A few hours since the last chapter…

Tristan, Royal Capitol, The Doll House

 

“Are people going to accept teaching prostitutes and slaves?” Kasha asked.

 

She had changed out of her lacey bra contraption and into a proper dress, most of the women were being fed a large meal, and the atmosphere in the brothel was lively even though there weren't any customers inside. Ashton sat at a table that was buried in paperwork like accounting books, guest books, and logs. A frown crossed his face when he heard the question and he couldn’t help but sigh in frustration. Holding up a gold coin from the table, he decided to use it to make his point.

 

“Do you know what this is?” He asked.

 

“A gold coin,” Kasha said hesitantly.

 

“It is money, and money has a magical effect on people. Even if something is considered dirty, heinous, or even criminal, then there are highly qualified people out there who are willing to do it regardless.” Ashton explained ”Teaching prostitutes to read and write? That is nothing for the power of money.”

 

“You still never told me why you are doing this…” Kasha asked with some urgency.

 

“When you do the math, slavery isn’t profitable or sustainable. You are left with workers who have no skills or incentive to work, and you are paying money to keep them alive on top of what you spent to buy them in the first place. This is a lose-lose situation for everyone and the accounting books are proof of that, the manager was the only non-slave who worked here besides a barkeep, so the profits are only average at best.” Ashton commented.

 

“How is that possible… we were full almost every night… we all suffered so much…” Kasha said as tears began to fill her eyes.

 

“Making a copy of a book can net you a gold coin but it takes half a year to make the money. If you all learned to read and write and moved to just copy books all day then you could all buy your freedom in less than five years if you are determined.” Ashton commented. “A paper miller can do it in about seven years and a seamstress can do it in eight or nine, this is if you keep half your pay mind you. Currently, I could keep every single one of you working on your backs under the current system and sell you all when you get old, but I would barely make any profit.”

 

Ashton hated using terms like this when referring to people, but he was also making a gamble here after doing plenty of research. What he discovered was that just like Earth, this was also a developing world and skilled labor would be highly valued anywhere. Apprenticeships were the most common practice where someone took on a young worker who would eventually inherit the business when the owners got too old and then care for them until they passed away. Winfield existed for the sake of passing on special skills that nobles considered necessary to govern their lands no matter how small. Most of it was tax law and all of the ridiculous etiquette that had developed over the last few hundred years. The history lessons were heavily lampshaded by patriotism and nationalism, filled with propaganda. The only thing that could be gained from that place was the connections you needed to grow your business.

 

“But then... wouldn’t we quit being prostitutes?” A woman asked in confusion.

 

“That’s right if you can show me you can make more money doing something else then I don’t care what it is, but you are required to do well at it. The condition for going to the school is that you are either working for the Grayfield house, or you are a slave working to pay back your debt to the house for purchasing you.” Ashton made this announcement loud enough that everyone could hear him. “The school is a resource, and as long as you are working in some way then I don’t care what it is. If you don’t need to sleep with customers because your time is better spent elsewhere then that is good!”

 

“What if someone doesn’t work?” A woman asked with some curiosity.

 

“If they are a slave and they don’t like the conditions here then we can send them back to the slave seller. Unfortunately, I have a lot of taxes to pay and if I want to keep my status as a great noble then I have to make this profitable.” Ashton said calmly and clearly.

 

This caused the atmosphere in the room to die down a little, and tension hung over the room but Ashton wasn’t a saint. He had to find a way to live in this world and if he came under harsh enough scrutiny then his entire act would crumble apart. There was already bad blood between him and the church and if people thought he was possessed then he would probably be killed even if he was a great noble. What he wanted to do was create a financial incentive to abolish slavery and then push for public schooling.

 

“A damn grade-schooler could have done a better job with this accounting! Who the hell writes out the numbers as words. No one wants to read that they took in forty-eight silver and nineteen copper and then have to add all that shit up!” Ashton tossed the useless book after he had condensed down into several pages the entire contents after converting everything into numbers and then breaking it down into a ledger. “Am I going to have to do this in every single business!?”

 

Kasha walked up behind him and started looking over the ledger but it caused her head to start spinning from the dense wall of numbers being added and subtracted together. What took up an entire book had been condensed down into just a few pages by using numbers and removing the explanations. A Dark elf wearing a nun’s habit came forward with a turkey bone sticking out of her mouth from the drumstick she had been gnawing on. Grease coated her face and after having a few drinks she was slightly tipsy as she looked over the papers seriously.

 

“Why are the costs for running this place so high?” She asked.

