The scent of fresh ink and newly dried parchment filled the air of the 'Accounting Room', which had been converted from an old storage space in Verdant Village's town hall.
Although the building's structure still looked dilapidated, thanks to Notch's temporary repairs, the once-cracked wooden walls were now completely sealed, excellently keeping out the cold wind and dust.
Lloyd sat behind a large oak desk. His long, pale fingers traced the numbers on the ledger. His deep blue eyes scanned the data rapidly. The headache from heavy concentration still lingered faintly. The status bar in his vision showed his recovered mana at 25/100.
"Setting our import tax thirty percent lower has brought in three groups of small-scale merchant caravans over the past two days," Marcus Gray, the middle-aged merchant who had now taken on the role of temporary economic advisor, stated while clicking the abacus in his hand with a loud clack-clack.
"Our resource exchange volume has skyrocketed, Lord Baron Lloyd," Marcus smiled widely. "But just as you predicted... the rumors of our unusual prosperity reached the ears of Baron Reinhardt's estate faster than expected."
Lloyd looked up from the parchment, the former World Champion's eyes calm and rippleless.
"Baron Reinhardt is a control freak," Lloyd muttered to himself. "Seeing the economic trade routes being siphoned right out of his lap, he's definitely going to find a way to pressure us... Attacking us directly with soldiers would violate the Veltine Empire's laws. The method these nobles love to use most is inevitably..."
"My Lord!"
Frank hurriedly pushed open the door to the accounting room. The giant youth's towering figure was clad in light leather armor newly acquired from the resource exchanges. His grayish-blue eyes clearly showed tension.
"An express cavalry unit from the regional capital has arrived at the town hall! They aren't wearing military armor, but the cloaks of 'Inspectors' from Baron Reinhardt's estate!"
"They came faster than I thought," Lloyd smirked. "It's exactly like an opposing player mashing the report button to the GMs just to get my account banned."
Marcus frowned, not understanding the young noble's strange vocabulary, but he quickly gathered the parchment rolls on the desk to tidy them up. "Tax inspectors... They are definitely here to find a legal pretext to ruin us, my Lord. If they find even a single copper's worth of discrepancy in the ledger, Baron Reinhardt can immediately claim the right to 'suspend trade' in Verdant Territory."
"No need to hide the ledgers, Sir Marcus," Lloyd stood up slowly, adjusting the collar of his noble's cloak. "Leave them open on the desk. Let them in."
In less than a breath, the wooden door of the accounting room was pushed open once again. This time, the person who stepped in was a tall, thin, middle-aged man. He wore a black cloak trimmed with silver, the symbol of the Veltine Empire's auditing officials. His narrow eyes gleamed with the cunning of a venomous snake about to strike its prey.
"Apologies for disturbing your rest, Baron Lloyd Weston."
The man in black bowed his head slightly in a customary greeting, but his lips curled into an unfriendly smile. "My name is 'Elias', the Regional Tax and Commerce Inspector. I have received direct orders from Baron Reinhardt to pay your territory an urgent 'visit'."
"Welcome, Sir Elias." Lloyd gestured to the chair opposite him. "What wind brings you to this impoverished borderland? Or did Rufus, the previous tax collector, misreport something?"
Elias chuckled darkly in his throat. He sat down on the chair with arrogant entitlement, flanked by two assistants carrying thick stacks of document folders.
"Sir Rufus's report was perfectly comprehensive. Especially regarding the fact that Verdant Territory... suddenly had the means to pay off all its overdue advance taxes in full in just three days, despite barely having enough to eat prior to that." Elias narrowed his eyes, staring deep into Lloyd's. "That is cause for celebration... but at the same time, it raises severe 'suspicions' in the eyes of Imperial Law."
"Suspicions?" Frank, standing behind Lloyd, clenched his fists tightly. "We worked our fingers to the bone, exchanging goods honestly. What is there to be suspicious of!"
"Silence, peasant," Elias glanced at Frank with disdain. "I am conversing with your master."
Lloyd raised a hand and gently tapped Frank's arm, signaling him to calm down, before turning back to offer the Inspector a faint smile.
"Speak your mind, Sir Elias. What exactly does Baron Reinhardt suspect in my humble territory?"
Elias nodded to his assistants. His men placed the leather-bound document folders on the desk and opened them. Inside, they were filled with numbers and graphs of regional tax assessments.
"Article Forty-Two of the Veltine Empire's Commercial Law clearly states..." Elias began reciting in a flat yet oppressive tone. "Any adjustment to import tax rates that falls more than fifteen percent below the central standard must be assessed to ensure it 'does not cause disruption' to the region's overall economy..."
The man in black tapped his index finger loudly on the table. Tap!
