#1. Deficit
“Haa……”
White breath spilled out every time he exhaled.
The lord’s office of Winterwald Grand Duchy in the north.
There sat the ghost of the battlefield who guarded the northern reaches of the continent, the master of Winterwald and the Empire’s Sword Master, Grand Duke Kailan Winterwald.
‘Fire magic stones have gotten far too expensive lately. I can endure it, but at this rate, all my subjects might freeze to death.’
He was a man with jet-black hair and blue eyes—yes, in other words, the face of a typical sculpted handsome man from a romance fantasy novel.
Such overwhelming charisma flowed from him that even most knights could not meet his eyes and would lower their heads.
Even now, he rested his chin on his hand with a grave expression, glaring at the bundle of parchment before him.
His loyal aide and knight commander, Cedric.
He stood by the door, watching him.
“Ahh… To think he agonizes so deeply for the safety of the north… Hup!”
Cedric held his position, even suppressing his breathing in case he disturbed his liege.
Meanwhile, the innermost thoughts of Kailan—or rather, Lee Hyeonsu, the perennial manager of the accounting/logistics integration team at a small-to-medium enterprise in the Republic of Korea—were burning with anxiety.
‘This is insane. Does this even make sense? A deficit of thirty thousand gold this month alone?’
One imperial gold coin was worth roughly one million won in Korean currency. In other words, the hole in this month’s territorial operating budget alone amounted to a staggering thirty billion won.
Kailan suppressed the urge to tear the parchment report before him to shreds.
Three months since possession.
After collapsing from overwork, he had opened his eyes to find himself the northern grand duke from the romance fantasy novel his younger sister loved to read.
At first, he had cheered. He thought he had finally escaped his shitty corporate life and would live it up as a noble lord born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
The northern grand duke in a romance fantasy was rich, powerful, and later lived a happy life flirting with the pretty female lead sent by the emperor.
Yes, at least that was how it looked to the readers.
…But there was a reality that could not be fully captured in a five-thousand-character chapter.
In the north, nine months out of the year were winter. Farming? Even if you scattered seeds on frozen ground, the only things that grew were small, tasteless, unimproved, rock-hard potatoes.
Grand Duke was nothing but a fine-sounding title. In reality, he was no different from the owner of a security company forced to single-handedly block waves of monsters on the Empire’s front line.
The subsidies from the imperial family were pitifully meager, while the cost of maintaining a ten-thousand-man defense force, relief food for the subjects, and repairs to broken walls was astronomical.
Romance, my ass.
He woke at six in the morning to crack monster skulls, spent the afternoon checking how many subjects had frozen to death, and wrestled at night with these damn deficit-ridden ledgers. He had no time to think about women.
‘If I didn’t have a Sword Master’s stamina, I would have died from overwork here too.’
Kailan pressed hard against his throbbing temples.
‘At this rate, the territory will go bankrupt within three years. If that happens, not just the north but the entire Empire is finished.’
He had only one goal.
Turn this damned territory profitable, put the system on autopilot, then retire to a resort in the south where it was warm all year round.
‘FIRE movement! Here I coooome!’
Just as he dipped his pen deep into the ink and was about to ruthlessly mark an X beside the [Knights’ Dining Expenses] item in the budget proposal—
“Your Grace! An urgent report!”
The office door burst open, and a messenger knight rushed in, panting.
Kailan’s eyebrow twitched.
‘Ah, damn it. What now? It’s right before quitting time.’
“What is it?”
He put on the most indifferent and cold voice he could manage. At that oppressive tone, the messenger flinched and dropped to one knee on the floor.
“A red signal has gone up from the Third Watchtower in the northwest! It is a mixed corps of orcs and dire wolves. Their number is estimated at over a thousand, and at this rate, they will reach the wall within two hours!”
Cedric’s expression stiffened by the door.
“Over a thousand! Damn it, a large-scale wave as soon as spring begins. Your Grace, I will summon the knights at once!”
Cedric spoke solemnly, gripping the hilt of his sword.
But Kailan was the opposite.
His eyes shone like a child’s, and he smiled.
‘I’m saved!’
Wolf pelts could be used as winter supplies.
More importantly, orcs and dire wolves were monsters.
Magic stones… In other words, ATM machines were voluntarily walking toward him.
‘Roughly one gold per orc. Two point five gold per dire wolf.’
Life began to return to Kailan’s eyes.
