Chapter 42
In order to get his money from Erza, Zeth had to go to the tax office and report his income, paying them a portion of the coin he received the moment he got it. It was an annoying and cumbersome system, and one of the reasons many people preferred to work under the guild, where they didn’t have to deal with it. If you didn’t report your income, it was considered a particularly punishable crime; and the government had magical means of tracking the currency they controlled, so there wasn’t much way around it.
Rosalie decided to accompany Zeth and Erza as they went through the legal process, simply watching silently as she did. Once they were done, and Zeth had his share of the money in his pocket, Erza departed, but Rosalie stayed.
“What is the point of all this?” she asked as they stood outside the tax office building.
Zeth frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Why not just send tax collectors once per year? Or base tax collection off of property ownership, rather than taking it out of all wages collected? Does this not punish the poor and needy, who need every scrap of coin they can scrounge together?”
“...Is this not how everywhere else in the empire does things?”
“No,” she said. “Your town is quite unique. It is despicable, what the guild has done to it. Corruption seems to run all the way through to the top of your leadership.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m beginning to believe that’s the case more and more myself, lately. Do, uh…Do you think that might be connected? Y’know, with the Blood Mage stuff?”
“I can’t think of many reasons your own law enforcement would not have caught them already.”