Well, the piggy just up and left to never come back, honestly, after all of what happened, I’m sure that’s enough punishment, a part of me hopes that we don’t cross paths again, he hated my guts anyways, and I personally don’t like him, so it’s a win-win if we separate like this and never meet again.

  Now, busy times are as the name implies, busy, between the construction, supply chains, funds and budgeting my free time has basically reduced to nonexistent, if it weren’t for Rushka and Heather I’ll be as good as done with the amount of work, still I feel like I’m overworking them, not just them but everyone, for now I told my two wives my pns regarding this.

  “And so, I feel like we should get an accountant, or at least someone to help us get at least a bit off from our hands”

  “It’s ok Marisa, I can keep doing budgets and accounting, I am a princess after all, I did learn them properly”

  “Rushka, I know you’re capable but, truth be told, when was the st time you two got free time?”

  “that’s...”

  “Don’t worry about me Marisa, I’m used to working day in and out, plus I don’t feel as bad now that Ellie its close by, we have spent more time together than before as well”

  “Hmm... still, I want to give everyone more free time, no one can give their best all the time, resting it’s important, plus I want Rushka to focus on other things as well”

  She IS the head of the technology department, and the deskwork is taking away from her time to develop Heather’s prosthesis, not to mention that if they rest more, I would feel less guilty when I don’t let them sleep~

  “Well, you are the town lord, if you feel we need more hands on deck, we support your decision”

  “The question is who?”

  “Don’t look at me, I don’t know anyone who’s good at that...”

  Heather’s friends are mostly the pace knights, I know that much.

  “I know of good accountants but, they’re working back with dad”

  Make sense, taking a dwarf from Dagdar doesn’t sound like a good idea either/

  “Hmm... guess I’ll have to find someone fit for the job huh?”

  “How about that mute girl?”

  “Lassie? She’s already working a lot, making the arrangements and supervising the orphanages, I’ll keep her around as head of our social welfare department”

  “You just made that up”

  “Yep, but she’s good at doing so, besides after the whole fiasco with the church, we need to increase our public image as well, once she’s done with that, I will get her to think of other programs”

  “It does sound nice to have”

  “Then who else?...”

  Hmm....

  “How about that adventurer girl you mentioned, she seems pretty capable”

  “Adele? She ‘s constantly having troubles with money from what I heard, and constantly blows all her cash in research material, putting her in such a position would be financial suicide”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be someone we know, the possibility of putting an official employment ad is always avaible”

  “Hmm... maybe”

  “We’ll put up a request then, as for the pay”

  “Hnn...”

  “Don’t make that face Marisa, you’re the town lord!”

  “We’re in a big problem, there’s no budget! But to get a budget we need to hire someone to help us with the budget! That we can’t get, since there’s no budget to pay for it!”

  “We can always increase taxes”

  “That’s a huge no no! In fact I’d like to lower taxes if possible”

  “We don’t live in a fairy tale Marisa...”

  “But what did I say about the public image, you’ve seen the protesters at the pace entrance!”

  Ever since the church was locked down for investigation, there’s been mobs of people that come to compint, the pace guards as well as the orphanage staff manage to calm them down enough for them to leave, but disdain has been growing in town, I rather not make any more problems for the people if possible.

  Rushka and Heather just looked at me with a slightly worried face.

  “Sigh... I’ll think about it, for now I’ll go take a walk, that’ll help me think about it”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “That’s how I found Lassie and she was a great help! maybe I’ll find a cheap accountant somewhere!”

  “What a weird way to find people you have”

  “It’s fine, I’m sure I’ll find one! hopefully”

  And so, I headed out for a walk, truth be told I’m tired about all the town lord and orphanage work, still I’m sure one afternoon of free time isn’t a lot to ask for, plus we’re already sending kids to their new homes, the first orphanage was built on record time, it’s pretty ok, decent if you ask me, the kids and caretakers were pretty happy with it tough, so I don’t mind.

  The good thing it’s that the caretakers are helping build the other orphanages, even when their particur orphanage was already built so the pace hasn’t slowed down at all, some have even helped with building furniture and other things, something that nobody knew how, but they are slowly learning the trade, I’m sure that would come in handy for them ter, I still need to find proper tutors however, to give the kids a basic schooling.

  I’m walking in a part of town I don’t usually walk around just to get some variety, I explored the town at top speed the first time I come to this world, but now that I’m actually taking my time sightseeing, the town is deceptively rge, there’s even building and houses that I don’t remember seeing before, It’s-

  *sniff*

  Ahh, that smells lovely, the city usually smells god awful, especially around the more commercial areas, I’m used to it already but, should I worry about the sewers? Anyways, it smells like freshly baked bread, it’s so nice~

  I haven’t eaten anything that isn’t blood in a while, and even that has been very little since Celestial left, to not push my partners even further, that’s probably why I’m feeling hungry and the smell of bread caught my attention, a little indulging should be fine probably, even if it won’t calm down my hunger.

