Chapter 69: CH 63

Translator: Nisarah     Editor:Fleeting

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After finishing all my work in the palace, I returned to the mansion and then left again along with Frenssen. Unlike my Father who’s a minister, someone in my position can return home in the evening as long as I finish my work. At least in this aspect, working at the palace is good.

If my brother was alive, maybe becoming a government official would have been a good path for me.

“Where are we going now?”

“Ah, to check out the Adventurers’ Guild and the orphanage.”

“You mean Feli-dono’s orphanage?”

“That’s right.”

Come to think of it, Frenssen has been travelling with Feli for a fairly long time along with the merchant party. Maybe that’s why his voice softened when he mentioned Feli.

There are various things I need to do, but first of all, I need to visit the Adventurers’ Guild. I need to finish the most time consuming work first, that’s the basic thing about manpower management. If I push the most time consuming work later just because it’s troublesome, I will end up with a ton of the workload later on.

“Oh, Welner-sama. Are you here to give us another trouble?”

“Trouble? I gave you a proper job with a proper pay last time.”

“Well, your last job was quite troublesome.”

“You, who became drunk for 2 entire days at the celebration party after we returned to the capital, have no right to say that!”

After showing up at the guild, a familiar face approached me right away. As I was chatting lightly with the adventurers while heading toward the inside of the guild, Frenssen smiled bitterly. I admit that my behaviour isn’t noble-like. Whatever. I feel more comfortable like this.

In fact, I know the trouble I have caused them when we were escorting the refugees, so I’ve done everything I can to give them the best compensation and proper respect.

When there was a village nearby in the middle of our journey, I would use my own money to treat the off-duty adventurers and mercenaries to some alcohol. Praise the reward I received for the aqueduct plan!

After working with me for a month, both the adventurers and mercenaries know my character well. They even spread the words such as “There are both good and bad employees among the nobles but you won’t regret taking the job from the Zeavert’s house” so I have a good reputation in both guilds. Anyway, it’s a good thing for me.

“It has been a long time, Viscount Zeavert.”

“Yeah. I want to put a request… or rather, I would like to ask the adventurers to run an errand for me.”

In front of such a charming receptionist lady, my speech becomes more respectful. Well, I am a healthy guy so I want to look good in front of a lady. I definitely have no other intention, Yup, none!

“An errand?”

“Yes, to Alea Village.”

Mazell’s family operates an inn in his hometown. That’s how it is in the game, but I’d like to make sure it’s also true in reality. Mazell asked me to contact his family so I’m going to do that along with giving his family an update about Mazell’s condition here.

“If it is Alea Village, how about we go?”

From the side, one of the members of Iron Hammer, a party of adventurers who just happened to be standing beside me chimed in. We worked together before on the refugee escort mission. Since all their members are close to my age, we were able to talk casually and get to know each other quite well.

“I’m thankful if you can do that, but is it really fine?”

“It is fine. We are planning to go there for a job anyway.”

He explains the reason simply. I see. Since my job is a simple errand, they can do it while completing their other job.

“We got a job to escort the pilgrims to Finoi. The pilgrims are going to Alea, so we can do your errand while we are in Alea.”

“Ah, that’s perfect.”

The receptionist and I exchanged a brief word about the reward. Although the Iron Party said that it’s fine for me to give them a lower commision fee since they are just doing my job on their way, I can’t do that because I’m a noble. It’s a hassle but I need to maintain my face as a noble. If word spread that I had bargained with an adventurer, other nobles would question the financial stability of the Zeavert’s house.

Well, the usual approach in this scenario is to raise the amount of the reward by adding extra tasks to my simple errand like an investigation. It’s true that I will also need them to investigate something anyway.

“That’s why I want you to deliver this letter containing an update on the situation here to Mazell’s father at the inn in Alea and these souvenirs.”

Though I say souvenirs, it’s just a bottle of alcohol for Mazell’s father and clothes from the capital for his mother and his two sisters. The souvenirs are light so the adventurers won’t have any trouble bringing them plus it’s not something greatly precious so Mazell’s family will easily accept them. Since I never met his family, I chose a design that’s probably a safe choice for the clothes. I hope my sense of style isn’t wrong to call these safe choices.

In the rural area, new clothes are expensive, but they are probably less expensive than accessories so the Mazell family won’t be burdened by it. By the way, the clothes are all sized.

“One more thing, could you also check out the situation inside the village?”

“I do not mind but why?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to know.”

Mazell was strangely hesitating to contact his family himself. That bothered me, but I don’t know why he did that. So I requested the adventurers to check on the situation in the village since maybe it was related to the reason Mazell hesitated. The compensation I offered is within the reasonable range so the receptionist easily approved my commission. I’m relieved.

“You don’t have to go through the guild for this commission.”

I gratefully accepted the receptionist lady’s kindness. I also told her, “I will put up another commission to the guild shortly.” 

I did this because the guild’s main income is from the commission fee. If I keep putting up commission without going through the guild, I’m going to sour my relationship with the guild.

It’s not because I’m bewitched by the receptionist lady’s beautiful smile. Definitely not!

After finishing the matter in Adventurers’ Guild, I went to an old building on the edge of the capital. To be blunt, the building looks more like a slum for the poor. It was once an inn, apparently.

