The captain returns with two rolled up parchments in hand.

「Took you long enough.」

Straf looks over his shoulder as the captain runs up.

「Hand those to Straf, please.」

Cycelia says, and points her hand at Straf. He takes one of the documents, and skims through it.

「Uh-huh… Uhuh… Yup… Hold on.」

Straf reads through the parchment, holding it with one hand. He squints, and furrows his brows as he reaches one particular line.

「Lia, do you have a quill and ink?」

He asks as he lowers the parchment.

「Uh, no. Not nearby, why?」

Cycelia blinks, a little confused.

「Tsk. Give me your hand…」

Straf says, and places the parchment on Cycelia's knees. He stretches his hand out towards her, and waits with his palm out.

「Huh!? Um… Okay?」

Cycelia gets momentarily startled, but hesitantly moves her pale, thin hand for his.

「…Actually, nevermind.」

After a moment of thinking and staring at her intensively with bored eyes, Straf retracts his hand.

「Hey, give me your hand real quick.」

Straf looks over his shoulder at the young captain of the guard, still holding the other parchment, and he wiggles his fingers for him to come forward.

「Uh, yes, minister…」

The captain taken aback too, but he complies and gives Straf his hand. Straf nonchalantly opens his [Portable Storage], and pulls out a sewing needle.

「Ow! What!?-」

He unceremoniously pokes the captain's index finger with it, and throws it back into the purple vortex. Straf then forcefully grabs onto the captain's hand while he stares at the drop of blood forming on his fingertip, and smears his blood on a line of text, while both he and Cycelia are still confused by what happened.

「There. Now it's fixed. Read the change.」

Straf insists, pointing at the parchment on Cycelia's lap with his hand.

「What? Okay.」

It takes Cycelia a second to break through the confusion, and the captain sucks on his bleeding finger while wincing. She picks the parchment up into her hands, and reads around the part that is smeared in blood.

「Huh? Why did you… Er, redact the part where it says that drakes can be used instead of gold coins to pay for taxes? What's wrong with that?」

Cycelia asks as she lowers the parchment with furrowed brows.

「Everything, Lia. No more using coins for taxes, it's only drakes now. It's very important, so be sure to announce that. Show me the second paper.」

Straf sticks his hand out towards the captain, and he hands him the other parchment, then hastily shuffles out of Straf's reach.

「Uh-huh… Uhuh… Uh-huh… Yeah, this one is fine.」

Straf rolls the parchment up with one hand, and throws it to the captain.

「But… But what's the point of gold coins, then? If you can only pay taxes with drakes, doesn't that render the coinage worthless?」

Cycelia tilts her head, glancing at the parchment in her lap.

「Oh, no. Not entirely. There will still be some use for copper coins and whatnot, because I sure as fuck am not printing copper drakes. The point of gold coins is to back the currency, Lia. That's it.」

Straf spreads his hands and shrugs.

「But… Why?」

「So there is a demand for drakes, Lia. You can only pay for taxes in drakes, so the demand is constant. The supply will be exactly as large as it should be, to initially avoid inflation. Once taxes are paid, the supply shrinks. I have big plans which will irreversibly des- advance society into industrial age. Any more questions?」

Straf asks, raising his brows.

「Just one… What is inflation? Does it have something to do with expansion? I have never heard of that word being used in context of money…」

Cycelia blinks, looking at Straf with the very definition of confusion on her face.

「Don't worry Lia, I will show you and everyone else what it is soon enough.」

Straf grins, placing his hand back in his pocket.

「Ah, really? Thank you, Straf. All of this sounds really complicated, if you could teach at least a few people the basics of this system…」

Cycelia smiles, and clasps her hands together.

「By the way, did you find anything out about the magic bandit bands?」

She asks, tilting her head.

「Oh, yeah, I did. In fact, here…」

Straf nods, and opens his [Portable Storage] again. He reaches in, and pulls out a silver ring encrusted with a blue gem.

「Give me your hand, Lia.」

「Huh? Again?」

She sticks her hand dainty hand out, and Straf slips the ring onto her ring finger.

「Eh? Eh!? Eehhhhhh!?」

Cycelia blinks, looking at the silver ring. She keeps blinking, trying to process what happened, but it's not quite coming through. Eventually, after multiple attempts to piece it together, she grasps the situation. Lily stares at her with massive, vertically-slit scarlet eyes and heavily scrunched lips.

《What!? What, what, what!? What did he mean by this!?》

Cycelia looks up from her ring at Straf, getting a little dizzy as her vision swirls from sheer shock. Straf is staring at her with a completely normal, slightly bored expression.

「I don't really need it, but I thought you might like it. It has a pretty cool effect, where it'll turn a patch of your body into steel like, up to 3 times per day if you were to get injured.」

Straf shrugs, looking at the ring. As she stands behind Straf with her arms crossed and a huge pout on her face, Lily's eyes jump from Cycelia to Straf's back at random intervals.

