Character Information - Who is who?

Because I have created quite a variety of characters, I will now create little cheat sheets before a chapter for the characters who will appear in the chapter, but not for those who haven't. Please open the spoiler if you need some reminders. (Be careful, it can be a spoiler for the chapter!)

Alexander K. Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* Transmigrated from the Earth and the MC

* The fourth child of the current Leonandra household

* Golden eyes

* Snow-white fur and hair color

Aurum (Swan-kin)

* Son of Salyna Leonandra

* Specialized in accounting, economy, and finance

* Blue eyes

* Snow-white feather and hair color

...

A week later

"Don't annoy me! Fuck! Can't you see that I am trying to test... whatever the fuck it is."

Aurum leaned forward and saw what it was, "It is the Bug Ball, Mr. Alexander."

"Aurum, I want you dead right now."

"We don't have time for your jokes, Mr. Alexander. We must discuss some things."

Alexander was standing in his makeshift laboratory in some old warehouse and was trying all the combinations to create the ink he wanted for two days.

On the side, he had dozens of sheets of paper pinned to the wall with all the written combinations of the material he received.

There were also temperature data with many question marks. Since he didn't have a thermometer, he needed to guess it from hot to cold. The same he did with the pressure but used other parameter declarations like Normal, a lot, and little.

His laziness won, and instead of conducting experiments properly, he was working sloppily and slapped everything together by doing ranges and guessing everything. He swore to build some instruments in the following weeks, but now he stubbornly continued his literal bathtub cooking.

He was beyond annoyed since the project became worse than the worst case he had imagined. It worked, but it always differed in his results.

Be it the mana amount the ink retained or the color's appearance. Now, one could say that it was perfect since it already worked, but for Alexander, it was the worst case. He had no black-and-white situation at hand but needed to work through everything to determine what worked the best.

The only positive thing was that he didn't need to look at the economic situation since all the ingredients were dirt cheap. It didn't matter what he chose. He could even decide on something that needed double the cost for a slight increase in the mana retained, as the profits he would make when selling it would be basically his revenue.

However, as he was working, his swan-kin retainer annoyed him for half an hour now for the stupidest reason he could imagine.

Alexander turned around and looked at him annoyingly, "Listen here, dear retainer, I took you in, so I don't need to look at shit like finances. Do your job!"

Aurum frowned but looked at his master more intensely, "You don't understand, Mr. Alexander, the gold we have is..."

Before he could continue, Alexander returned to his current batch of experiments and asked, "Are we broke already? So wait a little before you start what we discussed, or I can go to Green and get more gold. She looked like butterflies could fly out of her ass every moment for the last days."

Alexander already talked with his retainer about the responsibilities and planned everything out to a tee:

1. He made money.

2. He would give his retainer a plan and money.

3. His retainer would spend the money.

Alexander liked the plan since he wouldn't need to do anything cumbersome.

Aurum frowned, "No, but..."

Alexander interrupted him again while trying to determine the heat without losing his shit. He was already annoyed by all the combinations he attempted to pre-determine the outcome by cross-referencing similar results.

"Clothes, nutritious food, repair on the buildings, and some half-baked teachers who will help them learn reading and writing. For math, we will surely find some poor merchants who gave up on their careers."

Aurum became more aggravated, "Alex..."

The puppy wasn't really into listening to his plans again, so he just interrupted him, "If it is the elder and homeless care..."

However, before Alexander ended his sentence, Aurum screamed at him, "Shut up!"

Alexander stopped his experiments and looked at Aurum, who was red like a tomato and had veins all over his forehead. This brought a smile to his face, which provoked Aurum even more.

He threw some paper to Alexander, "Catch and read it! I can't decide on anything!"

Alexander caught the bundle, and after quickly reading through it, he became surprised, "We have too much gold?"

Aurum relaxed and nodded, "Yes, we have more than enough to start our training program for social workers, teachers, caregivers, and... kindogardners?"

Alexander corrected Aurum, "Kindergartners."

Alexander had an absurd amount of gold in his possession. First, he wanted to give orphans, poor elders, widows, and others in similar situations little things such as clothes, better food, etc. Yet, the goals quickly changed when he saw the ginormous treasure chests full of gold coins.

Suddenly, he had more than enough for everything and much more, which was why Aurum was here, 'Well, who knew that such a problem actually existed.'

