Accountant Isekai

The sun had just risen over the horizon, and Joanna and I strode through the wide streets of Blitzburg. Houses of brick and whitewashed wood surrounded us. Smoke plumed from chimneys. The smell of baked goods wafted into my nose. It was accompanied by the smell of shit. Cleaners moved through the streets with giant carts filled with horse shit. I tried to ignore the strench.

Joanna smiled with nostalgia on her face, “Ah, the Adventurer’s Guild. I remember back when I was the spellcaster of a party.”

“You were an adventurer?” I asked.

“A lot of nobles were. We use it to gain combat experience when we’re young; though, we usually wait until we're 16 or 17,” Joanna answered.

“Well, I don’t have many options,” I said. “Being an adventurer is the only way to make a lot of money fast that won’t land me in jail. And I don’t need enough money to keep us afloat permanently. I just need enough to buy time so I can think of a better plan.”

I refused to even consider raising taxes. I might need to; however, I’d delay it for as long as possible. Increased taxes would put a greater burden on the commoners. It would also discourage merchants from doing business in Blitzburg.

The Adventurer's Guildhall was a tall building, half the size of my family's keep. It was made of red wood with a large door that was more like a small gate. Numerous people entered and exited the building. They wore everything from leather to plate armor. Swords were on their hips while they carried larger weapons in their hands.

We entered the building, where I drew the gazes of a number of the people inside. Some of them were sitting at tables. Others were standing or leaning against walls. While young nobles often became adventurers, I was still the son of this city's lord. That was bound to draw attention. I strode up to the front desk. A woman with porcelain skin and doll-like joints on her arms sat at it.

"Hello," I said.

“Lord Gustav,” she smiled. “What can I help you with today?”

“I want to become an adventurer,” I replied.

She said, “I’ll get you in right away. Because you’re a spellcaster and a noble, you won’t need to go through our usual apprenticeship period.”

“Good,” I stated.

I fucking hated getting into the guild so easily because I was a noble; however, I REALLY needed the money.

“Tell me, what’s your name?” I asked.

The receptionist seemed surprised that I asked that, “It’s Charlotte, my lord.”

“Charlotte,” I said. “What quests do you have?”

“Well, we have a monster-slaying quest.”

“Perfect. What am I going to kill?”

“A raven sheep. It’s a sheep with a raven’s beak and a few feathers,” she explained.

What?

I asked, “And?”

“That’s it,” Charlotte stated. “It’s just a sheep with the beak of a raven and a few feathers.”

I heard Dʰéǵʰom laughing.

“Why does someone need an adventurer to kill that thing? A normal guy with a spear or a bow or a shoehorn would do it just fine,” I pointed out.

Charlotte said, “People who can afford to hire adventurers get pretty lazy. I’ve got quests asking adventurers to kill normal rats in their houses. We usually shove those quests onto apprentices.”

Joanna sighed with relief, “I’m so happy that I never had to do those quests.”

For a moment, I considered accepting the raven sheep-killing job.

“You should think about your reputation,” Dʰéǵʰom advised me. “Imagine if other nobles found out that your first quest was killing a raven sheep.”

Damnit.

“I’m not killing that monster,” I said. “Do you have any other quests?”

“Yes. Aside from my 500 quests asking for someone to find the Lost Treasure of Captain Omen, I have someone who wants a camel leopard killed,” the receptionist stated.

“A camel leopard? That’s just an old word for a giraffe,” I thought.

“I looked, and someone else just killed it,” Dʰéǵʰom told me. “You’d be wasting your time.”

“Not killing that either. What’s the Lost Treasure of Captain Omen?”

“Captain Omen was a demon pirate who raided multiple worlds, amassing ten times more gold than all the nations in our continent combined have. They say he hid it in our world 5,000 years ago, and numerous people have been looking for it since.”

NO ONE MUST EVER FIND THAT TREASURE!!!

“Not interested in that,” I said.

Joanna nodded, “If no one’s found it in 5,000 years, it probably doesn’t exist.”

That wasn’t what I meant. Hyperinflation…is scary.

“Is there anything else you have?” I asked.

“Well…” Charlotte looked through her sheets of paper. “There’s a quest for killing sword snails.”

“Sword…snails…” my jaw dropped.

“Yes. They’re dog-sized snails whose eyestalks look like swords and are sharp.”

This was…

“What a stupid monster,” Joanna said. “There’s no way Gustav will take it.”

…perfect.

“I’ll take it,” I stated.

Joanna’s eyes widened in shock, “But…snails?”

“Did I stutter?”

Dʰéǵʰom said, “Wait a minute, Gustav! If the other nobles find out that you’re killing snails, it’ll hurt your reputation! A lot of people respect you because you're a saint. Don't ruin that!”

