Top floor on Redcliffe castle.

Claire withdraws a large piece of paper and lays it on the desk. It is a sketch snappily made.

"I made this gradually when I tour around southern Castall."

Claire is really talented cartographer even by the standard of my modern world.

Her left palm holds the paper while index finger of right hand points at an region on the map

As I am familiar with mapping, I immediately know it is buffer zone between Castall, Hinterland and Gwaren.

Her finger then moves to below. Claire explains,

"This is northern region of Castall. The land protecting the border is owned by Knight house of Virginia. The current head is Count Noir Virginia."

He is Sylvia's father. Claire resumes,

"As you know, in Ferelden, each region is ruled by a great aristocrat although smaller noble families own various lands within it. In Dioral, no one rules a region. Every noble family owns and rules their own land no matter how small the land is. But influential families like Hyuutia could reassign land to new nobles. Castall has similar system as Dioral except that the large noble family has no power on smaller nobles. Their rank represents the width of their demesne and influence. Although the northern Castall is often called as Virginia region, Virginia does not rule it but his land covers over half of the region. Nevertheless, Virginia is the most influential one there."

She moves her finger downward.

"If you cross the bordering land owned by Virginia, you immediately reach three demesnes owned by "the worst three"."

That intrigues me.

"The worst three?" Isolde asks while pushing her head forward and her big breasts are squished against the desk.

"Viscount Liudger. Do you know about him?"

Claire's eyes narrow a tiny bit.

We shake heads as  response to Claire's question. 

Claire's narrowed eyes return to normal.

"Is that so? The Liudger household was a Baronet family who served in the government of the Kingdom for generations, but was later granted viscount standing and land for the many achievements earned during the repeated wars."

Being promoted from Baronet to viscount is a huge leap, though I’ve never heard of his name.

"Unlike Redcliffe, he had a troublesome territory and the remote area he was in wasn’t on national borders. Honestly speaking, it wouldn’t have made a huge difference who did it."

That’s a terrible way to put it.

"We got a little off topic. But regarding viscount Liudger, he proceeded to enthusiastically develop his territory after receiving the large area." "Since he was a bureaucrat, he had experience in domestic affairs and he wasn’t an ignorant man, but......"

He doesn’t look like someone who has succeeded.

"He was unfortunate."

"Unfortunate? What the heck, so he’s just like how he appears!"

I unconsciously revert to using my usual tone.

"When he cleared the forest to conduct the construction of the road, he ran into swamp and everything turned into a catastrophe."

"That’s quite unfortunate......"

"On the day after the completion of the bridge he paid a huge sum of money to build and which spans two towns separated by a river, there was a heavy rainfall that only occurs once every few decades that caused a flash flood and flushed it away."

"Aah...... how horrible."

Even Valena sounds like she feels sorry for him.

"He tried to cultivate dry land and dug into a well, but poisonous water gushed out and all the crops ended up withering......"

"That’s enough."

If I hear anymore, his bad luck might rub off on me.

"Luck is important after all...... knowledge won’t help you when it comes to things like weather."

I agree with Ivanna, there are some things in this world you can’t do anything about.

Claire smiles bitterly and opens up a notebook.

"Beside his demesne, there lands owned by his two followers. Baron Herenborg and Baron Badegisel. They were both bestowed adjacent land at the same time. For some reason or another, the three households were greatly impressed with each other and a small faction centering around Viscount Liudger was established."

"They hardly had influence or popularity in the region though.” – She adds later.

"The remaining two are nobles who were in the military, individuals who were promoted due to their achievements in battle. ......they both have similarly bad luck like Viscount Liudger, although they don’t have the knowledge or experience to manage their territories so it feels more like they reaped what they sowed."

"Baron Herenborg is a small feudal lord with a relatively large demesne of 3000 citizens in the center of his territory. In the beginning, it seemed he was financially stable and so he lightened taxes and continuously donated to charity."

"It may seem like he’s a benevolent ruler, but his money will quickly run out."

Ivanna spits out the comment.

"That’s exactly what happened. After repeatedly piling up debts with the merchants, he finally said enough is enough and hastily switched to heavy taxes in an attempt to get back into the black."

Of course Ivanna let out a grim voice.

"Going from light taxes to heavy taxes so quickly...... it might be just a simple increase in taxes, but the shock to the citizens is huge. The total income of the citizens remains the same, yet he chose the worst option which only earned him the people’s antipathy. The basic principle when it comes to changing tax is to lower it all at once but raise it gradually."

Let’s say their tax goes from 10 to 5 and then to 15.

The people are earning the same income during the change so it will seem like their tax suddenly increased three times more than before.

"And then, naturally?"

"Most of the merchants and wealthy individuals ran away, leaving behind people he could no longer take taxes from. Farming villages and cities started declining, crops wouldn’t sell and there was a huge fuss, leaving him no choice but to live a life of begging for money."

I don’t want to say it’s his own fault since other kinds of misfortune happened to him too.

"Baron Badegisel was even more miserable."

"I’m getting depressed just listening to it."

"Despite being a Baron, his territory wasn’t all that large, and it seemed like he didn’t have much luxury to begin with...... however he discovered good and fertile land, perfect for farming."

Heeh, good for him.

"And so the kind-hearted Baron had his citizens move from the poor land so they could till that fertile land."

"W-wait a minute. Migrating there, so in other words-......"

Farnese looks like she couldn’t believe what she just heard.

"It is just like I said, the people were chased out of their former village and were made to live on that fertile land."

"He made them abandon the village they’ve lived in for many generations?"

"Yes, I guess he couldn’t bare to watch his citizens struggle on the inadequate land and wished better for them."

Outrageous, there’s a limit to how much of an idiot a person can be.

It doesn’t sound like luck had anything to do with this guy’s misfortune.

"Even so, the people built a village and fields. They literally struggled on the verge of death. It seemed like the Baron went to support them as well, but-......"

"He must have gotten stares filled with killing intent even though he believed he did something good."

Well, this story just sounds like one of an idiot feudal lord and his hard-working people...... but I’m sure there’s a punchline which hasn’t been mentioned yet, no?

"Just before the summer of this year, there was a flood that completely-......"

"I thought as much."

In the end, the migrated citizens fled all at once to neighboring territories, leaving the completely flooded bountiful land and the empty, desolated land of their former village.

"Now, the Baron struggles just to find something to eat, and there are rumors that his son is working abroad while hiding his status. Anyhow, it seems like both Baron Badegisel and Baron Herenborg have many kids...... each of them having more than 10."

Wow, they worked pretty hard.

Maybe I should raise my evaluation of them a little bit.

"Still, you seem to know quite a bit about some small nobles of such a remote region."

With such limited personnel and funds, why did she investigate into them in such detail?

She sighs and reply weakly,

"I found them when they were running around asking for loans. I paid them some money to tell me their story."

Oh, they might be fools, but this trio seems pretty harmless.

Ivanna doesn’t seem to like how I look at Claire’s body like I am licking her all over and naturally get irritated.

Claire then raises both of her hands as if to emphasize in conclusion,

"Those three might be simpletons but they are noble who owns demesnes near your border. And you can easily buy them to your side due to their circumstances."

We wholeheartedly agree with this sly woman even if their bad luck really scares us.