Chapter 5

In a sense, the negotiation with his father could be said to have been a matter of his own future.

He devised a strategy to persuade and approached the situation with considerable trepidation, but thanks to his efforts, the outcome was significant.

There were two things he wanted to extract from his father this time:

An environment where he could seriously study swordsmanship, and permission to review the accounts of Tena Village. He managed to obtain both of these without any issues.

Of course, it would have been better to review the accounts of the entire domain, but it was impossible for someone involved in corruption to allow that. So, he had given up on that from the beginning.

By scaling down his request from the entire domain to Tena Village, he made it easier to accept, and this strategy worked better than expected. For now, he should be satisfied with this.

By the way, why did he specifically target the declining Tena Village? Of course, there was a reason.

A few years later, Goutoku would be imprisoned, and the Etigol family would lose more than half of their domain. This was explained earlier.

However, one of the two cold villages in the south that Bolman was allowed to inherit was Tena Village.

Therefore, he thought that by understanding the current state of the village in advance and taking measures, he could make the management of the domain after inheritance smoother.

To protect the domain from the impending monster attacks, he needed to become stronger himself, of course. But he also concluded last night that a certain level of economic power was necessary. He would need money to maintain the domain's troops and to hire adventurers.

Additionally, he had a hunch that Tena Village was so poor that his father's embezzlement was not involved, and that the accounts might be clean. The results seemed to confirm this.

Thus, he managed to obtain the first ticket to domain management.

The next thing he needed was a collaborator.

His subordinates were waiting in the backyard. Both of them didn't look too well. Was the homework too difficult?

"Hey."

The two, suddenly called from behind, flinched and turned around.

"Y-Young Master! Good morning!!"

Stanief hurriedly saluted.

"Hey. It's a nice day today, isn't it?"

Giles also returned a somewhat confused greeting.

"Ah, it's good to see you both looking well."

With a smile, he walked on.

"By the way, about the homework I gave you yesterday..."

Upon hearing these words, the two exchanged glances and looked at him awkwardly.

"About that..."

Giles hesitantly began.

"I thought about it a lot, and I don't think we can beat him in a one-on-one fight, you know?"

"Why?"

When he asked briefly, Giles shrank his large body and shrugged.

"If our sword skills are at the same level, the other side has an advantage with the Flame Slash. To win, we need to surpass him in either weapons or techniques, right?"

Hmm.

"Can you show me your stats?"

The two moved their hands in the air, displaying their respective stats.

Name: Giles Gordon

Title: Bolman's Bodyguard

Level: 4

HP: 430/430

MP: 8/8

SP: 25/25

Skills:

- Sword Level 2 (Sword attack power +10%)

- Intimidation Level 2 (Consumes 5 SP, reduces enemy SP by 6%)

Magic: None

Name: Stanief Onely

Title: Bolman's Cheerleader

Level: 3

HP: 320/320

MP: 12/12

SP: 18/18

Skills:

- Sword Level 1 (Sword attack power +5%)

- Provocation Level 1 (Consumes 5 SP, 5% chance to cause enemy to become excited)

- Negotiation Level 2 (Increases negotiation success rate by 10%)

Magic: None

"Right, that's correct."

Giles looked at him with a puzzled expression at his words.

"Indeed, it seems impossible to beat Lead in a fair fight. ...So, what are you going to do? Just keep losing?"

He leaned in, provoking him.

"N-No way! I'll train and crush that wimp right away!!"

Giles, with a red face, bristled.

"Alright. This morning, I asked Father to have your father teach you swordsmanship. Of course, you'll cooperate, right?"

"Wh-What?!"

The burly subordinate immediately made a sour face.

I can understand his feelings. Giles' father, Christoph, is stubborn and uncompromising. But if he backs down here, he won't be reliable in the future.

"I'll do it. Are you just all talk, Giles?"

"Damn it. Of all people, you had to ask that bastard. ...Fine. I'll go with you, Young Master. But don't blame me if anything goes wrong."

Giles scratched his head, cursed, and finally looked at him with a scowl.

"Good. That's the spirit of a Darkvart man. ...Now, what about you, Stanief?"

He turned to the other subordinate.

Stanief, when his gaze was directed at him, awkwardly averted his eyes.

"Hey."

Say something, anything.

"If you couldn't come up with anything, just say so."

Encouraged, Stanief put his finger to his forehead and started to think.

"Well, I thought about it a lot, but I couldn't come up with an answer..."

"There's no right answer, so just tell me what you thought."

With this encouragement, Stanief began to speak hesitantly.

"We need to show everyone that we are better than Lead, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"I didn't understand the question at first, so I wrote it down on paper."

"Hmm...?"

He was trying to clarify the purpose of the question.

"Then, I realized there were several unclear points. First, who is the 'better' being judged by? If it's the 'everyone' at the end, are they the common people, the nobles, or everyone in the world? Values differ depending on one's position. Also, what does 'better' mean? Is it ability, personality, or achievements? The methods to achieve this would be completely different depending on the combination of these factors. I got confused."

Ah, I'm getting confused too, YO!!

"Alright, that's enough. It's fine."

He stopped Stanief, who looked dejected.

"Is it really no good...?"

"No, I can see that you're good at analyzing things. This morning, I got permission from Father to review the accounts of Tena Village. I'll memorize the main points and pass them on to you. Let's think together about how to develop the village."

"Wh-What?!"

Stanief stood there, mouth agape.

"Are you really going to tell me the contents of the accounts?!"

"Of course not. I'll memorize them and secretly tell you. We need to at least double the income of Tena Village and the neighboring Altha Village soon. We need money. While sword training is important, if we don't achieve something in the next few years, we'll all die."

"Die?!"

His subordinates widened their eyes.

"Yes, die."

He stated it with a serious face.