「W- W- Ho- Wh- Why do you have this?」

Cycelia stammers, struggling to get a coherent sentence out. After a few attempts, she manages to ask a question with an awkward grin on her face.

「This ring? Uhhh… It's related to that bandit thing…」

Straf's bored eyes drift upwards as he thinks about events from last night…

…

Crack!

「Arrrrrgggghhhh!!」

One of the bandits screams as his leg bends the wrong way at his knee, after a rough kick from Straf. He topples like a log and starts writhing around on the dirt in pain, along with the rest of the battered and injured bandits.

The passengers collectively sigh in relief, and some begin nervously chuckling, having watched Straf beat the bandits down without as much as breaking a sweat, aside from his fractured hand.

「Whew… I thought they'd take everything.」 「I have my whole life savings on me! That would have been bad! Haha!」

As Straf is interrogating the bandit leader, the passengers laugh and talk amongst each other, slowly relaxing.

Crunch!

「Arrrrghhhhh!! Aaaaaa!!」 「Wrong answer!」

The joyful and relaxed mood is interrupted by a muffled, sickening noise of bones breaking, and a scream of a man in agony. Straf shouts at the bandit leader, shaking him by his shirt. The passengers nervously look at each other in silence, and they climb back into the wagon.

「Do you feel like talking without bullshitting me yet!? Where did you get the magic stuff!?」

Straf shouts, and the man puts his hands up to shield himself while hyperventilating and whimpering.

「Alright! Alright! Stop! Please, stop! I'll tell you everything! Aaghhh…」

The man pleads, and Straf drops him on the ground. He clutches onto his shattered leg with a pained groan.

「Start talking, or I'm doing the other leg, too.」

Straf points at the man, and nods his head at the man's still-yet-to-be-broken leg.

「Alright!… We bought them off some guy in Ossen, I don't know his name! He just said he scooped all of his stuff from shops in the capital! He said there were so many things that were magical, but he could only afford the best of the best… I don't know more! I'm serious! That's all I know!」

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The man says, groaning and grunting in between sentences with his teeth clenched.

「What guy? What did he look like? Give me more. Do you think they'll know who I'm looking for, if I tell them it's some guy?」

Straf demands in an angry tone, but the man shakes his head.

「I'm telling you! I don't know anything else! Do you think we asked for his name!? You don't do that in this line of work!」

The man shouts, sweating heavily as he tries to control his pain…

…

「So, yeah. It's not much, but at least it's something, right?」

Straf shrugs, as he finishes telling his story.

「Yes, it's better than nothing. Do you have any idea where to look for that artifact dealer?」

Cycelia nods, listening attentively still.

「Nope.」

Straf bluntly replies, shrugging again.

「I see… By the way, what did you do to the bandits? You… You haven't killed them, have you?」

Cycelia anxiously looks into Straf's eyes, and blinks. Straf sighs and rolls his eyes.

「No… I knew it would make you upset if I did, so I didn't.」

「Whew… So what did you do with them? Did you hand them to the guards?-」

Cycelia lets out a relieved sigh with her hand on her chest, gently smiling.

「Oh, I broke their legs and told them to crawl back to the city.」

Straf grins and chuckles a little.

「Heh. I wish I could have came with, Straf. Watching those worms crawl and snivel must have been rather amusing.」

Lily grins as well, crossing her arms.

「…Eh?」

Cycelia blinks. Her mouth is smiling, while the rest of her face is in wide-eyed shock.

「…Um… Straf, about that mine… I will need a lot of those drakes. I promised the villagers a substantial reward, and-」

Cycelia raises her finger, anxiously changing the topic.

「Oh, don't worry about that, the first prints were just a test run. Those bills will be real valuable one day, so don't let go of them. I'll print bigger denominations and deliver them to you later today. By the way, the central bank will be in literally a central location, on the central street. I bought a nice building there, and it'll have a big sign stating bank. Let the masses know that. Let's go, Lily.」

Straf says, and turns to the exit with the little vampire in tow.

「And don't forget the tax thing!」

Straf exclaims with a wide grin, looking over his shoulder at Cycelia before disappearing behind the corner beyond the doorway with Lily. Cycelia blinks, staring at the empty doorway for a prolonged duration.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

She moves her hand to her chest, breathing heavily.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

《Ahhhh! He's so rough! If not for me keeping him on a short leash, he'd be a menace! I hold so much power over him! Such a powerful man, and he's entirely mine and doing my bidding! Uhuhuhu!》

Cycelia giggles to herself with her hands on her face. The guards glance at each other, as this happens more often than they would expect it to…

…

A maid guides Straf and Lily to an unused study.

「…Here it is.」

She says with a grimace, and opens the door. She steps out of the way, glancing at Lily and Straf intermittently.

