Chapter 7 (1/2)

Method of Reimburs.e.m.e.nt

「Well, I thank you all for your uprightness by putting it on.」

Ritone made a gesture with such a demeaning tone that it made all the n.o.bles glare at him with hate.

「Well then, let’s talk about the reimburs.e.m.e.nt in a more concrete way. I redrew the loan contract for each one of you, so please confirm it.」

As Ritone said this, they reluctantly received the doc.u.ments for verification . Then, as they read it, every single one of them made extremely complex faces.

「In exchange for cancelling a part of your overdue payments fines, I will only add 1000 arus to your bill for all the overdue payments. Also, the interest that was at thirty percent until now will be reduced to ten percent, and the repayment period will be extended for 10 years. Compared to what it is now, the reimburs.e.m.e.nt money is lower than what you have right now, so it should lower your burden.」

It was certain that those were the conditions written in the contract.

「Excuse me, could I?」

One of the n.o.bles, who was reading attentively, raised his hand.

「Please, help yourself.」

「It is stated in the previous contract that you will sequester a fourth of our barley produced yearly, but if we go by the contract, we would only need to make a cash reimburs.e.m.e.nt once a month…」

「That’s correct. We don’t plan to confiscate your barley anymore. From now on, all the barley that you harvest will be yours, and no one else’s.」

Hearing that, all the n.o.bles were relieved. By taking a fourth of the harvest, even if the harvest was a great one, it became just barely enough. Moreover, if the harvest was bad, they didn’t have any choice other than to take it from the workers.

Due to this, the workers eventually died of hunger or escaped from there, reducing the production even more, and becoming a vicious cycle.

「With this, I could give them bread to eat!…」

The n.o.bles were delighted and cried, but suddenly they realized.