Chapter 57: My Comrade (4)

“What is that?”

“Why are there so many beggars?”

“Is there a festival going on somewhere?”

By the time the two left Banish Alley a few hours later, Henry had already rescued hundreds of debtors.

“S-sunlight…!”

𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

“Thank you, thank you so much…”

“

Sniff

, I will never do anything even close to gambling.”

“

Sniff, sniff

…”

Although the reactions were all different, most of them shed tears of happiness when they saw the longed-for sunshine.

“Why don’t you go ahead and say something to them?”

“There’s no need. Everyone lives their own life according to how they want to live it. If they’re smart enough, they won’t make the same mistake twice.”

Even though Henry had saved them all, he didn’t want to show it off.

* * *

Henry went to a clothing shop with the accountant and administrator that he had hired. The reason for the visit was simple: it was impossible for the new hires to go straight to work wearing a suit when they had come from nothing.

Henry and his beggars arrived at Shuzume, the shop that he had previously visited. Henry left the beggars outside to wait while he went inside the store and asked for an employee.

“Welcome. Oh, aren’t you the officer that visited last time?” The manager noticed Henry as soon as he entered the store, and she put on a smile and greeted him first.

“Have you been well, manager?”

“Haha, I’m always good but what’s the reason for your visit today? Are you here to buy Sylvia’s clothes again?

“That’s right, but I’m going to need dozens of outfits.”

“D-dozens?”

“They’re not for me, I’m buying them for my employees.”

“Oh I see, now that I look carefully, you’re a boss, not an officer, haha. Where are the employees? I will measure each one carefully and find the clothes that will fit them best.”

“Then I’ll place my trust in you and leave everything up to you.”

“Of course! I will think of them as my family and give it my all!”

“You heard that, right, Ten?’

“Yes.”

The commission from selling more than a dozen sets of Sylvia’s clothing was more than enough to buy a piece of jewelry from the same designer. Schlibiatz’s spirit blazed. This time, she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet Henry’s expectations, and she armed herself with kindness from start to finish.

However, when Ten brought in Henry’s employees, Schlibiatz’s face began to twist in disgust. “W-who are these people?”

“What do you mean by that? They’re my employees. Why? Is there a problem?”

“N-no, of course not. It's just that…”

Their eyes were lifeless, they had scars all over their bodies, their clothes were practically dirty rags, their ribs were showing, and most importantly, a deadly odor that smelled like garbage rose from their bodies. Unfortunately, she was germaphobic.

‘Put up with it. I have to put up with it.’

She was disgusted to the point of trembling, but she kept a bright smile on and put the measuring tape on the man who looked the least dirty first. However, things did not go the way she expected.

“

Argh

.”

“

Ahhhhh!

”

As soon as she put the measuring tape onto the man’s chest, she accidentally touched a wound hidden under his clothes.

The man groaned, and in response, Schlibiatz screamed piercingly, as if she had encountered a pervert.

‘Tsk, she hasn’t changed one bit.’?

Henry clucked his tongue once more as he looked at her.

Then, he heard someone calling him.

“Officer, how are you?”

“Hmm? Oh! Aren’t you Miss Camie?”

“Thank you for remembering. If you don’t mind, can I pick the clothes for your employees on behalf of the manager?’

“You want to?”

“I’m also an employee here. If you don’t mind, I’d like to do it.”

Camie had been quietly working and arranging clothes nearby. After politely getting Henry’s permission, she took the measurements of all the employees one by one without showing any sign of disgust. Then, she quickly brought out clothes in the right sizes. Thanks to Camie, Henry was able to finish shopping much faster than he had expected.

“You have been very helpful this time as well. Thank you.”

“No worries. I only did what’s required of me as an employee. Thank you so much for visiting Shuzume once again.” She showed a friendly attitude until the end.

Henry was satisfied because this was the best service that he had received recently. Henry wrote her name on the receipt once again and gave it to her. This would earn her a huge commission.

“Thank you, come again.” She smiled widely as she took the receipt and waved farewell gratefully. However, Henry was not satisfied with just the receipt, so he took a platinum coin from his pocket and offered it to her.

“Miss Camie, this is a tip.”

“What? This is too much.”

“There’s no need to feel pressure. You deserve this for the kindness you have shown me. I hope to continue receiving the same kind of service in the future.”

“Well, of course! Thank you, thank you so much!”

After Henry finished paying, he and his employees left the store. They went to purchase the best ties and dress shoes to match the designer suits they had just bought, and then Henry brought them to a public bathing area. Of course, the owner of the bathhouse did not look pleased.

He had just changed the water this morning, but due to the sudden arrival of the beggars, all the present customers left swearing and complaining.

“I apologize for this. To compensate, I will pay for today’s projected sales and water bill.”

“W-what?”

