I Regressed to My Ruined Family – 16

 #I returned, and my family was ruined (16)

He grabbed Haims’s neck, which was trembling, and lifted him up.

“Ugh, ugh!”

He simply lifted him up, but the boy was screaming all sorts of things.

It was deafening.

‘I need to shut him up first.’

He punched him once in his thick belly.

“Guh!”

“Shut up.”

“Guh! Guh! Your Highness! Why are you doing this to me…?”

“The ledger.”

At those words, Haims’ eyes trembled.

“I knew it.”

He must have the ledger related to taxes.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t be trembling like that.

“Where did you put it?”

“I don’t have it… Kuaah!”

He immediately snapped one of the man’s fingers. Haims’ eyes filled with fear when he saw the finger start to dangle.

“From now on, every time you say something stupid, I’ll break one.”

“Ugh.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s…

As soon as he placed his hand on the ring finger next to the little finger, the man screamed in agony.

“Ugh! I’ll tell you! Please!”

“I told you to answer right away.”

Snap!

A second scream rang out.

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Only after two fingers were broken did the man begin to speak.

“The ledger is kept in my office at the Nam Nam family residence!”

“Not that one. There must be another ledger you’re keeping separately. Are you still not getting it?”

“There isn’t any… Aaah!”

Pluck!

This time, it was the middle finger.

Haim screamed loudly. Torture was one of Ethan’s specialties.

In his previous life, there were countless humans who had attached themselves to the Yongin tribe.

Whenever he encountered such a person, he would thoroughly torture and interrogate them, starting with the fact that they had betrayed their people, and then extracting all the information they had given to the Yongin tribe.

Even knights couldn’t withstand his torture. How could a tax collector from a viscount’s domain?

Extracting information was a piece of cake.

“Be quiet.”

“… Ugh.”

Ethan quietly looked at Haims’ fingers.

He looked at each one very carefully.

Seven.

He was saying it with his actions.

There were still many fingers left to break.

Haim’s pupils trembled violently.

The Grand Duke’s eyes were filled with conviction.

‘How on earth does he know this?

‘Officially,’ tax collectors could only collect the maximum tax rate. However, the reality of the domain was completely different.

This was because all tax collectors collected additional taxes. The details were kept in a secret ledger.

His cheeks trembled.

If he said anything here, even his fourth finger would be crushed.

It was a perfect dead end.

Haim closed his eyes tightly and shouted.

“The rest of the ledgers are kept at my house! Please spare my life! Prince!”

“Where is your house?”

“It’s in the nearby village of Mirkon!”

He looked at Hans.

“Mirkon is a village about two hours’ walk from here.”

He nodded and let Haims down.

“Lead the way.”

“…Yes.”

The boy looked at the soldiers with sad eyes. However, not a single soldier met his gaze.

Haim began to walk forward weakly.

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“Walk faster. Unless you want your fingers to be broken.”

“Hee-hee!”

The tax collector began to walk as if he were running, as if the threat had worked.

Perhaps because of his fat body, he couldn’t walk very fast.

The soldiers who saw the three men leave looked confused.

“…What should we do?”

“Should we follow them?”

No one told them not to follow.

But it was also difficult to follow them without any reason.

This was the man who had casually broken the tax collector’s finger. If they followed him, they might end up getting into trouble.

“Oh, now that I think about it, the knight…”

“That’s right!”

The other soldiers quickly agreed with one soldier’s words.

Now they had a good excuse not to follow. The soldiers began to approach the knight, who was lying in the grass far away.

* *

Mircon was a village a little smaller than Beros.

Even there, Haim’s house stood out. It was because he was living in a place that looked better than the hunting lodge belonging to his family.

The monthly salary of a baron’s administrator was nothing to write home about.

It would be impossible to build such a residence on such a salary.

“He’s been living the high life.”

He entered the house with the man. Several servants inside the house looked at Ethan and Hans with puzzled expressions.

“Send them all out.”

“Yes! Everyone, get out!”

Soon, the house was completely empty. Haims arrived at the study and began rummaging through the bookshelves.

It didn’t take long for a secret space to be revealed.

“Here… it is.”

He opened the ledger.

The secret ledger contained a list of additional taxes that had been collected.

“What a mess.”

If he added the protection tax to this amount, the taxes collected each month would account for more than 60% of the income of the people of the domain.

Considering that even the highest tax rate is usually around half of total income, the taxes in the baron’s domain were murderous.

With corruption so rampant, it was no wonder that tax collectors would choose to live in a place that looked better than a hunting lodge.

“You’ve taken so much. Even if you took my limbs, I wouldn’t have anything to say, tax collector.”

“Hee hee! That… That wasn’t my doing! The baron ordered me to do it!”

“What did he order you to do?”

“He told me to secretly collect additional taxes… He clearly said so!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I can swear on my life! If you look at the secret ledger, you’ll see the amount I handed over to the baron!”

It was just as Haims had said.

He had collected an additional 15% in taxes and handed 12% of that to the baron. That meant that the pig in front of him had pocketed 3%.

He looked at Hans, who nodded quietly.

The job was done.

“The safe?”

“……Yes?”

He immediately grabbed his finger.

Then, very naturally, the location of the safe slipped out. Only after taking all of his emergency money did he let go of his finger.

He tapped the guy on the shoulder.

“Good job.”

“No, it’s not…… Ugh!”

