Chapter 163 – True Education
Helen’s house was at the head of the village, so it took a while to get there.
And the customs officer was coming out of Helen’s house with a thick bag, as if he had already accomplished his purpose of coming here.
I saw it and blocked the way.
“Stop.”
Then, “Huh?” The tax collector turned his head and said with a displeased face, perhaps recognizing the face I had met at the bar earlier.
“You’re the young man I met at the bar earlier. What’s your business with me?”
I glanced at Helen, who was standing behind him, and said.
“It’s nothing special, I think you should go with me.”
Then, the tax collector laughed as if it were ridiculous.
“As you can see, I don’t think I’m making such an offer for a good purpose. I’m a customs collector in the lord’s employ. And what you’re doing now is obstructing the administration of government duties.”
When I heard that, I shrugged my shoulders.
“What kind of a lord is a lord who takes twice as much as the tax set by the country. He’s a thief.”
Then Customs Jing contorted his face fiercely.
“This bastard! You say it’s a pierced mouth!”
Then he waved the staff he was holding in his right hand.
A ball of fire the size of a basketball that forms in the air.
Fireball, the common magic of the fire element.
It flew like a missile at high speed.
At most, I thought he had a straight back for being a civil servant, but he must have been a retired wizard.
Helen, who was watching the whole situation from behind, screamed in tears.
“Kyaahhhhh!”
Of course, I wasn’t a sorcerer so poor that at most I could be hit by second-tier magic, so I lightly knocked it off with my hand.
Fish food!
A fireball that disappears as if nothing had happened.
Seeing this, the tax collector said as if he was perplexed.
“Can you stop my magic with one hand?!”
It’s to the point where I sigh spontaneously at the trite lines.
“Then shall I block it with both hands?”
Then the tax collectors kook! He clicked his tongue and raised the staff above his own head.
“Looks like you learned some magic from somewhere, but I’m a 4th tier mage! A wizard from a rural village like you is nothing!”
Well, I don’t know who is talking to whom.
Are you fucking ignoring me for not wearing a robe because I’m on vacation?
I read with my eyes the flow of magic power gathering around the man and interfered with it.
It is the ‘eye that reads the wind’ that I learned from Master three years ago.
I was able to interfere with the flow of mana existing in the air.
And since most wizards use magic by accepting mana from the outside into their bodies and processing it into other elements, it was impossible to compose a magic formula if someone interfered in the flow.
Magic is something like a complex mathematical formula, but suddenly there is an unknown unknown.
“The magic is scattered!”
And as a result of this mischief, Customs Jing swung his staff around, as if he was embarrassed by the mana dissipating in the air no matter how much he tried to use magic.
“Are you done now?”
“What are you doing! What kind of witchcraft did you use!”
“I see. What kind of witchcraft did you use?”
I didn’t feel the need to go along with his insistence, so I approached him casually.
“Go, don’t come any closer!”
The man hurriedly brandished his staff and tried to drive me away, but unfortunately I was a war mage.
“Oops!”
Twisting the hand holding the cane, I subdued him in an instant and threw him to the ground.
“What’s your lord’s name?”
Then the tax collector said with an angry expression.
“Do you dare to touch me and be safe! If I say one word, a town like this! Aaaaa!”
“I-I only have to answer the questions, but you can’t do that easily.”
Is it a characteristic of third-class villains to answer alumni?
While thinking about what to do with him who still doesn’t know how to give up, I came up with a good method.
“If you don’t keep quiet right now, I’ll close your magical path.”
Stop!
Seeing that it calms down right away, it works.
The threat to shut down the magic furnace worked well for those who thought magic was power.
“What, what do you want?”
“I just told you. Name the lord.”
“If I tell you, will you let me go?”
“I don’t think you’re in a situation where you’re going.”
As I said that and created an ice spear in my right hand, the customs officer hurriedly said,
“Baron Dornell! It’s Baron Dornell!”
“Baron Dornell?”
It’s the first name I’ve heard of.
In fact, it was because the central government had strong power in Oz, so there was no need to care about the local aristocrats.
Anyway, thinking that I should be the first to be punished for the offense when I return to the capital, I said to Customs Officer Jing, who was sitting on his lap.
