Chapter 4: The Royal Capital

Grua, the royal capital of the Kingdom of Balmore—

A family of nobles was kneeling in the throne room of the royal palace.

“Raise your heads.”

The nobles lifted themselves up at the command of the young king, a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties.

Gerald von Adan was the current head of the Adan household, which was the family of aristocrats who had an audience with the king today. Behind him were his eldest son and eldest daughter of the family, both of whom were still children: Hector, and his little sister, Yunith. Also with them were the captain of the knights who guarded them, Robert, and the lady knight, Francette. Also present in the throne room were the king’s ministers, other members of the upper echelons of nobility, and a great number of those with a higher social status.

“So, Earl Adan, would these be the people who claimed to have met the goddess?”

The king looked especially amused as he asked his question. Earl Adan, in turn, respectively gave his answer.

“That is correct, Your Highness. It happened when my wife’s mother was suffering from illness, and my children were on their way to visit her... Robert was the captain in charge of the knights accompanying them, and he insisted they share the details.”

“If I remember correctly, your wife was raised in Brancott, was she not? Very well, I shall allow him to answer directly. Robert, speak your piece.”

After receiving permission from the king, Robert explained what he’d experienced during his time as captain of the escort.

“Hmm... Seems like quite the tall tale, if you ask me.”

The king let out a wry chuckle, and snickers could be heard coming from the other nobility in attendance, causing Robert’s face to turn red.

“And? What happened after that?”

“My king, we delivered the medicine we’d received from the goddess to the grandmother, and the moment she drank it... Why, she made a complete recovery.”

“As if anyone would believe such trite...” “What are they plotting?” “They dare deceive the king?”

An almost indescribable atmosphere fell over the throne room, filled with scorn from all the others in attendance. At this rate, the Adan household would be marked as liars and made into a laughingstock.

Just as that thought was passing through everyone’s minds, the lady knight Francette suddenly spoke up.

“Your Highness, please look at this!”

Taking a yellow vial of medicine from her breast pocket, she offered it to the king. He hesitated for a moment, but then gave his order.

“Bring it here.”

One of the king’s retainers fetched the medicine and handed it over to the king, who squinted his eyes as he scrutinized it.

“This is the medicine of the goddess, then?”

“Yes. Please, give that to Sir Roland.”

“What?! Oh, I see now... This is the reason you requested my brother be here today.”

Roland, the brother of King Serge. A military genius with an aptitude for politics, he’d earned the trust of all those who served under him. Ever since he was a child, everyone had believed that he was going to make a wonderful king in the future. However, misfortune befell him when he took on grievous wounds trying to protect his brother Serge, the current king. Because of that, he’d lost the ability to move his right arm.

Roland had given up his place as heir and relinquished his claim to the throne to his younger brother. After their father passed away, he worked as a mighty pillar of support for his brother after Serge took the crown. There was no one Serge trusted more, or was more grateful toward, than Roland, and the guilt Serge felt from what had transpired haunted him to this day.

“Cease this at once!” a voice shouted out from among the nobles. “You cannot have Sir Roland drink such a dubious concoction!”

At that time, Francette had already risen to her feet. Standing up completely straight, she took out another bottle of medicine from her breast pocket and lifted it high above her head. Red filled the inside of the bottle.

“This medicine has been gifted to me by the goddess herself! Behold, my king!”

Please let this work, Goddess!

Francette pulled the cap from the bottle and downed its contents all at once. The lady knight’s body was suddenly enveloped in a bright light, and the next moment...

“““Ohhhhhh!”””

“Wh-Whaaat?!”

Standing before them was the lady knight—but now with smoother, glossier skin, and a slightly smaller frame than she’d had just moments ago. The armor she wore was now loose, and, no matter how you looked at her, she had the appearance of a girl who was fifteen or sixteen years old.

Ignoring the commotion among the other nobles, the king grabbed the yellow potion and ran over to his brother.

“Roland, drink this!”

“No, you should save it should something ever happen to you...”

Roland tried pushing away his little brother with his left hand, but Serge wouldn’t back down.