  I entered the store, a quite small little building with rge gss windows on the front. It seems to be selling properly seeing the clients going in and out of the store.

  As soon as I was inside, a girl tending the store looked at me.

  “Hi! Are you new in town? I’ve never seen you before, welcome to Elizabeth’s bakery!”

  Her words kinda caught me off guard, it seems my identity is still unknown to some parts of town, this should be fine I think.

  “Hi, yeah kinda, I was just strolling through the city and the lovely smell caught my attention, so I had to check it out!”

  The girl it’s quite pretty, she has very long and fluffy white hair, as well as a couple of horns like me! Is she a demon? I’m not racist, just amazed there’s more people like me, plus she seems pretty friendly and not giving me weird looks, so maybe she is also a demon.

  “Oh, I just finished baking some loaves and other pastries, what are you looking for dear?”

  I looked at the freshly pced cakes on the counter, just behind a gss pane as well, I couldn’t help but salivate a bit, there’s a price for the whole cake and for a slice, I could definitely eat the whole cake but.

  “I’ll have a slice of that chocote cake that’s winking at me to eat it”

  “Of course, let me get it for you”

  The girl happily went to grab it with one of those baking triangle things whose name I have all but forgotten, you know the thing for the slice size.

  “Is it to take out, or are you gonna eat it here?”

  “I’m taking a break so, I’ll have it here”

  There are a few tables in the little shop, only three of them to sit down and eat, nobody is actually eating in the pce, everyone just buys and takes their products home it seems, I’m guessing people are just busy, I know the feeling too well.

  Hmm! So tasty! This girl it’s an absolute master at this! Either that or my hunger helps! I don’t know if she made them but it’s the best cake I’ve had in my entire life!

  As I was eating and contempting the shop and the customers, something was really interesting, people just kinda buy their things in a hurry for some reason, as soon as I was starting to think that it was the whole fucking town that was being overworked to the bone, I could see a couple of burly man approaching the store.

  To which the customers just gnced at them and they fled without even taking the product or paying...

  “U-umm... dear customer, you’re new in town right? You should probably leave for now, here comes some bad people!”

  “Really? But I was having a lovely time, I don’t see the reason to kick out a customer”

  “I really think-“

  “Yo, yo, Elizabeth, it’s that time of the day again”

  The counter girl just made an incredibly sour face, following shrinking down a bit making her look like a small and somewhat scared animal.

  “Yes...”

  She said, defeated. Afterwards she started digging through the box which was acting as her registry, and gathered a rather rge sum of money, pcing it all in a bag that she handed to the thugs.

  “This totals all 356 Nars, as we agreed”

  “Oi, Oi, we’re missing money here!”

  “You two are new with the gang Huh? It’s the agreed amount and not a coin less!”

  The girl responded in a somewhat high tone, but she immediately shrunk back after the small dispy of courage.

  “The interests are complicated little girl, the amount keeps going up, this isn’t enough”

  “The 20% interest of the current debt monthly, that’s 5% every week, of the 7120 Nars debt I have, exactly 356”

  “I’m telling you it’s not enough!”

  The thug then grabbed the girl by her clothes and lifted her above the counter!

  “I don’t have another penny, even if you threaten me, I can’t give you anything more!”

  She looks quite done with the thugs, but kudos to her for not breaking character even if she looks on the verge of breaking down crying from fear, I can tell from listening to her heart that she’s shitting bricks right now.

  “Tsk...”

  And the thug then let the poor girl go, tossing her behind the counter once again.

  “We’ll let you off the hook for now, don’t forget next week’s payment!”

  “I won’t...”

  As they were about to leave, they finally noticed my existence. They simply looked at me with clear signs of hostility, but the counter girl just armed herself with courage and yelled to the pair.

  “Please leave my customers alone!”

  They ignored her however.

  “Hey girl, are you new in town? Do you not know who we are?”

  “Hi, yes I’m new, no I don’t know you two nobodies”

  “Oh, is that so!”

  Then the guy spped the table I was eating with his palm, not before I lifted the ptter of cake, it’s too good to let it go to waste. The table was turned over with his brute force however, it was enough in fact that the table broke when it hit the floor.

  “That’s not very nice, are you gonna pay the owner for the broken table?”

  “Don’t try to act witty girl! we’re in charge of this district and you better remember this!” Said thug number 1.

  “Yeah, if you want to eat and be safe around here, you have to thank us for that” followed thug number 2, in what I can only describe as the worst possible attempt to a good cop, bad cop impersonation I’ve ever seen, with pathetic delinquents however.