“I don’t care,” I thought before speaking. “I’ll kill those snails! I’ve longed to taste some ever since I was born!”

“Alright, I’ll…” Charlotte started before stopping. “What did you just say, my lord?”

Later that day, as the sun began to set, the townsfolk looked on in awe. I rode on a horse that was pulling a cart filled with hundreds of sword snail corpses. They were piled so high that they towered over the city walls. Charlotte walked out of the guild hall with utter shock on her face.

“You…were just supposed to kill 20 sword snails…” she started.

I said, “Then only pay me for 20 of these snails. I have something else planned for the rest of these guys.”

“What?”

“Allow me to introduce you all to escargot,” I smiled.

I brought out my castle’s cooking staff to make a grand meal of giant snail escargot. We had more than enough to feed the entire city.

Almost no one actually tried escargot. Pretty much every one of the city’s beggars did, along with a good chunk of the other poor people. However, even most of the impoverished didn’t bother.

“Why don’t they want to eat escargot?” I leaned my face against a wall to hide my tears. “It’s the perfect food.”

Joanna placed her hand on my shoulder, “Gustav, do you have any idea how disgusting snails are?”

“No, I don’t! I don’t understand it at all!”

“Fucking frogs,” Dʰéǵʰom muttered.

“That’s a good idea,” I thought. “If they don’t like escargot, maybe they’ll like frog legs?”

“…not what I meant.”

“Well, at least the poorest of the poor had something to eat,” Joanna noted. “They’re the people who need it the most.”

That lit a massive lightbulb in my head. I ran right back to the castle and started writing documents. Joanna followed me inside, looking on in amazement.

“What are you writing, Gustav?"

I said, “We have a serious beggar problem in this city, partially because there aren’t enough jobs for all of them. If I can start an escargot industry, we could employ them.”

“Gustav, that is a terrible idea,” Joanna said.

Dʰéǵʰom agreed, “She’s right.”

“But if we can find a market for it, we could get jobs for the poor, increased tax revenue, and delicious snail food.”

Joanna took a deep breath, “Gustav, I’m happy that you care about the poor, but you’re acting out of desperation. Starting this market would require money we don’t have, and only the poorest of the poor actually tried your escargot. Now, did you just accept this quest because you wanted to eat snails, or did you think people would like your escargot?”

“I was hoping that we could find people to sell escargot too,” I confessed.

“How desperate for money are you?” she asked. “How bad are things?”

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes. I didn't want to have to admit it. The mere thought of our situation filled me with dread. However, Joanna was my wet nurse. She of all people deserved to know.

“Even if we don’t run out of money in a few months, even if His Majesty granted us lands, another elf population boom would ruin us. No, it’s worse than that. Unless we can turn Blitzburg into a wealthy merchant city, even the High Elves’ normal population growth would destroy us within three years, even if we got more than enough money to handle their current population. The only solution is turning Blitzburg into a merchant city.”

Joanna sat in a chair, “Is turning Blitzburg into a merchant city possible? Trade’s pretty rare. Most merchants won’t risk going anywhere beyond a city or two away from their homes because of all the monsters.”

“If it can be done, I will do it. We’re not in a bad location. To our West are the lands of the High Elves, to the South are the coastal trade cities, and to the East is Weltai and the trade that flows in from that. Even if trade is rare, it's still valuable. I have an idea for how we can make Blitzburg a trade city too, but we’ll need a lot of money for that.”

Before you ask, no, merchants being afraid of monsters doesn't make raising taxes on them a more viable option. Take it from an accountant, people are willing to do some incredibly fucking stupid things to get out of paying taxes. And that's not even getting into the illegal stuff some idiots do.

“I’ll see if I can find a quest worth enough money to get enough money to keep us from running out for a few months,” she jumped up. “It’ll be dangerous, so I’m going with you.”

Fear pulsed through me, but I forced it down.

I nodded, “I’ll get ready for anything.”

The next day, Joanna approached me. She was dressed in tight-fitting monster leather armor and carrying a sheet of paper.

“Your wet nurse is hot,” Dʰéǵʰom said.

“That’s not cool!” I thought. “She’s like a second mother or maybe a big sister to me!”

“I found a quest. It’s dangerous, and we’ll have to join an adventuring party, but it’ll give us a big reward,” Joanna handed me the paper.

After examining it, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“This’ll give us enough money to last an additional month, which should give me enough time to figure something else out,” I stated.

Joanna smiled, "I have full faith in you, Gustav.”

“Good, but there aren’t many details in this paper,” I noted. “Did the guild tell you anything?”

“Yes. 20 years ago, there was a sorceress named Lisha. She got really drunk and made a massive, nonsensical underground prison. She couldn’t find her way out. So, she got a familiar to send a message to the adventurer’s guild offering a reward for her freedom because this was before crystal balls were common. Since then, adventurers have been trying to map her prison out, but they’ve recently run into a roadblock. Part of it actively changes as you go through. Making it past this part might get us right to the sorceress.”