Days before, all Alexander did was say everything he had thought of and relate his ideas to Aurum to figure them out. The ideas were that they could use something other than professional teachers like Anastasia. It was enough to have some failed clerks, scribes, and merchants for primary education.

Some spouses whose husbands had decent jobs could take on the job of a part-time caregiver. The same went for Kindergartners or those who cared for orphans and the homeless, i.e., social workers.

The training program was that some half-decent professionals, who already did their job for a long time, could teach those they would hire and were new to all of this.

There were also other things he wanted: Minimal responsibility jobs. Those would act as helpers to all of those he wanted to train comprehensively. When he would pay them something like what he wished the minimum wage would be and force other businesses to raise their wages.

While Aurum loved all this when they talked, he became increasingly cranky over the last few days. Now he had to figure out the average wage and wage one would need to come by in Wolfsteeth.

While talking with him a couple of days ago, Alexander could see that he barely slept and only told how it was impossible to figure it out even roughly with all his skills. Even his mother kicked him out for annoying her about statistics saying it wasn't her problem while laughing at him for having too much gold. It was now an insider joke to greet Aurum by making a cling-clang noise.

Even Ocilia couldn't help him as she was working for Alexander. Doing what Aurum felt and said openly was nonsense.

Alexander repeatedly told him he needed to find more people to work for him. Salyna had around forty to fifty lead accountants and bureaucrats who had more under them. He allowed Aurum to hire at least a dozen or so helping hands.

This accumulated stress made Aurum overly sensitive and screaming at Alexander. However, he cared little about it, but that didn't mean Aurum wouldn't annoy him further, "Yes, I don't know what to do with all the gold since you also wanted to invest it as quickly as possible."

Alexander raised an eyebrow and threw the papers to the ground, not caring, "Just buy some businesses, farms, mines, or whatever the case."

Something snapped inside of Aurum, "Shut up, you mutt! Do you think you can just buy anything you want? There are laws!"

Alexander leaned back and looked at Aurum, not caring much about his outburst, "Fine, how about..."

He twirled his hand around and remembered something, "...I got a letter from the Silver-Tail household and some other families... well, Mom got them, and I asked to take a look so I know how to write them. However, they need gold. How about lending it to them while using their resources they don't need as interest?"

Aurum calmed down and found the idea not bad, but was confused at one aspect, "Resources they don't need?"

Alexander thought for a while and answered confidently, "Well, they should have something I need for alchemy, and I am sure to find it if you can give me some descriptions about their territory."

Aurum, without even waiting, declared to his master something, "I need more personal."

Alexander shrugged, "Sure, already told you to get some suc... nah, let's call them suckers."

He squinted and said, "I want good ones and need some rooms inside the mansion. Thus I also need some servants."

Alexander looked at him, confused, "Okay? Why are you telling me this? You have full authority over the budget. Just give me every quartal a rough overview of what you did with it, and we are fine."

"Master..." he took one step closer, "...you need to join the discussions and not just give me full authority. Otherwise, I fear that when you get another retainer, you would be easily lied to by them, or they would embezzle the gold."

Alexander waved his hand in dismissal while turning back to his experiments, "For this, we have mana contracts. Now let me... ugh!"

Aurum grabbed his master by the collar from behind and dragged him toward his office. He had it for the first time since he started his dream job. First, he was elated to get as much freedom as he could only dream about, but also an almost endless amount of resources from the temple and the trust of a master he always wished for.

However, the moment he started, he needed his master for reasons he couldn't disclose: Aurum was inadequate. He had ideals and wishes but needed to learn how to arrive there.

He was ready to work till his eyes bled but didn't know what to do. His master, on the other hand, had the ideas and creativity he desired. Every time Alexander told him some of his ideas, he found them excellent. Aurum could work with them if he also received a little more guidance. However, he always needed to drag his master away by force for this guidance.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Alexander grabbed the front of his collar so it wouldn't choke him and let himself drag away, as it was not the first time, "Listen. Why are you like this? Just do whatever you want, not like the temple can get broke, hehe."

Aurum said nothing, dragged him back to his office through the garden where everyone saw them, but nobody batted an eye as this sight became routine, and sat him on the couch. He leaned forward and looked deeper into his master's eyes, "I need help, and it would be nice if my master helped me with that."

