“Wait, so these are the documents that need to be processed… right?”
“Yes, Head of the Family.”
After finishing their conversation in the study, the members of the Evergarden family immediately gathered in the office where the head of the family usually stayed.
As they opened the door and stepped inside, Dariann saw a mountain of documents stacked on his desk, making it impossible to tell whether it was a pile of paper or an ancient tomb unearthed by archaeologists.
“So, should we take care of these as usual?”
“As usual…? So, you mean to tell me that normally, I don’t handle any of this, and you—no, you all manage it by yourselves?”
“Yes? Didn’t you entrust us with the family seal, assigning the work to us?”
The officer standing next to Dariann, who seemed unfazed by the pile of documents that had left Dariann in shock, looked at him as if wondering why he was so surprised.
It became clear that the head of the family, who was supposed to oversee, direct, and approve everything, had passed on all these responsibilities to hired employees who weren’t even members of the main family or the branch family.
“Uh… well… today…”
“Today, my children will be attending essential training to become successors of this family, so could you excuse us for a moment?”
“Oh, yes. I see. Understood, Countess.”
As Dariann stood there, speechless, Freya stepped forward and dismissed the finance officer from the office, clearing up the situation.
“By the way, could you also return the seal that was handed over to you?”
“…The seal?”
Just before the finance officer left the room, Freya, as if she’d forgotten something, called him back and requested the return of the family seal Dariann had previously handed over.
She noticed a very subtle twitch in the finance officer’s otherwise cheerful expression as he smiled at her.
“Yes, that’s right. Actually, it seems there won’t be any need for you to handle proxy work anymore.”
“Ah… I see. Understood.”
When Freya made it clear that the officer would no longer be required to take care of things, he obediently handed over the Evergarden family seal, which he had been keeping safely in his pocket.
“Well then, I’ll take my leave.”
With that, the finance officer politely bowed and closed the door behind him as he left the office for good.
“…Whoa, that guy’s completely out of his mind! He just dumped all his work on someone else? Then what the heck has he been doing this whole time?”
Dariann, who had been playing the role of a dignified family head until now, finally let out a frustrated sigh as he approached the pile of papers, muttering to himself.
“Let’s see. Wow, am I dreaming? This isn’t even in Korean, but I can read it easily?”
He pulled a sheet from the nearest pile, skimmed it quickly, and let out a small exclamation. Although the page was filled with incomprehensible scribbles in a language that clearly wasn’t Korean, Dariann was able to read it without any trouble.
“Maybe it’s a special ability for those who’ve transmigrated? Or could it be knowledge from the original owner’s memories?”
Felix, who had come up beside Dariann, offered an explanation.
“Alright then… Empire Year 1024, Evergarden territory’s income and expenditures for the first half of the year… Ugh, I don’t get it!”
Despite nodding along to Felix’s explanation, Dariann quickly found himself overwhelmed by the documents again, and his mind seemed to steam up under the pressure.
“I hate paperwork! Except for when I had to write incident reports, I was always out in the field.”
“But Mom’s a public official, and she doesn’t handle paperwork?”
“It’s annoying. I’d much rather be out recruiting people than sitting in front of a computer.”
“Yeah, that’s probably why your father fell for you, right?”
“Anyway, when I think of paperwork, it reminds me of reports—ugh, that jerk Kim from the office… causing a scene just because I moved a car out of the way when lives were at stake…!”
As Dariann muttered angrily and crumpled up a sheet of paper in his hand, it became clear he was thinking back to his days as a firefighter.
Though a veteran who had saved countless lives from hazardous fires long before Rosaria and Felix were born, his career had been stuck at the rank of fire lieutenant, which explained his frustrations.
“Excuse me… Daughter? I keep seeing this term ‘dinars’ pop up. That’s the currency of this empire, right?”
“Ah, yes! According to the novel’s setting, 1 dinar is roughly equivalent to 1 dollar.”
As Dariann vented his past frustrations on the papers, Freya elegantly walked up to the piles, swiftly sorting through them with remarkable speed.
“I see. Alright, let’s start by organizing these to make them easier to understand.”
After checking with Felix about the empire’s currency, Freya dived into the towering stacks of documents and began categorizing them with impressive efficiency.
“This one’s for repairs to the territory’s walls, this is for the population and taxes…”
“Dad…? How do you know all this?”
“Hm? Well, there’s a lot of unnecessary fluff, but structurally, it’s just like reading a report, so it’s easy.”
