" Welcome to Kevin's castle sirs, we are a bit understaffed at the moment, but we will do our best to meet your needs. My name is Ulrika and I am the most senior of the staff working here, I also act as steward at the moment."

She curtsied after her greeting, I looked over to Anders who indicated that I should take the lead.

"Uh… Greetings I'm Elric, the newly minted lord of Mistwoods. I have some paperwork here that says I'm to take charge of West Island."

"Ha, that wasn't too awkward." I thought to myself as I started to fumble around in my backpack for the papers. A deep sigh was heard from beside me and I could see Anders shutting his eyes while rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache coming. Even Belinda looked as if she was ashamed. As I turned my head to Ulrika, I could see how she was suppressing a laugh.

" Well uh… that's me, guess I'm your new boss."

Now everyone except Anders was laughing, even our guards. I felt my cheeks starting to burn.

"My Lord, please just be quiet for a moment."

-Ulrika-

As the laughter started to die down, she tried to gather herself and took a deep breath. She had really needed that, the new lord of the county was a young man no doubt about that. He also didn't seem to be the normal nose in the air, kind of a noble. But by Shyann what had they been feeding him? He towered over her and was in great shape, was he some young tournament knight that had won his title? Anyway at least he didn't seem to be a bad person.

"Welcome my Lord, it's great to have you here. As I said earlier, I'm the acting steward until you can appoint someone else."

The young lord looked unsure of himself and tried to seek help from the Captain standing beside him. Too bad for him that the captain refused to recognize the plea for help in the young man's eyes. She decided to throw him a lifeline.

"How about you all follow me to the study, you probably have lots of questions?"

The young man looked relieved and nodded.

" Please follow me my Lord."

They made their way through the castle until they reached the fourth floor. The stairs they had climbed to get here continued upwards toward the roof. Ulrika used to the Castle lead them to the second door on the right side in the straight hallway from the stairs. She opened the door and let them in.

-Elric-

I looked around the room, across from where we had entered the room stood a big wooden desk with a leather armchair behind it. Two big windows let sunlight in so it fell in from the back over the armchair. In front of the desk were two chairs, obviously meant for guests. And the walls were lined with bookcases filled with books and scrolls.

Ulrika pointed to the chairs and as I was about to sit down Anders cleared his throat and pointed to the big armchair behind the desk. So I went over and sat down in it. It was really comfortable and I would not mind one of these for myself. Then I remembered that this was now my chair at least for sometime. Our two guards took positions outside the room and closed the door. And Anders was the first to open his mouth and begin to speak.

" Now please tell us what happened with the steward and how you ended up in his position."

"Well as you know Osvald died about eight years back, which put John in temporary charge of the county. John was the steward, the problem was that he himself was not a young man. And only two years later, the stress of running both the castle and the county claimed his life."

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I nodded in understanding and for her to continue.

"As the oldest servant, excluding the stable master. The running of the castle fell to me, the problem is that since no one has given me any authority, there was nothing I could do with the county and the city. So everything has just kept going the way it was, but no orders could be given. "

"Is that why the city is in its current state, and why was there no word sent to the capital?"

Ulrika seemed upset by the question Anders had posed.

" We sent more than ten letters, even one of the servants. He never came back and we haven't even heard a word about him since he left. We figured that either the big folk didn't care or that the thieves guild had intercepted the letters. They have been growing in power since the stewards death."

How was I going to fix this, the news just kept getting worse.

"At least tell us there are some sort of resources we can use, are there any more guards than the one at the gate and those in the castle? Or do I have to fire up a forge and start making weapons to pay for everything?"

Ulrika looked from me to the Captain with an arched eyebrow and questioning gaze?

"Does he not know?"

Anders shook his head.

"I believe he doesn't know, and this was the part the steward was going to explain. So it falls to you to tell him as acting steward."

Ulrika gave a deep sigh, before she gathers her thoughts.

"So what do you know about how landowning nobles earn money?"

I gave it some thought before answering.

"Taxes, should I start to tax the people?"