Or rather, why was there an inn so far away from the gate? Isn’t the inn a bit shady? Though since the inn is already out of business, it must be unprofitable.

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Most orphanages in this world are operated by churches, though there are also orphanages operated by noble families, various guilds, and even privately run by rich people. Of course, there are different reasons for each group of people to run orphanages.

For the churches, it’s apparently to help the poor. For the nobles, it’s often for prestige. For guilds, the reasons differ from one guild to another.

In the case of the Commerce Guild and the Blacksmith Guild, it will be to raise a candidate for their assistant. For the Adventurers Guild, the orphanages are built to raise the orphans left by adventures that went MIA.

The orphanage will provide care and food for the orphans since it is an orphanage, but for me who has memories of my past life, the lives of orphans in the orphanage here are still pretty harsh.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Welner von Zeavert. I believe you’ve been told about me by Felix.”

“…Welcome.”

An elderly woman came out in response to my knock seemingly on guard, but upon hearing my name, she let me in. Is there something going on here? If it was a cliche, then this was the scene where I, a villainous man, would have come here to harash a beautiful young woman.

It’s still a half-cliche. That’s my thought after hearing her story. Apparently, they are about to be evicted due to a land lease dispute on the land where this building is located. However, it seems that they are evicted with a proper reason, not because of some kind of ill will.

By the way, the name of the elder is Arnate. Though the two aren’t related by blood, Feli’s last name must be Arnate’s name, right? This story reveals a glimpse of the connection between the two of them.

But there are numerous people in this house, and I can hear footsteps coming and going from the second floor. Will the floor collapse? Frenssen looks up at the ceiling with concern from time to time.

“When the previous owner was alive, there was no financial support but still…”

It seems that the previous owner of this building was the employer of the elderly woman and that owner also has a public bath house business. There are several public bathhouses in the capital but the public bathouse of the former owner is apparently located in the craftsman district.

Although the previous owner didn’t give any financial support, that owner also never demanded rent for this place so she somehow managed to barely take in and raise the children here.

Though recently the owner of this building and the public bath houses have changed, and the new owner felt that the public bathhouse business didn’t fare well, so they decided to use this building and its land for another purpose. This is a classic example of a situation that has gone worse gradually but still…

“Public bathhouse, huh?”

The deterioration of business might be because of the water shortage in the capital. I thought, but since the shortage was a secret, I can’t say that here, so bluntly said another one of my thoughts.

“But judging by the location of this building, I doubt the current owner can turn this place into any profitable business.”

“That is my thought as well.”

The elderly woman seems to be distressed. I guess it’s like the saying, poverty dulls the wit. In the first place, it was probably because this building was cheap that the previous owner allowed her to use it as the orphanage.

While musing about this, I feel a gaze. Frenssen was turning to the side, so I followed his gaze and found a lovely girl in tattered clothes, peeking at us through the half-open door.

“U-Um…”

When her gaze meets mine, the girl nervously walks into the room. This is our first meeting, right?

“Um, thank you very much for the medicine.”

“Huh?”

At first, I didn’t understand what she said. But, I would like to praise myself for my quick memories.

“Are you the girl that Feli was talking about?”

“Y-Yes. My name is Ilse.”

So, this is the girl that Feli said was ill. In terms of age, she is a little younger than Feli. In my former life, she would have probably been in the upper grades of elementary school or so.

“Don’t sweat it. Feli also helped me a lot.”

“Um, is Big Brother Feli all right…?”

“Don’t worry, he’s fine”

At any rate, he is a member of the hero’s party, so he should be fine. That’s my only basis for this answer, but in a situation like this, I have to express it with confidence. I shouldn’t make her worried.

Perhaps reassured by my answer, she bowed to me with a relieved expression and exited the room with a toddling sound. Haha, she looks like a small animal. She makes me want to protect her.

When I returned my attention to the elderly woman, she looked apologetic. No need for that look, ma’am. I won’t be angry just because she interrupted us.

“She’s an adorable girl. Is she Feli’s younger sister?”

“No, I don’t think… they are related by blood.”

Apparently, the reason she can’t say for sure is that they were both abandoned as babies. Well, they certainly didn’t resemble each other very much. Feli and IIsa’s appearance are quite different.

Still, I can understand why Feli felt so indebted to me when I helped her.

But this is troubling. I succeeded in persuading Father to support the orphanage in the name of Zeavert house, though I received his fierce glare. To think the orphanage is involved in a land dispute with the other side having the actual land right… If it’s regarding the law, Father is quite strict.

Just supporting the orphanage will be manageable, but since the support is done on the name of the Zeavert house, the actual owner of the orphanage building will definitely complain to the Zeavert house. Their side has the right, so if I want to protect the orphanage, I will need to help the owner of the public bathhouse with their financial trouble. I can’t do that.

…Hmm? No, wait. Isn’t this an opportunity to shove all my trouble to others?

“For now, I will just give this donation. I will be back soon.”

“Pardon? Ah, Yes.”

The elderly woman looked confused about my sudden action, but I ignored her. I only have a rough idea now, but I’m sure it’s a good idea. The issue is the budget. Anyway, after I return home, I’ll work out the budget.

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