Alexander squinted at him and then smirked, "Hehe, so you, the oh-so-talented Aurum, have problems?"

Aurum became a little flustered and ashamed. He declared himself in front of his master as a talent everyone wanted and one of a kind. Yet, going through his first real administrative work, he became blocked, not knowing what to do.

Alexander interrupted his thoughts as he read the documents on the table before him, "I see a lot of unnecessary calculation of food, clothes, and so on..."

He threw it to the side, "...just take a rough estimate, increase it by 30% to 50%, and give it to them for three months. After the..."

He peeked at the sheet for what the calculation was for and looked back at Aurum, "...widow home gives you their expenditure you can calculate anew, and with multiple ones at your fingertips, you get a rough estimate after a year..."

Alexander remembered something, "Ah! Don't forget to get a detailed list of what they bought from the gold. There could be multiple things we can maybe buy cheaper. It is also a great receipt if they want to steal the gold."

Aurum asked, "Wouldn't it generate a lot of waste? I recommend someone who is trying to assess the situation and would get the needed things for them."

Alexander leaned back and looked again at the sheet, "Too stringent. Do a rough overestimation, and then control it later on. However, with this kind of system, you need many people to control our administration for corruption. Did you find some? I mean, you asked me, so you should have some, right?"

Aurum nodded slightly, "I sent letters to former colleagues I trust greatly, and they will be a strong addition. However, they cost..."

Alexander didn't care and showed it with a yawn, "Huaaam! Get the talents as long as they are worth it. I will review them in a couple of months anyway. Are we done?"

While Alexander wanted to return to his experiments, Aurum held him up in other talks about primary education and kindergarten concepts. He wanted to know what kind of people he needed to look for and how to organize it.

Besides his usual responsibilities, he planned everything out for the following weeks, so Aurum and his former colleagues could work efficiently when they arrived.

He also prepared much more stringent mana contracts than what Alexander proposed. Aurum was very paranoid that someone would fuck them over, while Alexander didn't really care about such things but was happy that he had someone who did.

After more hours of talk, it slowly ended, and Aurum asked Alexander worryingly, "Master, I find it great that you want to do so much charity and help others. However, the only revenue is from paper-making and mana ink. Shouldn't we also consider other things where we could make gold in a long-term way? We can't also just buy out the whole city like you want."

Aurum had thought about it for the last few days a lot. His master was a genius but thrifty. He didn't care about anything and was happy as long as he had enough gold for his research, but Aurum needed to consider the moment his master would have a dry phase and if, at the same time, his products would be copied, they would be in big trouble.

This was also the main reason he came to him today, so they could talk about how Aurum could or should invest the gold and in what.

Alexander wasn't the lord and couldn't make use of the treasury. While Aurum thought it was a blessing since they had much more freedom, at the same time, they couldn't take any taxes and needed to make gold in other ways.

Of course, there were ways to get the money from the lady, but Aurum believed his master was too stubborn to ask for it. He reasoned that if a person tried everything to pay for the damages of the mansion themself, it also meant that such a person wouldn't take any money from the household.

Thus, besides all his great ideas, he wanted to have something more sustainable.

Alexander looked bored at him and repeated himself, "Get Green's ass here, take more gold from her, and besides giving out preferable loans to the guard households, give credits to other nobles. With how much gold we have, it will be easy to blackmail their asses when they can't pay."

Aurum looked baffled at his master, "Wait, you want to do the same the lady is doing?"

Alexander was surprised, "Oho, we are already doing it? But yeah, basically. I want the resources they don't need if they are on friendly terms with us. If not, I want, if necessary, everything from them..."

He thought for a second and rubbed the back of his neck, "Well, I have no intentions of bankrupting them since... well, who would buy my stuff if they get broke?..."

He smiled at Aurum sheepishly, "I need to think this through more thoroughly, so just give loans first to friendly nobles and take the resources they don't need."

Aurum nodded at him, "Well, what do you mean with resources they don't need exactly then? You already said it, but I don't quite understand it."

Alexander leaned back while throwing one leg over the other. He closed his eyes while trying to remember some business strategies, "Well, territories are not the only thing that controls everything. I want to get the resources, open some businesses through companies that are loyal to us by using those resources, and invest in charity in their fiefs while getting control over the economy and the populace's opinion... ah right, what do I mean with resources they don't need exactly?"

