The verdict was delivered exactly as I had prearranged with Parsi.
"Although there were signs of rebellion in the neighboring village, your negligence and failure to report to me—the lord—before acting unilaterally constitutes a grave offense. However, the swiftness with which you eliminated the traitors demonstrates that you harbored no seditious intent. Therefore, I hereby order the three village heads to serve a period of probation. Their confiscated property shall be reclaimed."
I seized the village heads' assets. The tributes the villagers had offered were returned. The people cried out in praise of my judgment, calling it generous.
From the villagers' perspective, the village heads had sacrificed themselves on their behalf. Where the bulk of the returned tributes would end up was as plain as the nose on one's face. It was a charade everyone played along with, but it saved face for the village heads and for me as lord.
Beyond that, I dispatched goblin squads to the remaining villages.
Three days later, a delegation arrived at the Demon Lord's Castle. They prostrated themselves at the entrance, begging me desperately for mercy.
They had already tasted what "a life without monster invasions" felt like. All they had to do was focus on farming without worrying about anything else. They didn't even need self-defense militia. There was no way they'd willingly return to how things were before.
"I'll set the tribute ratio at seven to three."
Even if that was the standard tax rate of this era, it was undoubtedly heavy taxation. Right now, the village elders were bowing their heads in gratitude for my mercy, but complaints would erupt before long. Did they really have to surrender seventy percent of their income just to keep goblins at bay? The question would arise naturally.
So I employed a workaround.
Those who participated in labor conscription—irrigation work and the like—would see their taxes reduced proportionally.
"Work for the fief, and your taxes go down. Please, work for the sake of everyone."
The actual tax was four lords, six people—meaning they only had to surrender forty percent of their income to me.
That ratio was generous enough to have songs composed singing "Our lord, our lord!" From then on, my territory pushed forward with the effective tax rate of four-to-six. Well, villages that hadn't participated in the rebellion owed no taxes at all. That seemed fair enough.
Furthermore, I left untouched the barley sown after the wheat harvest. Typically, farming involved sowing wheat, harvesting it, then sowing barley and harvesting that—two harvests in one year. I taxed only the wheat harvested that year.
"At about this rate, they shouldn't starve to death, right?"
I said this while discussing matters with Laura. Laura was the daughter of a ducal house—I figured she might be well-versed in matters of taxation and hoped to rely on her expertise.
"I'm sorry, My Lord. The young lady is completely ignorant when it comes to ruling a territory."
Come to think of it, Laura had been ostracized even within the ducal household. She'd been excluded from heir education and would never have participated in high-level governance. There was absolutely nothing to rely on her for.
"A self-proclaimed one-of-a-kind vassal, and yet this incompetent. I'm disappointed."
"Ugh... I, I only wish to aid my lord in matters of military strategy. Is that not enough?!"
Laura retorted, her face flushed red.
But think about it. This woman was originally talented enough to become the prime minister of the Kingdom of Bretagne. A prime minister who had mastered military affairs but was utterly hopeless at politics—no wonder the kingdom's future looked bleak. Oh, right. In Dungeon Attack, the Kingdom of Bretagne actually falls. Now I understand why.
"We don't need military strategy right now. It'll be a long time before we're involved in a war again. Until that distant day, it means Laura is useless. What a fine freeloader you are."
"Grrr..."
Laura glared at me with a face that said she was about to die of frustration. It was cute.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Can't be helped. There's only one thing Laura can do right now."
"What is it, My Lord? Tell me at once. I will dedicate my very bones and body to it!"
"Since Laura's head has become useless, the only thing she has left is her body."
Laura's expression soured. She looked like a scholar who had lost his kingdom.
"Th-That can't be..."
"Stick your rear this way."
"No! I clearly told you I won't go any further than this, My Lord! Ugh, hnngh!"
Laura resisted desperately, but she ended up becoming a meal anyway. That's when I heard a pleasant chime — *ding!*
[Laura de Farnese's Job Level (Sex Slave) has increased!]
One of Laura's job levels, Sex Slave, had risen from Rank C to Rank B. It was a trash-tier job that imposed penalties on her Political and Charisma stats. However, I had discovered the hidden advantage of the Sex Slave class.
In other words... the Sex Slave level probably determines the quality of the holder in sexual matters. The higher the level, the better the taste!
Sure enough. The moment her level rose, the pressure wrapped around my lower body intensified with a firm squeeze. It felt like a scorching-hot slime was engulfing me with all its might.
That day, we went at it for six straight hours.
"......"
Laura, fallen in battle. She lay crumpled in one corner of the bed. A glorious end.
"Hah. The enemy commander — defeated."
"......"
I delivered my triumphant line, but Laura didn't respond. She seemed to have passed out. The stamina to knock out a perfectly healthy seventeen-year-old girl. I felt a strange sense of conquest as I scooped water from the basin and drank.
Once the wave of sexual desire swept through my entire body, what remained were practical concerns. How was I supposed to handle the domain's administrative work?
"Hmm."
I could paint the big picture well enough, but I had no confidence when it came to the day-to-day grind.
This wasn't the Margraviate of von Rosenberg. Back there, tax rates and procedures had been firmly established over centuries of tradition. All I had to do was sign whatever documents landed on my desk.
The mountain villages around my Demon Lord's Castle, however, were a different story. These were settlements founded by humans who had barely made it this far, driven out by the tyranny of their lord and the invasion of monsters. Places so remote that a lord's authority couldn't reach them. At the same time, the only monsters here were Goblins. You couldn't ask for better conditions than that.
And then I showed up. I had to build the entire tax system from scratch. As the saying goes, the beginning is half the battle — how we handled things now would determine the future of my domain. I couldn't afford to be careless even a little.
That was when our savior arrived.
