My Name Is Albrecht Part 3

The next day, I went to work as usual. I could not afford to take much time. If people noticed that the woman I had been living with was gone, suspicion would spread.

While doing my job, I altered documents and fabricated evidence of corruption implicating my superior, the official responsible for provisions.

I was not falsifying documents to cover up corruption. I was falsifying documents to stage corruption.

Something about it struck me as absurd, and I let out a small laugh. This was no time to be laughing, I thought, even as I continued altering the paperwork.

Within the scope of documents I could access, even corruption would not amount to much money. The sum was far too small for my superior, the nominal manager of provisions, to risk committing fraud.

It would look highly unnatural. But what if there were no other plausible suspects, and the only one available for punishment was him?

The investigation would proceed, and eventually it would lead to me as well. However, if I disappeared, they would still need a scapegoat to bear responsibility for the losses caused by the war.

Even if the evidence were weak, the provisions officer would be deemed the culprit. He was already a man with a poor reputation, known for dumping work on his subordinates while taking credit for himself.

All that remained was to give those around us a reason they could accept for why I, my live-in partner, and her family had vanished.

If I disappeared and the provisions officer was blamed, the worst possible future, in which my family would be executed by association, could be avoided.

The Ministry of Commerce also oversees shop taxation. One particular merchant was clearly evading taxes. Yet no one dared touch them.

They were a trading company belonging to the infamous underground guild, well known even in the imperial capital.

In the past, numerous idealistic bureaucrats had attempted to investigate the shop, only to vanish along with their families.

Now, no one would get involved.

No one wants to be killed. The underground guild had deep connections with corrupt nobles, and acting rashly would invite pressure from them as well.

But for me, this situation was convenient. It would be enough if people believed that I had displayed misguided justice and been erased along with my partner and her family.

I forced through a raid on the underground guild’s shop that no one had touched before and exposed every illegal act I could find. I examined the ledgers in detail and issued orders for additional taxation.

I prepared everything swiftly and finished before other bureaucrats noticed. I acted alone. If my direct superior had found out, he might have tried to stop me.

My immediate superior and the underground guild alike were caught completely off guard. I had moved on my own, and far too quickly.

During my review of the ledgers, I also uncovered extensive evidence of collusion between Ministry of Commerce officials and the underground guild. I sent that evidence not to my superior, but directly to the Ministry of Audits.

The underground guild and the Ministry of Commerce were thrown into chaos, and the imperial capital was plunged into turmoil.

Taking advantage of the confusion, I decided to flee the country. I changed my hairstyle and dressed in secondhand clothes like those worn by common citizens.

Using forged identification, I boarded a ship bound for the Minor States.

To make it seem as though I had vanished suddenly, I could not take much money with me. The underground guild’s method was simple disappearance. They did not steal valuables. Taking property for the sake of escape would only raise suspicion. To be honest, I wanted funds for flight.

But my family’s lives were at stake. I could not take the risk.

It was miserable having to sleep packed together in a cheap third-class cabin with people whose bodies stank and were unclean. Even so, I was glad that I had managed to leave the Megad Empire safely.

At the time, I underestimated the Minor States. I believed that even with scarce funds, my intellect would allow me to earn money quickly.

At worst, I thought I could work for a shop or become a tutor for a noble family and survive well enough.

Tainted blood. The dwelling place of base barbarians. A cesspool of criminals. That was how the Minor States were described in the Megad Empire, but I believed it was merely prejudice born of discrimination.

When I realized those words were the truth, I saw hell.

The beginning of that hell was aboard the ship during the voyage. While I slept, my money was stolen. I had not prepared food, so I had been buying water and supplies from merchants on board.

With my money gone, I could no longer obtain water or food. Until then, I had never known hunger or thirst.

Though poor, I was born into a baronial family. Later, I succeeded as a bureaucrat and lived comfortably. This was my first experience of hunger and thirst.

The thirst was especially severe. Swallowing my pride, I bowed my head and begged merchants and fellow passengers for water, but not a single person accepted my plea.

If I jumped from the ship, there would be water in abundance.

How many times had I been tempted by that thought, thinking of jumping from the ship? When the intense thirst drove me nearly mad, a merchant approached me with a smirk.

“Are you all right? You look so dried up you could die any moment.”

“Ahh…”

I tried to speak with my cracked lips, but my throat was too parched for words to come out.

“Do you want some water?”

The merchant wore a leering smile and drank from his wooden canteen right in front of me. My thirst was provoked, and I felt as though I might lose my mind.

I glared at him and tried to lunge forward, but my dehydrated body had no strength left. Seeing this, the merchant’s smile grew even more vulgar as he spoke.

“My shoes got dirty, you see. If you clean them for me, I will give you this water.”

Enduring the humiliation, I pulled a clean cloth from my pocket and moved to wipe his shoes.

“No, not like that. Clean them with your tongue. Your tongue.”

That was what he said. And then I understood. In the face of hunger and thirst, pride is utterly destroyed.

In exchange for my pride, I obtained water and survived long enough to reach the Minor States.

