Chapter Seventeen: Alexei

"Tell me, has the Count arrived yet?"

"Not yet."

"Mr. Connor, since the Count is so late in showing his face, I have no choice but to go and negotiate with those pirates myself." Alexei adjusted his collar and strode out of the room under the gloomy gaze of Connor, the butler.

He was the Chief Registrar of Castle Island and an eighth-rank civil official of the Empire. Although appointed as an adjutant to Count Hughes, he reported directly to the Empress, and his salary was paid by the Royal Treasury; Connor, as a mere butler to the Count, had no authority over him.

To be frank, Count Hughes was only a seventh-rank official—only one rank above him—and Alexei could even bypass Hughes entirely to deal with his own superiors directly.

Not that any self-respecting Chief Registrar would willingly lock horns with a Count who held real power. However, Alexei had long held deep prejudices against Hughes, the lord of this territory.

Though he served as a Chief Registrar in name, he was a graduate of the Imperial Royal Military Academy. Whenever a Border Count was enfeoffed, the Royal Family would appoint a Registrar with a military background to serve as a military advisor—for there was never a shortage of battles to be fought in the territories of the Border Counts.

At the same time, these Registrars acted as the Empress’s eyes and ears, monitoring these newly minted "vassals of the Empress." If the original lord were to meet an unfortunate end and the Registrar handled the situation with sufficient competence, it was quite possible they might receive a royal patent of nobility in return.

The Empress’s intention was clear: those who could perform the task would rise; she cared nothing for one's background or family connections.

Alexei was an orphan from a small, frontier town in the north of the Empire. Everything he had now was earned through his own talent and hard work, and naturally, he looked down upon nobles like Hughes, who had obtained their titles solely through family connections.

Moreover, Hughes’s performance since arriving in the territory had been truly disappointing.

Setting aside the fact that he spent his days living in aristocratic luxury—though no one found it inherently wrong for a noble to enjoy himself—he actually expected Alexei to negotiate with pirates!

Alexei was a graduate of the Royal Military Academy. Negotiate? The Empire’s soldiers only negotiated with gunpowder and steel. The last time he was forced to deliver money to these pirates, he had nearly ground his teeth to dust. Now, it was the same story again; when the moment of truth arrived, the man vanished, leaving him to clean up the mess.

He had made up his mind: under no circumstances would he deliver money to these greedy pirates this time. If the worst came to the worst and the lord expelled him back to Rhine, so be it. He would abandon this rank and his empty title, go straight to the Western Front to join the army, and carve out a future for himself there all the same.

Besides, given Hughes’s weak-willed approach of buying peace with money, it was hard to say who the Empress would end up dismissing.

Alexei let out a long sigh. Such thoughts were merely a fantasy; Hughes was the illegitimate son of Duke Cohen, and the Royal Family would not offend such a powerful Duke over a small island.

"These damned people with connections!" he thought bitterly.

Having climbed his way from an orphanage to his current position, he had seen nothing but the corruption and incompetence of the nobility. Thankfully, the Empress was already cleaning up these parasites. In Alexei's eyes, only the Empress was the hope of the Empire. It was the orphanage run by the Royal Family that had saved his generation of children from the winter of the North, and it was the Empress’s new policies that had allowed him to enter the Military Academy and change his fate. Now, just as he was ready to serve the Empress, he was being wasted away on this island by Hughes.

Although he did not intend to pay the pirates, Alexei still prepared all the relevant documentation, including the island’s produce records.

While he sought to forge a future through force, he was no fool. In fact, to rise from an orphan to an eighth-rank official with a title, one needed both talent and cunning; he knew well that the Imperial Parliament was filled with clerks who had spent their entire lives stuck at the ninth rank.

Even if he wanted to break with the pirates, he would not do so rashly. He only needed to cause some "complications" while executing the lord’s orders, and the Count would simply conclude that the pirates were the ones causing trouble. When he wrote his report to the Empress, he would document everything Hughes had done—he was, after all, just a lowly Chief Registrar doing exactly what the Count had commanded, and the pirates were simply too barbaric and greedy.

That would perfectly absolve him of blame. Who would bear the Empress’s wrath? Duke Cohen? The pirates of Gem Bay? Or this young Border Count?

It didn’t matter, as long as it wasn't him. In fact, if all went according to plan, his name as Chief Registrar would not even be mentioned in this incident; he would be entirely overlooked. Heading to the Western Front was merely his contingency plan.

At this thought, a cold smirk curled the corner of Alexei’s lips. He hoped that Count Hughes, who had secured his fief through connections, had enough power to back them up.

With his documents in hand, Alexei headed toward the Town Hall.

"Town Hall" was a generous term; in reality, it was just a few barely habitable wooden shacks. While Castle had its charms, it wasn't exactly a thriving land, and if not for its significant size and decent environment, it might never have been settled by the locals. After all, the "Storm" in "Storm Ocean" was no joke.

Hughes always conducted his business from his Count’s manor. While the registrars usually had offices in the manor as well, these were pirates—if they were to meet in the Count’s private residence, it would be impossible to explain away. The Empress would certainly not believe the Count’s flimsy excuse of them being "maritime merchants."

Since he was the lord of this place but also a vassal appointed by the Empress, and the registrars were sent by the Royal Family, they were still a long way from being able to act with impunity here.

Alexei had no choice but to have a few wooden huts cleared out and a "Town Hall" sign hung up to deal with this wretched task.

And so, when he finished his chores and opened the door, he was greeted by two figures who looked thoroughly impatient.

"Too slow! Do you want to pay the tax or not? I don't have all day to waste here!" As soon as he stepped inside, Alexei was hit by a pungent reek of alcohol.

Frowning, he looked toward the room. It was empty and unadorned, save for a heavy long table in the center, neatly laid out with papyrus and ink bottles. A pair of filthy deerskin boots was propped up on the table, tapping impatiently.

Alexei looked up.

The man was slouched in a chair, empty wine bottles scattered haphazardly at his feet. He held another bottle in his hand, which clinked rhythmically against the scimitar at his waist.

"Kid, I remember you." The man gestured with his bottle, casting a sidelong glance at Alexei. "Your Count is too scared to show up again, right? No matter. As long as the taxes are paid on time, Black Sail doesn't care whose name is hanging over this place."

He tilted the bottle back, amber liquid spilling from the corner of his mouth, trickling down his curled beard and onto his soiled clothes.

"Hm? Empty?" He lifted his head with a drunken sway, squinting at the bottle in his hand. "I’ll say this for your godforsaken island—the fruit wine isn't half bad."

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the bottle. It traced an arc through the air and shattered near Alexei’s feet, splattering wine onto his polished military boots.

"Kid, go get me two more bottles."