It was no different from a sucker with his wallet wide open walking right up to a sales team leader who had failed to meet his quarterly target!
“Cedric.”
“Yes, my lord! Give the order. Even if it costs me my life, I will cut off the heads of those monsters and bring them to you!”
“Yes. The heads… You must cut only the heads.”
“…Pardon?”
Cedric and the messenger knight made a foolish sound at the same time.
Kailan slowly rose from his seat.
An overwhelming aura poured from his massive, 190-centimeter frame.
He picked up the greatsword Frost Fang hanging on the wall and said,
“If you attack the heart, the magic stone will be damaged. As for the dire wolves, we have to collect their pelts, so they must be butchered with even greater care.”
Even after he had said that much, the two knights still wore blank faces.
“Do you not know that the territory is suffering from a severe deficit right now? Each and every magic stone is food that will fill our subjects’ bellies and clothing that will warm their bodies! Tell the knights that if anyone carelessly shatters a magic stone, I will remove cigarettes and jerky from that man’s supply list this month.”
“…!”
Only then did Cedric tremble and bow his head.
“I will clearly convey my lord’s warm intentions to the knights!”
Kailan inwardly clutched his forehead.
‘Did these idiots who know nothing but fighting really understand? Please, I’m begging you, preserve the merchandise. The auction price of A-grade pelts is three times that of C-grade pelts.’
In any case, the order had been given.
Kailan glared at the ash-gray sky beyond the window.
‘It’s right before quitting time, damn it.’
Today, overtime was mandatory.
***
The snowy field before the northern wall.
Kugugugugu!
A black wave was surging in with a vibration that shook the earth.
Orcs mad with slaughter and starving dire wolves screamed loudly enough to tear ears apart.
It was hardly the sort of atmosphere where one could get excited and hum about casually harvesting magic stones.
“Kroaaaaar!”
“Human! Kill! Human! Eat!”
Hundreds of Winterwald knights lined up before the wall gripped their swords tightly, their expressions stiff. Even for the elite of the north, it was not a number they could afford to underestimate.
Then, the heavy iron gate at the center of the defensive wall opened, and one knight burst out.
A man on a black horse, his black cloak fluttering.
It was the northern grand duke, Kailan.
“His Grace has taken the field himself!”
“Maintain formation! Cover His Grace!”
The moment Kailan appeared, the knights’ morale soared as if it would pierce the heavens.
After all, for the knights of the north, their liege standing at the vanguard was the highest honor and the greatest stimulant.
But Kailan, who stood at the forefront, was in fact in a very foul mood.
The wind was too cold. He had never suffered from a cold after being possessed, but that did not mean he could not feel the cold at all.
He would finish this quickly, then go back to his warm office and knock back a bowl of hot soup.
“Eight hundred orcs. Two hundred fifty dire wolves. I suppose the overtime pay comes to roughly fourteen hundred gold.”
Kailan muttered as he drew Frost Fang.
Chang!
Aura began to ripple around the blade.
His aura was as cold as a blizzard and as sharp as a surgical scalpel.
Kailan spurred his black horse.
In an instant, he plunged like lightning into the middle of the monster corps.
“Keong!”
A dire wolf charging at the front, ready to tear into him, bared its terrifying fangs at Kailan.
Kailan swung his sword indifferently, and the head of the alpha wolf leading the pack flew into the air.
Before blood could spray everywhere, the extreme cold lingering on Kailan’s sword instantly froze the cut surface.
Pelt damage: 0%. Magic stone damage: 0%.
It was clean resource harvesting.
Slice! Slash!
Kailan did not stop.
When his sword lightly cut the monsters’ knees and robbed them of mobility, their legs froze over and they collapsed one after another.
Behind Kailan, the knights charged in, heedless of death.
“His Grace has set the table for us! Don’t damage the pelts—cut off their heads!”
“If the merchandise value drops, it’ll come out of our supplies! Finish them carefully!”
It was probably the first time in northern history that knights had ever spoken of merchandise value.
Was it said that master and servants came to resemble one another?
The knights cutting off the monsters’ heads looked exactly like their liege, who had been sweating over the territory’s deficit.
The tearful rice-bowl struggle of working men continued for over three hours.
A short while later.
The long, desperate battle—no, the night shift—came to an end.
On the snowy field, over a thousand intact corpses of orcs and dire wolves formed a mountain.
Not a single person had died.
