“What? For free?”
Of course it’s free.
Giving away paper was an alien idea. This stuff was fairly expensive.
“It’s fine,” I reassured him. “Sometimes victory goes to whoever was the least tightfisted.”
“Okay...”
“Can I leave the rest to you?”
“Me?”
“I’d help, but I went through all of this last night.” I waved the manuscript in front of him. “Since I’ve already missed one night of sleep, I’m close to passing out. You’ll have to handle the rest without me.”
My mind felt hazy, and I knew I’d collapse if I tried to keep going.
“Of course. It’ll get noisy in here, so I suggest sleeping in the office.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
After dragging myself back to the office building, I lay down on a couch in the reception area by the entrance. I fell asleep the moment I stopped willing myself to stay awake.
“Lord Yuri! Lord Yuri!”
Sunlight had already begun to enter the room from outside when a grating voice woke me up.
I felt like I’d slept for a long time. Looking at the office clock through my sleepy eyes, I saw that it was 7 a.m. Given that I’d gone to sleep around sunset, I must’ve slept for about ten hours.
With bleary eyes, I went over to the front door, where the voice was coming from. I tried to open it, but it was locked. Starsha must’ve closed up during the night.
Once I’d gotten the door unlocked, I opened it to find Jano Ek prostrating himself on the ground. Long ago, his uncle Rakunu Ek had caused a lot of trouble while Gok’s successor was being chosen. His family had since been reformed with Jano as its representative, and he was currently Suomi’s acting governor.
“What’s going on?” I could guess, but I asked anyway.
“Please allow me to aid you in your fight against the witches! I beg you!” Jano’s head was pressed against the stone cobbles outside.
“Sorry, but no.”
“I beg you!”
No matter how hard he pushed his forehead to the ground, I wasn’t even going to consider the possibility. I’d gotten a fairly good understanding of what went on here in Suomi through my involvement with trade, so I knew how awful a governor he was.
The region had once been a fief belonging to the Ek family, but control had reverted to the Ho family after the Eks had been disgraced. As an acting governor, Jano was essentially here to represent the Ho family.
Jano failed to understand the economy, he engaged in nepotism by directing the courts to favor his friends and family, he showed preferable treatment to whoever would give him bribes, and everything considered, he was an all-around good-for-nothing. He was an amalgamation of all the bad habits someone could pick up at the Knight Academy, and he had no idea how much damage he was causing.
Jano was also tyrannical toward the people. At times, the townsfolk had submitted petitions to Ho Company, appealing to me as the Ho family’s heir, but there hadn’t been anything I could’ve done.
During Rook’s time, I’d made multiple requests for Jano to be disciplined in some way, but to no avail. Jano had gotten lucky because a certain company had decided to use Suomi as its base of operations, which had caused explosive growth in the local economy and created the false impression that the region was being well managed.
No good would come of restoring this cretin to his former power. The existence of idiots like him was the biggest flaw in the knighthood system. I was even less willing to let him take charge of Suomi now that I’d turned it into an economic center.
“It’s no use asking when the war’s already beginning. As I’m sure you’re aware, you won’t be able to command effectively unless you’re in charge of your own knights who you’ve trained yourself. I could restore your authority, but you wouldn’t be able to head into battle until you’d raised an army.”
These were lies. I’d already decided that finding an excuse to fire this guy would be one of my first acts after taking charge of the Ho family, but telling him that would just create further headaches. For now, I wanted to avoid trouble; I’d deal with him once we were in a time of peace.
“I’ll find a way!” Jano Ek began scraping his forehead against the cobbles.
He’d certainly convinced me of one thing—he was incredibly desperate. But I knew he was rotten to the core.
“Sorry, but there isn’t time. A day will come when I’ll have use for you. For now, please be patient.”
I ignored Jano Ek and headed over to the print shop next door.
“M-Mr. Chairman, here’s what we’ve printed so far,” the foreman stuttered, trying to suppress his surprise.
I accepted a cloth bag from him, which contained several bundles of paper that had been cut and bound together using twine.
“Oh, and here’s a sample.”
The foreman handed me a loose flyer so I could see how well they’d turned out. As was typical of relief printing methods, the ink creating each individual character lay within a precisely shaped depression.
“Thanks. Once you’ve made about three times as many, stop and go back to printing holy books.”
“Got it,” he replied.
“Starsha.”
Starsha was looking at the noble next to us, his face still pressed to the floor. She seemed unsure how to react.
“This way.” I urged her to follow me.
Once we were back in the office, I began writing on the back of the sample flyer.
“Remind me when there’ll next be a ship returning from the Albio Republic,” I said.
“In three days...”
That was ideal timing. These schedules were awfully unreliable, so she might’ve been off by a day or two, but it’d be soon enough nonetheless.
I went behind the reception desk and helped myself to the office stationary. As expected, I found some envelopes. I put the flyer that I’d just written on inside an envelope, then sealed it by melting the wax with my lighter. Then, on the front, I put my signature and the recipient’s name.
“Have the ship carry this,” I told Starsha.
“Yes, sir.”
After handing her the envelope, I headed up to the roof and flew back to Kalakumo.