Rosaria, surprised at how quickly Freya sorted through the documents, asked her in disbelief, but Freya casually answered without taking her eyes off the papers.
“Her experience as an heir to the Hanseong Group really shows…”
“The more I think about it, the stranger it seems that Dad ended up marrying Mom.”
“Right?”
“Hey! What’s wrong with me?”
As the siblings alternated between glancing at their mother, who was efficiently organizing the documents, and their father, who was fussing with his decorations, Dariann suddenly shouted, feeling offended.
Hanseong Group—one of the largest conglomerates in Korea, known for its semiconductor business and other ventures, both domestically and internationally.
Before Freya was transmigrated, she had been one of the heirs of that prestigious family.
Despite being part of a royal-like family, Freya had cut ties with Hanseong Group to marry Dariann and became a full-time homemaker.
The siblings, having grown up watching their mother occasionally dabble in stock trading, still couldn’t understand how their dad had managed to marry someone like her.
“Don’t tease your father. He’s an amazing, wonderful person.”
“Honey…!”
“Ugh… so cheesy.”
“I’m still single, and even at home, I have to witness a couple acting all lovey-dovey…”
Despite the siblings’ complaints, their parents continued to flaunt their affectionate relationship, leaving the children exasperated.
“Well, I’ve mostly finished organizing the documents. We now have a good understanding of the territory’s situation.”
“Already?”
“I didn’t actually process the documents, just organized them for clarity, so it was quick. But if I were more familiar with the language, I could’ve done it even faster.”
By the time Freya had spoken, she had already sorted through the chaotic piles of papers, neatly arranging them.
She stood up from the office chair.
“That said, this could be a serious problem…”
“Huh? What’s the problem?”
However, Freya’s face didn’t show the freshness of finishing a task, but instead, it was filled with concern and worry, as if she had expected it.
Dariann asked.
And then…
“The Evergarden territory… It seems like it’s about to collapse.”
…Excuse me?????
Freya’s words in response left all three of them asking again with their expressions.
Evergarden territory.
It was the land ruled by Dariann Evergarden, the head of the Evergarden Count family, where a total of 541 people lived together.
In some ways, it was quite a small territory for a count’s estate.
It wasn’t located on the borders like the territories of border counts, nor was it the capital aristocracy like those of court counts.
The Evergarden Count’s territory was located at a reasonable distance from the capital.
The main products of the count’s estate were mostly primary industry goods like wheat and leather, with no particular distinguishing products.
From the reports, it was clear that the people living in the count’s territory weren’t very wealthy either.
“The basic tax rate alone exceeds 50%, and when you add various temporary taxes, the rate goes over 75%. Most of the territory’s people don’t even own land, so they’re almost treated like serfs.”
“On top of that, there’s a debt of 8.72 million dinars, and this month alone, we need to repay 620,000 dinars in interest to Viscount Bjorr…? We’ll have to check the map for that. Anyway, we owe Viscount Bjorr 620,000 dinars in interest this month…”
“What? 8.72 million dinars… That’s about 11 billion won in our money?! And 800 million won in interest this month alone?! I mean, isn’t this a count’s family? Why are we so poor and in so much debt?!”
“11 billion?!”
“800 million?!”
Felix shouted, having quickly converted the figures into Korean currency after hearing Freya’s explanation, leaving both the father and daughter in shock.
“Wait a minute, but with no money and only debt… why is the house so luxurious?”
“When I woke up this morning, the maid brought me a hand mirror decorated with precious stones and scented oils.”
Despite the dire financial situation, they couldn’t help but question the abundance of luxurious ornaments in the house.
If what Freya said was true, they were in a situation where they needed to save money by any means and revive the territory.
Yet the tax rate was excessively high, the land was poor, and on top of that, their house was filled with all kinds of luxury goods, leaving the family confused.
“Even though they’re minor villains, how could a noble family make such foolish decisions?”
“…It could be because they are nobles. Even today, there are people who focus on appearances despite their poor situation. Especially those with a strong sense of pride in being nobles.”
“Oh, this is crazy.”
“We should have noticed when they casually handed over the seal needed for approval to the hired help…”
In summary, the Evergarden family lacked the ability to manage their territory, but they had an inflated sense of pride as nobles, behaving like modern-day ‘car-poor’ people.
After taking over through transmigration, Hyunsu and his family were now stuck dealing with the aftermath.
“This isn’t the time to be worrying about charges of treason.”
Now, the newly changed Evergarden family found themselves facing an impending disaster far more pressing than the problems they discussed in the study.