Zoe stared at me, her expression looking somewhat grim.
"What do you intend to do?"
"Zoe, what do you think of the excuse 'It's not a crime if you don't get caught'?"
"Huh? Um... I would say it's... sophistry, and immoral."
We had been discussing how to deal with the newly offending officials, so my abrupt shift in topic caught Zoe off guard.
Unable to fathom my true intentions, Zoe offered a timid response to the immediate question.
I gave a small nod.
"Indeed, you're right. I agree with it, but only under one condition."
"A condition? What kind?"
"When it's paired with 'Accept your fate once you're caught.'"
"I see..."
A look of understanding washed over Zoe's face.
The bewildered expression from just moments before vanished without a trace.
With a faint smile, I spoke in a cool, businesslike tone.
"Here is the sentence: Anyone who pocketed one hundred Rien or more shall receive twenty lashes. For larger sums, an additional ten lashes for every five hundred Rien."
"Twenty lashes... and ten more... Master?"
"Yeah?"
"At that rate, there is a very high chance it will prove fatal."
Zoe looked at me with a face that practically asked, Are you really all right with that?
The situation brought back memories of the very first time I ordered a flogging.
I believe I was twelve years old at the time, when I ran into one of Gilbert's retainers in town.
That retainer had been acting utterly tyrannical, and looking down on me because I was just a child, he sneered in a completely condescending tone, "This conduct doesn't violate Imperial Law at all, you see~"
He had been right.
The man had not breached Imperial Law—the laws that governed commoners.
However, the empire had what is known as house law.
Also called internal house law, it was designed specifically for imperial royalty, such as imperial princes, to discipline retainers.
Even if he was a retainer of Gilbert—the First Imperial Prince—the Thirteenth Imperial Prince was still of the imperial bloodline and effectively his master's equal.
Displaying such an insolent, contemptuous attitude toward the Thirteenth Imperial Prince was more than enough grounds for punishment under internal house law.
So I had the man seized and sentenced to a flogging in accordance with internal house law.
I was told the man expired after barely ten strikes.
People who don't know the details often imagine flogging to be a relatively mild punishment.
This was especially true among peasants.
After all, they routinely whipped their working oxen and horses to drive them forward.
Because of this, common folk frequently assumed a whipping couldn't be that bad.
However, flogging as a criminal punishment was nowhere near so gentle.
First of all, the whips used were more than twice as thick and long as those used on livestock.
Being thicker naturally made them heavier and more painful, and the extra length added a vicious snap to each strike, multiplying the agony.
On top of that, punitive floggings targeted the bare back, where human flesh was thin.
The sheer agony was so intense that someone faint of heart would die after barely ten lashes, and even an exceptionally sturdy man had a high probability of losing his life if the count reached twenty.
This time, the sentence I handed down was twenty lashes for embezzling just one hundred Rien.
When liquidating assets worth tens or hundreds of thousands, even if someone merely gave in to a momentary lapse of judgment, virtually no one stopped at under a hundred Rien.
Without a doubt, every single culprit had pocketed far more than that.
And those who did it were government officials—civil bureaucrats.
Twenty lashes meant certain death for civil officials who had never trained their bodies.
It was practically equivalent to a death sentence.
Zoe understood all of that perfectly well, which was why she had asked if I was truly all right with it.
"'Accept your fate once you're caught.'"
I said only that.
Zoe gasped in realization.
"—! Understood, Master."
"That's enough for the liquidation. Put real estate, precious metals, slaves, and everything else on hold for now, and make the cash available first. This is a time of reconstruction; we can never have too much money."
"Understood."
I gave Zoe a flurry of directives.
I issued detailed orders on how to allocate the property seized from the executed corrupt officials toward disaster reconstruction.
"That's the broad strokes. I leave the finer details to your discretion."
"Understood."
With the general instructions concluded, I sent Zoe off to put them into action.
☆
In the evening, while I was still plowing through paperwork, Zoe appeared once more.
Entering the room, she looked as composed as ever, bowing gracefully before speaking.
"Apologies for interrupting while you are busy. Two men calling themselves Drake and Poinix have arrived."
"They're here? Where are they? Lead the way."
I chuckled and stood up briskly.
Leaving the office alongside Zoe, I followed her lead down the corridor.
Walking ahead of me, Zoe asked with a hint of curiosity,
"Have those two served you for a long time, Master?"
"Hmm? What makes you ask?"
"Well, one of them looked at me and remarked, 'That's quite a nostalgic outfit.'"
"Ah."
I smiled faintly.
