Chapter 139 – The Phantom Thief’s Notice
“…”
Surprisingly, Dorothea was really strong.
I thought I was pretty good at chess too, but Dorothea literally killed me playing with me.
In resentment, I continued to try again, but lost in 5 rounds.
He was truly a chess master like no other.
“Did you just eat and play chess?”
“I know. There’s nothing better than this to activate your brain.”
So said Dorothea, and he explained it conceitedly.
Basically, wizards are capable of parallel thinking.
This is because the precision of formulas increases as the hierarchy goes up, making it difficult to process them all with a single core.
It seems that Dorothea used that parallel thinking to run an intra-brain simulation.
“You can separate your left brain and your right brain and let them use different tactics. Then you can play chess by yourself. This is how I came up with when I was home alone.”
“That, yes…”
He’s a really great technique, but when he said he developed it while doing nothing, it gave me a strange feeling.
Anyway, the two hours slurped by while I was playing fierce chess with Dorothea, and since most of the staff had already gone on business trips, the finance control room was dead quiet.
I wondered if I would move too, so I packed up the materials and got up. Agnes, the deputy treasurer, approached me and asked.
“Are you planning to go out?”
“Uh. I have to go to the Marquis class myself.”
I replied and put a black bowler hat on my head.
“I heard you’re going to Count Düsseldorf’s mansion. I’ll attach this guy, so act together.”
“Hey, please take care of me.”
“I look forward to.”
The two shook hands awkwardly, probably because they were new to each other.
“If you’ll excuse me, can I hear your name?”
Then Dorothea answered, placing her hand on his waist.
“Dorotea Gale. The most famous nickname among humans is the Witch of the West.”
“Witch of the West!”
“Know?”
Then she replied, Agnes pushing up her glasses, slightly embarrassed.
“This is a character from a fairy tale I read often when I was young.”
Then Dorothea exclaimed, “Ah!”
“That’s the story of the first Elphaba. I’m the second generation.”
“Is Elphaba, the witch in the fairy tale, dead?”
“Well, that’s right. The witch was already hundreds of years old when I met her.”
Dorothea said that and shrugged her shoulders.
“Basically, the Witches of the Four Places, except for me, are old people whose days to die are closer than the days to live.”
I, who was listening to the two people talking next to me, asked while adjusting my coat collar.
“So when are you planning to leave? I’m leaving now.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Agnes, perhaps belatedly reminded of her own mission, she slightly bowed her back and stepped back from her.
“I’ll eat lunch on my own, so tell the staff.”
“Yes.”
“Dorotea, you work hard too.”
“When I come, Mackers 38 Year Old.”
“It’s not even sold in Nidavelli, where it originated.”
As I stared at her incredulously, Dorothea stuck out her tongue and smiled mischievously.
“You say you’ll buy me anything you want for breakfast?”
“That’s… Ha. I get it.”
Since I had already said it, I quietly accepted it.
***
“Oh, I’ve saved quite a bit.”
“Please! That’s all!”
“Uh-huh, stay still.”
I was currently conducting a search and seizure of the house of the Marquis of Cologne.
If you were a marquis, you should pay your taxes regularly and set an example for others, but most of them kept their barn full while not paying taxes because those who had it were more.
It is the job of the Financial Management Office to collect such uncollected taxes.
Of course, the people who stole the money cursed at it, but from our point of view, it was just an official duty.
How is that money going? It’s money I haven’t paid yet.
“Lady!”
After watching the Marquis of Cologne collapse on her forehead, I took all the colorful ingots hidden in the secret safe in the bedroom.
That rare Orihalcorn.
I didn’t expect to have so many stacks of Orihalcorn, not even gold.
To be honest, even if I sold all of this on the market, I could make up for all the taxes the Marquis hadn’t paid for two years.
Of course, I won’t sell it because it’s a rare item that can’t be obtained even with money.
‘Should I make a knives with this?’
As I rummaged through the documents in the safe while letting my happy imagination fly, I found a strange object.
“This…”
It was a wooden board with an unknown letter written on it.
However, seeing the same letter repeated over and over again, it seemed like there was a rule.
I was immediately convinced.
That this is what the master had been talking about.