  “Oh, isn’t the town supervised by the town lord? Are you representatives working for her?” I said jokingly, I’ve never seen these clowns, let alone putting them in charge of a district within town.

  “Well, you could say that in a way, it’s fine, it’s fine, we won’t treat a dy with such bad manners”

  “Wow... Such a gentleman” my monotone tone was pretty good to get on their nerves, I can almost see his vein popping on his forehead.

  “Listen well you little brat, you’re messing with the wrong people! You have no clue what you’re getting into!”

  “I can say the same~”

  “Now, now brother, no need to get riled up with a girl, how about we make a deal, give us, let’s say... 5 silver coins and we leave you alone, what do you say? It’s not much is it?”

  Outside of Nars, we use coins for decimal parts of nars, which help with smaller transactions for the normal people.

  “It is a lot, I could buy 5 slices of cake with that, 2 more and I get the entire cake! I’m not giving you a penny”

  “I would choose your words carefully if I were you missy!” said the thug with the shortest temper, getting a knife out of the belt on his waist.

  “Why? I don’t think you’re allowed to just charge people for existing”

  “Do you want to get in trouble with the authority girl?”

  “Well, if it’s so bad, tell the town lord to send a signed letter with the appropriate taxes I’m in debt and I’ll gdly see it over with them”

  “We’re the w here!” said the man trying to stab me, I simply dodged the snail paced thrust by moving my head to the side.

  “Whatever, you guys bore me already”

  As I said that, I lifted the broken table off the floor, pced the remaining part of my cake in it, and then headed out the door.

  “You two, come outside”

  Honestly, pying around with the two was not as entertaining as I would’ve hoped, they angrily followed. As soon as they stepped out of the store I jumped and pnted the short tempered man’s face to the ground so hard his head exploded like a water balloon.

  “Great, now I’m covered in blood” I said, licking my hand. Honestly, if it wasn’t so visually unsettling, I would probably drink the two people's blood, the puddle forming in the ground is only helping to make me hungrier.

  “Y-you bitch!!”

  The other guy then pulled a knife from his waist belt as well and went to attack me, I simply stopped the knife with my fingers.

  “Say, I’m interested in you guys ciming to work for the town lord, could you tell me more about it?”

  I need to know why they’re going around ciming to work for me, my reputation is already kinda bad at the moment to have thugs doing this.

  “W-who are you!? You monster!?”

  He’s struggling but can’t get the knife off my fingers, obviously, a simple human won’t get far, and he’s not a seasoned knight as Heather to have decent physical strength.

  “I’m Marisa, the new town lord, pleasure to make your acquaintance~”

  He then looked ghostly pale, something tells me he has an inkling about me, but doesn’t know how I looked.

  “So, about your little stunt, who are you working for?”

  “I-I’ll arrange a meeting with the boss! Just let me go!”

  He then blurted out the address. I have no clue where that is however, I can barely keep the name of the town in my head, let alone the name of the streets! I will keep it in mind and ask Heather ter.

  “That so, you’re free to go then, tell your boss I will be visiting soon”

  I let go of the knife, and he fled in terror.

  For now I headed back to the bakery, not before cleaning the blood off from my body using magic, gathering in a convenient blob, and drinking it as a refreshing beverage, it’s the 5 second rule right! More like minutes, whatever, I don’t have trouble eating off the ground, I can’t get sick anyways, at least I don’t think I can.

  In the end, I simply went back inside, mostly because I don’t pn on letting that slice of cake go to waste.

  “Sorry you had to see that” the poor baker was scared out of her mind, frightened about me as much as she was of the thugs.

  “W-who are you!?”

  “Just the new town lord, taking a stroll through the city”

  “Y-you’re the new town lord!!?”

  “Yep, oh your cakes are sublime, I can’t get tired of them!”

  I said, shoving more cake in my mouth.

  “S-sorry for my rude behavior!”

  She said getting out from behind the counter and bowing to me.

  The bow was unnecessary but I’m more interested in the fact that she has goat legs! I couldn’t exactly see her behind the counter, and now that she is this close, her hair is quite thick and fluffy. It reminds me of a sheep of all things, Is she a demon or what is she?

  “Don’t bow, I like how you treated me before, ah, but you are pretty good with numbers too, most people doesn’t even know basic math in here” that is a lie, people know hot to not get ripped off by handling money, but outside of very basics numbers, they’re pretty hopeless, and the girl managed to do a percentage of another number, she has elementary grade big deal, it actually is in this world, for normal people that is.

  “Ah, well, I do have to run the store, a-and the debt as well so-”

  “Speaking of debt, what’s the deal with those guys, did you borrow money from them?”

  “I... my parents did...”

  “Hmm, shouldn’t they be the ones to face the thugs then?”