“Then let’s go,” I smiled.

Joanna grabbed a one-handed falx, which was a curved pre-medieval sword designed to pierce armor. I, meanwhile, had an arming sword. While I wanted to have a rapier specially made, it would mean spending money my family did not have. I thankfully had a suit of mail that I could wear. While polearms were an option, we'd need at least one free hand for spellcasting. That's why we just brought swords.

We moved out and met up with the adventuring party in a clearing. There were four of them, two men and two women. One of the women was wearing a gambeson and twiddling a dagger between the fingers on one hand while rubbing a scar on her cheek with the other. She had very nice curves, an athletic body, and thick thighs.

Despite the scar, her appearance reminded me that I was a hormonal teenager. It’s fucking weird, but I hadn’t been around any women I was sexually interested in until now. Everyone close to me had been someone I considered family. And the Adventurer's Guild's receptionist wasn't exactly showing off enough for me to find her attractive.

As for the other woman, she was wearing red priestess robes, her hair was in a bonnet, and she carried a staff. This stave was in the image of a snake eating a poisonous frog. There was a blood-red orb in the frog’s mouth.

Her priest robes covered too much of her body for me to be attracted to her.

The first man had a suit of plate armor, a spear in his hand, a helmet under his shoulder, and a sidesword at his hip. This man also had a thick head of black hair and greenish-red eyes.

"Dammit!" I thought. "Why didn't anyone tell me that there were sideswords in this world? They're the predecessors to rapiers! I would have gotten one of those instead of an arming sword if I knew!"

As for the second man, he was covered head to toe in muscle like a bodybuilder. He wore nothing on his chest. This guy didn't even wear a helmet. Instead, he wore a pair of pants and a mail skirt over it.

“I am Saint Gustav von Blitzburg,” I introduced myself. “And this is my wet nurse, Joanna Smed.”

The priestess bowed so deeply that her head hit the ground, “I’m truly honored to meet a saint like you! I am Matilda, Priestess of Krewh.”

Dʰéǵʰom said, “I hope she isn’t one of those really devout people.”

“I thought gods liked people being devoted to them,” I thought.

“We do,” he replied. “But if it goes far enough, it gets really fucking creepy, like what the dark elves do. I’m glad that they don’t worship me.”

“A noble. Damnit, if only we didn’t need a spellcaster,” the scarred woman muttered before speaking up. “I’m Red Caedy. I sneak and disarm traps. That’s all you need to know.”

The spearman stated, “I’m Richard of Liontown.”

I thought, “Fuck! He’s from fantasy England! I can tell right away by his accent!”

“You really need to chill,” Dʰéǵʰom groaned.

The muscular man didn’t say anything. I looked right at him, but he remained silent.

“My Lord wishes for you to introduce yourself,” Joanna said.

“If he wants me to, he can ask me himself.”

“Listen here, dumbass,” Red Caedy walked right up to him. “I don’t know how they do things in the Barbell Tribe or wherever you’re from, but around here, you don’t risk pissing off the nobles!”

He huffed, “I’m not from the Barbell Tribe.”

This dumbass didn’t elaborate.

“My Lord,” Richard bashed his head against a tree. “This is Bloodcaca. He used to be part of the Dumbbell Tribe, but they kicked him out because they couldn’t stand him.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” I stated.

Bloodcaca replied, "No, it isn’t!”

Red Caedy looked ready to strangle him.

“Let’s just get moving,” Richard said. “We have enough supplies to make it through the dungeon. If we can get to the sorceress, we’ll get a great reward. It’ll be more than enough for each of us to retire off of. Well, I doubt any of us are going to retire, but it’s an option.”

And yet, it would only keep my house afloat for another month. I had no idea how the high elves consumed that many drugs without dying.

“Whatever,” Bloodcaca shrugged. “Let’s get this over with.”

We traveled over to a large passage. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I saw the pure darkness inside. I imagined horrors creeping inside, ready to tear my flesh to pieces. Richard stood in front of me, gave me a reassuring smile, and pulled out a map.

“I’ll go in first,” he said.

Bloodcaca glared, “No way, man, I’m going in first!”

“Why?”

“You can’t handle it if we’re attacked!”

“I’m wearing full plate armor, and you don’t even have a shirt,” Richard pointed out.

“Fuck you,” Bloodcaca scoffed. “I’m going in, man.”

He yanked the map from Richard’s hands and marched into the darkness.

Matilda assured us, “I’ll stay right behind him and heal him if he gets hurt.”

“Are you sure healing him's a good idea? We might be better off without him,” Red Caedy stated.

“The blood god demands that I heal anyone who isn’t my enemy. Unless he tries to kill us, it is my duty to heal him.”

