Chapter 48
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"Thirty million?" Lily tilted her head.
"It is a thousand times more than the twenty thousand gold for your clothes, Lily," I whispered in exasperation. She didn't have the mathematic skill and had never heard the word " million " before.
"WHAT!!" Lily stood up in shock. Her eyes widened at the realization of her debt. Her response was delayed compared to mine since I understood the word the bureaucrats immediately.
"Wait! We have never taken a debt that large! And in elven countries, there is no interest, right? It meant the debt would never increase! How could I suddenly get such a massive debt!?" Lily shouted.
"Lord Lily is now the lord of this region beside Regoia; it is currently dubbed Edenthal Region. Edenthal Region was made by the government decades ago to hold the fleeing refugees from tailfolk countries." The elf calmly explained.
"a lot of money was then invested into making this village. These data were from ten years ago, you… I mean, this village imported a lot of food, timber, etc. Here is our accounting book from that time." The bureaucrats explained.
"Edenthal just became self-sustained two or three years ago, but now that you opened a new region besides it, you also imported several tools, right?" he said while pushing accounting books onto us. Lily couldn't read those books, so her rage was just stewing from the apparent unfairness of the situation.
From the accounting book he pushed us, the most recent is the part for Mattheus' group. Damn! I never expected them to be this expensive. Food costs were low all across the book. But several luxuries, such as spices, were expensive. Iron tools, in particular, could fetch several hundred or a thousand golds each. No wonder our attire and swords were costly. Here are timbers, limes, tools, and several products. Clothes are also imported. This accounting book was a nightmare. We imported everything but food, and while we gained some income from our farms, food had low prices here.
"Now that Edenthal Region has its own lord, I hope you could start taxing your people to pay this expenditure."
"I couldn't pay this even in 100 years! From my job as a feystone supplier, I barely made 5000 gold each week!" Lily complained.
"Um..." The bureaucrats are looking at each other.
"She hadn't got to school yet?" One of them asked. "Aren't these kinds of things should be on lord's curriculum?"
"She got promoted to lords, not inherited. Maybe she didn't take those curricula?"
"I heard she was a former slave. It is doubtful if she even understood these documents."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"That's bad, isn't it?"
"Um... Lord Lily, in that case, would you declare bankruptcy?" The elves asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Ah, she also didn't know about chapter 11 of our book of law. We can't progress anything with this…." The other elves facepalmed.
"It means…" one of the bureaucrats spoke, only to be stopped by others.
"Stop it. We are not a lawyer. We can't give legal advice."
The silence continued as they looked at us. Finally, they collectively sighed and spoke, "Very well, Lord Lily, we shall speak about this matter on another day. Official Government branches for credit loans and banks are located in major cities such as Regoia. I hope you will grace us with your presence there after you consult your official legal adviser."
"We advise that you bring your legal adviser during our discussion at Regoia." He put the final nail in the discussion and left the premise. The town hall was deserted, nobody here except tailfolk, and we had massive debt upon us.
Light shone down on us from the windows. Lily was speechless. She stared down into nothingness in a desolate building while doing nothing. I welcomed her silence as I needed to process what had just happened. He said we had a debt of over 30 million gold for this village. It is undoubtedly an enormous amount. However, if we consider this not as a personal debt but as a company's, This debt would not be that unreasonable. We could survive this.
But, the problem is that none of us knew how to run a company. I was just a salaryman. I had basic education from the other world, so I was fine with math. When I reincarnated into this world, I had languages pack as y skills. But I am not an experienced CEO who could handle the company's millions of dollars in debt.
The only person we could turn to was Edelweiss in this matter. I wonder what she had to say about our circumstances…
"Shiro…"
"Yes, Lily?"
"What are we supposed to do?" Lily asked. Feelings of anxiety washed over me.
"I am not sure. We should consult Edelweiss."
"I see…"
"What's wrong, Lily? I know this must be hard on you but keep your spirit up!"
"If I can't pay this debt, will I be a slave again?" Her hands trembled.
"Well, I don't know. He said about declaring bankruptcy earlier, so there may be a way out. It is not even our debt to begin with…."
"I…" She cried. Anxiety was shoved into me at once. She bawled like a kid.
"Lily…"
"I don't know why I am crying! I understand why you are confused! I am just scared! I don't know!" She spoke incoherently as she continued to cry.
As I laid my tail on her lap, she stroked me while sobbing.
"You are not even real…. Only I can speak to you."
"Maybe that's right. I am merely a ghost that controls your tail." I spoke honestly.
"Does that mean nobody will love me without a blessing? My place is supposed to be Mattheus' slave in the human village, right? I only got to this position all because of the blessing."
"That's right," I answered honestly. She could detect my feelings were I to lie. I didn't want to lie, either.
"Everyone only sees me as a tailfolk with blessing. It is not even my own blessings. I just want to live like normal humans… When I was Luigi's slave, I watched a carpenter's house. I don't need a plastered luxury house like this." She pointed to the empty town hall. It was totally different in tapestries and decorations compared to Luigi's mansion, but somehow, they resembled each other so much.
"Is it so difficult for us to live like that?" She cried, "I thought I had it. We could live together! In that corner! But Wharne dumped us, and now, I had this debt! If I fail to pay it. I would lose everything. So painful! I prefer not to have hope like this. Maybe I should just go back and become Albert's slave!" Lily cried uncontrollably.
As she continued to pour her heart out, I listened to her with warm eyes.