  “W-well, my parents already died so...”

  “Wait, they’re charging you for a debt that isn’t even yours!?”

  I understand that the regutions here are a bit more loose all things considered so things like shady contracts, loans and stupid interests exist but, charging a completely detached person, that’s going a bit too low. What kind of inheritance is a debt? Shouldn’t it simply be forgotten once the person you made it with is gone?

  “I... well... that’s how things are... and they were my parents so...”

  “It’s definitely not right, but don’t worry, I’ll go with those thugs, tell them kindly to cancel your debt, and any debt not pertaining to the person making the loan since I’m already there”

  “M-Midy but, there’s no way they’ll do that!”

  “Oh they will, that’s why I’m asking nicely”

  “And if they don’t listen!”

  I simply pointed to the corpse in front of her store, he’s just ying there while a couple of guards investigate what happened, I will need to talk to them afterwards as well.

  “Ah, I see...”

  “Say, what’s your name?”

  “I’m Elizabeth! A pleasure to be your acquaintance!”

  “Elizabeth, like the bakery, nice to meet you!”

  “Un! but the bakery was my mother’s, it’s just, we have the same name”

  “I see, well, I loved this little bakery, I’d love to come here for more, it says you open from morning to noon, what do you do in the afternoon?”

  “That’s, I, well...”

  “Hmm, sorry, I shouldn’t pry anymore in your affairs. It's just, I’m looking for an accountant and you seem pretty capable, so...”

  “A-are you trying to hire me!?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have much money to be honest, that’s why I’m looking for someone, maybe we’ll pay you a more proper sary eventually but, while we’re in a mess of the new jurisdiction, actually if you take the job you’ll see ‘exactly’ what I mean”

  I know we just met, but she doesn’t seem to be the sort of person to be dishonest, if anything, she was willing to risk her own hide to try and protect me of the thugs, even if she clearly couldn’t do anything, add to that the fact that either way we were gonna get a stranger, and I don’t see a reason to not give her the job.

  “A job as an accountant!? B-but I’m not a noble or anything! How can you have me like that!?”

  “Just because? I don’t see a problem, plus it’s just part time to begin with so that you can keep running your bakery! Any capable hand it’s always welcome, regardless of their birth or upbringing!”

  “If you’re ok with me I’ll gdly do it but...”

  “Yeah?”

  “W-well! As long as you help me out with my parents' debt! I’ll even do it for free just, I need those thugs off my back, I can make ends meet with just the bakery alone after that!”

  “Ah, no, I did pn on giving you a sary, not much but, something at the very least”

  “I-I’ll be forever grateful!”

  “Well, that does it! I’ll go take care of those thugs, oh and, here”

  I gave the girl some more coins, a dozen or so silver coins to be more precise.

  “I couldn’t possibly accept-”

  “It's the payment for the cake slice, silly! and I’m buying a whole cake like the one I just had as well!”

  “A-ah! Of course! But this is a bit too much isn’t it?”

  “Yep, seeing how everyone fled in terror and there’s corpse at your doorstep, I doubt you’ll get any other customer today”

  Also you close in like an hour apparently, so this much should be fine right, the money I give me for spending, and the town’s budget are separate because I don’t trust myself to have them mixed, so I give myself a sary.

  “Y-yeah...”

  “Could you then take the money as compensation and delivery?”

  “Delivery?”

  “Un, could you take that cake to the pace and say I send it, it’s for Heather and Rushka, ask the pace guards, they’ll know what to do”

  “I- of course!”

  “Thanks you’re a sweetie, now if you excuse me, I have some people I need to see”

  “W-wait! Are you going alone!?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Shouldn’t you bring some guards or something?”

  “Nah, I’m good, I doubt they can actually harm me”

  And so I left for the pce the thug mentioned, the pn was to ask Heather but instead I asked the guards outside the shop, after cleaning up the whole ‘yes I killed the man and I’m the town lord’ thing, they agreed to get rid of the body, which saves me even more headache, but now I can’t help but wonder, it’s not the first thief I dispose of in the middle of the streets, where are the corpses tossed to? Are they just buried like the rest of the deceased? It would make sense, whatever, we’re better off without them.

  I was thinking as such even after arriving at the aforementioned street, which just so happens to be an alleyway, an alleyway with people that used to be thugs, now they’re just corpses ying on the ground, which only made me think more of the corpse dispatch guards.

  I didn’t kill all of them but also, there’s no boss in here, and the delinquents decided that it was better to commit suicide than tell me where their boss is, so I’m kinda stuck.

  Seriously, it's one problem after the next, can’t I possibly catch a break!?

  Now I’m gonna have to investigate a crime organization on top of everything, that’s just wonderful! Let’s hope these don’t light the town in fmes!

  Joanne_carper