The day ended before Aloe noticed. She was tired from the journey, so even if the sun had yet to set, she went to sleep. Her house felt empty when she woke up. With the shack at the oasis, that was fine, it barely had three rooms, more than enough for a person; but her two-story house with more commodities than entire commoner families could afford, she felt more alone than in the middle of the desert.

“Maybe I could get Jafar and his family to move here...” Their family had no economic problems, but company was all Aloe wanted. “I could even become a landlord, that would also become a boost to my depressing financial status, and they would pay way less...”

Aloe left that thought fly free. Even if it was a logical decision, it was far from sensible. Their pride – both Jafar’s and Mirah’s – wouldn’t allow them to move out, even if it was cheaper for them. And Aloe knew very well that pride let people make suboptimal decisions, for she was one of them.

Without stressing herself more, Aloe made her way out of the house after having some of the leftover travel rations as breakfast.

“Huh.” She looked at the rising sun. “I guess living in the middle of nowhere messed with my schedule. I didn’t notice it was this early.”

Like a farmer ready for a day of hard work, Aloe had woken up before the sun had even fully risen. First light hadn’t awakened her, but her instinct saying the sun was going to come out.

“Not enough time to dwell on my messed sleep, I’m afraid. Today’s gonna be a long day.”

Her first destination was none other than the public baths. She had so much sand encrusted in her skin even after thoroughly dusting herself off that it had formed layers of dust.

No matter how early of an hour it was, the baths were open. They had to keep the boilers running all day to keep the water hot, so it only closed for about eight hours. Not letting the money get up to her head, Aloe paid for the cheapest bath option. There would probably be nobody in the free access bath at this hour, but Aloe was too shy to let others see her body.

Even if she wanted to experience some luxury, the most expensive course was a drupnarun, half of what she had gotten yesterday. She had heard from patrons in the bank she was training and even her school who had visited such a course that it was life-changing. One ended up pampered in more than one way after paying such a price, but Aloe doubted she would pay that even if she had the money.

The simple course baths were obviously empty, if you could afford to waste a drupnar on a bath, why waste a fajat and go with an even better bath? Aloe enjoyed herself for a long time in the pools, cleaning her body and cleansing her spirit in the warm waters. The public baths had something that the oasis could never recreate. Though she lamented the fact that she couldn’t swim here.

Well, she could, no one was stopping her. But she was now a woman, no longer a child. If someone saw her doing that, she would pass out from the shame.

“Water truly washes everything away~” Aloe moaned as warmth drowned her body.

A few hours later – you heard it right – Aloe made her way out of her bath, now it was time to do something less entertaining which soured the mood she had barely managed to recover.

Yesterday, she hadn’t gone to sleep immediately, instead, she stayed awake for a few hours in the afternoon revising the ledgers of the house and family.

Good news, they weren’t in any debt. If her life were a piece of fiction – especially those found in the university archives where only women went and even though they were classified as ‘history’ it was just a collection of cheap smut – she would be now drowning in debt left by her late family and would have to resort to selling her body to keep by.

Stolen novel; please report.

That was when fiction also normally failed. There were better ways to get money that didn’t require selling one’s body, though not as engaging for a story. Jobs that people don’t want to do and that they are well remunerated for that exact same reason. They weren’t easy jobs by any means, but they were far more dignified, if a little bit dangerous.

Selling one’s body also entered that category, though it was ‘selling’ in a more literal sense.

And thankfully for her, there wasn’t any bad news. Well, bad news she didn’t know and hadn’t accounted for. Taxes were, of course, a dent in everyone’s budget. A normal commoner in Sadina won around one hundred and one hundred fifty drupnars per month. Now, those commoners normally didn’t own their houses, they normally rented a whole house between all the members of the family, and there could be as many as a dozen in a unit.

The rent of a house would probably float around a whole drupnarun per month, basically all the income of a single commoner. But they were free of any taxes associated with the property. And that meant that with a partner also working they could scrape by. A third one would allow them to live modestly. Perhaps.

One hundred drupnars per month was the ideal salary, not the median. Some people gained far less than that. That was why families were at the very minimum composed of three generations. However, the later generations were also a dent in the income.

Aloe knew she was lucky to be in her current position, but she was also greedy, and she knew she could be in an even better position.

“Next!” A man shouted, more like berated, making the line advance a step forward.

Aloe’s current location was in an office next to Sadina’s palace. The taxation office, to be precise. The man at the desk looked tired even though the day had barely started. Not a lot of people owned property, even if Sadina was the second richest city in Ydaz, but there was only one office, two desks, and a single week margin to file the taxes. Property and land taxes were taken far more seriously than any other type of taxes where you could just drop the money by. Or even get it collected.

People tended to hate tax collectors, but if they had to make you wait in line to then pay them money, people would hate them even more. They weren’t saints, but tax collectors could be even worse than they were.

Once it was her turn, there weren’t any complications. Of course, there weren’t. Her family had close ties with the ruling of the city and they had been always precise with their payments. Aloe wasn’t suddenly notified of a forgotten debt that didn’t even appear on her ledgers, though there were some instances of taxes she hadn’t been aware that she would need to pay now.

No matter how thorough her training as a banker had been, this was her first time filing taxes. She had filled ledgers of strangers with their debts, commissions, and gains, but it was a new other world doing her own numbers.

And there were a lot of taxes that they didn’t teach in schools or bank apprenticeships. Most were rather obvious like guild circle or customs taxation – both that Aloe didn’t need to apply or had used but her father had been part of, and therefore the numbers still were in the ledgers – but she found the plethora of ways the country had to drain the money out of its citizens a bit disgusting.

At least war taxes hadn’t been invoked for decades now thanks to Aaliyah-al-Ydaz’s isolationist rule.

Instead of comparing numbers in a counter – yes, she had brought the ledgers with her as she feared the people at the taxation office may try to fool her as this was her first time – she was led to an office where she calmly talked and compared numbers with a mature woman. Aloe hadn’t asked her name as she was evidently pressured for time, but the lady had been helpful enough to introduce her to basic contents about Ydazi tax law that she may require in the future, especially if she started working.

Regardless of the goodwill of the good woman, she still took Aloe’s money with the wretched claws of a djinn. Two hundred and fifty-seven drupnar. Yes, far more than she had won with the cannabis transactions, but she had also paid for other taxes and... deals that would make it so she wouldn't need to worry about a tax collector knocking on her door for at least the first quarter of the year if not half.

Banker was her middle name, and the middle name of banker was the word bribe. There was no corruption nor debauchery in her acts, just... intelligent usages of economics that were meant to alleviate one’s taxation percentage.

Others called it tax evasion.

Aloe knew this since the very beginning and hadn’t hoped it would be different from what she expected, but the world of the adults was boring. She wasn’t sure of many things as of late, everything appeared fleeting and going for her throat, but after this enlightening – and surprisingly entertaining, though she would never admit that – session of tax filling, Aloe had reached a conclusion in her sea of confusion.

There were only three certain things in life: death, sand, and taxes.