‘Bingo.’
It seems that today is a lucky day.
Acquiring a large amount of Orihalcon ingots wasn’t enough, and even acquiring a rumor mill.
I hurriedly put the slaughterhouse into my bosom.
Immediately after, one of the police officers waiting in the back cautiously asked.
“By the way, can I just search the Marquis family like this? The Marquis of Cologne is the one with the strongest power among the royalists in the capital.”
“I’ll take care of it, so do your own thing.”
“Ah, yes.”
After sending away the rude policeman, I watched as the fainting Marquis was being carried away by her ladies-in-waiting.
Well. Apparently the Marquis was over 60 years old, but his wife was in her 30s, and she was something beyond the realm of a thief.
Anyway, the search and seizure was almost over, and it was time to leave now that we had all the important stuff.
“What the hell is this!”
A young man’s voice came from outside the door.
***
“Are you in charge here?!”
Coming out of the bedroom of the marquise couple, a handsome man who must have made a woman cry came out between the police with a huff.
Confident gait, flashy outfits, and decisively blonde hair like the Marquis of Cologne who was captured yesterday.
Everyone seemed to be related by blood, so I asked with a business smile.
“Are you the son of the Marquis of Cologne?”
“That’s right! I am the heir of this family!”
He revealed his identity with his full confidence and pointed at me and said.
“What the hell happened inside, Mother was carried out by the ladies-in-waiting! Quickly explain that!”
I responded with an embarrassing smile at the request, which was nothing short of reckless.
“I didn’t do anything. I just confiscated my emergency fund in lieu of taxes.”
“That’s how much you pay for taxes! Isn’t the sky scary?! No matter how much demons don’t do it, isn’t this too much!”
Hearing that, I decided to kindly explain for the ignorant youngster.
“Three hundred million gold.”
“Four, three hundred million!”
Perhaps it was an unexpected amount, the heir held his breath.
“This is the amount of taxes accumulated over the past two years. If the Government General had paid every time they sent someone to collect taxes, there wouldn’t have been such a large accumulation.”
“Ah, no matter how so! I can’t say it’s right to break into someone else’s house and do this!”
“If you really want, you can follow the law. I’ve accomplished all the purposes of today’s visit anyway.”
As I said that, I slightly raised the bag containing the duck hal cone ingots, and the heir frowned and stretched out his hand.
“Bind.”
“Kuh! What are you doing!”
“No, I thought you were trying to be rude.”
“That’s family money! It’s not something outsiders can touch!”
I set foot on the struggling heir to break free from restraints.
Udangtang!
Then, helplessly, he falls to the floor.
“Please claim the treatment fee from the Government General later. The magic will be released in three hours. Then I’m done.”
“Kwaaaaagh! Let’s see! I’ve memorized all the faces!”
I shouted in a voice of resentment, looking down at the heir fluttering like a shrimp on the floor with pitiful eyes.
“Rather than that, why don’t you start worrying about your own family?”
“What?!”
“No, nothing.”
You’ll find out in a few days anyway, so I didn’t feel the need to tell you in advance.
“Release this and go!”
I heard the voice of the successor coming from behind with one ear and let it flow through the other, waving my hand.
***
On this day, the amount of tax recovered by raiding the mansions of royalists all over the capital amounted to about 3 billion gold.
A truly staggering amount.
Not to mention, all of this wasn’t turned on, so if you worked all week, you’d probably be able to earn quite a bit of extra money.
In the evening, after work, they gather together, report their performance, and then disperse all at once.
Normally, if I had earned this much, I would have started eating right away, but since I still had a long way to go, I put the group dinner aside for a while.
Even so, there was something I had to do from today.
That was the interpretation of the trinket obtained from the Marquis of Cologne’s house today.
It seemed that about 30 kinds of letters were replaced with ciphertext, but it seemed that I would have to be prepared to stay up all night for several days to find the rule of thumb here.
I got off in front of the house with Dorothea, leading my exhausted body, and as I was about to open the door and go inside, I realized that there was something stuck in the crack in the door.
“What’s this.”
Wanting something, I took it out and checked it out, and on a white piece of paper with a picture of a black butterfly, it was written like this.
“I’ll see you soon?”