Henry wanted to fully compensate the owner since they were interfering with his business. After some time, the employees emerged from the bath and changed into their new clothes. They now appeared in front of Henry as accountants and administrators instead of homeless debtors.

“Oh, wow.”

They had only cleaned themselves of filth and dressed properly, but they now had the respectable auras unique to their profession. Ten gasped in admiration when he saw them.

“Thank you, my lord.”

The employees with a new lease on life rushed to express their appreciation to Henry, happiness clearly written on their faces.

“Isn’t it time to get to work now?”

“Yes! Whatever the work is, leave it up to us!”

They all headed back to Ten’s place as the employees continued to shower Henry with gratitude. Now that Henry had hired people with great talent, it was time to put them to the right tasks.

* * *

“Is this the agreement?”

“Yes.”

Henry visited Mayor Vant with the written agreement that his employees had worked for the past few days.

“The agreement is simpler than I expected.”

“That is because we can’t start a big business as soon as we sign the agreement. But don’t worry too much about that, because I have already prepared plenty of business plans to implement after the agreement.”

“Is that so…”

There really wasn’t a choice. After Vant briefly looked over the details of the agreement, he took out a seal from the drawer and stamped it.

“Please take good care of this so that there are no damages.”

“You can rest assured there won’t ever be a situation that will cause you worry.”

“Of course, I trust you, Sir Henry… Anyway, are you done with your recruitment?”

“Yes. Have you finished calculating the taxes?”

“Thanks to the accountant you sent me, I finished them much faster than I had expected.”

“That’s good to hear.”

A few days later, the short-term recruitment announcement of the Million Corps finally ended. Many people were disappointed, but Hagler was still the only one who had passed the test.

‘I can’t believe that there are so many incompetent people.’

It was unfortunate, but there was nothing Henry could do. He was glad that he had found at least one person.

“How much have we made?”

“We earned 123,741 gold in special taxes alone.”

“That’s not much.”

“What? This is not a small amount at all. Never in the history of Vivaldi have we collected such a large amount of taxes in such a short period of time.”

They had earned more than 120,000 gold from the newly added special tax alone. It was clear that 120,000 gold was a huge income, given that the total tax earned per month was only 50,000 gold. But to Henry, it felt like child’s play.

“Thank you for your hard work, mayor. Still, I worked so hard but only earned 120,000 gold… Next time, I think we need to increase our scale a little more.”

‘That psycho…’

Even few aristocrats thought of 120,000 gold as a small amount.

“Come in,” said Henry.

Harris had been waiting outside with a bag of documents, and as he walked in, he said, “Greetings! My name is Harris and I’m the chief accountant on our accounting team. Nice to meet you, mayor.”

Harris looked like a completely different man from when he’d been in prison. He looked efficient and relaxed. Henry had appointed him as the chief accountant because he was indeed a genius, just as Haisha had said.

“Here are the documents you asked for.” Harris opened his bag, showing the documents stuffed inside.

“What is that?” asked Van.

“It's a ledger with a separate record of the special taxes collected from the Million Gold battle stadium over the past month.”

“What? Why would you record that separately?”

“After a brief calculation, 90,000 of the 120,000 gold was from the Million Gold battle stadium.”

“And?”

“What do you mean ‘and’? Did you intend to send the 120,000 gold we earned to the empire?”

“Huh…?”

“...You are much more naive than I thought. Our employees will take care of it anyway, but if you don’t specify in the ledger the name of the company from which you collected the special taxes, they won’t know where and how much you’ve collected.”

Thanks to Henry’s patient explanation, Vant finally understood what Henry was trying to say. Simply put, he was embezzling the taxes by manipulating the ledger.

“The Million Gold battle stadium is the largest stadium in town. If we destroy some of the special tax ledgers recorded separately from the Million Gold battle stadium, we’ll make some easy money.”

Henry then burned all the documents that Harris had brought.

“The bundle of documents that I just burned are almost half of the ledgers that we have.”

“T-then how much was that…?”

“Rounding up, I would say that was around 50,000 gold.”

“F-fifty thousand gold!”

In an instant, they had created a slush fund of 50,000 gold.

As he swept the ashes of the burnt document to the garbage can, Henry said, “Ten thousand gold.”

“What?”

“For your hard work, I will pay you 10,000 gold.”

“W-what? All that for me?”

“Didn’t I say that I would give you a proper share? Or is it not enough?”

“N-no of course it is! It’s more than enough! Thank you very much.”

Vant’s jaw could not drop any lower. The amount was beyond his comprehension.

Ten thousand gold! Even the prizes he’d won as a chess player and the salary he earned as a mayor combined didn’t add up to 10,000 gold, and Henry had given him that amount so casually.

‘Now that you know the taste of money, you’ll stay loyal to me until you die.’

Now that he had Ten on his side, Henry’s next target was Vant. Baiting him with sweet rewards was a much wiser option than threatening his weak points. Henry smiled at Vant’s joyful face.