The Lord began to talk about the proposals he had received at that time.
"First, I agreed not to collect taxes from those who hold the promissory notes I've issued. They told me to slowly repay my debt with that arrangement. I agreed, since it seemed reasonable and no one else would lend me gold coins."
"Is there anything else?"
"They also told me not to collect taxes from the lands held as collateral until all my debts are paid off. I had no choice but to agree to this as well. The debt had become so large that it was embarrassing to exercise my rights on the lands held as collateral. So, I accepted that proposal too."
"Father."
Lord Chester sighed as he finished speaking.
"If I hadn't accepted those proposals back then, I might not be here now. The nobles were strongly shaken, and no one knew how things would turn out."
Most of the people in the territory held the promissory notes Lord Chester had issued.
These Gold promissory notes, issued with the notes he wrote as collateral, were being used like money throughout the territory. In effect, all the people in the territory had become creditors who needed to receive gold coins from Lord Chester.
In other words, Lord Chester's current income was zero.
"Father, if you agree to that, we won't collect any taxes here, right? You're not running any separate businesses, so why did you agree to such a thing?"
"I know. I understand, but..."
Lord Chester had his reasons.
"There was no other way. I couldn't survive without accepting it. You didn't see the group of people from the territory who came to me with their eyes wide open, demanding money. They were really determined to get money from me, no matter what."
"So why... did you accumulate so much debt? Needlessly."
"It wasn't needless. It was all for the territory. This land has been passed down from our ancestors since the dwarves abandoned it. It's a place we have a duty to protect no matter what."
Even though he was a foolish father, he was still her father.
Stella wanted to know the exact state of the territory in order to resolve this situation.
"So, Father, does that mean we won't collect any taxes here at all?"
"Taxes? Everyone is coming to me demanding gold coins. How could we collect any taxes?"
"That’s the only problem, everything else is fine, right?"
Lord Chester shook his head without hesitation in response to his daughter's hopeful question.
"No, that's not it."
"You didn't accumulate more debt, did you?"
This whole situation stemmed from debt.
Stella's gaze became sharper than ever as she glared at her father.
"Why do you do this?"
"No, it's not that. I didn't make any more mistakes. I'm not so ignorant as to extend my hand further when I've already committed sins."
"Then what is it?"
"Well, since we're not collecting any taxes at all, we don't have any money to pay the interest on the loans. That's why the interest keeps accumulating and has become unmanageable now."
"Are you serious? Is that really true?"
Since they weren't collecting any taxes, they had no money to pay the interest.
And as the interest kept piling up, it turned into more debt, which was now suffocating Lord Chester.
"The interest keeps accumulating, turning into more debt."
The high interest rate of 6% per month.
It was a hateful existence for Lord Chester.
"Since I can't repay it, more land is being held as collateral. That vicious cycle continues to this day."
"Father!"
Lord Chester felt ashamed as his daughter called out to him sternly.
If he had known things would turn out like this, he wouldn't have ignored the advice of his ancestors...
'Father warned me to be careful with debt...'
"Anyway, that's how it is. I really have nothing to say to you."
She now understood why the people in the territory no longer looked at her the same way.
If Lord Chester had been a powerful figure with teeth and claws, she too would have been treated accordingly.
But now, her father was a toothless, clawless, and completely powerless old beast.
So everyone openly ignored them.
"I'm really sorry. I don't know how things turned out like this..."
He didn't have the courage to die, either.
"I even thought about dying. But if I die, what will happen to you? My death won't erase all the debts."
"How did such an honorable person end up like this?"
"I don't know. It really happened before I knew it."
The father and daughter fell silent in the gloomy atmosphere.
But they couldn't just die like this.
Unlike her father, who had brought the situation to this point, she wanted to find a way to survive.
"I'll go to Carter Bank and try to negotiate. We have to live somehow."
Lord Chester was doubtful.
What difference would it make if his daughter went instead of him?
"Will it change much if you go? Maybe they, or rather, that child, planned all of this from the beginning. I should have been suspicious from the moment they asked for the land as collateral."
"But it was you who borrowed the money, right?"
"That's true..."
"Then you have nothing to say. They lent you the money, and you couldn't pay it back. And you also had bad intentions."
"What bad intentions did I have?"
"You recklessly issued promissory notes. Did you think I wouldn't know?"
"Well..."
Hearing such words from his daughter, Lord Chester felt like dying.
"You're right. If only I hadn't issued those promissory notes so recklessly..."
Read ahead by supporting me on Ko-fi. Access 5 advance chapters with the Imperial Dalants Tier ($10) or 10 advance chapters with Dwarven Sovereigns Tier ($18). For every $15 collected on Ko-fi, I will release an extra chapter. Choose your tier by clicking the 'Support me' button! Rate and review this novel on NU to help people find this novel. Happy reading!
Thanks for the chap. Heads up that NU link for c66p1 is missing and is seems like there may be a missing part in c65. The jump to 66 was a bit abrupt
ReplyDeleteNU link has been fixed, and yeah it seems c65 was incomplete. It was a problem with my raws, so I manually got the missing content from original raws and translated the missing part, checkout the new 2nd of the c65.
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