“Go and tell them. The Chief Treasurer will soon send out an audit, so if you’ve committed any crimes, wash your head and wait.”
Saying that, I took out a business card from my wallet and threw it away.
It is my ‘real’ business card with the symbol of the Ozma Government-General.
No matter how much a government official in a rural area can tell this much, the tax collector trembled as he checked the name written on his business card, lying flat on the floor.
“Eh, the Demon King’s guard dog, Patrasche…?!”
“I know.”
Customs Jing, who had been arrogant until now, came out with an earthy expression and looked at his business card in turn, then banged his head, as if belatedly realizing his mistake.
“Sorry! I don’t know you!”
“No, no, you can’t figure it out. It’s just you and your employer who are responsible. If you illegally doubled your taxes, wouldn’t you have enjoyed wealth and glory with the money left over from giving it to the center? You just have to pay for that sin.”
“Hee! Please take a look!”
“No. I don’t intend to watch it. Go back.”
I said that and cut it off firmly, then looked at Helen and her daughters who were staring at me with a stunned expression.
“Is the conversation here a secret?”
As I said that, I raised my index finger to my lips, and the three of them nodded their heads in bewilderment.
I grabbed the crotch of my trousers and used magic to lift the weeping archon, then returned the money pouch hanging from his waist to Helen.
“Anyway, it’s an illegally collected tax. Take it back.”
“…Thank you. Kaldrash.”
I listened to Helen’s words and shrugged her slyly.
“What is a good friend?”
In this case, I use it as a backing once in a while.
***
After that, I went around the village and returned all the taxes collected by the tax collector to the villagers.
Of course, some people were worried about the aftermath, but when I told them that someone would come down from the capital soon to punish the lord for illegally collecting taxes, he accepted the money bag in dubious doubt.
After all, money is right.
I told the customs officer, who was leaving the village as if running away, not to even dream of escaping at night.
Even if you run away, I will follow you to the end and take back your property.
Then, the tax collector said that he would pay for his sins with an expression that he couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing.
Well, it remains to be seen if this is indeed the case.
Anyway, I will never touch this village again.
“I heard that Mr. Schneizel took good care of one son.”
“I heard that the house and the land we live in were all bought by our son? You have a lot of money.”
“Is Kaldrash married now? Let’s have a wedding talk.”
“Arthur. Arthur. I heard he has five beautiful wives.”
“Aren’t you two maids?”
“Anyway, he has a lot of money, a lot of wives, and Kaldrash is the most successful in our town. He’s been successful.”
Thanks to this, the villagers were able to speak freely about me, but I had no choice but to accept some side effects.
After all, no one in town knows that I am the same person as Chief Treasurer Patrasche.
I didn’t use a pseudonym for nothing from the beginning.
After all the commotion, I went back to having dinner at my father’s house.
Just 10 years ago, only the two of us ate together, but suddenly there were so many people who could be called family.
It’s something to live for a very long time.
“I sent it to solve the tax problem, and you’re the only one who can beat the tax collector.”
“I just chose the easiest and fastest way.”
I said that and chewed the meat with a shameless expression.
“Father, have some of this.”
“Ah, thank you.”
When Vanessa, who was watching from the sidelines, put the grilled fish on his father’s plate at just the right time, the father smiled and said thank you.
I stared at him as if he was dumbfounded, then said something that just came to my mind.
“Oh, I’m going back to the capital tomorrow.”
Then the father was astonished.
“Are you going already?”
I answered while eating broccoli.
“Three days was a long stay. It took three days just to get here from the capital.”
It takes a week to go back and forth, but if you spend three days, it’s honestly a losing business.
That’s why I didn’t come down to my hometown well.
“Anyway, since I’ve confirmed with my own two eyes that my father is living well, I’m going to go back to work. And if we’re here, the two of us won’t be able to roast sesame seeds.”
As I said that, I glanced at her stepmother, who blushed and shrugged her shoulders.
Then the father licked his lips in regret and said,
“If that’s what you mean, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Oh, but you’re not really going to make a younger brother, are you?”
“…”
“No, why don’t you answer? Make people anxious?”
But my father didn’t answer until the end and continued to eat in silence.
Apparently, his father’s second-generation plan was sincere.
I will turn