 

“This shit is worth more than its weight in gold!” Ashton cursed, tossing a bag of powder on the table. “I have ten girls who are addicted to this powder and it is going to take months to rehabilitate them!”

 

“Rehabituate?” Kasha asked.

 

“No, rehabilitate. It means I need to get them off the drugs so they can be normal again.” Ashton explained.

 

“Why are you doing this? This is quite a change for you?” The dark elf asked.

 

“Haven’t you heard that I was almost killed a few nights ago? I had a revelation, and that was that money is transitory.” Ashton explained. “It will not stay with you when you are cold and it can not fill your belly without being spent on food. Ideas, however, can last forever once they are turned into their real form, this is called investing and it is much better than money.”

 

“What is an investment?” She asked.

 

“Alright, Nadia. Let’s say that you have one hundred gold coins and someone wants to open a bakery, and for 50 gold coins, he can open a large one and hire many workers. For loaning him the gold, he will pay you a portion of the profits that his business makes and you will be required to pay a portion of the losses. If his business does well then you can make a lot of money over a long period by gaining a portion of the profit, much more than what you initially paid.” Ashton explained before motioning to the tables filled with food. “You can also eat all the bread that you like.”

 

“And you think these women are worth investing in?” Nadia, the disgraceful nun asked him.

 

“Ten years from now, slavery will be looked at as something wasteful and a fantasy for the misinformed,” Ashton said confidently. 

 

“But isn’t the school you are planning to make going to be expensive?” Nadia asked as if she found his weak spot. 

 

Before Ashton could respond, the door was pushed open by a balding middle-aged man with a troubled expression. His brown horseshoe hair was peppered in gray and he had clothes that were patchy but appeared to have been relatively stylish at one point. He looked around and immediately put his head down in embarrassment when he saw all of the women wearing revealing clothing. With a red face and a mouth that was opening and closing, he looked like a fish that was out of water.

 

“Kasha?” Ashton chided.

 

She suddenly shook herself out of her confusion and put on a welcoming smile and walked over to the man gracefully, he suddenly looked relieved to see a woman that he didn’t feel uncomfortable staring at. The older man seemed gracious and had a humble smile as he looked at the dogwoman, which caught her off guard.

 

“Welcome to The Doll House, what can I do for you?” She said warmly.

 

“I saw the sign outside that said you were looking for people who could teach trades or skills?”  The man asked with some hesitation as he looked around the building with confusion.

 

The building had been thoroughly aired out and any window that could be open was opened to let the evening breeze stream into the building. Beretta had gone to get flowers and brought back an incredible array that looked like snapdragons and came in many hues that could transition to every color in the color wheel. The smell it released was soothing, and it added some much-needed color to the wooden floors and the stone walls on the first floor. Ashton was already planning to have the entire floor remodeled into something more formal and get rid of the raised platform that the girls used to stand on.

 

“I make shoes, and my mother is a seamstress…” The man began hesitantly. 

 

“How long have you... been in the business for?” Ashton asked, reverting to Ashe’s normal style.

 

“Lord Grayfield!” The man was startled before he quickly took a knee. “I have made shoes for seventeen years!”

 

Ashton wanted to facepalm when he got this reaction, but since Kasha couldn’t read or write yet, he couldn’t have her do the interview process. But while he could act normally around the people nearest him, he had to put on an act in front of others.

 

“What… materials… do you work with?” No matter what he tried it sounded like he was talking about something illegal but he just rolled with it.

 

“We work with leather, cloth, reeds, wood, whatever materials we can get. One copper for every silver!” the man said in good humor. Realizing who he was speaking to, he quickly went rigid. “My Lord!” 

 

Ashton had to suppress the smile from growing on his face when he looked at the miserly fellow, suddenly the patches on his clothes made a lot more sense. Just like Ashton would fix his damaged work uniforms to save those few extra dollars on his paycheck to buy more anime or video games. 

 

“Do you… have a store?” Ashton asked.

 

This question caused the man’s smile to freeze and he could see some hesitation cross the man’s face, he began to feel frustrated because his character wasn’t well suited for these purposes. Suddenly the dark elf nun, as if seeing her chance to shine, stepped forward with a kind and graceful look on her face every bit like a saint. Kneeling on the ground in front of the man, she placed her gloved hands on his shoulders and helped lift him onto his feet with a smile. She then started to take over for Ashton and kept shooting him glances over her shoulder, he could see the greed in her eyes as she looked at the bags of gold on the table next to him.

 

“Why don’t you tell us a bit about your situation first,” Nadia asked kindly. “We might even be able to help you!” 