“You heard what these people have said! The goddess told this knight to give this to whoever she saw fit!” Serge was on the verge of tears as he continued. “She chose you... This medicine is for you, Roland!”

Looking at his little brother’s face, Roland knew Serge wouldn’t give up. He gave in to Serge’s pleas and took the bottle. Taking off the cap in silence, he slowly drank what was inside. For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening. His body didn’t start glowing, and he didn’t suddenly become younger.

However—

“I... I can move it...”

“Roland!”

“My right arm... It’s moving...”

Serge was overcome with emotion at seeing Roland being able to move his arm freely again, embracing him as tears streamed down. Roland returned his little brother’s embrace, the tears flowing just as freely from his eyes. The nobles who’d been raising such a fuss fell silent, the sight of the two brothers holding each other bringing tears to their own eyes.

“Roland, let’s hurry and conduct your coronation. That way you can finally become king...”

“No, no...”

“...Wh-What?” King Serge was speechless after his brother so casually turned down the throne.

“Being king is such a pain, and I’m not going to let you push all of that on me. I’ll leave such annoyances up to you, so I can enjoy a more carefree life!”

“R-Roland, you...”

Francette was trembling from pure joy. A younger body! It was lean and fit, but not to the point where she was a solid chunk of muscle, and boasted skin that was smooth as silk. She was twenty-seven years old on record, but if the goddess made her sixteen, then she could say she was sixteen now, loud and proud! She was a little sad over losing the strength and endurance she worked so hard to build up, but it wasn’t like she’d forgotten everything she’d learned or anything. Since she didn’t have to commit as much time to training, she would have plenty of time to spend with the gentlemen callers who came to see her now.

Heh... Heheh...

“Hey, can you not laugh to yourself with that creepy look on your face?”

“Quiet, you!”

Just when she was enjoying her newfound happiness, her captain had to butt in and ruin the moment. She gave him a hefty shove, making sure to put extra oomph into it since her body was a bit weaker now.

OOF!

Her right hand sent the captain flying away much faster—and way farther—than she’d been expecting. He crashed and skid along the ground after being blasted off his feet.

“...Huh?”

Um... It doesn’t actually seem like my speed or strength has dropped at all... Actually, did I get stronger?

“You said you were Francette, the knight, correct?”

“Y-Yes!” She jumped in surprise after Roland suddenly began speaking to her.

“I know for a fact we haven’t met face-to-face before...so why me?”

“What?”

“Like I said, I’m asking why you chose to use that medicine on me. It’s not like you’re in service to the royal family or anything.”

“W-Well, erm... That’s because, um...”

She couldn’t say it... She couldn’t say how she’d admired him for all these years. She’d fallen for him after seeing how brave he was protecting his little brother, and it was because of him she’d worked so hard to go from an attendant to a noble family to officially become a knight. That was why it was her dream to one day be in service to the royal family themselves, but she couldn’t say that... She wasn’t some starry-eyed fifteen- to sixteen-year-old girl or anything.

“Well, that’s fine for now. I’ll be asking you the details personally later though.”

“H-Huh...?”

I’d finally made it. Here I was in Aras, the capital of Brancott. Luckily for me, a merchant who just happened to pass me by this morning let me ride in his wagon. He was on the way back from selling his wares, and there was plenty of space in the cart, since he hadn’t picked up too much stuff wherever he’d been doing business. The wagon also wasn’t in a huge rush to get wherever they were going, so it wasn’t like it was supersonic fast compared to walking.

Either way, I’d say it was about twice as fast as it was going on foot. But that was only compared to an adult male in this world. Compared to my walking speed, this was at least five times as fast (my frequent breaks aside). Now I wouldn’t have to wear myself out traveling...though it did make my butt sore. Thanks to this, though, I’d made it to the capital by the afternoon, which was way faster than what I’d been planning on.

The reason the merchant picked me up in the first place wasn’t just because he was worried about seeing a small child who looked dead tired as she walked by herself. The merchant’s son was also in the back of the wagon, and seemed pretty bored from the trip, so the merchant was hoping I could keep him company and chat with him—and chat with him I did.

