A New Task and Winter Preparations

A New Task and Winter Preparations

A New Task and Winter Preparations

I gave my reply to Hasse’s messenger. The city was only half a day away, so it was likely that the mayor would read it before I returned to the monastery the day after tomorrow. I was hoping he would understand the situation and settle down, but how he was actually going to react was anyone’s guess.

“Ferdinand, is it truly wise to leave him be?” I asked.

“As it stands, we have no better option. It would be easy enough to eliminate him, but we must consider what would follow,” Ferdinand explained. As nobles, we could quite easily use our authority to arrest a mere commoner mayor and literally have his head roll, but considering the state that Hasse was in, it would be unreasonable for us to execute the mayor and do nothing else.

“But still, isn’t it best to eliminate an evil villain like him as soon as possible?”

“Rozemyne, why do you refer to him as ‘evil’?”

“Well, he’s selling orphans, bribing scholars, and seems to have been exploiting the old High Bishop’s power. That seems like a lot of bad stuff...” I said, counting each reason off on my fingers. But Ferdinand simply raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“None of those are particularly bad, and they are certainly not evil,” he replied, catching me completely off guard. I blinked in surprise, trying to understand what I had just heard, and we both looked at each other in confusion.

“The mayor earns the right of ownership over the orphans by taking care of them, so whether he sells them or not is entirely up to him,” Ferdinand continued. “And giving nobles money and gifts to earn their favor is just a matter of course. Do you not remember Benno giving me gifts when we first met? It is only natural to use what you have to secure good relations.”

Orphans were literally owned by those who looked after them, and it was so normal to bribe nobles that it didn’t even count as doing something bad. I cradled my head, taken aback by this huge contrast in what we saw as common sense.

“...Wait. So what did the mayor do wrong?”

“What else but disobeying my orders, and standing up unpermitted to protest our decision?” Ferdinand replied. According to him, selling orphans and exhibiting a certain degree of corruption was fine as long as it benefited the city—in fact, doing these things even made him a good mayor. The people of Hasse would put their full support behind him if the money made from selling the orphans helped the city.

“Hasse totals one thousand people when the neighboring farming villages gather to live in its winter mansion, and it is only natural that they would be prioritized above a number of orphans. If we use our power to destroy a mayor battling to protect his city, we will earn the ire of all the townsfolk,” Ferdinand said.

My heart thumped painfully. I had never thought about it that way before. “So, um, basically... we’re the bad guys from Hasse’s perspective?”

“At the moment, yes. We took the orphans they were planning to sell to nobles by force, put them in a monastery that the townspeople cannot enter, and are prioritizing these orphans over the taxpaying citizens,” he explained.

Never in the world had I expected that saving orphans from being sold into slavery would be perceived as wrong by others. I stood there, shocked, as Ferdinand continued with an unfazed expression.

“Unlike before when you earned all of your own money as an apprentice blue shrine maiden, you are now living off the taxes of your citizens as the daughter of the archduke. Is it any wonder why you might be expected to prioritize taking care of these taxpayers over orphans?”

Since I needed individuals without jobs to start working for the new printing industry, the temple’s orphanage had been very convenient for me. That was why I was planning to spread the industry by building new orphanages across the duchy, and presumably why the archduke had given me his permission to do so. But never did I consider that I would be actively harming the lives of normal citizens.

“The archduke gave you permission to do this because he determined that, by giving official work to orphans previously outside of the labor pool, you would be increasing the number of taxpaying citizens to draw wealth from. He was not simply acting out of compassion,” Ferdinand said.

A chill ran down my spine. I was being forced to confront the flaws in my narrow-minded worldview and carefree attitude. It felt like another fundamental part of me was being torn apart and forced to change, which kind of made me want to cry.

“...I did not expect that we would have such fundamentally different understandings of evil,” Ferdinand said. “This insect will no doubt prove to be a productive learning experience for you. I hereby instruct you to create an opposing faction to the mayor, expand it, and then isolate him politically.”

“...Excuse me?”

“I am telling you to produce a successor to the mayor so that Hasse may continue to function without him. If you can acquire an obedient pawn who will obey our every whim, eliminating the current mayor will cause no problems whatsoever. Do your best. Given that we will almost certainly be executing him regardless, we may as well exploit him to his fullest while we still can.”

Ferdinand spoke casually, but I was overcome with terror. My teeth were chattering in genuine fear as I contemplated the task I had just been given—plotting to destroy the life of another person. I may have gone nuts over books in the past and taken actions that ultimately put a huge burden on others, but I had never actively schemed against someone before. I had been raised to believe that such actions were wrong, and that they were something I must never do.

...I’m scared. I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this. No way.

I shook my head, trembling as I shrunk back in fear. But Ferdinand just gave my head a light flick as though trying to console a self-centered child.

“Rozemyne, if you do not handle this situation properly, the orphans in the monastery will not be able to go to the forest. That will prevent them from working in the workshop, and ultimately lead to them becoming burdens who can do nothing more than consume divine gifts. They will be ostracized not only by Hasse, but by the others in the orphanage as well. You do not wish to steal them away from their home, only to put them in a place where they will be shunned by all, do you?”

“But I don’t know how to plot and deceive people...” I protested as best I could, but Ferdinand just knelt down to make eye contact with me.

“There is a first time for everything. I shall teach you how,” he said, breaking into a smile so poisonously sweet that I could feel the venom flowing into me. It was a sensation that made me tense up and grit my teeth.