Aiden asked again.
“Are the results of the prisoners’ labor truly that poor? So poor that maintaining the prison is impossible without selling paid prison meals?”
They were not being served lavishious meals every time, and yet the prison could not even afford to distribute a single loaf of rye bread?
Aiden glanced inside the prison, but the prisoners’ condition looked better than he had expected.
Somehow, there did not seem to be many pure-blooded northerners among them, but considering that many were young men in the prime of life, it was still hard to understand.
“I would like to see the relevant documents right now.”
Aiden, who had been about to ask the jailer more questions, decided to change direction.
‘Documents don’t lie.’
Documents could be manipulated just as people could lie, but evidence would remain.
Perfectly forged documents?
‘Where in the north would there be anyone capable of that?’
If someone had that level of ability, they would already have been summoned to the capital and become the hands and feet of truly high-ranking people. There was no way they would use such ability in this barren northern land merely to skim off a little of the labor power of imprisoned criminals.
“These are the documents you ordered.”
The soldiers had gone along to help move the documents, but since there had not been much volume in the first place, they now looked as though they had lost their purpose.
“This is all?”
“Well....”
“It may be fortunate instead, since I can finish reading it quickly.”
“Administrator. Rather than doing this here, you should go to your office and—”
“How many pages could there be? Why go through the trouble of moving?”
Aiden sat down at the rough wooden table right there and began concentrating fiercely.
Jamie and Kalisa also pulled over chairs.
Rustle, rustle.
The jailer’s office was instantly wrapped in silence.
Only the sound of paper turning filled the room.
The one fortunate thing was that checking all two boxes’ worth of documents took less than an hour.
Ah, of course, only for Aiden.
“This was not a labor problem in the first place.”
At the sight of Aiden setting down the documents, sitting slightly crookedly, and clicking his tongue, his two subordinates were startled and began flipping through the papers to catch up.
It was not that Jamie and Kalisa lacked ability.
It was simply that their superior was too outstanding, so they were inevitably compared to him.
“No, what kind of punishment lets you use a proxy? Hah, honestly.”
Aiden took out a bundle of documents and handed it to the two people in a rush.
“Labor substitution.... Ah, I found it. Here it is.”
Kalisa seemed to have found it first.
“A criminal sentenced to forced labor is allowed to hire someone to perform the labor in his place. To think this law still exists....”
“What do you mean, still exists? Are you saying this law does not exist in the capital?”
“Was it not a provision the previous emperor removed because it had many abuses?”
“Huh?”
At Kalisa’s words, Jamie blinked.
“Truly?”
“Why would I lie?”
“That is true.”
“I did feel that the north’s laws and administration differed quite a bit compared to the central government, but I did not know that even provisions removed due to abuses were still alive here.”
Kalisa looked at Aiden and shook her head.
‘This is a world where central law and regional law differ.’
So, if one were to compare it to something, it was like American law.
Each state had slightly different scopes and boundaries.
“Since labor substitution is possible like this, ordinary people who are not criminals must have gradually increased at the labor yard, and it would have been difficult for the jailers to force them even if their productivity dropped.”
“Yes. No matter that they received money and acted as substitutes, they were still ordinary people without any crimes, so the jailers likely could not treat them brutally.”
“The fact that movement between regions is not free, and everyone knows everyone else through one connection or another, must have played a part as well.”
A poor place where there were few proper ways to earn money.
In such a village, the fact that one could occasionally receive daily wages by substituting for someone’s labor meant,
‘The jailers would have told their close neighbors first.’
At first, it was probably done with good intentions.
Affection, pity, friendship toward neighbors, telling them to sell even day labor so they would not go hungry—something like that.
But once their neighbors began increasing in the labor yard, the jailers must have repeatedly found themselves in awkward situations where they could neither raise the whip nor shout at them.
‘In a small neighborhood, how many people could say harsh things and raise a hand against neighbors they would meet again after work?’
The labor yard’s productivity must have gradually fallen that way, and once rumors spread that the labor was not that difficult, the number of people wanting to act as labor substitutes gradually increased as well. In the end,
“The price for labor substitution is absurdly cheap too.”
It was only natural, since many people wanted to substitute for the labor.
“Those who came to substitute for labor after receiving low pay would not work hard, so production fell again.”
“A vicious cycle.”
Jamie and Kalisa added a word each.
“I am the sort of person who does not particularly like changing administration as suddenly as flipping over one’s palm.”
Aiden spoke.
“No matter how good a plan looks, if you implement it recklessly and problems arise, the ones who suffer in the end are the residents. What we are using is tax money as well.”
“That is correct.”
Jamie reflexively nodded and chimed in.
“But you see, I think this case can be different.”
Aiden took another bundle of papers from the pile of documents and tossed it onto the table.
“They are labor substitute application forms.”
“...Certainly, the number of substitutes has increased over the past few years.”
“Overall, yes, but this year is a little different, is it not?”
Kalisa circled the number of applications from the past month or two and opened her eyes wide.
“It seems the timing of the various projects you implemented, Administrator, coincides with the period when labor substitutes began decreasing.”
There was no need to look further for the interpretation.