「Cool. It's not quite an office, but it'll do. You're free to go.」

Straf dismisses the maid with a nod of his head, and enters the study with Lily. Straf takes a seat in a comfy leather chair at the large, thick, heavy oaken desk. Narrow, but numerous bookshelves filled with all manner of books line the walls all around the room, with a gap left for the sole window behind the desk.

「…Do you have some work to do here, Straf? Reading, perhaps?」

Lily moves beside the desk with her arms crossed looking at, in her view, the modest collection of books.

「Craft.」

「Huh?」

Lily turns her head towards Straf, and his eyes are focused on something she can't see.

「Switch.」

「What?」

She tilts her head, with her brows furrowed. Straf's finger taps the thin air in front of him, and a small rectangle appears out of nowhere, glowing with light. A switch, much resembling a light fixture's generic, modern flip switch drops into his waiting hand.

「Lily, could you hold this still for me?」

Straf asks, and sets the switch down on the desk, presenting it to her with his hand.

「Huh?… I suppose I could…」

Lily says, and her crimson eyes blink at Straf in heavy confusion. She walks closer, leans onto the desk, and holds the switch between her menacing thumb and finger.

「Like this?」

She asks, glancing at the switch, then Straf's grinning face.

「It's time for some reforms.」

Click.

Straf announces, and flips the switch.

「…What does that do?」

Perplexed, Lily looks around the room, searching for the smallest change.

「It makes me feel good about myself. Thank you Lily, that's enough. Let's go.」

Straf shrugs, and gets up from his comfy leather chair.

「…Might need this for later.」

He says, and throws the switch into his [Portable Storage], and opens the door.

「…What?」

Straf leaves the room, and Lily is left staring at the open doorway with utter confusion on her face. She blinks a few times, shakes her head, then hurries to catch up with Straf…

…

Outside the palace, on the streets of the capital city…

「Say, Lily, wasn't there an orphanage somewhere around here?」

Straf asks while walking beside Lily, rubbing his chin.

「Yes, there is. It's in the slums. Why?」

Lily asks with a tilted head, and Straf snaps his fingers, pointing at her.

「Remember that worthless guy who failed to kill Lia twice? I could actually use a hand from someone like him. And I need to visit the orphanage anyway. Two birds, one stone. Can you lead the way?」

Straf shrugs and smirks, placing his hand in his pocket.

「Naturally, but it's on the other side of the city… Not to mention, the trash there…」

Lily nods. She looks away, grimacing a little as she sighs.

「Relax, I'm used to seeing trash on the streets, it comes as a package deal with a modern society and low IQs.」

「Ai-Kyus?…」

Lily tilts her head, furrowing her brows as she hears a new word.

「Intelligence. Forget it, Lily, the average would be in the 70s around here, anyway.」

Straf waves his hand dismissively in front of his face, scoffing.

「I didn't mean refuse, Straf. Not exactly. I meant humans so disgusting that even other humans can't stand them.」

Lily explains, leading the way through the late morning streets, and clearing the way through the crowd with her mere presence. No one dares to risk bumping into her, as her eyes are focused on Straf's face instead of the road.

「Yeah, we had that too. It's fine, Lily, just take me there.」

「As you wish…」

Straf shrugs with a smirk, and Lily relents, nodding her head as she continues towards the orphanage…

…

Lily and Straf arrive to the slums after roughly half an hour of navigating the winding streets. While the rest of the capital is well-off, the buildings here are utterly destitute and on the verge of falling apart. Children in rags chase each other, shouting and letting out ear-piercing screams as they play, seemingly indifferent to their poverty.

「Here it is. The orphanage.」

Lily stops in front of a large building that looks almost like a mansion, or a villa, but in a very sorry state. Its perimeter is secured by a thin stone wall, and its rusted gate is wide open. No sign is present, and no markings indicate that this is in fact, an orphanage.

Straf walks right in, as if he was invited. He opens the front door, and enters. More children chase each other through the hallway, running past him from one room to the next, sans ear-piercing screams.

A woman walking by with a wicker basket full of folded, child-sized clothes stops in her tracks, when she sees Straf standing in the doorway. Her face bears a nervous, and suspicious expression. She blinks in silence, looking at Straf's face. Her nervous gaze softens a little when she sees Lily squeeze into the narrow hallway through the door behind him.

「…Can I help you? We are an orphanage, not a daycare.」

She asks, fully turning towards Straf, still looking somewhat perplexed.

「Yeah, is there a… Shit, what was his name again? N-something? Nick? Was that it?」

Straf looks at the ceiling, rubbing his chin.

「Is there a Nick around here?」

Straf asks, placing his hand back in his pocket.

「…Niklaus? Who are you?」

She warily asks, and Straf snaps his fingers, then points at the woman.

「Yeah! That's his name. Is he around? I'm Straf Katastrof Vindict, the finance minister, and I have a job for him… And for like 6 to 8 of your smartest kids.」

Straf grins, introducing himself to the woman…