I thought, “Well, this is off to a terrible start. I hope that idiot doesn’t get us lost.”

No one in my party called the grand underground thing we entered a dungeon, but that’s what most people from my world would call it. I doubted nonsensical underground things were common enough in this world to even get a name.

It was pitch black inside with very rough cave-like walls; however, Joanna and I made balls of light with magic. These would be visible to us, but not any monsters inside. We had to move cautiously to avoid stepping in various disgusting fluids that covered the ground. Bloodcaca kept stepping in monster shit, but he didn’t seem to care.

Stagnant air wafted into my nose. I gagged at the stench of this horrid place. It was so bad that my sense of disgust overwhelmed my fear. Some liquid flowed through my boots and soaked my socks.

“Please don’t be piss, please don’t be piss, please don’t be piss,” I prayed.

“It’s piss,” Dʰéǵʰom said.

“Damnit,” I groaned. “How long have we been in here? It must have been hours.”

Bloodcaca glared, “It’s been five minutes, asshole.”

“Five minutes?”

“Take it easy,” Joanna told me. “Everyone’s first outing is the same.”

“Not mine!” Bloodcaca declared.

Richard groaned, “You pissed yourself when you saw a wolf.”

“Shut up, man! You don’t know me!”

We traveled further in the darkness. Anything could have been in front of us, lurking out of sight. Water dripped from the ceiling onto my shoulder. I started breathing heavily. I looked over my shoulder in case some monster got behind us.

Then I heard it. Something was shuffling up ahead. I pulled by hands up out of instinct, desperate to protect myself if we were about to be ambushed.

“Stay quiet. We don’t know what that is,” Richard advised.

Red Caedy stated, “I’ll sneak ahead and see if I can figure out what we’re up against.”

“Finally!” Bloodcaca shouted. “Fresh meat!”

This massive barbarian pulled out two tiny daggers and charged into the darkness. He got out of the reach of our light, and we had to run to catch up to him. A puny voice called out.

“I surrender!” it shouted.

We arrived to find Bloodcaca pressing his daggers to the neck of a tiny, bearded old man with reptilian eyes and scales around his neck.

“A kobold,” Joanna said.

Bloodcaca asked, “What the fuck’s that?”

“They’re a type of nature spirit that usually inhabits mines. They’re related to dwarves.”

“What the fuck is one of those guys doing here?” the barbarian picked up the kobold and started shaking him.

“I’m the janitor!”

Matilda asked, “This place has a janitor?”

“Of course, it does,” the kobold stated. “Someone has to reset the traps, clean up the monster shit, get rid of the decomposing bodies before they rot, buff out the monster scratches in the walls, all sorts of things! I barely get a day off!”

“Then you aren’t here to hurt us?” I questioned.

“Of course, not! I’m just here to clean things up! Look down the hall if you want proof. There’s not a speck of monster shit there.”

Joanna moved her light forward. The dungeon ahead of us was pristine.

“We can let him go,” she said. “Kobolds don’t harm humans unless they’re seriously disrespected. The worst they do is pull mild pranks.”

“How do we know we can trust you? You might be working for the kobolds!” Bloodcaca declared. “I say we smash this thing’s head in.”

“Damn it all! He’s going to kill the kobold if I don’t do something!” I thought.

“Telling him to stop won’t work. It’ll probably encourage him,” Dʰéǵʰom advised.

“But I can’t just sit here and do nothing. What can I do?”

Richard spoke up, “This is ridiculous! You’ll bring more trouble on us by killing it! Do you want to walk through monster shit on the way out?”

Bloodcaca glared, “We can’t trust this kobold! He might rape us in our sleep!”

“I don’t sleep, remember?” Red Caedy groaned.

“Whatever, man.”

“Please don’t hurt the little kobold,” Matilda begged.

That’s when my brain started doing things.

“Bloodcaca,” I glared. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re wasting your time! How can a warrior of your stature even consider a kobold of all things worthy of smashing?”

“W-What?” my words shocked Bloodcaca.

I said, “Kobolds are pathetic little worms. Imagine if a great warrior like you had to explain that they wasted their time killing kobolds when they could have been killing something that’s actually worth it.”

Caedy shot me a glare that could cut ice. She looked ready to cut my head off.

Bloodcaca dropped the kobold, “You’re right, man. This thing isn’t worth killing.”

The barbarian stomped forward, followed by Matilda. I knelt in front of the kobold.

“I apologize for the trouble. I hope you aren’t too hurt,” I said.

Shock covered Caedy’s face.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m safe, and that’s what matters,” the kobold told me.

I replied, “And I’m sorry that I insulted you.”

He stated, “It’s fine. I know you did it to get that big bastard off of me. That one’s going to be trouble, I tell you.”