He was only about ten years old, so he wasn’t much good for figuring out what the deal was with this world. He said he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and get into the trade as well, so I taught him a few tricks to get by in business, as well as how to handle customers. Basically, I drilled the type of customer service they had in Japan into him. I took no responsibility for anything that happened because of that, though.

In exchange, he taught me all about the geography around here. I was shocked, frankly, at just how much he knew about the surrounding countries and what their relationships were with each other, despite how young he was. I guess I should have expected that sort of knowledge from a merchant’s son.

According to what he had to say, the Kingdom of Brancott (the country we were in now) was located just around the base of a peninsula sticking out the west from the continent, with four more countries located just beyond it. Of the two countries sharing a border with Brancott, the Kingdom of Balmore lay to the north, while the Kingdom of Aseed lay to the south, both of which were stable monarchies. Even further to the west of those two, located on the very tip of the peninsula, was a militaristic nation headed by a dictatorship: the Aligot Empire. Now, there was also a series of steep mountain ranges that separated the two kingdoms from the Aligot Empire. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t be climbed over, as long as you tried hard enough, but since the only other route available was a long detour by boat, it acted as an inhibitor for trade between them all.

The last nation worth mentioning was the Holy Land of Rueda, a religious state located on the coastline just northwest of Balmore. The country shared a border with the Aligot Empire, but possessed very little military might, on account of being a fairly small country. Putting it as simply as possible, imagine the Tohoku region of Japan (or look it up), but flipped ninety degrees to the left. Aomori would be where the Aligot Empire was at, Iwate being the kingdom of Balmore, Akita being the Kingdom of Aseed, and Yamagata and Miyagi combined would be the kingdom of Brancott. If you wanted to head to the continent itself from any of those countries, you would need to pass through Brancott first.

The capital of Brancott was actually located a good deal west of the center of the country, while Balmore’s capital was the opposite, located farther to the east. The two countries were on friendly terms with each other, and the locations of their capitals made them feel even closer together, but in the literal sense of the word. Well, “close” as far as this world was concerned, anyway.

The merchant was nice enough to buy three of the “going-away presents” I had snagged from the baron’s mansion. I made a big show of making it look like I was taking it out of a bag I already had on me, of course. He told me it was going to be a bit less than I’d get at any of the proper shops, but I was more than happy to sell them. Now I wouldn’t have to worry about inn fees for the next few days.

I had him drop me off in front of the city gates, expressed my thanks to him, and then we parted ways. Unlike the merchant and his son, who had proof of citizenship and a card showing they were registered merchants, I was a fresh, new arrival. It looked like there were still some hoops to jump through before they would let me in.

As you might expect from the royal capital, it was a completely walled-off city, and anyone trying to get in had to pass through a gate under protection from the guards posted at it. I was directed to wait in a different line, since I was a new arrival, which was when we ended up playing the “What business do you have here?” game. Maybe a young girl all by herself was too suspicious, after all.

“Now why are you all alone? Where’s your family?”

The soldier attacks!

“They’re all dead... My uncle stole the house and land my father had left me, then tried to sell me off as a slave as well. That’s why I ran away by myself... I thought I might find someone to work for in the city so I can get by...”

I strike back. The soldier takes a mortal blow!

He took care of the rest of my paperwork right away. He said he was sorry to ask, but new arrivals needed to pay three silver coins to finish the process, but I was more than set, thanks to the merchant buying my stuff earlier.

After getting myself a temporary entry pass, I was told I needed to find myself some actual work if I wanted to get an official pass. I was already planning on doing that from the beginning, of course. I was going to get myself a job while figuring out more about this world. I’d decided I wasn’t going to sell any more of my healing potions. At most, I would only use them on myself from now on.

I might be able to sell other stuff as long as I don’t make it too valuable. Maybe something like good ol’ sodium chloride... No, no, bad idea. Salt is bad. It’s too dangerous to try anything when I don’t know how widely distributed it is, or how much it sells for, or even if there’s a monopoly on it or something. Nope, not making the same mistake I did with potions again... Gotta live and learn, me.

