Kenji spends the evening establishing baseline metrics. Armed with his notebook and a borrowed measuring rod, he's quantified Ashvale's approximate population (127 residents), cataloged primary industries (subsistence farming, minor crafts, seasonal trade), and extrapolated economic patterns from market observations.
Useful. But incomplete.
What he needs is documentation.
The opportunity materializes at dawn when Marta's neighbor approaches the cottage with furtive glances over his shoulder. Henrik the miller—gap-toothed, flour-dusted, nervous as a cat in a thunderstorm.
"You're that scholar, right?" Henrik's voice barely rises above a whisper. "The one asking questions about... about taxation?"
Kenji sets down his cold breakfast, sensing an opening. "I'm researching administrative efficiency in rural governance structures."
Henrik's confused squint suggests he understood maybe half those words, but he presses forward anyway. "My cousin works in Thorne's retinue. Not by choice, mind you—pressed into service three years back when he couldn't pay his grain tax." His weathered hands twist together. "But he... he sees things."
"What kind of things?"
"Documents. Ledgers. Records that show what Thorne claims he's collecting versus what the Crown actually receives."
Every muscle in Kenji's body tightens. Source documents. Primary evidence. The holy grail of forensic accounting.
"Your cousin would be willing to share this information?"
"Willing? Gods, no. The man's terrified for his life." Henrik's eyes dart toward the main road. "But he managed to smuggle out copies of last season's collection reports. Figured maybe someday someone would come along who could make sense of the numbers."
Henrik pauses, studying Kenji's face with sudden intensity. "You're not just a scholar, are you?"
"I'm someone who believes arithmetic should function correctly."
That seems to satisfy Henrik. He produces a leather portfolio from beneath his worn cloak, handling it like it contains live coals. "These are from the spring harvest tax. Official receipts, assessment records, transfer authorizations—the complete paper trail. My cousin says the mathematics never align properly, but he's not educated enough to understand why."
Kenji accepts the documents with the reverence of an art collector receiving a lost masterpiece. "I'll need absolute privacy to analyze these properly."
"Use old Willem's cottage—the miller's place by the stream. Been empty since he died last winter. No one goes there anymore."
---
One hour later, Kenji transforms the abandoned cottage's main table into a forensic workspace. Dust motes dance in morning sunlight as he spreads parchments across the weathered wood, his practiced eyes immediately scanning for structural patterns.
The documents are handwritten on quality parchment—expensive, official, bearing authentic-looking seals. But the framework underneath remains familiar: assessment rolls, collection receipts, transfer authorizations. The same bureaucratic skeleton he'd dissected a thousand times in corporate audits.
Time to build his analysis matrix.
He draws neat columns in his notebook:
**OFFICIAL ASSESSMENT - ASHVALE DISTRICT (SPRING 1247):**
- Grain Tax: 400 bushels @ market rate
- Craft Levy: 50 silver marks
- Crown Service Fee: 25 silver marks
- **Total Expected Revenue: 75 silver marks equivalent**
**COLLECTION RECEIPT (THORNE'S DOCUMENTATION):**
- Grain collected: 600 bushels
- Silver collected: 120 marks
- "Administrative Processing Fees": 45 marks
- **Total Claimed Collection: 165 silver marks equivalent**
**ROYAL TREASURY DEPOSIT (INTERNAL COPY):**
- Grain deposited: 350 bushels
- Silver deposited: 65 marks
- **Total Actual Deposit: 65 silver marks equivalent**
Kenji stares at the numbers, his trained mind running automatic variance calculations.
Assessment vs. Collection: +120% variance
Collection vs. Deposit: -61% variance
Assessment vs. Final Deposit: -13% variance
The pattern crystallizes with mathematical precision. Thorne claims to collect 220% of the assessed tax burden—already suspicious. But only 39% of his claimed collections reach the royal treasury.
Either this man represents the most catastrophically incompetent tax collector in recorded history, or he's operating a systematic embezzlement scheme with an effective skim rate of approximately 60%.
Professional opinion: The probability of incompetence explaining this variance approaches zero.
Kenji sets down his pen and allows himself a moment of pure, undiluted satisfaction. For the first time since his impossible resurrection, every cell in his body vibrates with familiar purpose.