"But by dumping your import taxes by a whole thirty percent, you are 'poaching' merchant caravans that should have traveled through Baron Reinhardt's regional capital, causing the region's revenues to shrink rapidly! Baron Reinhardt fears that your actions might be a front for 'money laundering' or 'smuggling contraband' to build illegal wealth!"
The accusation was heavy and severe. If found guilty, the penalty for sabotaging the Empire's economy was total confiscation of assets and immediate stripping of noble titles!
Marcus Gray broke into a sweat as he listened. As a merchant, he knew all too well that citing 'economic stability' was the favorite weapon high nobles used to bully lesser ones.
However, Lloyd showed no signs of fear. He picked up a cup of cold tea and took a calm sip, as if he were sitting through an amusing joke.
"Sir Elias, I admire Baron Reinhardt's thoroughness," Lloyd set down his teacup. "But it seems you've completely overlooked 'Article Forty-Three', Paragraph Two of that very same law."
Elias paused, his brows furrowing together. "What do you mean?"
"Marcus," Lloyd turned and nodded to his advisor.
Marcus took a deep breath, gathering the courage of a seasoned merchant. He opened the black-bound ledger he and Lloyd had compiled together last night and slid it in front of the tax inspector.
"According to Article Forty-Three, Paragraph Two, Sir Inspector..." Marcus began explaining articulately. "If the reduction of import taxes can create 'Value Added' to the region's exported goods until the total value exceeds the lost tax revenue... that tax reduction is legally considered a 'legitimate trade promotion strategy'."
Marcus pointed at the numbers in the ledger. "You claim that Verdant Territory's tax cuts are causing the region to lose income, but please, look at the figures under 'Export Taxes' that we pay back to Baron Reinhardt's checkpoints."
Elias looked down at the numbers in the ledger. His narrow eyes gradually widened.
"What... is this?" Elias muttered in disbelief. "The export value of fifty kilograms of 'High-Quality Wild Herbs'... and two hundred 'Processed Red Pine Logs'... all within a single week?!"
"That is correct," Lloyd took over, his tone firm, backing the other party into a corner. "I willingly lowered my import taxes to lure merchants into bringing 'Tools' and 'Steel' into my territory. Then, I used those resources to upgrade... ahem... develop the infrastructure, allowing Verdant Territory to produce more high-value goods for export."
Lloyd leaned forward, staring relentlessly at the inspector.
"And when the merchants buy my herbs and processed wood to transport back... they still have to pay the 'Export Tax' at Baron Reinhardt's checkpoints anyway. Do the math, Elias. The export taxes from these high-value goods are 'twice' the amount of those paltry toll taxes you lost, aren't they?"
Silence blanketed the accounting room. There was only the sound of Elias's hitched breathing and the frantic page-turning of his two assistants desperately trying to find a flaw in the ledger.
But there was no way they would find one. Lloyd had used his 'Micro-Management' experience in handling mana and resources to perfectly control every single number. Not a single leak, not a single loophole. It was a ledger cleaner and purer than water from a holy spring!
Elias gritted his teeth. He realized now that the young noble before him was not the sickly, dying child the rumors portrayed, but a cunning demon who thoroughly understood the loopholes of economic law.
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"Your ledger is... very clean, Baron Lloyd," Elias forced the words out, his voice laced with bitterness. "Clean to... an astonishing degree."
"I have always governed my territory with transparency, Sir Inspector," Lloyd smiled in response. "Therefore, the accusation of sabotaging the economy will have to be dropped."
Elias clenched his fists until they trembled. He knew that if he returned to report to Baron Reinhardt empty-handed, he would surely be punished. Since commercial law couldn't be used to nail them, the crafty inspector decided to play his final 'trump card'.
"Your commerce is flawless..." Elias snapped the ledger shut loudly. "But the goods you are selling are the real problem!"
The man in black pointed at Lloyd, his eyes turning ferocious. "The wild herbs you exported have a concentration of pure 'mana' far exceeding what the nature of this barren land could possibly produce! According to the Security Laws of the Cult of the Light God... cultivating plants with this level of mana density without permission is considered experimenting with 'heretical magic' that may be linked to the Demonic Races!"
The Accusation of Heresy
The accusations of 'heretical magic' and 'Demonic Races' struck like a thunderbolt right in the middle of the accounting room.
Marcus Gray's eyes widened until they nearly popped out. The middle-aged merchant jumped to his feet in panic, cold sweat drenching his back. In the Veltine Empire, tax fraud charges could be settled with bribes, but charges related to heretical magic fell strictly under the absolute authority of the 'Church of the Light God'.
There was only one punishment... being burned alive at the stake in the public square!
"S-Sir Elias! You are making baseless accusations!" Marcus stammered, his voice trembling. "I personally inspected those herbs with my own two hands. There isn't a single trace of curses or black magic on them! It's simply the abundance of nature!"
