Grendel could hear it: what Tiffany really wanted to talk about wasn't these payments at all. The real big expenses were the two wars with no direct returns—the Wilds campaign and the Fishmen invasion.
At least in the short term there was no profit in sight, especially with the Fishmen invasion: the casualties were heavy, enormous amounts of supplies were burned through, and the subsequent battle-merit rewards plus compensation for over a hundred people were like water pumps sucking every last Gold Coin out of the account.
As for Operation Dawn, conquering the Wilds didn't mean it was over; developing the Wilds also required a huge sum to push things forward.
Now Grendel understood why Lance had used the Church to screen out a batch of Mobs—because penal labor doesn't cost money. You just need to feed them.
And at the same time he'd filtered out a batch of unstable factors.
