Chapter 353 Handling Foreign Relations
"Ugh..."
My head still aches.
The reason? Lack of sleep. I wasn't able to get a wink of sleep since Fina, Minerva, and Hekate kept taking turns "playing" with me. Minerva and Hekate kept fainting in the middle, but Fina was something else, completely not willing to go down before me.
In the end, we stayed up all night long until the sun was peeking through the window of my room.
"Are you alright, Master?"
Ember asked, worried. Well, she knows what happened last night, so I'm positive she knows the reason.
"It's fine, just a little groggy, that's all."
Shaking away the dizziness, I focused on the papers before me. I'm positive that it was only yesterday that I skipped deskwork... Why is it like a mountain now?
By reflex, I tried to reach for the stamp in the drawer beside me but realized that today I was in a different office. I was currently inside the newly built castle's office, where I was forced to process literally thousands of documents.
The God Tamers, led by Zeshion, rebuilt the castle immediately after the battle with Noir. Apparently, it took them about two weeks to restore it completely. Well, compared to before, it was a lot emptier, however.
"To think that nobody is inside this castle but the two of us..."
I sighed.
Most of the high-ranking nobles were killed in action when Vermeil razed everything to the ground. The ones who survived were only those who were already managing their own territories, so at the moment, nobody but me was using the castle. Literally.
"Right. I think we should form a guard unit at least. What do you think, master?"
"Well, before we can think about such matters, I need to finish up this pile first."
I sighed once more. Is there some sort of skill that would make it possible to handle documents in a blink? I hope there was...
Anyway, as I was filtering through the documents, I noticed that there were two major categories present. One was requests for the repair of public facilities, and another was compensation for those who laid their lives to protect the kingdom.
Yu Na already gave them a little consolation, but that was only at the level of a mayor's ability. Now that a king is present once more, it's time to reward them more properly.
"Wait, do we even have a budget to do this?"
The kingdom was currently suffering from a lack of funds. The cause? Well, it was because the castle was obliterated when it entered the Void of Space. Along with all the gold, treasures, and artifacts, everything was turned to dust at that point.
Right now, other than the small revenue from taxes gained during the previous two months, the kingdom is penniless. As a countermeasure, they can borrow money from the banks, but Will was aware of how much of a scam borrowing money was.
With the astronomical budget we need, then the nation's yearly revenue would end up only being able to pay back interest, unable to dent the actual debt amount.
"First, we need to find ways to generate some revenue for the kingdom."
That was the first task on my list. After that, there's already a complete list of things I would need to do. Things I would need to finish first and foremost.
After I finished checking the entire pile, only a few of them were currently able to be approved. It was a little disheartening to think that this pile would only grow as time passed.
I stood up from my chair, moving to the audience room that was a floor below. There, right as I sat on the tall throne, a teleportation portal appeared in the middle of the room.
"Hey, Will. Oh, should I say [Your Majesty] instead?"
Zeshion popped up, walking forward leisurely. Well, he was casual even with the previous king, and I'm not fond of formalities either, so I wouldn't be pressing him about it. Rather than that, we have more pressing matters.
"We don't have money."
I laid it straight before him. Zeshion smiled wryly, scratching his temple awkwardly.
"Yeaaa, I know. The problem is that most of the country's revenue sources were damaged from the last attack, so the current taxes are a little lacking for our needs."
"... So even you don't have any solution, huh? Should I just raise the taxes for a while, claiming it's for the revival of the kingdom?"
"You better don't. Raising taxes just as you sat in office would only earn you disapproval from everyone. Rather than that, isn't there a better way for you to earn?"
The confident tone Zeshion used made me think. Did I have anything that could be used to make money? As I was lost in thought, my gaze drifted toward Ember.
"... Right, there's that!"
Zeshion, as if proud that I noticed what he was thinking, smiled.
"Right. With your Ember's ability, you can just—"
"Sell weapons to everyone! Weapon trade is the easiest venture to earn big bucks!"
"—create gold... What?"
"What?"
Zeshion and I stared at each other, both confused. After a while, I realized what he was thinking and laughed.
"Hahaha, no, we can't just create gold and mint more money so that we can use it. Doing that would only inflate prices and lower the value of our current money system."
"Really? But the previous kings all did that whenever they were lacking in funds."
"..."
King, oh kings... Did anybody among you study the basics of commerce? If they're like this, I wonder just how they managed to last this long without causing a crash in their economy.
"Anyway, doing that would only end up damaging the currency value. So selling weapons would be a better choice. Not only would we give power to everyone to fight against the demons, but we would also be raking in 100% revenue from it!"
I turned to Ember, seeing a confident look on her face.
I already knew that Ember had made a manufacturing line using her abilities long ago. Now, if she used her clones to produce materials and used them to create guns on par with Fatima's, then money would literally flood in!
"That's good and all, but selling it to your people, wouldn't that be... I don't know, corrupt?"
"It's fine, as I'm not only planning to sell it domestically."
I smiled, thinking about the bigger picture.
"Let's go international!"
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