"Nature in a land as dry as dust?!" Elias snapped back, his eyes flashing with the upper hand. "Don't bother making excuses, you foolish merchant! There is no plant in the world that can grow this fast and be this packed with mana within a single week, unless your Lord secretly made a pact with demons!"
"You... you mangy cur!"
Frank roared from his throat. The giant youth had completely run out of patience. He lunged across the accounting desk, his thick, calloused hands grabbing Elias by his black collar, and forcefully hoisted the middle-aged man off the ground as easily as lifting a ragdoll!
"Ack! L-Let me go! You rebel peasant!" Elias shrieked, his legs kicking wildly in the air. His two assistants backed up against the wall in terror, their faces completely pale.
"Frank, put him down."
Lloyd's flat yet absolute voice echoed.
Frank froze. His grayish-blue eyes still blazed with fury, but since it was his master's order, he relented and opened his hands. Elias's body plummeted, hitting the floor with a loud thud!
Elias scrambled backward, clutching his throat and coughing violently. "Y-You... Baron Lloyd! You let your stray dog assault Baron Reinhardt's representative! The Church of the Light God will surely send a unit of Holy Knights to purge your territory!"
Lloyd wasn't the least bit panicked by the threat. He stood up slowly and walked around the desk to loom over the tax inspector, who was sitting and shivering on the floor.
"The Church of the Light God, you say?" Lloyd raised an eyebrow. "Sir Elias, are you a commercial official or a high priest? How dare you overstep the authority of the Religious Inquisition like this?"
"I-I am just stating what I saw! Those herbs are proof!" Elias argued stubbornly.
"Proof born from your ignorance and prejudice," Lloyd shook his head lightly, his eyes flashing with a cold, imposing authority far beyond what a seventeen-year-old boy should possess. "If you think watering plants with bamboo pipes is heretical magic... then I suggest you go back to elementary school."
Lloyd turned and nodded to Frank. "Frank, go fetch the miniature 'Irrigation System' model Notch made on my work desk. Give our esteemed Inspector here a little eye-opener."
Before long, Frank returned with a complex, interconnected model of bamboo pipes. Lloyd took it and placed it right in front of Elias.
"This is what you call black magic." Lloyd pointed to the bamboo mechanism. "It is a drip irrigation system that calculates the moisture of the sandy loam and draws water from the stream to directly nourish the roots of the herbs, twenty-four hours a day. It is not witchcraft. It is not a curse. It is 'Architecture' and 'Engineering' that your narrow mind simply cannot comprehend!"
Elias stared at the model in sheer shock. Even though he didn't understand its full mechanics, he could plainly see there were absolutely no magical runes or traces of dark mana carved into it. It was just ordinary woodwork!
"Then what about the dense mana concentration in the herb leaves?! How do you explain that!" Elias continued gritting his teeth, refusing to give up.
"Verdant Territory borders the untamed forests and mountain ranges. This land has been receiving natural streams of pure mana for thousands of years, but because it was barren, the plants couldn't absorb it..." Lloyd flawlessly blended gaming logic with the lore of this world. "But once our water system started running, the soil absorbed that mana and sent it straight into the herbs' roots... It is the result of nature being stimulated by technology, not magic!"
Lloyd leaned in close to Elias, whispering in a voice that chilled him to the core.
"If you want to report this to the Church of the Light God, I would gladly welcome the Inquisition." Lloyd sneered. "But remember this well... Church law clearly states that if a noble is accused of heresy and the investigation proves it to be 'false'... the accuser will be punished by having their tongue cut out and being exiled from the Empire for life."
The young Baron straightened up, looking down at the trembling figure of the inspector. "Are you ready to wager your tongue against my bamboo pipes? Sir Elias."
An oppressive silence fell over the entire room like a giant boulder.
Elias swallowed hard. His face was deathly pale, drained of all color. He realized he had been utterly defeated. His trump card of heretical magic had been torn to shreds by tangible facts, and Lloyd's counter-threat was no joke. The Church of the Light God absolutely despised being used as a political tool.
"I-I understand." Elias forced himself up on shaky legs, hastily brushing the dust off his cloak.
The man in black nodded to his assistants to hurriedly pack up all the documents. The arrogant and haughty demeanor he displayed upon walking in had completely vanished, leaving only dread toward the sharp intellect of the youth before him.
"For today, I will consider your ledgers legally compliant, Baron Lloyd..." Elias spoke through gritted teeth. "But don't get too smug."
The tax inspector paused at the door. He turned back to look at Lloyd with eyes full of vindictive malice and a warning loaded with deep implications.
"You might be clever with laws and numbers... but you are still just a child, Lloyd Weston." Elias narrowed his eyes. "In the Veltine Empire, many high nobles do not take kindly to seeing a countryside 'weed' grow so fast that it ruins the view... When the laws on paper cannot eliminate you, mark my words... the law of the jungle will visit you soon."