 

“I have eleven kids, and my wife is pregnant with the twelfth.” The man said proudly with a smile. “It has gotten expensive and she can’t help me like she used to. We get a lot of orders but I can’t fill them all and the children just aren’t interested in the business! They want to be an adventurer like their mom!”

 

The man seemed kind of upset, something about the warmth that came from Nadia made him feel like he could trust her. He decided to go a bit further into the situation even though he felt like it might hurt his chances. 

 

“I am not noble, so I have to rent property from a noble, but the taxes are six coins for every ten. I can’t make enough money to do anything! The cost of the materials alone takes up most of my profits so I can only grow the business slowly! Since my oldest daughter is my successor, I can’t take in any apprentices since no one wants to be a shoemaker and have to start from nothing!” The man looked like he was at the end of his rope. “But I just keep getting busier!”

 

“And by teaching you are hoping to… hire some of the...students?” Ashton asked directly.

 

The man suddenly looked like he had been caught red-handed, he needed help and apprenticeships would cause problems for his daughter who wanted to inherit the business. If it was a skill like blacksmithing that could make you a fortune then finding apprentices who would come to learn was easy, but shoemaking wasn’t like that. This made it hard to pass on since it needed a lot of different skills.

 

“I like people like you... you think outside of the box.” Ashton told the man seriously. “What is the worst that can happen… you get told no... and waste a little time?”

 

Ashton was interrupted here during one of his pauses when the door was pushed open and a man wearing a bright vest and breeches walked in the door with flowing long blonde hair. His eyes began to gleam as he looked around at the revealing dress worn by the women and he looked like a wolf. Kasha seemed to go on guard when she saw this expression and moved forward to greet him.

 

“Welcome to The Doll House, what can I do for you?” She said with some caution.

 

He looked at her and saw the collar around her neck and sneered in disgust before he looked around the room and noticed that most of the women were collared. Suddenly his eyes stopped on an absolute beauty with blood-red hair and white ears that were red tipped. He couldn’t help himself from whistling when he saw her and seemed to ignore the collar that was above her large pert breasts. 

 

“What a beaut!” He said with a deep accent. “Crikey! Now, that is a mountain I want to climb!”

 

Looking down her waspish waist, he could tell that through her dress she had a pinched waistline that led to a firm ass with her visible tails flailing behind her angrily, but he didn’t notice. A large grin stretched across the man’s face and he began nodding happily as he wiggled his eyebrows. Reaching down and readjusting his pants, he finally looked above her chest and saw a snarling fox fead complete with fangs and drool. The erection he had been slowly cultivating suddenly melted like snow on a warm day and he found himself turning his attention to the first uncollared person he saw.

 

“Mate! Ya got a fuckin problem! What the fuck is that?!” He screamed at the balding middle-aged man in rage with veins starting to appear on his head. “This place is shit, ya damn drongo!”

 

Suddenly a shadowy hand reached up with a pair of scissors in her gloved hand and cut the thick leather belt he was wearing. With the sound of rustling, his pants fell to his ankles and revealed what the angry blonde man was packing under his underwear. This prank by Beretta backfired when the man who was sporting a Vienna sausage began to shake it around proudly under his underwear at the middle-aged man.

 

“Ya want to see my prick?! Well! Go on!” The blonde man reacted with no change in expression.

 

“Kumi-” Ashton began when he heard a bang followed by the sound of crunching bones. 

 

The man fell on his face as his legs were cut out from under him by the force of a tail slamming forward with the power of a falling tree. The sick crunch came from his knees that were now bent at the wrong angles with a bone sticking out below his kneecaps and soaking his green breeches in blood that were hung around his ankles. What shocked Ashton the most was the nonchalance of the man who had just experienced having his legs broken. The only sound he made was a grunt when the air was knocked out of him.

 

After taking several deep breaths to get his air back, he turned an angry look onto the middle-aged man.

 

“Oh… mate! Wait until I get healed!” The blonde man threatened.

 

The middle-aged man had his jaw slightly open in shock at how the man on the ground was so calm after having his legs broken, but the guy didn’t even flinch. Instead, he seemed to take the middle-aged man’s silence as a further provocation.

 

“Whatcha lookin at ya git?! Ya think I’m jokin? Do ya think this is a game?!” He began yelling from his prone position. “Fine! Here I come ya bastard!”

 

With one hand in front of the other, he began to crawl his way over the light red carpet leaving a long red stain behind him. 

 

“Gonna make ya fuckin regret it!” The man kept a straight face as his legs dangled and dragged behind him. “Orderin the pooch to attack me! Gonna teach ya real good for tha!”

