The Fallen Noblewoman's Accounting Chronicles: Saving the Territory with My Blood Brother
I died at my desk, buried under invoices and three hundred unposted journal entries. When I opened my eyes, I was Alicia Valton—a beautiful noblewoman with golden hair, a mountain of debt, and a reputation as the territory's most hated spendthrift. The servants whisper behind my back. The steward smiles without warmth. My father is kind but useless, and my stepbrother Leon—the one man who might understand numbers like I do—won't even look at me.
But I didn't survive five years in a trading comp
The Fallen Noblewoman's Accounting Chronicles: Saving the Territory with My Blood Brother - The Heat of Fingertips — Another Fragment Lit at Rock Bottom
The smell of charred ruins still clung to the north wing of the marquis's estate.
The night before, she had pulled a single scrap from the ashes. The characters "Ash Ring," and a mark depicting scales within a circle. Ash Ring—she had first laid eyes on that name last night. Her intuition told her it was some kind of secret merchant alliance moving funds in the shadows, but the details remained unclear. To think such a tiny slip of paper could carry so much weight. In place of thirty years of ledgers reduced to charcoal, this was all that remained in Alicia's hands.
From the windows of the Valton estate, the plaza of the Torene market was visible. Morning light reflected off the surface of the Minoru River, casting golden stripes across the cobblestones. It wasn't a market day, but the awnings of the permanent stalls were open, and old man Gram the vegetable seller was beginning to lay out his goods.
It should have been an ordinary morning.
But Alicia's gaze was fixed on the white papers plastered across the walls of the buildings around the plaza. Not just one. The outer wall of the inn "Wheat-Ear Lantern." Beside the door of the tavern "Amber Cup." The pillar across from the arithmetician's office. At least six, no, seven—and that was only what she could see.
(What... is that?)
Alicia stepped into the corridor and rushed to the plaza without even remembering to put on her coat. The moment she stepped onto the cobblestones, her eyes met old man Gram's. The old man, without letting go of his bundle of carrots, put on an unconcerned face. It was the face of a man trying to look unconcerned.
She approached the paper on the wall.
Neat handwriting. Orderly prose. One reading was enough to sear its contents into her brain.
—Valton Alicia, legitimate daughter of the Valton Marquis household, is the true culprit behind the ledger falsification. Household steward Galbert was merely a loyal and innocent retainer carrying out the young lady's orders—
At the bottom, a round seal. The scales symbol. The same mark she had seen in the ashes last night.
Alicia stood frozen, staring at the paper.
Hans the cloth merchant, passing by, quickened his pace without meeting her eyes. Across the cobblestones, a child pointed at something and was pulled away by his mother. No customers had come to old man Gram's stall this morning.
(I won't say I'm sorry. Even if I did, nothing would change.)
But something settled in her chest—something different from cold anger. It was a weight she knew well, one she had felt in her previous life. That same sensation from when she reported a discrepancy in the numbers, and her superior said, "Your mistake just made more work for me."
---
Not long after she returned to the estate, Nadia Rotfeldt came to visit.
The thirty-three-year-old arithmetician wore her black hair cropped short and thin-rimmed glasses, just as she had when Alicia first met her. But today her complexion was less pale than ashen. That loquaciousness—the way she'd rattle on when the subject turned to ledgers—was nowhere to be found.
In the reception room, Nadia held a single document in her hands.
It bore the official seal of the Royal Arithmetic Academy—an immediate suspension of arithmetician registration. One glance told Alicia what it meant. Without registration, one could not manage private ledgers. The office was finished. Her income would vanish.
"It arrived last night."
Nadia's voice didn't tremble. It was simply quiet. A stillness stripped of emotion, utterly unlike the volubility she showed when discussing ledgers.
"...I'm sorry."
That was all Alicia managed to say. There was more she should say, more she could say—she knew that in her head—but in front of Nadia's ashen face, the words wouldn't continue. It overlapped perfectly with that night in her previous life when all she could say was "I'm sorry."
"...I have a life to live, too."
Nadia folded the document carefully. Her movements as she rose were too precise. The overly composed motions peculiar to someone locking away their emotions.
The door closed.
Alicia sat in the reception room chair for a long while, unmoving.
---
Past noon, voices came from Leon's office.
Passing by the door, Alicia stopped.
A low male voice. Not Leon's. An older, heavier voice.
"As long as the young lady leads the investigation, I will cast my vote against the Valton family's petition for restoration of rights."
She heard it clearly. Restoration of rights—a system by which a fallen noble family could report improvements in territory management to the crown and recover privileges that had been suspended. If tax revenue exceeded the threshold for three consecutive years, they could apply. It was the Valton family's ultimate goal. Without it, even the tax relief for the farmers couldn't be set in motion.
"...Baron Fulk."
Leon's voice came back low, but calm.
"I've known Galbert a long time. I cannot stand by in silence while an innocent man is dragged through the mud."
A noble councilor in his sixties—Alicia could only imagine his outline through the door. An old acquaintance of Galbert. A man with influence over the restoration council. And now, a man dangling that influence as pressure against the Valton family.
Silence followed.
Alicia stood in the corridor, motionless.
Eventually, Leon answered.
"...I understand."
That was all.
---
Some time after Baron Fulk left, there was a knock at Alicia's private room.
Before she could say "Come in," a hesitant knock came twice more. Alicia rose and opened the door.
Leon stood there.
His blond hair was slightly disheveled today. His pale blue eyes looked at her, then dropped for just a moment. It was the face of a man choosing his words.