After finally getting through the gates, I began heading toward the place that was supposed to help you get work, which the merchant was kind enough to tell me about. If I didn’t find a good job right away, I’d be sleeping at the inn tonight. If anyone was hiring that’d let me live in-house with them, then my plan was to head over to check it out ASAP.

Unlike the Hunter’s Guild, where mercenaries and soldiers would take on the dangerous jobs like hunting quests and the more perilous gathering missions, the job-hunting agency was a place you could find much more normal lines of work. This was the place where the agency could find you jobs working at a store or as a hired hand, all sorts of unskilled labor, or even safe and simple gathering quests. The employer would fill out a request application and pay a fee to have it put up. Once they found someone they wanted to hire, they would next have to pay a finders’ fee to the agency, since the ones applying to take these requests usually didn’t have much money in the first place. Even if the person they hired quit immediately after being hired, there were no refunds. They’d picked out the person themselves, and the agency wouldn’t hesitate to point that out if they tried saying anything.

After I made my way to the job-hunting agency, I went ahead and checked out the details for the help-wanted requests posted on the board. I looked a bunch of them over, but there were all sorts of extra requirements I couldn’t compromise on, such as location, type of work, their terms for hiring someone; stuff like that. There was one job that was in some far-off mountains, another one that was all heavy-lifting, one that was for guys only, and another one where you needed prior experience...

I couldn’t pick one that took up too much of my free time, either, since it would interfere with me going out to gather more information about where I was. I was fine with them taking money out of my paycheck, as long as I got a place to stay out of it, but working as a maid in a noble’s mansion didn’t seem like I’d have much “me” time. I tried applying for a job at a bar, but the lady receptionist turned me down, saying it wasn’t something minors could apply for. No matter how many times I told her I was fifteen, she just told me it wasn’t good to lie, no matter how much I wanted a job. It would’ve been perfect for finding out more about this world, and I probably could’ve made a good bit of cash off tips too...

In the end, I was finally hired as a live-in waitress at a restaurant in town. I’d be completely free to do whatever I wanted outside of my shifts, so that worked for me. It even came with meals included, and you shouldn’t think I wasn’t grateful to hear that.

“Though it may be a little late for this now, how about we take a break for lunch?”

After finally reaching a place to stop in the mountains of paperwork, the Crown Prince of Brancott, Fernand Brancott, let out a long sigh at Fabio’s words.

Fabio was the son of the kingdom’s prime minister, and, along with Allan, the son of another minister, they’d both been friends with Fernand since they were kids. It wasn’t like they all just happened to become friends by chance, though. Their parents had decided it was best for them to be together, and their relationship started off as something like the one you would have with a classmate at school. Though, even though their parents had been the reason that they had met each other, the three of them actually got along quite well. Before they knew it, they’d actually become true friends.

Unlike Fabio, who just seemed like the spitting image of what a prime minister’s son should look like, Allan was more like a rugged hunter you’d find in the rougher parts of town. Though he was skilled with a sword, there were parts to him that just didn’t seem to fit the noble lifestyle at all. It never crossed their parents’ minds that Allan would turn out this way, but Fernand and Fabio liked that about him.

The boys had already turned eighteen, and already had marriage proposals falling into their laps. As the next in line for the throne, Fernand also had to worry about potential candidates to be the royal consort on top of all that. That said, they were all at the age where they just wanted to mess around and have fun.

“Finally... Are you guys eating in your rooms, or should we just have them bring it here?”

“No, Allan and I were thinking of going into town to grab something to eat.”

Fernand already knew Allan went out into town often, since he didn’t like food at the castle, but it was a rare event for Fabio to go along with him as well. As Fernand thought that, Fernand had an idea.

“All right, I’m coming too.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea...”

Talking down the bewildered Fabio, Fernand got to work getting his outfit together so he could travel incognito into town.

“This is it. The food’s good, but it’s also a pretty cool place in general.”

This was a restaurant Allan had been coming to recently, and had invited Fabio to have him to see it for himself. Fernand and Fabio were hesitant at first to enter a commoner’s establishment, but there was no way they could back out now—and that went double for Fernand. Fernand had been so insistent on tagging along and now he couldn’t embarrass Allan by refusing to go.