He rubbed the place between his temple, "This will be your and your assistant's task to list literally every natural resource the guard households, who require gold, have. I need a comprehensive list of what they use, don't use, throw away, just everything. Don't forget also to list what this resource is, does, etc.."

Alexander opened his eyes slowly and saw Aurum write everything down, 'Hm, this will be a long-term project, and I need to really plan this out... all I give are rough concepts and ideas.'

He wanted to help every territory on the border first and, with it, get the populace on his side while getting a big chunk of the economy.

Why the populace? Even though this world was all about might-makes-right, it wasn't all that true. If he could get the populace's opinion on his side, he could, worst case, bleed the fief dry economically if the nobles refused to pay or tried to cut him off in any other way.

This overtaking would take, at best, decades, if not longer, but with it, he could secure revenue sources and have a more substantial hand in negotiations for whatever in the future.

He didn't believe for a second that a ruler wanted to rule a failing territory and wasn't ready to allow him to better their subject's life.

There would, of course, be a lot of indirect influencing in his education program, but nobody would need to know this, and when they did, it would be too late since he had their economy in his hands.

Anastasia, Narsiz, and his mother were all against such ideas. Even Aurum saw this skeptically, but Alexander wanted to try it either way.

If he could bring the populace to some basic level of education, it would change everything, and later on, he could implement more liberal policies through economic pressure.

'Little by little.'

He also had the perfect test ground for them: The guard households. They were all family. His great-grandmother was from the Nine-Fire family, while his grandfather was a Cold-Snout. There were more combinations, but he knew that the east border of Moorgrel was basically a giant canine-kin orgy.

So, before he went to nobles who were neutral or even unfriendly to his household, he wanted to play it on easy mode by trying everything out on the border.

Alexander would later write everything down in his mother tongue from Earth so nobody would know his plans in detail. It was something he started after his mother burned down all his ideas. With this, he could be sure that nobody could decipher them.

He was done and wanted to return to his experiments but saw how his assistant wrote down his tasks for the next months. Alexander reminded him, "Don't forget to build up Wolfsteeth and send your goons to the other territories."

He stood up and was about to get to work again when Aurum interrupted him, "Master, wait! What about the mana ink? How many workers do w..."

Alexander interrupted him, "Don't know, don't care. Give it a try and hire more than we need; if we have too much, we can always give them a different job."

Aurum frowned heavily as this side of his master annoyed him but nodded in the end. He had his tasks and knew what to do, 'Well, I will meet them in Wolfsteeth... hopefully, they are as they were and didn't get corrupted by the nobility.'

...

Hours later, back at the laboratory

"This looks weird."

Alexander had in front of him what was called a Black Melon. It was just an oak gall, only five times bigger, and he shivered, thinking about the monsters who came out of it. Luckily, they were only worms and not wasps.

On the side was a piece of paper with all the data meticulously noted down about this plant, 'Well, can't say that Aurum is lazy... maybe a tad too enthusiastic.'

Alexander ignored his retainer's unnecessary notes about the workforce one needed to collect and returned to the last ingredient he would test today.

Before cooking them, he needed to analyze them in case he accidentally found another gold mine. First came the [Mana Sense]. This was all since his retainer had written everything necessary, 'I love him.'

Alexander was very happy to have such a retainer. Hopefully, his assistants would be as enthusiastic, 'Well, they better be because I will pay them far above what others would pay.'

He followed the Leonandra doctrine on how to get talents: Pay them far above what others would. Alexander liked it but would also look at other factors like work-life balance.

He had really good-paying jobs as a student but had barely any life left, as he even slept in the office to meet the ridiculous deadlines.

He suddenly frowned as he couldn't find any mana in the black melon with his [Mana Sense], so he started to look at his next item.

Arabic gum, or this world's version of the ingredient: Slobber. It was basically the same and the one component which worked the best with all the other pigments and charcoal from the tree.

It could retain mana the best for some reason, and the color which came out was also the most beautiful.

He took the ingredients with a contraption and walked beside a guard who was lazily sitting around and meditating, trying to increase her [Mana Sense].