Perhaps it would have been easier if I had simply dried up and died on that ship. But I survived. I prolonged my life by trading away my dignity.

I could not choose an easy death.

When I arrived in the Minor States, despair struck me once again. I could not obtain any respectable work.

Just as people said in the Megad Empire, the Minor States were the worst kind of place. Only those with reliable backgrounds could get decent jobs.

That was also true in the Megad Empire, but in the Lesser States it was taken to an extreme. With so many criminals, hiring someone without a verified identity was far too risky.

Money would be stolen, or in the worst cases, entire families would be slaughtered and robbed.

To prevent that, employers only hired people they had known since childhood or those whose parents’ whereabouts were clearly known. In other words, someone who could be held accountable for crimes.

No matter how much I demonstrated my abilities, no one would hire me. After having my money stolen and going without food, I was cornered and took the lowest possible job.

The very lowest rung of commoners I had once despised during my days as a bureaucrat. An adventurer.

Adventurers were the final refuge for the unemployed and were considered the bottom of common society.

With no other option, I took the work. I could not even afford weapons, so I barely stayed alive by gathering medicinal herbs and doing similar tasks.

Once, I encountered a monster near a water source and barely escaped with my life. There were times I found no herbs and went without food.

Rather than climbing out of the bottom, I could not even live comfortably day to day.

Little by little, my body and mind were worn down. I thought this was how I would die, miserably. But I learned that hell has no bottom.

One day, an adventuring party noticed me after learning that I could read, write, and calculate. Lacking education, they had been exploited by merchants and clients alike.

They decided to bring me into their party and have me handle negotiations. At first, they treated me well. But the moment they realized I had no fighting ability, they changed completely.

I was treated like a slave.

My reward was barely anything. I was forced to act as bait at the risk of my life, beaten on a whim, and showered with abuse. Those days continued for over a year.

One day, after completing a job as usual, the party was drinking and celebrating at a tavern. One of them, drunk, poured ale over my head.

That level of harassment was nothing unusual. For some reason, that day I could not endure it. In every sense, I had reached my limit.

I punched someone for the first time in my life. Looking back, it was a feeble punch. The man, caught off guard, took it full on and fell from his chair.

The man I had struck flew into a rage, but blood streamed from both nostrils. The sight was so ridiculous that I laughed.

I was dragged outside and beaten by the entire party. Normally, being hit only made me feel pain.

For some reason, that day, every blow filled me with bitterness.

“Tch. Just because we treated a weakling kindly, he gets all uppity.”

“For a fool who cannot even calculate properly without me, your comprehension seems lacking. Which part of that treatment was kind? Do you not even understand the meaning of the words you use?”

I could not win with violence, so I fought back with words.

“You bastard.”

The man reached for the knife at his waist.

“Wait.”

“Huh? Do not stop me. I will kill him.”

“Killing him is fine. But before that, let us have some fun.”

“Hah, you really are a pervert, same as ever.”

“Shut up. Look closely. He has a pretty face.”

Listening to their conversation, I fell into despair. Was my dignity going to be trampled that far? Please, not that. Anything but that.

I screamed and struggled desperately, but they pinned me down and pulled down my trousers and underwear.

“I will take good care of you, little girl.”

As the man moved to climb on top of me, it happened.

“Stop screeching, you damn brats!”

A roar so loud it seemed to make the air itself vibrate rang out. Pinned face-down, I could not see who had shouted.

“Hey, your voice is way louder than ours, oof.”

“What the hell are you doing? Ugh!”

The men holding me released their grip and turned toward the voice. Freed, I turned around and finally saw its owner.

A shaved head. A body one or two sizes larger than the surrounding men. Muscles like sculpted stone. I had never seen a man built like that before.

The giant was beating down the men who had restrained me with overwhelming strength. Each swing of his hammer-like fists sent them flying, leaving them motionless.

The men who had ruled me through violence were scattered by a single individual. Utter force. As I stood there in stunned silence, the giant began finishing off the fallen men one by one.

He showed no hesitation in taking lives, snapping their necks with a dull crack as though breaking dead branches. Then he rummaged through their clothes and collected anything of value.

After gathering the valuables, he approached me. Up close, his presence was overwhelming. I was too intimidated to speak.

“Hey, kid. You all right?”

“Eh? Ah, yes. I am fine. Thank you for saving me.”

He reeked of alcohol. He must have drunk an enormous amount.

“Kid, you know where those guys are staying?”

“Yes, I do. Why?”

“They are adventurers, right? No point letting good gear go to waste on corpses. Thought I would make some, uh, effective use of it.”

He grinned.

“Then I will guide you, as thanks for saving me.”

“Appreciate it, kid.”

“My name is Albrecht.”

“Albrehht? Albraht?”

It seemed he was unfamiliar with names from the Megad Empire and could not pronounce it properly.

“Please call me Al,” I said and extended my right hand.

“My name is Gonz. Nice to meet you.”

For a moment, I thought my hand had been crushed. Brute strength was a term that existed for this man alone.

That was how I met Gonz.