When the group went inside, they found the restaurant fairly devoid of customers, mostly since the lunchtime rush had passed. It didn’t seem strange for them to be taking last calls for lunch orders any moment now.

Allan picked a table at random to sit down at, then showed the other two the menu.

“Take a look at the stuff they have down on the bottom-right. It’s all pretty interesting.”

When Fernand and Fabio took a look for themselves, they found a variety of dishes listed there...or what they assumed to be dishes at least.

“‘Big and Soft Soup Pasta,’ ‘Soup Rice, Plum or Salmon Edition,’ ‘T(omato) C(hicken) R(ice) E(gg) Wraps’... What the heck is all this?”

Fabio was flabbergasted by all this cuisine he’d never heard of before.

“You can just leave that part to me. ’Scuse me! Three orders of TCRE wraps over here, please!”

“Ah, hey! Don’t just decide for us...”

Allan went ahead and ordered for the table, though the looks on the other two’s faces seemed less than happy about that.

After waiting a bit for the waitress to bring the food to the table, Allan asked her a question.

“Hey, Aimee, do you think we could get some advice today?”

“Sure thing. The only people you have ahead of you are that parent and his kid, so it should be fine. What kinda course you goin’ for?”

“How about we go with five silver coins today?”

“Whoa, look at Mr. Generous over here! Thanks a bunch!”

The waitress they’d been talking to, Aimee, looked in pretty high spirits as she walked away.

“What was up with that just now... What are you trying to pull, Allan?”

“That’s just something you can look forward to finding out! Anyway, you better eat before your food gets cold!”

Though the other two were plenty suspicious over what Allan was up to, they both dug into their meals.

““Huh?””

The two were in shock after taking a bite of their food. Their hands stopped for just an instant before digging in with added gusto. Their spoons were practically a blur as they ate.

“Whaddya think? Pretty good stuff, right? Just goes to show you can’t underestimate commoner restaurants!”

“You’re right. You went out of your way to bring us here for it, after all.”

Fabio had no retort to Allan’s smug look of satisfaction. But still, Allan kept a mischievous look on his face.

“What are you talking about? I know the food is good and all, but I wouldn’t bring the ever-busy Sir Fabio all the way down here for just that.”

Fabio had a blank look on his face, like he didn’t understand what was going on. Fernand seemed keen to know the details, but kept quiet watching the two of them talk.

“I think they should just be about done taking orders now.”

Right after Allan said that, a girl appeared from the kitchen and headed over to the merchant family sitting near their table. She looked to be about eleven or twelve years old, and had black hair and eyes, which was a little unusual to see around here. The way her face looked seemed to suggest she came from a foreign country. She was cute, there was no doubt about that, and she looked like an intellectual to boot. It was just...the look in her eyes was a little on the harsh side. Actually, way on the harsh side, to be honest. Children who were faint of heart probably wouldn’t want to get within five meters of her, it was so bad.

She’d killed at least four or five people. That was how bad the look in her eyes was.

“That’s Kaoru, the girl I wanted to show you today.”

“Her?”

Allan gave a wide grin after seeing how surprised Fabio was. “Yup, once they stop taking orders, it frees up some time for the other waitresses. After the manager gives the okay, that’s when it turns into a sort of counseling center. All the other waitresses get a cut of the profits, so they all seem pretty happy to take on whatever work is left from whoever is doing the counseling.”

The girl had made it to the table next to them by the time he finished saying that. The three of them pricked up their ears and listened in on the conversation.

“Thanks for always stopping by, Bohman. What did you want advice on today?”

“Actually, it’s not me asking the questions today, but my son Charles. Seems like he has something he wanted to ask you about.”

“Five small silver coins should be enough to cover that then. All right, Charles, let’s hear it.”

Despite the harsh look in her eyes, having a cute girl smile at him caused the ten-year-old boy to blush slightly as he asked his question.