 

Kumiho looked at the tail she had used to slap the man as if she was wondering if it was broken. Giving the long tail a heavy swing as a test, she brought it down on a chair causing it to crunch into splinters. Convinced that her tail couldn’t be broken, she raised it above the crawling man and brought it right down on one of his arms causing another sickening crunch. The man looked at his right arm for less than a moment before he began laughing victoriously at the balding middle-aged man. 

 

“Mate! I am left-handed! Ya took the trainin’ gloves off yaself!” He began to use his left arm to drag himself towards the middle-aged man who was looking at him like he was a monster. “First I’ll show ya who’s boss, then I’ll be screwin that poo-”

 

He was cut off by another tail slamming down and rendering his last arm a broken mess, with his right arm also gone Ashton had thought he would give up. 

 

“Do ya see the size of these teeth I got?! All ya have done is delay ya fate!” Using his chin as a new form of propulsion, and a savage snarl on his face the trail of blood he was leaving behind him was only growing bigger. 

 

Suddenly the tail that Kumiho lashed out much more viciously as it hit the man directly in the face and caused him to roll out of the door with blood and teeth following him. But that didn’t stop the man from trying to gurgle out a response as he went through the heavy wooden doors. This tenacity and resilience to pain was something that Ashton had never seen before and it took a few moments for him to be able to come out of his stupor.

 

“He told you that he will be back once he gets some healing done, so you best prepare!~” Beretta told him merrily. “Should I kill him?~”

 

“No! I think he was just a pest.” Ashton whispered. “We can leave him since he seems to be weaker than Nadia.” 

 

“Kumiho thinks she should go eat him! Why does he get better treatment than a cockroach!?” She chimed in since she had incredible hearing.

 

The middle-aged man’s response to this was to sit back with a smile on his face and pretend that none of it happened. This was apathy that was bred from insisting on keeping your head down and working no matter what tragedies were happening around you. As a teacher, he would ensure that his job was done to the best of his abilities and treat all outside interference as just noise. A job interview did not end until you left the building and being able to see how someone dealt with a stressful situation was a plus.

 

“I think that I would... like to hire you,” Ashton told him. “Your temperament… is exactly what I need… You will be teaching prostitutes... and women who have good figures... if I had seen signs of lecherousness from you… Well… let’s not talk about that.” 

 

Since the teachers were going to be different from the slaves, he felt he needed to keep up the act since the intimidation would go a long way to ensure the women’s safety. He would ideally like to hire mostly female staff for his college, but he knew that men could be trusted as long as they had the temperament. The moment a scandal happened involving a student and a teacher, just like in modern days, it would be a big deal. Avoiding a situation like this early would be the difference between creating an image with a lasting legacy and creating something that would become a joke.

 

“Is the pay four gold coins a year?” The middle-aged man asked with excitement.

 

***

Meanwhile…

Tristain, Royal Capitol, Church of Artoll

 

Like Galvos, Artoll was also a god who was attached to virtues like justice and righteousness, this meant he often came into conflict with Galvos who put prowess above all else. Things like slavery, which the Artollians likened to Artoll’s time in servitude, were seen as a noble undertaking to pay back your debts to society. Their priests tended to be more like paladins who were righteous and quick to punish the wicked. A man with short red hair and freckles wearing a formal brown priest's robe could be seen entering the compound.

 

Claw marks could be seen covering his hands from wounds inflicted by a cat that had its tail ran over by a carriage. The man had chased down the poor creature and endured its attack to make sure that it was healthy! Artoll was known more for his smiting light than his ability to heal but the man found that he seemed to have a gift for reaching out to the gods and they would readily respond to him. What most people felt was an oppressive force that seemed to overwhelm them when they completed a prayer and invoked a god to complete a spell, but to him, they just felt incredibly lonely.

 

This was a thought he had to keep to himself because he would be called a heretic if he ever shared it with anyone else in the clergy. The gods were infallible and attaching traits like loneliness or any weak characteristic would instantly have inquisitors knocking at your doors. He already had enough problems as it was since his only redeeming quality seemed to be his healing. When it came to everything else like invoking the smiting light of Artoll, he could only be considered second rate at best. 

 

“Greetings, Brother Michael!” An old man at the gates called to the young man.

 

“Greetings, Father Basil! The bunion on Countess Elaine’s foot has been successfully removed!” the young man replied quickly.

 

“That’s great!” The old priest said, looking around quickly before turning a fierce expression on the young man. “But that isn’t the information that people need to be hearing! We have a reputation to maintain!”