With a chilling sound, his shoulder bones shattered into pieces.

Fearing he might make a loud noise like before, I kindly blocked his throat with mana.

All he could do was wriggle like a worm.

“Ugh, ugh!”

He was communicating with his eyes.

Why was he doing this?

There was no need to answer.

If he didn’t know the real reason, then he was just a fool who didn’t deserve an answer.

Crunch! Crunch!

He blew mana into his hands and put all his strength into his fists.

Each time he did, the bones crumbled.

Unable to endure the pain, Haims fainted.

Ethan smiled quietly.

Death was too much of a luxury for a guy like this.

It would be much better to make him suffer for the rest of his life.

Just like right now.

“This should be enough to keep him in a nursing home for the rest of his life.”

“That’s right. There’s not a single spot on him that’s intact… He’ll never walk again.”

Hans, who had been quietly watching the whole scene, replied with sweat dripping down his face.

“The video?”

“I recorded it.”

He picked up the memory modifier. He had purchased it three days ago after placing an order with an information agency.

The memory modifier contained every word Haim had just uttered.

“There’s about 90% of the capacity left.”

“You’ll be busy.”

Ethan said bluntly.

It wasn’t hard to guess why he would be busy. He would turn all of the baron’s minions into cripples until the memory modifier was full.

“He’s a scary man.”

How would the baron respond?

The crown prince had immunity. That meant he couldn’t be held responsible. Besides, there was a valid reason for punishing Haims.

He had collected taxes far exceeding the maximum rate.

That meant this side had the moral high ground.

“We have no choice but to watch as they continue to be picked off one by one.”

Sending troops against the descendant of a great hero was sheer madness.

The world would not stand idly by and watch. The only thing the baron could do was send an assassin.

However…

“No matter how I look at it…”

It was unlikely that that formidable man would meet his end at the hands of an assassin. “Paper and pen.”

“Here you are.”

Ethan began to write a letter.

There was only one line.

“Deliver this to the baron.”

“In person…?”

Hans’ voice trembled slightly.

If he went to the baron himself, he would surely face his wrath head-on.

Being the target of his anger was not a pleasant prospect.

Fortunately, Ethan shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter how you do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hans’ bag was heavy, probably because he had emptied the contents of the safe. However, Hans’ footsteps were light, unlike the bag.

The two men left the mansion.

* *

Baron Helmut.

He stared intently at the letter that had been delivered to him. The letter, which was said to have been sent by the Grand Duke, was very simple.

You are collecting much more tax than what is written in the contract.

That was all.

However, the meaning behind those words was not light.

He recalled the reports he had been receiving for the past three days.

Already, more than three tax collectors had been kidnapped by the Grand Duke.

To make matters worse, all three had been found the next day with their limbs broken.

“Damn it!”

Bang!

He slammed his fist on the desk.

“That bastard.”

It was useless to assign knights to protect the tax collectors.

The news was spreading that even the official knights, who were supposed to be skilled swordsmen, had been killed without even being able to make a single proper cut.

That didn’t mean he could make this a public issue.

The Grand Duke had not only stripped his subordinates of everything, but also sent them a warning letter.

“If I spread word of this…”

The Grand Duke would start bringing up the contents of the vassal contract. If that happened, he would be at a disadvantage.

It was a situation where he couldn’t even fight for justice.

“What does he want?”

What was he trying to gain by pressuring him like this?

“Could he be asking me to resign?”

Ethan.

The day he would turn twenty on his next birthday.

That was the day the head of the duke’s family would be elected.

“Since the Flowering Ceremony is impossible, they will elect the head of the family in another way.”

The Flowering Ceremony.

It was the way the duke’s family elected the deputy head. The heir who emitted the strongest black flame would take the position of deputy head.

However, it was known that all the visionary techniques taught to the direct descendants of the Duke’s family had been lost.

That meant it was impossible to hold the Flowering Ceremony.

No one could emit black flames anymore.

“Is that why they’ve been pressuring me so much?”

To make me give up and turn me into their supporter?

With the clear selection criteria gone, the process of determining the head of the family was likely to turn into a power struggle.

That must be why they wanted to bring me in.

The worried baron brought a mana stone to the communication crystal.

After a moment, someone appeared inside the crystal.

“Is there something you need to contact me about?”

“The situation with the count is rather serious.”

It was Cheiman, the head of the Pernes family. He reported to him everything that Helmut had been through.

“It seems that the Grand Duke is using the contents of the vassal contract to blackmail me. What should we do?”

“So… you think the Grand Duke is deliberately playing dirty to lure you in?”

“I think so.”

―Then do as he says.

“……What?”

―Pretend to go along with him. After all, we need to gather more information about the Grand Duke right now. I think you can handle it.

‘Huh.’

Seeing the count respond indifferently, Helmut let out a silent laugh.

It was no different from saying that he would throw himself as bait and see how the Grand Duke would react.

Even if the Count of Karagas was the weakest of the ten branches of the family, he didn’t expect him to use him as a pawn like this.

He felt dirty, but there was no other way.

“…I understand.”

―Good luck, Count.

The connection was cut.

The baron sighed and called for his steward.

“Send the third son to the hunting lodge. Tell him to behave with respect toward the prince and invite him to the baron’s residence with the utmost courtesy.”

“Understood, Baron.”

He felt he had to meet the prince first.