Dungeon Defense (WN)

And then I appeared all of a sudden.
I have to build up systems like tax rates from scratch.
Similar to how people say the beginning determines half of everything, what we do now will determine the picture my territory will draw in the future.
I can’t be even slightly careless.

A savior arrived at this moment.

Three weeks after I practically escaped from the Crescent Alliance, a pink-haired succubus visited my Demon Lord Castle.

“I apologize.
Logistics work had piled up, so I could only arrive now.”

Lapis bowed courteously as she spoke.

“From this day forth, I will resume my work as Sir Dantalian’s exclusive merchant again.
Please take care of…….”

“Laaaaaapis!”

“Miss Lapis―!”

Laura and I ran up to her at the same time.
We latched onto Lapis’ pant legs and cried.

No matter the time and place, Lapis boasted her cold and impassive face at all times.
Even though a lord and his vassal were making a scene crying next to each other―they were also both naked―she was completely unfazed.
She raised a brow as she looked down at us.

“……What is the matter?”

“My territory! The taxes! The laws! I don’t know where to begin!”

“His Lordship is a sexual fiend! He has his way with this young lady hundreds of times a day.
I cannot endure this any longer.
Miss Lapis, please stop His Lordship’s sexual appetite!”

Lapis let out a sigh.

“Please talk one at a time.”

Lapis had the most seniority in territory management.

She first listened to the idea I had set up for the villages.
Lapis calmly listened to what I had to say before nodding.

“That should be enough.
However, there are some parts that need to be fixed.”

“I figured.”

I chuckled.

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“First, there is an issue with the tax reduction policy.
Being able to lower your taxes through compulsory labor is good; however, how do you intend to determine how much work a person has done? You cannot choose a different supervisor every day and tell them to report to you.”

“Ah.”

She was right.

Compulsory labor is just manual labor.
Let’s say that we are going to create a reservoir.
Dozens of people would come to work.
In this situation, how would I accurately calculate the total amount a person has contributed to the construction? I’d just be hazarding a guess.

“Leaving it to the village chiefs……is out of the question.”

“That is correct.
You would be dividing your authority.”

If I leave this task to the village chiefs, then their authority would increase immensely.

The villagers would desperately try to appease the village chiefs.
Everyone could do the same amount of work, but those closer to the village chiefs would be reported as having done more work.
Ultimately, they would receive a higher tax reduction than others.
What would the people who receive the tax reduction do? They would give about half of what was reduced to the village chiefs.

In the end, not only would the village chiefs be in charge of everything, but they would also become wealthy proprietors as well.
If it’s like this, then I would only be exerting my ability while the village chiefs monopolize all of the profits.

“What should I do?”

“There is a simple and effective solution.
Apply the reduction rate on the entire village and not on each individual person.
You can reduce the tax rate according to the efforts of the entire village.”

“Aha!”

My eyes widened on their own.
What a splendid solution.

In other words, I could order them to build this and that and reduce their taxes altogether once they’ve accomplished their tasks.
There would be no need to make complicated calculations, then. 

“Additionally, you would not have to worry about slackers.”

“Slackers would get berated by everyone in the village since they would all be trying to help each other!”

“If a single person makes a mistake, then their entire village would be incurring a loss.
This will naturally promote a joint responsibility environment.”

Not only would this make calculation easy, but it would also get rid of one of the deep-seated weaknesses of labor, laziness.
This was quite literally killing two birds with one stone.
I couldn’t help but be in awe.

“Amazing.
How did you think of such a solution?”

“I am undeserving of such praise.
This solution is not that impressive.”

Lapis responded impassively.
She must genuinely believe that it wasn’t that impressive.

However, Lapis managed to prevent numerous harmful consequences by only slightly altering the direction of my policy.
This wasn’t something that a normal person could do.
……If the intrigue Parsi and I utilized was considered dark politics, then what Lapis had displayed was true politics.

‘Status’.

I checked Lapis’ stats.

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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Name: Lapis LazuliRace: Half-Succubus　　 Faction: Keuncuska FirmAttribute: Neutral(-10)

Level: 25　　　　Fame: 194Job: Merchant(A-), Witch(B), Swordsman(D)

Leadership: 59　　Might: 32 　　Intelligence: 57Politics: 76　　Charm: 50　　Technique: 2

Affection: 50Loyalty: 82

*Titles: 1.
Rags-to-Riches 2.
Keuncuska Merchant*Abilities: Trading(B+), Accounting(B+), Arithmetic(B), Dissemination(C), Swordsmanship(D)*Skills: –

Current thought: ‘……He praised me.’━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Titles]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Her politics stat had exceeded 70.
This was a radiant number compared to Laura’s 10 points in politics.

Lapis’ politics ability most likely focalizes her actual work while I specialize in intrigue and schemes.

Even if two people have the same exact 70 points in politics, their abilities will differ depending on their specialization.
For example, this is an assumption, but most of Barbatos’ politics points are probably slotted into faction management.
She’s a veteran when it comes to dealing with conflicts between factions and mediating relations.
However, she’s most likely weak when it comes to territory management.

‘I’m glad I recruited Lapis to my side early.
My discerning eye is never wrong.’

Lapis spoke up carefully while I was in the middle of feeling pleased.
She was acting unusually hesitant.

“Sir Dantalian, what I told you definitely was not something impressive.”

“Hm? No.
It’s amazing.
You did well.
Sheesh, I feel like I can finally breathe now.”

“Then, would it be all right to ask for a small reward?”

I nodded.

“Of course! Tell me what you want! I’ll grant you anything.”

“……Anything?”

For an instant, Lapis’ eyes shimmered.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter.
Sorry about the late chapter.
I finished this awhile ago, but my editor was gone for a couple of days.
The next chapter will probably have a delay because I’ve been suffering from indigestion.
I’ve been feeling nauseous and I couldn’t eat anything yesterday.
I don’t feel that bad today, but I might as well get some proper rest.

I’ll see you guys in the next chapter once I’m better.