“Um, it’s what we talked about last time... About customers who come to complain. They make up such a small portion of all the customers you get, so wouldn’t it be best to forget about them and treat the other not-rude customers better instead? Then you wouldn’t have to go out of your way to deal with those kinds of people, and you wouldn’t have to practice how to work it out with them... Isn’t it all just a big waste of time otherwise?”

The girl answered the young boy’s question with a smile, the scary look in her eyes being replaced with something a little more gentle.

“Actually, it turns out there are tons of people who won’t go out of their way to complain to you, even if they’re not satisfied about something. Instead of dragging themselves all the way to the store to complain, they can just move on to the next place. Just because they don’t come to complain doesn’t mean they’re all satisfied customers. People like that won’t go to the store to complain, but will tell other people instead. When they do, the people running the store will start seeing less customers without knowing why. But, among all those customers, there are some who will take the time to tell you about the parts about your store that need improving. Wouldn’t you be grateful to have people as kind as them do that for you?”

“Ah...”

“Still, there are some people who are just trying to get money out of you by making up nonexistent problems. You have to make sure and never give them money, even if you think parting with a bit of cash is worth avoiding the issue altogether. If rumor spreads that your shop will just give up money when pressured, you’ll get all sorts of unsavory types coming to extort you. You have to be firm and hold your ground against those people, even if it means a loss of profits on your end.”

“Got it.”

“Also, don’t you think customers would be happy to see a shop take their advice seriously and put it into practice? Happy enough that they would want to continue giving them their patronage. Catch my drift?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s true...”

“Listen, Charles. Customers aren’t just suckers for merchants to take money from; they’re people you do business with on fair terms. They can be friends, and they can be teachers with tons to teach you.”

“I see...”

The girl continued her explanation, an expression of admiration on the father’s face as he listened intently as well.

Who is that girl?! Fabio whispered. Rather, what is that girl?!

Pretty cool, right? Allan replied.

This is way beyond it being “cool” or not!

You get all that for five small silver coins? Fernand interjected. Didn’t you say five whole silver coins earlier, Allan?

I’ll let you do the asking, Fabio, so think nice and hard about what you wanna make it about.

Wh-What are you saying all of—

She appeared.

“I heard you’re going for five silver coins today, Allan? Aimee was back over there doing the ‘money makin’ mamba.’”

What type of dance is that?!

“Well, as you can see, I came here with some friends today. This one’s Fernie, and the other one’s Fabie. This guy said he had something he wanted to ask, right?” Allan said, passing the baton to Fabio.

“U-Uh...”

Fabio was in full-on panic mode as he desperately tried coming up with a question.

Kaoru had a second job she worked in-between shifts as a waitress—with the blessing of her manager and fellow waitresses, of course. That job was running a sort of counseling service. She would listen to whatever questions her clients had, then answer those questions and give them advice. She only had a short time to run it, since the only free time she had as a waitress was after the call for last orders was finished.

It cost a pretty penny to even get inside the library, and trying to buy a book was basically a pipe dream here. That’s when Kaoru decided to open up her counseling service, since she was trying to save up every little bit she could. Being able to talk with a whole rainbow of people could end up being pretty useful too, after all.

When she was running her counseling service, her fellow waitresses would have to take on whatever work she had left over, which was why she was giving them a forty percent cut of what she made. If two people ended up covering her, then they would get twenty percent each, and so on and so forth. If they were lucky enough to hit upon a customer with deep pockets like Allan, that meant they were getting one silver coin a piece. The girls weren’t exactly making money hand over fist as waitresses, so this definitely wasn’t an amount to be sneezed at. They were so over the moon about it that they’d start doing the “money makin’ mamba.”

Kaoru had learned her lesson from last time, and she wasn’t going to start selling anything; she was going to be a clever girl and use her wits to make her money. Her job even came with a place to stay, and food on top of that, so she was in no rush to amass her savings.

Of course, no one wanted to take Kaoru up on her counseling venture at first. After all, who would come to a girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve and tell her all their troubles, or ask for advice? The advertisement hung near the corner of the wall would just look down glumly at Kaoru...