"...Can we talk for a moment?"
Alicia stepped back to make room. Leon didn't come in. He stood in the doorway, and for a while, silence again.
At last, in a low voice, he said:
"For the time being, I need you to stay in your room."
His voice was quiet. Painful, but without deception.
"It's not that I don't believe you. It's just that, right now—"
"I understand."
Alicia cut him off. She hadn't meant to, but the words came out.
Leon raised his head. Alicia didn't meet his eyes. Looking somewhere near the wall beside the door, she repeated, "I understand." This time her voice cracked slightly.
The door closed.
The strength drained from Alicia's knees. She didn't so much sit on the edge of the bed as collapse onto it.
---
The sun set, and night came.
Even after extinguishing the candle, she couldn't sleep. When she closed her eyes, the white glow of fluorescent lights floated up. From her previous life—the ceiling of the accounting office. Stacks of documents. The back of a colleague who turned away with "Overtime again, huh." The sound of a keyboard she typed alone on during closing season, night after night.
(At least I never got the numbers wrong.)
That was her only pride. No matter how isolated she was, no matter how unseen, the numbers were always honest. She believed in that and kept going. Until she collapsed.
It's the same again.
A voice spoke deep in her chest.
Again carrying everything alone, again with no one believing her, again—
Alicia hugged her knees. Stifling her voice, she cried. And while crying, she was angry at herself for crying. And while angry, she couldn't stop.
---
Deep in the night, candlelight flickered in the corridor.
Faint footsteps outside the door.
A hesitant pause.
The door opened very slowly.
It was Leon.
Holding a candle, he froze in the doorway. Her eyes were red from crying. Black hair clung to her cheeks. Before Alicia could wipe her face with her sleeve, Leon had already seen her.
Leon was at a loss for words. His face clearly said he regretted coming.
"...I thought I'd check on you."
His voice was awkward. No further words came. Alicia understood. Behind that single sentence, she could see hours of hesitation.
"You've caught me at my worst—"
She tried to smile wryly, but her voice cracked. Far from laughing, she was about to cry again. This is the worst, Alicia thought.
Leon said nothing.
He simply entered the room. Setting the candle on the table, he sat down on the edge of the bed, beside Alicia. Close enough that their elbows might touch. Alicia's shoulders, in her nightclothes, floated white in the moonlight. Leon dropped his gaze to the floor, as if unable to look directly at her red eyes.
For a while, neither spoke.
Wind cried in the distance. Somewhere, the town of Torene creaked. The candle flame wavered faintly.
Leon's hand moved slowly.
It came to rest gently over the back of Alicia's hand.
It was cold. Cold to the fingertips, terribly cold—and precisely because of that, the warmth of Leon's palm seeped in. Slowly, deeply. A quiet temperature that seemed to reach deep into her capillaries.
Alicia's breath stopped for an instant.
Her fingertips trembled slightly.
"I don't want to stop you, either."
His voice was low. He said only that, and kept his hand where it was.
Alicia didn't answer. She couldn't. The depths of her eyes, just dried from crying, were growing hot again. For a different reason this time. She could feel her pulse quickening. The warmth of his hand seeped from her fingertips, up her arm, into her chest.
She stole a glance at Leon's profile. He was still looking at the floor. The edge of his ear was faintly red in the candlelight.
(Ah... he feels it too—)
She didn't put it into words. She didn't need to. The weight of his hand was more honest than words.
The two of them stayed there in silence for a while.
---
After Leon left, only the candlelight remained in the room.
Alicia looked at her palm for a moment. She could still feel the warmth of Leon's hand.
Then she placed the cloth bag that had been at her bedside onto her lap. The bag held the remnants of the ledgers she had gathered from the ashes. She checked them one by one. Charred paper. Fragments with unreadable characters. She quietly continued the work of carefully spreading out edges that threatened to crumble.
One piece remained at the bottom of the bag.
More than half was carbonized. But along one edge, thick brushstrokes remained.
She brought the candle closer.
—Ash Ring Merchant Alliance · Approved by Account Master · Transfer Amount 800 Silver Coins · Valton Territory Distribution Ratio 40%—
Ash Ring Merchant Alliance—the mark on this morning's posters, the characters on last night's fragment. Their true nature took shape here. A shadow distribution network that never appeared in official ledgers, a secret organization managing and distributing illicit funds on a per-territory basis. And the Account Master appeared to be the title of the person responsible for fund management in each region of the organization.
Alicia stared at the characters for three seconds.
The memory of her previous life in accounting stirred quietly. Forty percent transfer. Galbert's total embezzlement, by the ledgers' estimate, was roughly twelve thousand silver coins. If the distribution ratio was forty percent—then the eight hundred silver coins transferred were only a single point in time. Calculated as a whole, Galbert's personal share came to about seven thousand two hundred silver coins. The remaining four thousand eight hundred silver coins would have flowed to the Ash Ring Merchant Alliance's Account Master.
(He wasn't acting alone. From the start, it was systematically divided.)
Galbert was just the bottom rung. If she could identify the Account Master, there would be bigger fish.
With hands that didn't tremble, Alicia carefully wrapped the fragment in cloth.
Baron Fulk's pressure existed. The order to stay in her room existed. If she acted openly, the pressure on the Valton family would only increase. Whether she could obtain permission to directly interrogate Galbert—right now, she couldn't see a way.
Even so.
The warmth of Leon's palm still lingered on her fin
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