 

“Right! Sorry, father…” He apologized quickly.

 

 “Healing doesn’t earn the church anything! You need to get better at exorcism or become an inquisitor if you want to achieve anything! Why do you think Breanna is giving up on you?” The old man continued to chide.

 

“Your right Father, most churches offer free healing now, but it just feels right to me. I will find a way to make it work!” The boy offered quickly.

 

“Get inside! You are holding up the line!” Someone called from behind him.

 

 “Sorry!” The red-headed man called before rushing inside after offering a formal bow to the old man at the gates. 

 

Most churches had a compound in the royal capital where they trained priests and paladins who were specialized in defeating things like demons, undead, and creatures that manipulated the mind. The large stone building was meant to look simple while containing a solemn atmosphere created from sharp lines, arches, and sloped ceilings that were better suited for snow than the rain that washed over Tristain. The temple itself was a small shrine inside the heart of a large round complex with various barracks, a mess hall, and study rooms for the various priests. To Ashton, it would resemble a donut with a sloped ceiling and a stone gazebo in the center surrounded by pillars containing the teachings of Artoll.

 

Instead of heading to the men’s section on the right, he headed to the women’s section on the left and more importantly the large dirt lot that was used for training. He had a spring in his step and a smile on his face after having helped several people he met along the way. Treating the injured was the one thing that brought him meaning in life, and even though healing potions had made it a mostly free service, he felt that this matched his humble personality. There weren't many things he cared about in life, or that he felt truly mattered, but one thing that was important to him was his childhood friend Breanna. 

 

Seeing a woman wearing shining silver armor that lacked embellishments as a training piece, she was fighting a large man who was twice her size. The woman was the same age as Michael, but she had a cold expression and her dark brown hair and eyes only highlighted the fury that she was wielding the lance she had with. As people who had grown up as neighbors, and entered the church together at the same time, she would normally pause when she saw him to greet him warmly. Instead, when she noticed him at the side of the arena she just scowled.

 

“Why are you here Michael?” She asked him with an icy tone.

 

He paused when he saw the coldness that she normally directed at others was pointed squarely at him, and suddenly he felt confusion.

 

“Breanna, what’s wrong? Why are you acting that way?” He asked.

 

She began laughing as if she was hearing a joke, but it sounded more like she was laughing at herself than at him. 

 

“Mary told me that she saw you go into the brothel! I didn’t believe her at first so I went down there and found out from one of the girls that someone matching your description and wearing your clothes bought two prostitutes with a gold coin! The same amount that you were supposed to get paid from the job you just performed!” She accused him harshly.

 

“Breanna, that is nonsense!” Reaching into the pocket of his robe for the payment he got from the noble, he suddenly paused when he felt a hole in the fabric of his robe. 

 

“Well? Prove me wrong then!” She demanded.

 

The hole was a jagged tear that he realized had probably come from the tree branch he had to climb to get to the cat that had a broken tail. If you had a wart or a growth like a bunion, then a priest was needed since a healing potion would restore the wart or bunion if it was removed. A priest could invoke their god to perform healing that created new instead of returning the old, that was where priests like him could still make their money. Restoring the dead to life was also possible if it was done in a quick enough fashion and this had even saved kings before. It is why the bodies were reduced to ashes or poisoned so thoroughly they would instantly die again if any was left.

 

“You can’t! Can you!” She yelled at him angrily.

 

“I found an injured cat on the way! I never went to the brothel!” He tried to explain himself but she just smiled at him viciously.

 

“Do you know why I never slept with you?” She suddenly asked.

 

This question caught him off guard and he suddenly remembered that she had taken his first kiss and he had held her hand.

 

“You would know that I had lost my purity! I had been sleeping with Brutus instead! He and his brother are just the first of many to come!” She said as she patted the large armor-clad man’s chest causing him to remove his helmet and show dazzling golden locks and a perfect smile. 

 

The man was built like a gorilla with arms that were thicker than Francis’ legs and from his armor, he could tell that he was in incredible shape. This was made even worse when a man wearing priest robes sporting a similar appearance walked forward smiling happily as he embraced his brother and the brown-haired woman. Things got even more awkward when a man who looked like he was thirteen but was wearing the robes of an adult priest walked up showing glimmering green hair and large green eyes. The pointed ears on the boy’s head instantly made it clear that he was an elf who was probably in his late eighties.

 

“This is Woodrow. He is my most recent audition.” She told him coldly. “I had been trying you out, but I just don’t feel like there's any room for a childhood friend in my harem!”

 

Next Chapter: A Loophole in the Tax System