily ever after.
Happily ever after. Happily ever after.
* * *
A few days after that small(?) disturbance had passed.
- Whack! Whack!
- Rattle!
In the spacious vacant lot beside the Ridasid parish.
Now that spring was fully in the air,
“Hey! Don’t put the luggage there!”
“Hey, buddy. It says ‘dig here.’”
the vacant lot, which had been about the size of a soccer field, was being completely dug up.
Construction on the bathhouse had finally begun.
“Our Count Enersis domain~!”
“From the empire’s frontier to the entire continent!”
“Bow respectfully and give thanks!”
“To the empire’s most benevolent domain!”
All to the accompaniment of a slightly red-tinged work song.
“Young Master, what song is that?”
“Something is boiling in my heart… I feel an urge to stand at attention.”
“Well, you seeee….”
Akion had merely been humming a song he had rewritten out of boredom while researching in the workshop.
“It’s about the workers of the count’s domain uniting and burning with patriotism.”
“As expected! Even Goldie feels her patriotism boiling when she hears it!”
“Akion, I never knew your patriotism ran so deep. It is truly a magnificent song….”
Who could have imagined it would spread this far?
Since Akion had no desire to become dew on the execution grounds, he could only phrase it obliquely.