It had been three weeks since she'd slipped out of the Crescent Alliance Army like a fugitive. A pink-haired Succubus girl paid a visit to the Demon Lord's Castle.
"I'm sorry. Supply duties piled up, and it took me until now to get here."
Lapis Lazuli bowed politely at the waist as she spoke.
"Starting today, I will once again serve as your exclusive merchant, Lord Dantalion. I look forward to our work togeth——"
"Lapiiiiiiis!"
"Lapis, you're a g——!"
Laura and I rushed at her simultaneously. We grabbed Lapis Lazuli by the pant legs and burst into tears.
Lapis Lazuli was the quintessential ice-cold beauty who wore an expressionless mask at all times. Even in the face of her master and her vassal crying side by side — both naked, no less — she didn't bat an eye. She raised an eyebrow ever so slightly and looked down at us.
"……What seems to be the issue?"
"The domain! The taxes! The laws! I have no idea where to even start!"
"My lord is a lecher! He beds maidens dozens, even hundreds of times a day! I can't take it anymore! Duke Lapis, please, you must put a stop to my lord's urges!"
Lapis Lazuli sighed.
"Let's take it one step at a time."
That was the moment she was named the head of domain affairs.
Lapis Lazuli first listened to the plan I had pieced together through my rulings. She heard me out in her usual calm manner, then gave a nod.
"That's mostly fine. But there are a few things that need fixing."
"I figured as much?"
I offered a sheepish grin.
"The tax exemptions are the biggest problem. The idea of reducing taxes through corvée labor is sound enough. But how exactly do you plan to measure how much labor each domain subject has performed? You can't appoint an overseer for every single one and have them file reports."
"Ah."
She had found the blind spot.
Corvée labor meant construction work. Take building a reservoir, for example. Dozens of people would pile in and work at once. In that case, how could you possibly calculate exactly who did how much? More often than not, it would devolve into gut estimates and rough guesses.
"Leaving it to the village chiefs would be……out of the question."
"Correct. It would effectively decentralize authority."
If you handed that responsibility to the village chiefs, their power would balloon out of control.
The villagers would scramble to stay in the chief's good graces. Even if two people did the exact same amount of work, the one closer to the chief would be credited with more labor — and consequently receive a larger tax exemption. And what would the exempted party do then? They'd hand over roughly half of their exemption to the chief, naturally.
In the end, the village chief wouldn't just oversee the village's affairs — he'd become a local power broker. All the work would be mine, and all the profit would be the chief's.
"What should I do?"
"There's a method that's both effective and simple. Don't apply the exemption on an individual basis — apply it on a village-wide basis. Set the exemption rate for the entire village as a whole."
"Oh!"
My eyes widened involuntarily. It was an absolutely brilliant solution.
In short, I would issue orders: build this, build that. Once the village completed the work, I'd grant them a blanket exemption. That way, there'd be no need for complicated calculations.
"Plus, the problem of someone slacking off disappears entirely."
"Because if someone's not pulling their weight while the whole village is working, the others will say, 'What are you even doing?' Exactly!"
"If even one person messes up, the entire village suffers. It naturally creates collective responsibility."
Calculations became easier, and the chronic weakness of corvée labor — laziness — vanished as well. It was truly a move that killed two birds with one stone. I couldn't help but be impressed.
"That's amazing. How did you come up with such a trick?"
"You flatter me. It's nothing more than a simple solution."
Lapis replied with a blank expression. She really did seem to think it was nothing special.
But Lapis had prevented countless problems simply by slightly shifting the direction of the policy. That was no trick an ordinary person could pull off. …If Parsi and I resort- ing to scheming and manipulation counted as politics in a rather dark sense, then what Lapis had just demonstrated was politics in its truest meaning.
'Status Window.'
I pulled up Lapis's stats.
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Name: Lapis Lazuli
Race: Half Succubus Affiliation: Kunkuska Trading Company
Alignment: Neutral (-10)
Level: 25 Fame: 194
Class: Merchant (A-), Witch (B), Swordsman (D)
Leadership: 59 Martial: 32 Intelligence: 57
Politics: 76 Charm: 50 Craft: 2
Affinity: 50
Loyalty: 82
*Titles: 1. Self-Made 2. Merchant of Kunkuska
*Abilities: Trade B+, Accounting B+, Arithmetic B, Supply C, Swordsmanship D
*Skills: -
Current Mindset: '...She praised me.'
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[Titles]
1. Self-Made. Started from the bottom of society and earned status through your own efforts. Politics +10, Charm +10, Proficiency Growth Speed x1.2
2. Merchant of Kunkuska. A merchant belonging to the greatest trading company in the Demon Realm. <Trade> Ability +0.5, <Accounting> Ability +0.5, Fame +50
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Politics had crossed 70. A brilliant stat, especially compared to Laura's Politics of 10.
Most of Lapis's Politics probably focused on practical, day-to-day work. Mine, on the other hand, was specialized in schemes and intrigue.
Even with the same Politics score of 70, the results differ wildly depending on where each character was actually specialized. For instance, I'd wager the bulk of Barbatos's Politics was geared toward faction management. He'd be uncannily skilled at navigating inter-faction rivalries and mediating between faction members. But he'd be nearly useless at governing territory.
'Thank goodness I recruited Lapis as a companion when I did. My eye for talent is never wrong.'
As I was basking in self-satisfaction, Lapis spoke up cautiously. There was a hesitation about her that was unlike her usual self.
"Lord Dantalion. It's true that the matter I brought up wasn't exactly a grand undertaking."
"Hm? No, it was. It was incredible. Great job. Seriously, you saved my life."
"Then... might I ask for a small reward?"
I nodded my head.
"Of course! Just name it. I'll give you anything."
"...Anything at all?"
In that instant, Lapis's eyes gleamed.