He hasn't just found evidence.
He's found his calling.
The audit trail stretches before him like a roadmap to justice, and Kenji Nakamura—former forensic accountant, current displaced soul, eternal enemy of financial fraud—is ready to follow it wherever it leads.
---
Kenji works through the morning methodically, transforming medieval parchments into something his analytical mind can process. Using charcoal and the blank reverse of Henrik's documents, he constructs what might be the first spreadsheet this world has ever seen—neat columns, calculated totals, variance analysis presented in stark numerical clarity.
The fraud pattern emerges with mathematical elegance.
Thorne operates a sophisticated three-layer scheme: artificially inflate assessments beyond legal parameters, collect the inflated amounts through intimidation, then deposit only the minimum required to the Crown while systematically pocketing the difference. Classic embezzlement wrapped in bureaucratic legitimacy.
But there's an anomaly. Something that deviates from standard fraud models he's encountered.
Kenji examines the physical parchments under different angles of morning light. The ink shifts subtly—not quite the same shade in direct sunlight versus shadow. Certain numbers shimmer with that familiar faint luminescence he'd observed in the market coins, while others remain flat and lifeless.
He needs additional data points.
Over the following two days, he conducts what he privately categorizes as "forensic interviews" with villagers, though he presents them as "socioeconomic surveys for comparative governance research." The testimony confirms his working hypothesis with disturbing consistency:
- Every respondent remembers paying significantly more than their original assessment
- Seven witnesses specifically recall Thorne's guards employing "truth-reading" enchantments during collections
- Multiple testimonies describe legal documents that "revised themselves" after signatures were applied
"The writs grow extra clauses right before your eyes," explains Sarah the weaver during her interview, her needle work forgotten in her lap. "You agree to pay ten silver marks, sign your mark thinking it's done, then somehow the parchment reads fifteen. Magic ink, official seals—what's a person supposed to do? Argue with sorcery?"
Kenji adds "Magically-enhanced contract fraud" to his expanding taxonomy of criminal activities.
On the third evening, Henrik arrives at the abandoned cottage with intelligence that makes Kenji's blood run cold.
"Thorne's entourage was spotted on the Old Road this afternoon. Outriders, baggage train, the whole operation. He'll reach Ashvale tomorrow morning, day after at the latest."
Kenji reviews his preliminary findings by candlelight. He's documented systematic over-assessment, collection irregularities, and what appears to be supernatural contract manipulation. In his previous life, this evidence portfolio would guarantee criminal prosecution and lengthy imprisonment.
Here, he's beginning to understand, it might guarantee his death.
"Henrik, I need to ask you something critical. Has anyone ever successfully challenged Thorne's collection methods? Anyone at all?"
Henrik's weathered face darkens like storm clouds gathering. "There was Marcus the grain merchant, maybe two years past. Educated man—kept meticulous records of every transaction. Tried to prove Thorne was systematically overcharging him using those magical contract modifications."
"What happened to Marcus?"
"Found dead in his shop three days before Thorne's next scheduled visit. Officially ruled a robbery gone wrong, but nothing was taken except his account ledgers. Every single record book, gone."
Kenji nods grimly. Evidence elimination combined with witness termination—textbook intimidation tactics.
"And since then?"
"People pay whatever they're told and keep their mouths shut."
Kenji studies his makeshift spreadsheet in the dancing candlelight, columns of numbers casting shadows like prison bars across the wooden table. The mathematics tell an unambiguous story of systematic corruption and theft. But in a world where contracts rewrite themselves and guards carry truth-detection magic, numerical proof might prove insufficient for survival.
He needs a strategic approach.
More critically, he needs to understand exactly how the supernatural elements of this fraud network operate. You can't audit what you don't comprehend, and you certainly can't fight it.
Tomorrow, he'll observe the collection system firsthand.
Tonight, he prepares for his first audit confrontation in a world where being right about the numbers might not be enough to stay alive.
But as Kenji organizes his evidence and sharpens his charcoal, one thought burns bright in his analytical mind: fraud is fraud, regardless of the methodology. Whether accomplished through spreadsheet manipulation or magical contract alteration, theft remains theft.
And Kenji Nakamura has never lost an audit.
He doesn't plan to start now.