Family Business 1 (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 1: The Treasurer

-VB-

Sitting in a bland silver steel chair in front of an equally bland and undecorated wooden desk with multiple paperwork stacks covering the surface, I glanced down at the document detailing the revenue and expenditure of the Crownguard Household’s third estate just outside of the Great City of Demacia.

The document detailed the weekly report of the estate’s main source of income - sales of wheat, rent, taxes, and shares of profit in business ventures I invested in -  and its expenditure - upkeep of the estate manor, farmhand wages, soldier wages, equipment upkeep, and the like. 

After reading through it for a bit, I went down to the number for the total revenue. With a minor application in magic no one knew about simply because no one cared about an ink erasing spell, and wrote down a new number merely two hundred gold coins short of the actual total revenue. Then I moved up on the breakdown of revenue and fixed the numbers for the grain sale income. 

This embezzlement was less than 1% of the total revenue of the third estate alone, but I was embezzling from all of the Crownguard estates.

It wasn’t like they cared or noticed. Too stuck-up in their “defense of the city” and training their bodies to overcome magic (with the help of the famous magic-resistant Demacia steel), the only thing they cared about was whether or not the personal retinue of the Crownguard was fit for “service to the crown” at any given moment.

To me, my own house was archaic and entrenched in outdated concepts. They still believed in the idea of monarchy when nations like Zaun, Piltover, and Noxus (hell, even Ionia) showed the world that monarchy existed because of the power of the monarch and his followers, not its efficiency or validity.

So what if I was siphoning some money from one of the richest noble houses? It wasn’t like we used it for anything useful. 

Fucking hell, my family’s annual net income numbered in at over a hundred thousand gold coins from the numerous landed titles my family owned. 

I considered this little skimming from the top payment for my job as the family’s treasurer. Sniffing, I wrote down the adjusted numbers to the side on the yearly income sheet for the family.

After stamping [Treasurer Approved] on top of its papers, I set down the document in the “Archive” file, and picked up another one. 

“Fiscal Report for the Barony of Riverton, 989 AN,” I read out loud. Barony of Riverton was larger in size compared to the plantation style of the Crownguard Third Estate, but it wasn’t a business and had lower net income. 

Situated west of Cloudfield and just outside of the Demacian “heartland,” the barony had one castle and five villages. Last year’s census of the barony told me that there were seven thousand five hundred fifty-nine Demacian citizens, divided into one thousand four hundred thirty households. Of the residents, two thousand one hundred fifty-nine people were adult men, two thousand six hundred fifty were adult women, and two thousand seven hundred fifty were children. The average annual net income of each household was thirteen silvers and fifteen coppers. Excluding the richest ten households of the barony, the average annual net income of each household was one silver and nine coppers.

This was, as far as anyone was aware of, the most detailed census in all of Runeterra, and I insisted on this measure from my father, the current head of the Crownguard family. It was because of this insistence that I managed to find merchants skipping out on taxes due to the crown and their liege lord, my family. 

It was for this reason that I was given a reward, and I asked to be the treasurer of the family.

It was, of course, so that I could embezzle in turn (while being paid).

Why?

Because my family hated mages like all “proper and true” Demacian.

And I was a mage.

Of course, no one knew about it, but I wasn’t interested in helping the growth of someone who would gut me if they considered me dangerous regardless of what I did for the family. 

No, this was just a preemptive move on my part.

And speaking of family, there was one other mage in the family. Unlike me, she didn’t know much about magic, probably because she didn’t have any education or knowledge about it, because she and I, despite my own position and advancements, were only thirteen years old. 

While I did what I could with my position in life, my dear twin sister, my beautiful Luxanna, pushed her boundaries. Maybe it was my encouragement to do whatever she wanted (if with preparation rather than naive courage) or my “understanding” of her magical power and acceptance of it, she was … different than what I expected.

For one, she was more sure of herself. She knew what she wanted in life. She wanted to be out there in the world. 

And I would be there beside her. 

… Who am I kidding?

I was a sick fuck - a sick embezzling fuck stealing from his own bloated “family” that would want me dead the moment I revealed my identity as a mage - who was getting ready to seduce a gorgeous blonde twin sister of his.

With the power of money to force a change in this twisted nation. 

For her.