It was a brilliant achievement made possible because Sword Master Kailan had stood at the front.
Kailan sheathed his famous blade, unstained by even a single drop of blood, and took a deep breath.
“Cedric.”
“Yes, my lord!”
Cedric approached, drenched in sweat.
“Summon every subject skilled in butchering and leatherworking. Bring out every magic-stone-powered cutter as well. It will be an all-night job, so calculate and pay their night allowance at twice the usual rate, and prepare plenty of fire magic stones and warm soup. Before other monsters are drawn by the scent of blood, load all of that into the storehouses by tomorrow morning.”
“My… my lord.”
Cedric’s voice was thick with emotion.
“Even after fighting such a desperate battle, the only thing on your mind is whether your subjects might go hungry… Before the grace of my lord, deep as the sea, this Cedric can barely see for his tears.”
‘Stop making a fuss and hurry up with the work preparations…’
Kailan did not even have the energy to reply, so he merely nodded and turned his horse toward the castle. To think that even if he suffered like this all month long, it would only barely cover this month’s budget hole.
No matter how he thought about it, there was no answer if things continued this way.
‘Haa, I’m so damn sick of this. When will I be able to end this nonsense and rest on a warm southern beach with a mojito in hand?’
The next morning.
Kailan, who had always lost sleep over financial problems, woke up after a rare night of blissful sleep.
‘As expected, people need to work and earn money.’
He was just about to enjoy a refreshing morning shower when, knock knock! With the sound of knocking, the office door opened.
“My lord……”
Cedric staggered in, the area under his eyes dark and sunken from skinning wolves all night.
In his hand was a letter.
A letter sealed in wax with a double-headed eagle… A letter from the imperial family.
“It is an imperial letter urgently transmitted from the capital through the teleportation magic circle at dawn.”
Kailan forced himself to ignore the ominous premonition and tore open the envelope. As he quickly skimmed the contents, his eyes grew wider and wider.
[…Thus, We commend the efforts of Grand Duke Winterwald, who defends the northern border of the Empire as firmly as an iron wall, and wish to join Our lovely daughter, the shining pearl of the Empire, Princess Eleanor von Valdemar, with you as your consort. The princess shall arrive in the north at the beginning of next month…]
“Ha.”
A hollow laugh burst from Kailan’s mouth.
Cedric asked in horror,
“My lord? Wh-what is it? Has the imperial family refused support again?”
“No.”
Kailan tossed the letter onto the desk.
Eleanor, the ugly duckling of the imperial family and the female lead who, as an illegitimate child, had suffered every kind of persecution, was to enter a political marriage as if being sold off to the northern grand duke called a monster.
It was the beginning of the main story.
In the original novel, this princess spent the early days crying every night, wounded by the cold of the north and the grand duke’s bluntness, but gradually discovered his warm side and fell in love.
“His Majesty the Emperor says he will wed the Fourth Princess to me.”
“Wh-what did you say?! If it is the Fourth Princess… is she not the illegitimate child who lives holed up in the academy library? To make a princess of unclear bloodline the noble mistress of the north! This is imperial deception! We must send a letter of refusal at once…!”
“Wait.”
‘What were the female lead’s specs again… She definitely had the magic power of the sun…’
A passage from the original novel flashed through Kailan’s mind.
[Eleanor hid in the library to avoid her half-siblings who tormented her, and graduated at the top of her class from the Imperial Academy with a double major in public administration and finance.]
“Top of her class…”
Kailan’s eyes began to sparkle just as brightly as when he was subjugating a horde of orcs.
‘A princess born with the magic power of the sun, something only one in ten thousand possesses!’
The sun. What a beautiful sound, just hearing the word.
If they had her, the lord’s office would not even need separate fire magic stones.
Yes, she was no mere illegitimate child cast aside by the imperial family.
“Cedric.”
“Yes, my lord. Shall I immediately send a courier with your refusal?!”
“Are you insane?! Clean the reception room at once, and prepare the warmest room in the castle as Her Highness’s bedchamber!”
“Yes…? B-but…”
Kailan slammed the table and shouted,
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor! Prepare at once to receive Her Highness the Princess! And so that she can begin work as soon as she arrives, move all pending approval documents and the territory’s financial statements into the princess’s room!”
“Why would approval documents go into the bridal chamber…?”
Our territory finally had a minister of finance.
‘I’m not working overtime anymore!’