"When I first met them, it was back during my time as the Thirteenth Imperial Prince. The servants in my mansion were maids, not court ladies from the palace."
The servants of an imperial prince's residence and those of the emperor's palace differed down to their very uniforms, among several other distinctions.
The biggest difference was that palace servants were generally designated as "court ladies" and were granted official bureaucratic ranks, even if purely nominal and at the very bottom of the hierarchy.
Currently, Zoe was serving as the head steward of the Thirteenth Imperial Prince Mansion without a formal government post, which was why she wore a maid's uniform.
Whichever of the two it had been, he had evidently looked at her maid attire and found it nostalgic.
"If I recall, it was back when you were still a maid at the residence. Poinix approached me dressed practically like a beggar and pitched something resembling an investment scheme."
"My, how rude. How utterly shameless of him to try and deceive you, Master, when there was no way such a scheme could ever succeed."
"The problem ran deeper than that, though."
I chuckled.
"In what way?"
Zoe glanced back over her shoulder, looking genuinely intrigued.
"Yeah. Back then, his body was filthy, his clothes were in rags, and he'd even gone to the trouble of coating himself in the sour stench of sweat and grime—yet he was still careless."
"How so?"
"His scalp was clean."
"Ah..."
A look of realization dawned on Zoe's face.
Facing forward again, she gave several small nods as she walked.
"Indeed, that certainly was careless. There is no way a true beggar would have a clean scalp."
"Exactly."
"Does that mean the two of them came from fairly respectable families?" Zoe asked.
Commoners often believed that "nobles have clean hair" and used that to tell them apart, but they never realized that their "scalps were clean" as well.
Commoners looked up to nobility with reverence and rarely had the chance to see their scalps from above.
Meanwhile, nobles never bothered to pay attention to commoners' scalps either. For the most part, neither group knew much about the other's reality.
When Zoe asked, I gave a firm nod.
"Yeah. Both of them attended a private academy run by a man named Walter Miller."
"A private academy... Then it makes sense that he wouldn't know."
Zoe looked all the more convinced.
A private academy was, quite literally, an educational institution established by a private individual.
In most cases, they were run by prominent local figures or retired scholars. Just enrolling cost a substantial sum of money, and anyone without connections was usually turned away at the door.
In other words, being able to attend a private academy meant one was born into a fairly well-off household.
"With an upbringing like that, it's only natural that his understanding of beggars would be superficial. He might have played beggar for a single day, but he could never have truly lived it."
"To spot that flaw—and from his scalp, no less—you really are incredible, Master!"
Just as I finished explaining how I met the men, we arrived at the reception room.
Zoe opened the door, and I stepped inside.
Both men were dressed as armored warriors, standing upright rather than taking a seat.
The moment their eyes fell on me, they dropped swiftly to one knee and bowed their heads.
"Cles Drake."
"Rion Poinix."
Reporting as summoned!
Cles spoke first, followed immediately by Rion. The way they announced their names in perfect unison afterward was entirely synchronized; while they had surely coordinated beforehand, that opening greeting after our long reunion spoke volumes about just how close they were.
"Right, at ease. We can't talk while standing. Zoe."
"Understood."
Zoe acknowledged the command and signaled outside the reception room with a brief hand gesture.
Moments later, several maids entered, laying out tea and refreshments on the table by the sofas.
After waiting for me to sit down first, Cles and Rion took their seats across from me.
"Sorry for summoning you on such short notice."
"Not at all, we understand the situation. To be remembered by Your Majesty under these circumstances is the highest possible honor."
"Right now, I am the governor-general here, Cles. Address me accordingly for the time being."
"Understood! Forgive my insolence, Your Excellency."
Cles stood up abruptly and bowed at a sharp right angle.
True to his earnest nature, his formal address of "Your Excellency" after correcting himself was practiced and impeccable.
On the other hand, Rion, who had first appeared before me dressed as a beggar...
"Man, to think you'd actually call on us. Are things around here really that bad?"
Unlike Cles, he managed the subtly sophisticated feat of speaking in a casual, familiar tone while still maintaining an undercurrent of respect.
"Rion!"
Cles sharply reprimanded Rion's tone, but Rion pressed on without the slightest remorse.
"I mean, it's true, isn't it? There are plenty of people around who can manage ranches across the territory. If he went out of his way to round the two of us up together after we went our separate ways, things have gotta be pretty serious."
"That is beside the point. Speaking so casually is disrespectful to His Excellency."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Don't worry about it. Sit down, Cles."
"Y-Yes, sir."
Told not to fret by me directly, Cles reluctantly took his seat once more.