Chapter 720: sometimes, you can find healthy apples in the pile of rotten ones
The first step the prince had to do was consolidate the eviction with the treasurer and the right-hand man.
As expected, the right-hand man, who was actually someone sent by the Emperor to watch the Prince closely, was rebelling hard. The agents had to tie him because the other option was to forcefully put him to sleep. We brought the Prince to the meeting room and left the wife and the son behind in the reception room. As for the daughter, I had Heraz question her more since she seemed to be capable of honesty.
Thanks to that, we also found out that the treasurer was actually a competent man that the Empire had thrown over to the Principality because he was too...honest? Apparently, the treasurer’s boss didn’t like how straight and stoic the man was, but since the man’s teacher was a great scholar, they couldn’t just ’exile’ him to some obscured region.
And that was how he was moved to the Principality, which wasn’t an obscured region but considered ’beneath’ the Empire.
"Sir Gria is a good person; thanks to him, we’re able to at least stay afloat despite the low trade flow," the daughter explained. "But I can tell he is slowly losing his spirit because the people in charge kept doing tricks to embezzle funds."
"An honest treasurer," Natha muttered with a soft chuckle. "What a treasure."
Indeed. No matter how honest the person who kept the money, however, it wouldn’t do much if he didn’t have enough authority to investigate embezzlement and bring the case to trial. He was essentially there to count the money and try to prevent the territory from crumbling.
"The treasurer is not the only treasure, isn’t he?" I glanced at Natha, who shrugged in response.
Of course, what I meant was the daughter. She seemed to have enough awareness and knowledge--more than the supposed heir. She looked like a resourceful lady who had to suppress herself because her family only wanted her to marry and did nothing else.
Especially nothing that would overshadow her brother.
Ah...such a sadly frequent story.