Finishing that vague threat, Elias and his assistants quickly marched out of the accounting room, mounted their horses, and galloped out of Verdant Territory as fast as if they were fleeing a demon.
The Next Move
As the sound of hoofbeats faded away, the tension in the accounting room dispersed.
Frank let out a long sigh and slumped against the wall. "I really wanted to snap his neck, My Lord. Talked way too much trash."
Marcus Gray slowly sat down on a chair, raising his handkerchief to mop up the sweat drenching his forehead. "Lord Lloyd... you were magnificent. I have never seen anyone corner Baron Reinhardt's inspector like that before."
But Lloyd didn't smile at the praise.
The former World Champion walked back and slumped into his chair behind the desk. The throbbing in his temples worsened until he had to raise his hands to massage them. Even though his mana status bar had recovered, the mental exhaustion from that battle of wits consumed a massive amount of energy.
"This was not a victory, Sir Marcus..." Lloyd muttered weakly. "It was just a stay of execution."
"What do you mean?" Marcus frowned. "They can't find a legal excuse to mess with us anymore."
"That is exactly the problem." Lloyd opened his eyes, his deep blue gaze glowing with tension. "What Elias said before leaving wasn't just an empty threat. Since Baron Reinhardt cannot use the 'Law' to seize our territory, he'll resort to 'Mob Rule' instead."
Marcus turned pale. "Y-You mean, he's going to send his army to pillage us? But that's illegal!"
"He doesn't need to send uniformed soldiers..." Lloyd explained through the lens of an RTS tactician. "He just needs to hire bandits, raiders, or even rogue mercenaries to lurk around the trade routes heading toward our territory. They'll ambush your wagons, slaughter any merchant who dares trade with Verdant... Just like that, he can sever our main economic artery without getting a single drop of blood on his own hands."
Lloyd's piercing analysis left Marcus and Frank speechless. It was a dirty and ruthless scheme, but it was exactly the method powerful nobles commonly used to eradicate thorns in their sides.
"Then what should we do, My Lord?" Frank asked with concern. "If the southern route is blockaded by bandits, we'll have no way to export our goods or import steel."
Lloyd remained silent for a long moment. He commanded the system window to open once more.
The [Mini-Map] appeared in his field of vision. Lloyd stared at the regional map meticulously. The southern and eastern routes both cut straight through Baron Reinhardt's sphere of influence. If they were ambushed there, their chances of survival were practically zero.
But when he swept his gaze to the west...
That area was entirely covered by a pitch-black 'Fog of War'. It was the territory of the 'Western Elven Forest', a part of the Independent Tribal Federation—a land the Veltine Empire dared not trespass.
"Marcus..." Lloyd asked, breaking the silence. "If we don't use the main southern route, is there another path to transport goods to the central market without passing through Baron Reinhardt's checkpoints?"
The middle-aged merchant's eyes widened before he frantically shook his head.
"There is one route, Lord Lloyd, but it is a forbidden path! It's a trail that cuts through the 'Green Cliffs' and the deep forests of the Western Elves... But no human dares use that route! The Elves and Wild Orcs despise humans to the core. Anyone who wanders in there gets shot with poison-tipped arrows and becomes a ghost haunting the woods!"
That information matched exactly with what Lloyd saw on the map.
The former World Champion let out a long sigh. He was standing at a crossroad, facing a decision that would gamble the entire future of Verdant Territory.
Option One: Stunt economic growth for now. Suspend trade with Marcus to deprive Baron Reinhardt of an excuse to send bandits. It was the safest strategy, but it came at the cost of losing a golden opportunity for city building. The territory would revert to poverty and resource scarcity, and when the time came, Baron Reinhardt would simply find a new pretext to seize the land anyway.
Option Two: Expand operations openly and unapologetically. Refuse to bend, forge ahead, and open a new trade route cutting right through the 'Forbidden Forest' in the west to bypass the Baron's blockade. It was a 'High Risk, High Return' strategy. He would have to face the Independent Tribal Federation, who mistrusted humans, and find a way to negotiate—or break through—the Elves' barrage of arrows!
"Lord Lloyd..." Marcus called out, snapping him back to reality. "Don't even think about using the western forest route! That's practically courting death!"
Lloyd stood up slowly. He walked to the window of the accounting room, gazing past the village toward the dense, dark-green tree line in the west that looked so enigmatic and dangerous.
A frigid wind blew, brushing against the young Baron's face.
"In a game where the enemy controls all the main lanes..." Lloyd muttered to himself, a predator's smile appearing in his eyes. "The only way to flip the board... is to 'unlock a new map' that the enemy doesn't dare step into."
The choice had been made!
But how would he survive the sharp arrows of the proud Elves? That was the puzzle the former World Champion would have to use every ounce of his brainpower to solve for his next move!
(End of Chapter 9)