But one day, she reached a turning point. Maybe it was just because he wanted someone to talk to, but a middle-aged man had asked for Kaoru’s services. Not only did he pay the counseling fee of five small silver coins (about 500 yen), but he even treated her to something to drink as well. His problem was that he wanted to pass on his business to his two grandchildren, but no matter how he tried splitting up the work between them, they always said it was unfair. The man’s son had already passed away, and he just didn’t want there to be any bad blood between his grandchildren.

Piece of cake! I’ve heard of this before! was the first thing Kaoru thought after hearing him out.

“Well, first you should ask one of them how they would split the work to make it fair. Afterward, you ask the other one to pick which split of the work they want to do that the first grandkid divvied up, and I don’t think either of them should have any complaints about it.”

The man stared blankly back at Kaoru. Kaoru’s fellow waitresses and the customers who all just happened to overhear her first ever job were also staring at her in shock.

“““So that’s how you’d do it...”””

When news of her first job spread, Kaoru started getting a slow influx of customers, half of whom were messing around with her, and half of whom were seriously asking for advice. There were some who just wanted to do nothing more than sit and chat with Kaoru, but a customer was still a customer. It cost a minimum of five small silver coins to use her service, with no limit on how much the price could go up. There were times Kaoru would decide how much a session would cost, depending on the topic, and there were other times the customer would name their price, and Kaoru would tell them only what she thought was appropriate for that amount.

“There are two villages arguing over which one of their sacred trees is bigger than the other, and can’t climb up to measure them...”

“Measure the length of their shadows at the same time of day.”

“I’m trying to figure out which of these has the larger volume: this wooden Goddess statue, or this iron one...”

“Just submerge them in water and measure the... Wait, why do you want to know that in the first place?”

“My boyfriend cheated on me...”

“Break up with him.”

Over time, it finally got to the point where customers like Allan would come to ask for her services.

I had two of my regulars coming in to ask me for advice today: Bohman and Allan. Allan looked like the son of some merchant mogul whose business had collapsed or something, but he dressed like a hunter. At first, he would only ask me things half-jokingly, but now we’ve gotten to the point where he regularly asks me questions and advice on serious things. Allan was a generous customer with deep pockets, and my fellow waitresses Aimee and Agathe were practically jumping for joy when he came. They were already dancing that “money makin’ mamba” thing they’d made up earlier.

It looked like Allan was being extra-generous today, since he was putting down a whole five silver coins. I wondered if he was just showing off since he was with his friends?

After finishing up the request from Charles, the son of the merchant who’d been kind enough to give me a lift to the capital (definitely got a good feeling Charles was going to make a great merchant someday), I headed over to where Allan and his friends were sitting.

“So, what do you want to ask about?”

Allan’s friend Fabie seemed a little flustered when he heard me ask that. He took a second to try and get his thoughts in order, then finally asked me a question. I thought the reason they called me over in the first place was because they wanted advice on something?

“W-Well, um... I was just wondering what the nobility could do to increase the tax revenue they get from their territories.”

I couldn’t say I was expecting that one, but I pulled myself together and asked a question of my own.

“What angle are we talking about here? Agriculture? Trade? Maybe a place that has some industry going for it? Also, are you looking for long or short term gains, or something else entirely?”

Fabie didn’t seem to be expecting these types of questions from my end. After hesitating a second, he gave his answer.

“Let’s see... How about the fastest way to expect returns for just your plain old, completely average territory?”

“Hmm.” I thought it over for a bit before answering the question. “That’s a bit much to cover for five silver coins... But I’ll do it specially for you, since Allan is the one who brought you in. First, you have to lower taxes. You want to get them down about twenty to thirty percent lower for all your merchants and farmers.”

“What? But doesn’t that mean less tax revenue?” Fernie suddenly butted into the conversation with his own two cents.

“If you’re just taxing them to the point they can barely get by, then that’s all you’re going to get. But what do you think happens when you lower taxes?”

“You get less money from taxes,” Fern gives his best impression of a broken record and says the same thing again.

“On the contrary. If taxes go down, you end up with a surplus on your hands. Farmers can use that extra bit of money they saved to buy better tools, like iron hoes or sharper scythes. Those improved tools mean farming becomes more efficient, and the farmers now end up with a surplus of time on their hands. They can use that time to do things like gathering edible plants from the mountains, making art or handicrafts at home, and all sorts of other things. They’ll suddenly find themselves with much more free time on their hands.”