“The residents who personally feel that life is gradually becoming livable are no longer selling their labor cheaply. Instead, they are trying to increase their own land and do other work!”
Jamie also struck the table with his fist, his eyes shining.
“Yes. So I think now is the perfect time to tear apart and repair this damned correctional facility. What do you two think?”
For the first time today, a smile appeared on Aiden’s face.
***
Ding, ding, ding, ding!
“Everyone out! I said come out!”
“Raise both arms over your heads and stand facing the wall!”
“Can’t you move faster? Do you want a taste of pain?”
The very next day after Aiden personally inspected the dungeon.
The prisoners were thrown into confusion by the work notice, which was unlike the usual routine.
The jailers swung clubs that looked chilling even at a glance, lined up all the prisoners sentenced to forced labor in the corridor, and began binding chains around their ankles.
“Um, Jailer. There seems to be some kind of mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“I use a labor substitute. Ah! Did he perhaps run away? If that is the case, please just let me send one letter. I will quickly contact my family and find a new substitute....”
“An order has come from the administrator starting today. Listen carefully, all of you. As of today, labor substitution is abolished!”
“Pardon? No, what is that supposed to mean...! What law changes this suddenly?”
“Are you saying the laws of the north need your permission?”
“T-That is not what I mean, but....”
“From now on, paid prison meals and personal purchases can only be bought with a portion of the money you bastards earn through labor!”
At the sharp voices of the jailers, the necks of the prisoners who had suddenly been forced to go out for labor shrank.
The wealthy prisoners who had eaten meals far more splendid than the jailers’ at every mealtime, replaced labor with northerners hired cheaply, and lived inside the dungeon as though they were on vacation could not adapt to the sudden situation.
“What nonsense are you talking about! We can only use the money we earn from labor? Where in the world is there such a law?”
“Do you know how much money I have spent until now? If this is how it will be, transfer me! Transfer me!”
Several prisoners who failed to read the atmosphere finally began spouting nonsense.
“Transfer? Trans-fer?”
Aiden, who had been watching from a distance, raised only one corner of his mouth crookedly.
“What nonsense is that now? A transfer?”
Could prisoners in this neighborhood just request transfers and have them accepted?
In a world where each region was ruled by a different lord?
“Um, Administrator. Those prisoners requesting transfers are not originally men who committed crimes and were caught in our north.”
“Head Jailer. Then you mean those bastards are originally supposed to be imprisoned somewhere else?”
“Yes. They paid money and transferred to the north....”
“They pay money for transfers too?”
As Aiden listened, the absurdity doubled.
“...So if we accepted prisoners who should have been in another neighborhood, subsidies came out?”
“...Yes.”
In other words, after trying and failing to find money to maintain the prison, they had even taken on violent criminals from other neighborhoods.
Because a few coins had been that precious.
‘No wonder the prisoners did not look like pure-blooded northerners when I came to inspect yesterday.’
Pure-blooded northerners had different frames, no matter how thin they became from lack of food.
“Um, Administrator. Shall we prepare the transfers? There are a few fiefs that welcome wealthy prisoners.... As long as the transfer fee is agreed upon, they will accept them readily.”
Aiden found the head jailer’s appearance extremely unsatisfactory.
His shoulders were deeply hunched, though he had done nothing wrong, and his eyes were watching his superior’s mood.
‘Those damned predecessors.’
For the first time in a while, curses toward predecessors whose faces he did not even know nearly poured out of his mouth.
“Straighten your shoulders.”
“Pardon?”
“You did nothing wrong, so why are you so dispirited? There are bastards who committed crimes and yet stand that proudly just because they have some money.”
Aiden’s black eyes turned toward several prisoners shouting about transfers.
“I felt this from yesterday, but those bastards show no sign of reflection. I dislike it.”
Did they come here to play?
They came here to be punished.
“I think we need to teach them why punishment is punishment. Those bastards do not seem to understand at all what the forced labor sentence they received actually means.”
“Then the transfer....?”
At the head jailer’s words, Aiden let out a small laugh.
“When you think about it.”
Aiden’s voice became cheerful in an instant.
“They are all labor power too. Is there any need to hand them over to another fief?”
Even if they could not receive a few coins in transfer fees right away, if they made good use of free labor power, would that not be a profit in the end?
“But if you do that, Administrator, it will damage your honor!”
Jamie quickly objected.
“The other fiefs will laugh at you. They will say you did not accept a transfer request you should rightly have accepted because you coveted the prisoners’ labor power.”
It sounded like madness, but by the standards of this age, apparently this was the orthodox view.
‘If a prisoner can request a transfer, that means he comes from a family with some money, and in the end, people like that all know one another through connections, so they accommodate each other.’
However,
“I told you.”
“Pardon?”
“What honor does a civil servant need?”
An honorable ninth-grade civil servant.
He did not regret discarding such a title in the slightest.
“It is time for the prisoners’ labor, is it not? Move them quickly.”
Thud.
After giving the order and turning to go back up to his office, the head jailer suddenly knelt.
Thud, thud.
The other jailers did the same.
The kneeling jailers each clenched one fist and placed it over the opposite side of their chests.
“We offer our loyalty to you, Administrator!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
They slowly beat their chests.