It was quite the security Aurum ordered to keep everything a secret. However, it would only be the laboratory for the next couple of weeks since his retainer and mother ordered a secret laboratory to be built under Alexander's mansion, and his mother relocated the paper production toward her private training hall from the shack beside the training ground.

The current paper-making production was highly guarded, which made sense since it made so much gold. Alexander could fully understand it and was happy that someone decided for him such things since he wasn't someone for such planning.

He mixed everything in a pot and turned on the temperature and pressure to a degree he had the best results until now.

'Well, I hope Aurum can also find more workers for this... I am not too hot on doing this for too long.'

The work was tedious, and the only positive thing was that he could train his mana skills on the side.

...

Two hours later

Boom!

"Damn it! Out! Out!"

"Mr. Alexander?! Are you okay?"

Alexander started coughing and quickly conjured the air shield spell around him and the guard, who immediately jumped and was ready to kill everyone in sight, "Yeah, I am fine! But get out and put the damn sword away!"

They quickly left his temporary laboratory, which started to manifest a giant black cloud. It had no smell, and looking at the air shield color, it seemed not poisonous.

When he was outside, he looked confused at his laboratory and mumbled to himself, "What happened?"

The guard looked confused at Alexander, "Did you accidentally use a spell, Mr. Alexander? I heard you sang some weird song. Was it a spell?"

Alexander looked at her, deadpanned, "The song wasn't a spell. It was a classic."

The guard stood before Alexander, ready to slice a monster in half. She was visibly tense and looked like she would fight the demon emperor every second now.

Alexander saw this and sighed, 'Well, not like you need to be the brightest to swing a sword.'

He ignored her and tried to find out what had happened, 'Well... only one way to find out.'

The smoke stopped, and he walked into the laboratory, "The smoke stopped. Let's go in!"

He ran immediately inside, and the guard followed him with worry on her face.

Alexander stopped and stared at his ink, which exploded. He couldn't believe what he saw and smiled madly, "Jesus fucking Christ, it's for some reason full of mana..."

The guard came closer and looked at the ink, "Mr. Alexander, is this the Jesus you said?"

Alexander turned to her and clapped his hands, "No, this is even better! I made mana ink, and if it looks good, I have created something fantastic! Listen here..."

He came closer and grabbed her by the armor on her belly since she was too big to be grabbed anywhere higher, "I want you to get Aurum here! I need him to buy tons of those Black Melons! Tons! I also need tons of Slobber!"

The guard was confused, and Alexander saw this, letting go of her, "Nevermind, just get Aurum here."

The guard nodded and, without hesitation, ran to get the swan-kin.

Alexander relaxed and sauntered in front of the pot. He suddenly stopped and conjured a fireball to cook it again, 'I want first to see how good the ink is.'

The ink inside of it had at least ten times the mana content other combinations had and was the best version he had created till now.

He stood before his cooking ink and couldn't stop smiling. Before him was the pot, and he could see with his [Mana Sense] how the mana increased and distributed inside the suspension.

It was too perfect for his taste since it was literally one of the easiest recipes he could imagine: Destroy the black melons and throw them into the cooking water. Take the vinegar with the iron, which should now be transformed into iron (II) acetate, and toss it inside the cooking pot. Next was the Slobber, which was also just put inside.

Nothing had happened at this point, but the moment he put the charcoal inside, the mana quickly distributed itself around and exploded into the air.

Alexander had many ideas on why this happened and would need to do many tests, but first, he would need to create the perfect ink.

For some reason, his artistic personality, which he discovered through Janina and her little plays, came out. Everything needed not only to work but must be beautiful. It was like OCD for him.

He would need to experiment a lot to find a suitable distribution on how much he would need from what, but this wouldn't be his problem. The workers who Aurum would hire would cook a couple of hundred samples and present them to him.

He would also need a sample from the draugr to compare it, but he believed he was better. He inwardly noted that he should ask Green to get something from the black market.

He started to rub his hands, 'God damn, I could retire now and just enjoy my life...'

However, when he thought about it, life became incredibly dull, and his enthusiasm disappeared, 'Well, now what? I need a new idea... hm... Oh right! I totally forgot!'

Alexander quickly conjured his standard ink and wrote on a note what his next project would be, 'Guttenberg... nah, scratch it! Alexander K. Leonandra Press... hehe.'