“While that sounds great for the farmers, that just means less tax yields for the city, though.” This time, Fabie was the one cutting in.

“I’m not finished yet. The taxes on the merchants should be lower at this point too, right? From what I’ve heard, it seems like territories have all sorts of taxes they charge merchants: taxes for bringing goods in, sales tax for anything sold, and even a tax for taking merchandise out of the territory. But let’s say you have one territory where the taxes are incredibly low compared to everywhere else. Which territory do you think a merchant on their way to the capital would want to go through?”

““Ah...””

“Though taxes may be lower by about twenty percent, what happens when you get twice the number of merchants coming through? Or even three times as many? On the other hand, what would happen if taxes were higher than the other territories around it? Do you think they’d get more revenue from those taxes?”

““...””

“That would make sales tax within that territory cheap as well. The people living there wouldn’t only have more flexibility in their lives, but would have more buying power as well. Any merchant would love to sell their wares in a place like that, especially since they wouldn’t have to pay any import or export taxes for anything they’d already sold off. The more they sell, the emptier their carts become, and you can’t make money off an empty cart. They’d want to try replenishing some of their stock somehow, even if it means a smaller profit margin than bringing it in themselves. And then, oh, what’s this? It seems like there’s a ton of handicrafts these farmers made themselves! Buying these on the cheap means that I don’t have to pay as much in taxes on them either... You see what I’m getting at?”

The three of them just stared at me with their mouths open... What’s up with them? Oh well. Anyway, I’d say I’d done enough to cover what they paid.

“Going the agriculture route isn’t exactly the fastest way, like you asked, but I guess this is enough to cover five silver coins, right?”

“““Th-That’s plenty...”””

“Just who was that girl?!”

“Uh... A waitress who works at a restaurant in town?”

“...”

The three guys were talking about Kaoru after having made their way back to the castle. As of yet, governors may have thought about just how far they could raise taxes, but none had thought of lowering taxes on their citizens when they were already low enough for them to get by. It had always been said only the most talented of governors could find the exact amount at which to set taxes without pushing the people past their breaking point.

That young girl had laughed off that way of thinking as if it were nothing. How could anyone have such knowledge and wisdom at an age like that...

Of course, her suggestion was something that couldn’t quite work in reality. Any plan to draw in merchants to a certain territory would just be pulling profits away from the other territories under the kingdom’s control. The total tax revenue from all those territories would just go down by however much taxes were lowered, which meant smaller net profits for the country. Besides, if anyone began siphoning profits from a neighboring territory, there was no doubt it’d lead to a flood of complaints and disputes. Her idea was more than enough for getting results as fast as possible though, just like Fabio had asked. Something like this had just never been taken into political consideration on a national level. She had to have a terrifying amount of talent to come up with that at her age.

“I just noticed something...” Fabio started.

“What’s up?” Fernand asked back.

“That girl was saying five silver coins would only get us that much, and how agriculture wasn’t the fastest way to go about it, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So let’s say we ask her to go over agriculture again, but pay her even more, like, say...five small gold coins? What do you think she would tell us then?”

““Whoa...””

“It makes you want more of her, right?”

“Yeah, definitely more...” Allan chimed in.

“Wha... She’s still just a young girl!” Fernand chided.

““Not like that!””

Around that same time, the waitresses of the restaurant were busy raising a toast to Kaoru (with tea of course). They were, after all, getting one whole silver coin out of the deal.

They rarely got much from tips from their commoner patrons, and working at a fairly cheap restaurant meant the waitresses had fairly meager wages to match—and here they were getting a silver coin each without even doing anything. It was safe to say they were grateful to Kaoru for that. Incredibly grateful.

“Hm-hm-hm! Even without cheats, this is easy peasy!”

Kaoru was feeling pretty full of herself. She was so full of herself, in fact, that she forgot that having an adult’s brain with modern day knowledge while looking like a child was a pretty big cheat in and of itself.