Chapter 42 Tail Debt
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"Lisey! Anny! You owe me a debt, right? Will you work in my territory for a year?" Lily shouted. "You can't die before repaying me!"
"What? Lord Lily, please forgive us. But we don't want to live in this world anymore. Moreover, I am no longer pure. Employing us would only bring you misery as your good honor would be tarnished." Lisey and Anny replied
"Relax! My village had so few elves that your circumstances would not matter. There are many tailfolk that were former slaves there! We are the same!"
"But…"
"If you still find your life uncomfortable, I will release you in a month! You may go with the Iyu… that killing law!"
"Euthanasia Law, Lord Lily." Edelweiss corrected me. But she smiled nevertheless.
"Yes. Euthanasia law!"
"Very well. We must also repay Lord Lily for what she had done to us. I will delay my application for the law." Lisey nodded.
"I welcome you to our village!!" Lily shouted while raising her arm. Unfortunately, she was the only one that cheered so openly. The other stuck-up elves merely gave a wry smile in response. However, joy was apparent in Edelweiss' mouth as she smiled sweetly.
"Alright, thank you, Lily. Let me hold on to them." Edelweiss replied. "Please do your task. We had one last stretch for the feystones."
"Sure! I have filled over thirty feystones. When will I get my pay?" Lily asked while smiling. The fee for the feystones was twenty gold, right? We had quite a bit of debt with Lhorne and Joseph that we needed to pay.
The room went silent at once while Edelweiss looked at us with a complicated expression. "Um… This is a noble obligation. You won't get paid for working in this fort."
"What? Why?" Lily and I echoed our question at the same time.
"That's how it is. It is our duty to protect our country, so I am afraid that we will not pay you for this… umm… please don't look so down. I know you have been struggling financially. Please don't worry. I will support you."
"Is it another debt?" Lily glared at Edelweiss.
"It can't be helped. Nobles may not give money to other nobles easily. All of our financial transactions are monitored." Edelweiss turned her head. Lisey and Anny stare at us in shock. It must be news to them that there are poor elven lords. All the lords wore that fancy clothes, after all.
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"Even after I save several elves?"
"Saving elves and helping this fort is considered a meritorious deed, and you deserved a medal for that. But no financial support. Please don't worry. Your deed will be honored and remembered in the high council book of record. But the country may not give money to a single noble arbitrarily. It would show favoritism." She turned her head while obviously dodging our fundamental question. Her answer was clear though unsatisfactory. While I could understand the bureaucratic decisions to fight corruption, It didn't help us a bit now.
"Shiro… If this keeps up, we will meet the same fate as Mattheus." Lily shared her thought with me. I nodded in agreement. After this is over, we must think about how to start an industry back in the frontier village and extract taxes from them.
"Okay. Thank you, Lord Edelweiss. Please excuse me. I have to fill my feystone quota for today." Lily bowed, and we left Edelweiss' room.
We then went on to the cafeteria while complaining to Joseph and Lhorne.
"I sympathize with you. I think a lot of our lords suffer the same fate." Joseph nodded
"Wait, that's odd. Shouldn't they at least receive a stipend like us? Soldiers do receive a salary here. Why lords didn't?"
"The stipend was only fifty gold per day at the fortress regardless of service. The high council decided to remove this stipend altogether. Lord Edelweiss spends more than two thousand gold per day. That's why the high council viewed this stipend as worthless and decided to remove it and award honor instead." Joseph coughed as Lily looked at him teary-eyed. Our expenses are dire. We still had Rhander's money, so we are fine for a while. But it would run out in a week now.
"How long are we going to be here? My money would run out in about a week left," Lily half screamed. "We also need to stock up for our trip back, right? All expenses that Lord Edelweiss paid us are counted as a debt!"
"Relax. No matter how much debt you had. You will surely be able to pay it." Rhander and Joseph said as if unconcerned with our state.
"What do you mean? I currently have over 30.000 gold debts! If the interest is ten percent, it means the debt will increase by 3.000 gold each month!" Lily parrotted my accounting skills. I had yet to learn how much this country's interest rate is. We had a formal debt to a reputable house, so it should have less interest than expected. "How much is the normal interest rate in this country anyway?"
"Interest?" Rhander and Joseph tilted their head.
"Ah, it is the scheme humans used. Basically, if you have a debt with them, that debt will increase if you don't pay it." Lhorne answered. "I recall Mattheus falling for that scheme."
"That's disgusting! That thing was explicitly prohibited by the law!" Rhander stared at him, shocked. "Do tailfolk use such a dirty scheme in their daily life?"
"The humans, of course! Tailfolk country is gone, remember?" Lhorne said
"Ah, I see. My apologies."
"So, to explain our law as concisely as possible, if you have a formal debt, you will be audited. Then, a repayment plan will be offered to you according to your income. If by any chance you were unable to pay it, the debt would simply freeze until you had more income. That's the high law which all in the elven kingdom obliged. There are many variations depending on the provinces about how much you have to pay each month, but there is no such thing as this scary interest you were so scared of." Rhander, the intellectual-looking type, answered.
"Debt may not increase on its own. That's final here." Joseph said.
Lily and I breathe a sigh of relief.