The manor house was cold enough to see his breath. Kael sat at the Baron's desk—a scarred slab of oak covered in years of dust—while Steward Elms nervously spread out the barony's financial and agricultural records.
The ledgers were bound in cracking leather, their pages filled with sprawling, messy script. They were less professional accounts and more desperate annotations. Elms hovered nearby, occasionally adjusting his spectacles, clearly viewing the exercise as a meaningless formality before their inevitable doom.
"These are three years of records, my lord," Elms whispered. "The previous Baron kept only scant records before his departure. Most are notes on taxes owed and debts incurred."
Kael ignored the gloom and pulled the first ledger close. To Elms, the numbers were a chaotic mess of symbols representing failure. To Adrian Cole, they were a diagnostic map of a failed system.
He began translating the script and the complex medieval system of weights, measures, and coinage into a modern, actionable report.
Harvests (Last 3 years): Grain yields listed were X, Y, and Z (all critically low). Adrian mentally calculated the required caloric intake for the village's current population of roughly 300 souls. The reality was grim: the total stored grain provided only enough for six weeks at standard rations.
Seed Stock: Elms pointed to a line that read: Seed for spring planting: insufficient. Must borrow. The amount recorded was barely enough to plant one-tenth of the needed acreage. Planting it would be pointless; it would guarantee the next harvest failed entirely.
Trade Debts: The final column was the most shocking. They owed exorbitant amounts to the Duke's main merchant guilds for iron tools and imported luxury goods the previous Baron had clearly purchased just before fleeing. The debt was immense—enough to cripple the barony for a decade.
Adrian shut the ledger with a decisive thump, raising a cloud of dust.
"The situation is far worse than I imagined," Kael said, not to criticize Elms, but to state a fact. "The previous Baron was not simply negligent. He financially sabotaged this territory. This is not famine. This is calculated murder."
Elms wrung his hands. "My lord, the tax collectors will arrive from the Duchy in four months. They will take everything we have left for the debt. We will not survive the winter."
Kael leaned back, his brown eyes cold and analytical. He had seen similar corruption in contracts back in his first life, but here, the stakes were flesh and blood.
The system pulsed again, not with an immediate physical threat, but a calculated, long-term one.
[DANGER ALERT: Financial ruin via debt default (Duchy Tax Collectors) is a high-probability threat (95% likelihood). Consequence: Immediate loss of all remaining assets and noble title.]
A noble title is a liability right now, Adrian thought. But I need that liability to enforce my orders.
"We will not pay the Duke's collectors," Kael stated.
Elms looked like he might faint. "My lord! That is treason! They will send knights!"
"They will send tax collectors first," Kael corrected, tapping the ledger. "The trade goods listed here—fine wine, silk, and a decorative suit of armor—they were bought at three times the market price. The interest rates are usury. This is not legitimate debt; it is a predatory scheme set up by my brother's merchants to bankrupt me and reclaim the land."
Adrian's logistics mind saw the loophole: he wouldn't fight the law, he'd fight the contract.
"Steward Elms," Kael continued, his voice calm, "I want you to draft a formal, immediate petition to the Imperial Court. Do not send it to my father, the Duke. Send it directly to the Royal Chancery in Aurelia."
"The Imperial Court?" Elms squeaked. "They will ignore a petition from the Ashen Frontier!"
"Perhaps," Kael conceded. "But you will use the exact language. State that the previous Baron's debts are so cripplingly usurious that meeting them would reduce the entire population to serfdom and permanently sterilize the land, making it unable to contribute any future taxes to the Crown. Frame it not as an appeal for mercy, but as a warning about the Crown's loss of future revenue."
He was turning the burden of proof back on his enemies. He used the very laws of the Empire—which favored revenue above all else—as his shield.
Elms, bewildered but energized by the strategy, snatched up a quill.
"Now, the hard part," Kael said, pushing away the financial ledger and pulling out the agricultural notes. "The seed stock is worthless, and we have only six weeks of food. We must use what we have to survive, not to plant. We need a food source that grows fast, requires minimal care, and, most importantly, can survive in this poor, ash-filled soil."
Adrian looked at the miserable description of the soil content—high in mineral ash, low in nitrogen, and severely compacted.
He had worked with worse in war-torn regions.
"Do we have any records of wild herbs, shrubs, or edible weeds that currently grow along the riverbed?" Kael asked. "Anything tough, anything green."
Elms frowned. "Only the 'Goat's Foot Vine,' my lord. It is hardy, yes, but its tubers are bitter and must be boiled for hours to be edible. No noble would touch it."
Kael gave a bitter smile. "I am no noble, Steward. Find the Goat's Foot. We are going to teach the people of Ashfall how to eat like goats."
He had six weeks of rations left to feed 300 people while he built infrastructure, organized a defense, and initiated his first desperate, scientifically-informed agricultural plan. The task was impossible.
Good, Adrian thought, adjusting his grip on the quill. Easy missions never taught me anything.