"Yes, the first thing is that you are already taxing everyone living on this Island, second everyone living in this city is paying rent to you. This has not changed since Osvalds death, third and also the reason why no noble has already been appointed to the county is Osvalds own wealth. The law states that this wealth now belongs to the next ruler of West Island, since he was the last of his line and no heir could be found."

" But why haven't some other noble laid his hands on the money, do they not need it or is it cursed?"

I still could not understand how I had gotten here, was running West Island that bad. I thought every family would want the position. And with Oswald's supposed wealth included I could really not see why this position was empty.

"Elric, in Astrana there is something called the nobles council. They are the power and decision makers in the kingdom. The Royal family is just a part of this council, the strongest part. When the Kevin's house died it was up to them to decide who should take over the county. The problem is that everyone wanted it, not just for the wealth but also for the votes on the council."

Madness, this was madness. So the nobles could not unite and a boy now had influence on kingdom politics. I should just take Belinda and pay for passage on a boat to somewhere. Maybe I could grab some money to take with me.

"Okay, but how could the royal family give it to me suddenly? I mean they didn't have the votes before and now they suddenly do?"

"Well when your father asked the council to buy some land for you and make you a part of the nobles. They were all too happy to agree, this would strengthen the alliance with the dwarfs and most likely generate more trade. But the incident with the darkelvs, made the elves and the dwarven council worried about the current state of affairs on West Island. They more or less pressured the nobles to take action and since you are related to both, they decided that you should take care of their mess. And if you failed, surely they would not take out their anger on you. Just so you know this was a historical moment in the kingdom's history, all nobles voted that you could have the county. It has never happened before."

"Fuck me, fuck the nobles, go to hell Alexander!" I was a victim of circumstances. And here I was to learn and get some experience, well lesson learned. Life's a bitch.

" Uh…How do we make this right?"

Ulrika looked just as shocked as I felt. Her eyes were wide open just as her mouth. From the look on her face I guessed she didn't know this piece of information either. Anders looked at the cook.

"How is the state of the treasury and what did Osvald leave behind?"

She jolted out of her stupor and pointed to one of two small books on the desk.

"Everything is in there, I have logged all the earnings and expenses. The other book lists Osvalds wealth."

Thorgrim har showed me how to keep a simple ledger back at the smithy. So I was confident when I started to check through the book, but soon I realized how much easier it was to run a small smithy in the middle of nowhere and a whole county.

From the information I could gather, it would seem that the income had grown and that the expenses had dropped a lot. This should be good, but I asked about it anyway.

"Well the income is mostly from the trade with the darkelvs that you have exclusive rights to, the last steward made sure of that. And the low expenses are the reasons why the city is in its current state."

I nodded as I read on, on the last page I froze as I stared at the number, then I slowly looked up.

"Is that the current wealth of the county?"

She confirmed this with a nodd, and suddenly all our problems didn't seem too bad anymore. Anders gave me a questioning look.

" Captain, I am glad to inform you that we are rich, we are sitting on a dragon's hoard of money! Five hundred thousand gold"

A small growl was heard from Belinda beside the table. Ulrika gave a small smile, as she pointed to the other book.

"Wait until you see your personal wealth my lord."

With a greedy smile I picked up the other book and read through it. I could feel how my heart was starting to beat hard. The Kevin's family treasure gathered for over hundreds of years was really nothing to scoff at.

"Holy shit, is all this really mine now?"

"Yes, Elric it really is, the question is what you are going to do with all this wealth. The city surely is in need of some investment."

That brought me down to the planet again, yes I had a lot of money right now but how to use it…

I needed someone who knew how to run things. I also needed to recruit soldiers, how do you even go about doing these things. Post a note somewhere?

" Well I think finding a new steward should be our first priority, maybe my father or uncle knows someone."

"That would be a good start, you should also announce yourself to the city. Summoning the captain of the city guard would probably help with that. Then call a meeting with the merchants and craftsmen."

We discussed for a long time, Ulrika helped as much as she could but had to excuse herself, she was needed in the kitchen and the people in the castle did not feed themselves.