laulau20
patreon
Chapter 49: Tail Companion Part 2
🕑 Added 2023-02-13 19:00:02 +0000 UTCChapter 49
“Lily! I looked everywhere for you!” Lhorne came into the town’s hall office at sunset. Mattheus and Nora were with him.
“Lily! What happened? Why are you crying?” Nora came near as she took a handkerchief from Lhorne and wiped Lily’s tears.
“Here…” She gave out the book the elf previously left us.
“WHAT!! This is insane! 30 million debt?!” Mattheus and Nora shouted.
“What’s the meaning of this! Lhorne!”
“There must be some misunderstanding. Let us ask Lord Edelweiss!” Lhorne tried to defend the good name of the elves but came out empty. As I expected, the formal education for a commoner doesn’t cover managing a company, Even for the supposed elite elves.
“How can we trust those nobles! All of them are the same! Lily has tried her best for them, but what has she got? A debt that can’t be paid even if she worked for hundreds of years!” Mattheus shouted. He grabbed Lhorne’s collar but refrained from taking things further because he knew Lhorne was not a noble.
“I am gonna kill those assholes!” He was about to grab his sword, but Lhorne stopped him
“Wait! We need to consult with Lord Edelweiss first! Don’t be rash!” Lhorne tried to stop Mattheus.
“Listen, Lhorne! I thought elves were different but I now know the problem doesn’t lie with races. It is with those high-handed nobles! I, too, have worked hard for nobles in the human nation! Do their dirty job only to be cast aside!”
“Calm down, Mattheus… there must be a reason for this.”
“I am going to call Jack. Maybe he knows some advice for us.” Nora said as she stormed outside. Two hours later, she brought back Jack, the son of a noble.
“So, Jack. Could you read this accounting book?” Mattheus asked him while fuming.
“Well, I think this 30 million debt was from the frontier village twenty years ago,” Jack answered after he flipped and skimmed the entire book. He mumbled here and there while looking at it. In the end, he closed it and gave his report while giving his brief summary.
“We call this village Edenthal Region now. It belongs to Lily.” Lhorne answered.
“Oh. So, that’s what happened. I have no idea about Elven laws, but this is quite a common trap in noble society.” Jack answered.
“Damn. Was this common? I sure don’t want to be noble!” Mattheus sighed. Knowing that slapping someone with millions of debt out of nowhere was a common practice must be absurd in his eye. Lhorne replied,” Elves are not the same as humans! Even if Lily got this unfair debt, she could always default to chapter 11 of the elven book of law!”
“What’s the debt trap about anyway?” Nora asked. Lhorne was also intrigued, “While I am not a noble and has not taken any lords curricula, I too, desire to know any scamming method employed by a human.”
“Basically, they shoved a company full of debt to some new noble. And thus, the debt was also transferred.” Jack replied.
“There must be some way to counter this, right? Otherwise, the noble society would collapse!” Mattheus, now had regained some of his calm, asked him. Nora nodded with him.
“Of course. You need to sign the inheritance paper. If you don’t, then the debt will not be owed to you.” Jack said. “that’s why when someone gave you something, you needed to do the audit to check it thoroughly.”
“Good!! We can smack those nobles’ faces. Lily hasn’t signed anything, right?”
“Yes. She didn’t even know how to write.” Nora nodded. Smiling at last.
“Oral confirmation has weaker power in the court. We could do this.” Jack nodded. “But we don’t know about elven law.”
Everyone then turned at Lhorne, our only elven consultant.
“I have no idea about this debt trap. But in the elven country, you can declare bankruptcy!”
“What’s that? If you had this much debt, you would be bankrupt. Is there any reason to declare it?” Mattheus gave a questioning look at him. Lhorne is not a lawyer, but he did go to school. His meager knowledge was desperately needed for us that was entirely in the dark.
“The country will take all your debt, company, and things. But you won’t be turned into slaves. You shall start a new one. That’s basically it. Though I have never exercised that law. It is also rarely exercised since it might bring a bad reputation among the elves. Quite a bit of tailfolk merchants exercised it, though. But if after they exercised it, they won’t be merchants ever again and usually worked as a clerk or waitresses in shops.”
“I see.”
“But you know… regardless of Human or elven country. It was absurd that Lily was pushed with that much debt at once.” Nora pondered.
“Yeah. This doesn’t make any sense. If it were a human country, they would try to make some kind of official declaration or something about this scam.”
“Elves don’t do scams! If elven bureaucrats wore formal government officer uniforms. It will be a serious crime if they do such a scam! If they don’t wear an official uniform, anything they speak about would be invalid! Though I agree that this requires some questioning. Lady Edelweiss could help us.” Lhorne spoke his mind through the lenses of fellow elves.
“Alright. The discussion is over now.”Mattheus said
“Yeah, we need to consult with someone more experienced. Just remember, Lily, don’t sign or declare yes to anything before you know what you agreed to.” Jack commented.
“You have the right to remain silent!” Nora said while putting her hands on her hip.
“Thank you all!” Lily smiled softly. She stopped crying and now looked at her family.
“See Lily! You are not alone. No matter what kind of obstacles are in front of us, we can do it together. So, don’t say you preferred to be slaves again.” I shouted. As her tail, I advised her to be more confident in herself. I held her hands for too long, now is the time for her to walk on her own path.
“Thank you, Shiro!” We then prepared to head to Regoia at once.
