Ch.95Mantra

Year 12 of Amuttat.

Though it wasn’t unbearably hot in the northern region, the summer sun was beating down dangerously enough to require periodic cooling. It was during this season that I decided to renovate the road network.

Reports kept coming in about heavily loaded wagons getting stuck on forest paths, and once a road was blocked, it impeded the passage of other carriages as well.

In truth, our funds were starting to run low after building the new city and reinforcing the defenses of Pale Harbor, but if we left things as they were, wagons would continue to get swallowed by the mud. I was prepared to accept short-term losses rather than long-term disadvantages.

“We will pave the entire road connecting Amuttat City and Woodbury in the Western Forest!”

“Sigh…”

My lofty declaration was met with my aide’s sigh, but that hardly mattered.

Because the final decision rested with me anyway.

“Scrape together all the remaining funds. There should no longer be dirt and gravel on the road between the Western Forest and the Amuttat Plains.”

“But Your Majesty… we truly have no funds left. We can’t even collect taxes from the people right now…”

My aide made a gesture indicating that there was no money left.

“How bad could it be? Can’t we even get an estimate for paving the roads?”

“With our current funds, we’re barely able to pay the wages of the workers reinforcing Pale Harbor.”

“What did we spend all the money on?”

When I asked, my aide briefly grabbed the back of his neck before responding.

“Are you truly asking because you don’t know?”

“I’m the one who spends the money, not the one who keeps it.”

The aide grabbed the back of his neck once more, then grabbed the wine bottle from the ice bucket and emptied it before I could say anything.

Gulp! Gulp!

I thought his throat would burn from drinking like that. Just as I was thinking the old man was drinking too vigorously, he finally put down the empty bottle with a sigh.

“Your Majesty…”

“Yes… what is it?”

“Do you know how much money you’ve spent since the construction of the new city began?”

“Hmm… I’m not sure.”

“Then let me put it this way: you’ve spent roughly twice the annual budget of a city of one million people. Does that give you some perspective?”

“…”

Have I really spent that much?

To be honest, I didn’t realize it while spending, but when he put it as “two years’ worth of budget for a city of one million,” guilt and pressure began creeping up on me.

“B-but we haven’t gone into debt, have we?”

“That’s only because we have the Bonyard and the Steelyard. But spending money freely just because we have those resources is an entirely different matter.”

“…”

“If Your Majesty would provide me with an annual budget plan based on the revenues from the Bonyard and Steelyard, that would be fine. We would explicitly know how much money we can spend in a year. However, aren’t you currently spending recklessly with the complacent attitude that ‘it’s fine because we have the Bonyard and Steelyard’?”

“But aide… it’s not like I’ve been spending money frivolously!”

“That’s precisely the problem. Your Majesty has indeed made aggressive investments, establishing steel and bone porcelain workshops in Amuttat. But these workshops aren’t eternal, and funds are needed to maintain them. What will you do if you spend recklessly when you have money, but the investments don’t yield satisfactory results, and there’s nowhere to obtain emergency funds when needed?”

My aide began pressuring me with irrefutable logic.

And I had no choice but to take the beating helplessly, because my brain stopped functioning from the shock of realizing that the money I had spent could have fed 200,000 citizens.

Whether viewed practically or in principle, my aide was a hundred times right.

There’s a reason nations care about their foreign exchange reserves, and economists focus on the fluid flow of capital.

If Amuttat couldn’t provide necessary funds due to my overspending, we would lose much of the trust we had built up.

Moreover, the Steelyard existed not purely due to my ingenuity but thanks to the abundant, high-quality iron ore deposits in the northern mountains, and the lignite deposits on the eastern coast that fortunately covered the massive wood consumption.

And the Bonyard might not have existed if Michaela hadn’t discovered those bone fragments and processed them again at that time.

“Your Majesty, I’m not opposing your spending. I just want you to know exactly how much money is being spent, why, and where. If the spender doesn’t know how much they’re spending, corruption will inevitably occur, as you well know.”

My aide earnestly pleaded with me, and I had no choice but to accept his proposal.

“Alright… I understand. Let’s start with the paperwork then.”

And those words meant that my workload was about to increase.

*

“AAAARGH!!! Your Majesty!! Lord Aide!!!”

“How dare you, who embezzled His Majesty’s property, speak so freely!”

CRACK!

“GUHK!”

Once Tiberius began working properly, the corruption and wrongdoings that had been festering within Amuttat began to disappear like frost under sunlight.

In truth, corruption in Amuttat wasn’t a recent development.

While the monarch was sitting there, addicted to spending money lavishly, greedy individuals donned the mask of officials and gathered covetously for scraps… Unless someone reported them or the obviously corrupt were cut out, the official positions in Amuttat had been in the grip of corruption, knowingly or unknowingly.

If the loyal aide hadn’t risked his life to advise me, how many honest individuals would have been corrupted, and how severely would this nation’s systems have decayed? It was frightening even to imagine.

“Criminal Arius Rendil. You are sentenced to death for embezzling gifts from Lord Tiberius and for deceiving the people to fulfill your selfish desires.”

“No!! It’s not true! It’s a false accusation!! Please… please spare me!!”

“You scoundrel! Witnesses have piled up like mountains, yet you still struggle to save your neck! If you were truly His Majesty’s servant, repent even now!”

“Repent my ass! I’ll die even if I repent!!!”

The criminals being dragged to the execution ground were struggling pathetically, desperate to avoid death.

As he said, harsh punishment would be strictly imposed on those who had already committed crimes, so whether they repented or not, punishment for their crimes would be carried out unconditionally.

Soon, ropes were firmly tied to the scaffold prepared in the town square, and hooded executioners began placing nooses around the criminals’ necks one by one.

“Great Angel of Mercy… save us…”

“Sniff..! Sob…!”

The sight of them trembling, tears and snot flowing, evoked pity in onlookers, but unfortunately, the crimes scrawled on the nameplates attached to their chests prevented the crowd from showing mercy.

The list of crimes was diverse—all had embezzlement as a baseline, along with major offenses like assaulting subordinates, harassing or raping women, or even killing people and keeping quiet about it.

“Hey, hey! Are you crying now?! You shameless bastards!”

“The Angels of Judgment will bring divine punishment upon you!”

“Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”

Soon the crowd began calling for death, and the executioners on the scaffold responded by pulling the lever that lowered the support beneath the criminals’ feet.

CLANK!

WHOOSH!

CRACK!

As the support dropped, the criminals’ necks instantly broke from their body weight, and they met death without even time for a final cry.

“They’re dead!”

“””WAAAAAAAAAH!!!!”””

The crowd cheered, and once again the support was raised.

Fortunately for the crowd, and terrifyingly for the criminals, there were still many more to be executed.

“Bring the criminals to the scaffold!”

“To the angels’ court!! To the angels’ court!!”

Encouraged by the crowd’s fervent support, more criminals were brought to the scaffold, and their necks were promptly broken.

From sunrise to sunset, a total of 3,621 people were executed in the public execution, and according to ancient custom, their remains were hung along the main road outside the city walls.

Until the crows had pecked out all their entrails, their bodies would find no rest in the ground.