So the Medieval Age Has a Split Inheritance System…
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Derpy
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 45 – Rejection
I visited the church almost every week to donate money, but every time I did, I would be connected with that vile goddess. While hurling insults, I would usually try to draw information regarding characteristics and the world of gods from her, but things changed today.
[“This service is no longer available.”]
No matter how many times I called out to the goddess, no matter how many times I insulted or praised her, this was all I got back. This was too sudden, and she was still insulting me vigorously last week, so why?
If I recall correctly, the last conversation we had was…
[“…How many do you think have died from the massive famine you caused in the Carling Empire?”]
Considering the total population and population density of the empire, the amount of food I bought, the harvest this year, last year’s stockpile, and so on… I’m guessing around 300,000 people starved to death?
[“It’s 409,361 people. That’s the number of people you have killed with the economic crisis you caused until yesterday.”]
Hey, it’s just 400,000 people. Considering the total population of the Carling Empire is about 20,000,000 people, it’s just 2%.
[“Don’t round the 9,361 deaths down as if it was nothing!”]1
That vile goddess was being unusually useful by telling me the number of deaths in the Carling Empire. By the way, even after killing this many people, this goddess still couldn’t interfere with the world directly. So while I didn’t get heavenly punishment or something like that, I could no longer communicate with her. It seemed like she might be preparing to take some sort of action, or perhaps she was abandoning this world…
To be blunt, with 400,000 deaths, 9,361 deaths were nothing but a fraction of it. And it wasn’t like I killed them directly. All I did was purchase some food and destroy the economy. That was all. Since I didn’t kill them directly, I didn’t feel any sense of guilt over it.
The people who lived in the urban areas seemed to have died of starvation more, but telling me that 2% of the population died was just statistics to me. It was said that killing one person makes a murderer, while killing a million makes a hero, so now that it had come to this, I aimed to raise that number to 8 digits.
But well, it was a bit unfortunate that I lost a source of information known as the goddess. Regardless of what she said, she often let information slip. So I got to learn about things like the upper limit of characteristics, the experience required to acquire a characteristic, and things that often wouldn’t be known. I also learned that all of them were governed under a mechanical system, which made me inwardly rejoice when I heard that.
She was an omniscient presence, so it felt rather lonely now that I could no longer communicate with her… Nah, not really. In the end, she didn’t help me like a goddess should, so I didn’t regret losing her.2
Well, maybe I would be able to communicate with her again someday, so I should just drop the matter for now. Today, I paid my alms to the church, while ignoring the priest demanding I pay with food instead of money, and proceeded to look around the territory.
Even after the economic collapse, my territory was not affected by the famine, or rather, because soup kitchens were being initiated every day, the people here had excess food. The reason the church demanded food instead of money was because currency no longer held any value, not because they really needed food to eat.
At the very least, there shouldn’t be anyone who starved to death in my territory. I hosted a large-scale soup kitchen every day and let them take the bread home with them, so I would be troubled if they still starved to death.
…In order for one’s nation to be richer than other nations, there were two methods. One was to make one’s nation wealthy, and the other was to make other nations poorer than their own nation. There were many ways to impoverish other nations outside of war.
I’d also received information that people in the urban areas and various mercenary groups were plundering agricultural villages that were hiding food. Even the smarter rural villagers, who secured enough food to feed themselves, would suffer from famine as well. Once that happened, they would lay their hands on the horses and cows used to plow the field.
If the animals that plow the fields were slaughtered, the plowing depth would inevitably become shallower, reducing the harvest next year and onward. What a wonderful cycle. Now that I thought about it, I guess it was about time to develop tools for plowing fields deeply. My worries about information leaking had faded, and the flow of people going in and out had decreased considerably. Considering the harvest season next year and the year after, doing it now would be the best.
I became 14 years old this year and was now one year away from becoming an adult. That meant that a year had passed since Linde-san first arrived… Back then, I had just acquired Triore county and became a count with multiple counties. A year later, I was now Duke Deal and destroyed the economy of the empire as a whole, showing my great progress.
As a result of making Estoa duchy part of Estoani Kingdom once again, Agnes-kun was granted two counties within Estoa duchy. I think it won’t take long before he becomes Duke Estoa. Since Estoa duchy consisted of 5 counties, one only needed to control 3 counties to be recognized as Duke Estoa.
In other words, once he takes over a county and pays the money necessary to become Duke Estoa, he would become one. Once he becomes the duke, he would be able to control the vassals under Estoa duchy, and I would declare war on him then.
I think I would be able to get the results I wanted faster than I thought. The economic crisis didn’t affect Estoani Kingdom, and there seemed to be a lot of good people there, so many people sent food over to Estoa duchy while they were suffering from the famine, which was good. I would be harvesting them later, so I preferred them to be fattened by then.
Want early access to Cannon Fodder, Melancholy of the Demon Army Officer, and I Was a Man Before Reincarnating, So I Refuse a Reverse Harem? Support the translator on Patreon!
