Chapter 10 – Blessing
Before leaving for the harbor with the others, I called Chloe over.
From now on, she would begin working on finding me a marriage partner. I had even assigned servants and slaves to help her with the task.
“Chloe, hire yourself a maid, buy some new clothes, and stay at a high-class inn. You understand what I mean, right?”
She was going to pretend to be the retainer of a wealthy territory.
There was no way she could walk around looking shabby.
“Yes. Of course. I’ll take care of it myself.”
“I’m counting on you. And use this for your expenses.”
Like an old grandmother pulling out her hidden savings, I rummaged around inside my waistband and pulled out a money pouch before handing it to Chloe.
It was filled with silver coins that had become warm from my body heat.
“...I’ll use it well, my lord.”
Was she embarrassed because she could feel my body heat?
Chloe lowered her head with a complicated expression.
Then she spoke.
“I swear by the Sun God that I will complete my mission.”
She was swearing in the name of a god.
Gods truly existed in this world.
I could say that with certainty because they proved their existence in the form of something called a ‘Blessing.’
People who received blessings while praying sometimes gained abilities in many different forms, almost like Hunters awakening.
Some gained long life and resistance to disease, others gained incredible strength, and some even awakened healing skills.
In any case, knowing that gods truly existed and still swearing in their name meant Chloe was serious.
I smiled slightly and answered her.
“There’s no need to swear over something like this. Don’t push yourself too hard. I’ll be waiting for you in Marcel.”
She immediately turned around and headed toward the city.
I went to the harbor with the rest of the group.
“My lord, that’s the ship.”
The ship the servant pointed at was old, but it was still quite a large sailing ship.
At a glance, it looked like it could carry around 1,500 tons.
I grabbed one of the sailors and ordered him to bring the captain.
Not long after the sailor ran inside, a man came rushing over.
His beard was so thick and wild that he looked exactly like a pirate captain from a fairy tale.
“I’m the captain. May I ask who you are, sir?”
“I am Eric Marcel, Viscount of Marcel. I also have a letter written by Count Michael Westphalen.”
This ship was a regular vessel owned by Marcel Territory, which meant the captain was technically a government employee of Marcel.
If I wanted him to understand the situation quickly, showing him Count Michael’s letter was probably the easiest way.
However, the captain didn’t even look at the letter.
Instead, he stared at me and broke into a huge smile.
“Oh my! Young Master Eric? You’ve grown so much!”
Who was this guy?
Why was he so happy to see me?
I carefully studied the overly excited captain’s face, but I couldn’t remember him at all.
“Who are you? I don’t remember. What’s your name?”
“Adrian, sir.”
I flinched and took a step backward, staring at the captain again.
This pirate-looking middle-aged man was Adrian?
What happened to the clean-cut, handsome young man who used to teach me how to fish when I was a child?
“Ahem. I didn’t recognize you because of the beard. Is your mother doing well? If I remember correctly, she ran a general store.”
“Oh my, oh my. You even remember someone like me.”
Adrian looked deeply moved.
When he saw my mother Maria and Pierre, the former knight commander, he even burst into tears.
“Sniff... Lady Maria, you’ve finally returned home.”
After calming down Captain Adrian, who was crying like a waterfall, we boarded the regular ship.
The vessel soon departed.
If there were no problems along the way, it would take around fourteen hours to reach Marcel.
During that time, I decided to ask Adrian about the current situation in Marcel.
“Is the territory running properly?”
“It’s running, of course. But there are always problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“A lot of the officials are embezzling money.”
“Embezzling?”
Wasn’t corruption among officials fairly common in this world?
But Captain Adrian seemed to have suffered personally because of it.
He continued angrily.
“Everything comes with a tax. Marriage tax, window tax, road tax, toilet tax, chimney tax. There’s even a sixtieth-birthday tax. When you turn sixty, you have to pay another tax. They collect that much money, but the territory never develops. They’re definitely stealing it.”
I was close with quite a few officials in the Westphalen administration.
By gathering bits and pieces of information from them, it had not been difficult to understand Marcel Territory’s financial situation.
But I had never heard anything about taxes like those.
This was far beyond the level of corruption that could be ignored.
“Is the administrator acting as lord responsible for this?”
“The administrator and the tax officer basically control all of Marcel right now. The other officials and knights don’t cooperate with them, but they pretend not to see anything.”
I could understand people ignoring corruption.
In a small territory, opposing powerful officials could cost you your head.
I could even understand a certain level of corruption.
Marcel was poor, so salaries might not always be paid on time.
But inventing taxes that didn’t even exist just to steal money?
That was a completely different matter.
The moment I arrived, I would cut those bastards’ heads—
Wait.
An administrator is acting that arrogantly by himself?
Something’s strange.
There’s definitely more to this.
Anger was not a virtue a lord should possess.
I calmed myself and thought carefully.
There was definitely someone behind the administrator.
Purging the corrupt officials was less important than discovering who was supporting them.
I needed to learn who was interfering with Marcel Territory, and why.
So I came up with a simple plan.
Early the next morning.
The ship carrying our group arrived at the harbor beneath Marcel’s lord’s castle.
Standing on the deck, I looked over the harbor with a strange feeling in my chest.
The scenery had already begun to fade from my memory.
After leaving Marcel as a child, I had never once returned.
At one end of the harbor stood a massive pyramid ruin that served as the area’s landmark.
And along the long coastline stretched docking facilities that showed just how lively the harbor must have once been.
“Captain Adrian, it looks like the harbor has more than ten bays.”
“There are twelve bays, sir. Twelve carracks can dock at the same time.”
But right now, there were only two merchant ships in Marcel Harbor.
The harbor was far too large for its current level of activity.
“Why did they build it this big?”
“The lord from three generations ago wanted to turn this place into a major trade port. Unfortunately, he never managed to fulfill that dream.”
