CH 162

The next day, I returned to my official work as the chamberlain. Although this position was given to me so that I could go to the palace without drawing any suspicion, I still needed to do some work as chamberlain just for show. Plus, other nobles would get suspicious if they never saw me in the palace (since I was in the exclusive library, located in the basement) despite my position as a chamberlain.

Thus I had no choice but to begrudgingly do my job as the chamberlain, even though I was already busy as it was. I mean, the number of books in the exclusive library probably crossed ten thousands. Lily and I needed to read them all! My head hurts.

I was told that I would do my chamberlain job once every three days. If anything happened, I needed to prioritize my real job in the exclusive library, so apparently I would only be given a job that could be transferred to someone else at any time.

As for the investigation of the strange passage, His Highness’ people would do it. His Highness had ordered that no one could leave or enter the passage while the investigation was going.

I was really curious about what exactly was hidden in that passage, so I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t take part in the investigation, but since I got a promise from His Highness that I would be told of the result of the investigation later, I guess it was fine.

The job I was given today was organizing the tableware warehouse. It felt like I was indirectly told that I didn’t need to finish it by today and could just do it at my own pace since this job was just a cover for my real job.

Was this how those spies who pose as some ordinary civilians working a normal job felt?

It was also decided that when I wasn’t working in the exclusive library, Lily didn’t have to come to the palace, so she was currently continuing her education in the Zeavert mansion. Mother called a history and a dance tutor for Lily. I hope she was doing fine.

“So I don’t have to check the food ingredients?”

“Yes. Food ingredients will be checked by a specialist so viscount, you can focus on managing the tableware.”

“I understand.”

This world was mostly a medieval world, but the royal court was unexpectedly modern. I was glad for that.

“Well then, let’s split up and do the inspection. Pay close attention and replace any cracked bowls and dirty silverwares.”

“Yes, sir.”

This kinda reminded me of the time when I was a military commander. The entire team was split into smaller groups to inspect the boxes containing all eating utensils. Thankfully, we had the magic lamp, so the warehouse wasn’t dark.

“Is there any problem with the number of silverwares?”

“No, sir. The number of silverwares matches the records.”

“Alright. Hmm… Wait, we will change the boxes’ placement. Those who often come to this room, raise your hands.” (Welner)

I noticed that some people were going to return the boxes to their original places, so I stopped them. Hmm… I see. So the average height of people that often came to this room was roughly this high?

“Alright then. Put the boxes in a way that boxes that contain the most frequently used items would be easy to access. Use the average height of you all as standard. Also mark the boxes so you know what’s inside of them without opening them.” (Welner)

In the afternoon, I finished my job in the warehouse, then I attended an economic meeting as someone to distribute the materials of the conference. There was no way someone of my age could interfere in the economic decisions of this country. Hence, my role was just to carry the materials, hand them to the participant, then sit back and watch silently.

“This is the material that will become the next topic of discussion.”

Well, the materials themselves were already prepared, so I just needed to hand them to the participants. To be honest, I did have stuff I wanted to do rather than silently listening to a boring meeting, but it wasn’t like I got any choice.

I could feel that some people inside of the meeting room glanced at me from time to time, probably because, officially, I was being demoted since I went from a governor of the royal family’s land to the chamberlain under Prime Minister. Let’s not think about it further.

The meeting then started. The meeting mainly discussed how to handle the loss that our kingdom suffered because of the demon army and the current financial situation of the kingdom. What I didn’t expect was that there was also a topic of debasement.

Debasement was something that countries did sometimes when there was a financial problem. In Japan, the famous debasement happened in the Edo Period while in the west, it happened at the time of the Hundred Years War. By mixing the silver and gold coins with some other metals, the country’s economic burden could be lifted. Debasement was certainly an effective tactic in a short time.

However, in the long term, debasement would cause inflation to rise. Unlike Edo Japan that had little to no contact with foreign countries, this kingdom had a lot of trade with foreign countries. If the value of the money ‌in this country changed, it could easily cause various problems internationally.

Furthermore, once our generation tried the debasement tactic, the future generation might try it again after seeing how effective it was in a short time. Debasement was like a sweet slow acting poison.

Above all, in this medieval world, money was often used together with other currency. During this period of time, the inflation would slowly increase and in 5-10 years the inflation would become so high that it could destabilize the financial situation of the kingdom.

I refuse to deal with high inflation in my 20s. I didn’t have any right to speak in this meeting, so I should write a proposal later.

But if I just sent my proposal containing only objections, the proposal would definitely be rejected. If I wanted the proposal to get accepted, I needed to think of an alternative way to get money.

In my experience as the governor, there were some cases where the taxes collected from guilds was fewer than the standard, so I should investigate the tax from the guild as the alternative solution in my proposal… My head hurts.