Part Twenty-One — The Ledger Doesn’t Lie

　Not every problem worth solving needed a sword, which was a lesson that took me longer to actually believe than it should have, given how much of my old life had been spent behind a screen instead of a blade.

　We picked up the thread of this one almost by accident — a farmer in a town along our circuit, overheard complaining to anyone who'd listen that the local tax collector, a man named Reeve, had "recalculated" the harvest levy three times in as many years, each time landing conveniently higher than the last.

"He's got the lord's seal," the farmer said, bitter. "Nobody argues with the lord's seal. Man could tell us the sky owes him coin and we'd have to find a way to pay it."

Huh. That's not a monster problem. That's a paperwork problem.

"You said recalculated," I said, drawing the farmer's attention. "Recalculated how?"

"Some formula. Land size, yield, distance to market. Changes every season, apparently. None of us can follow the math well enough to argue it."

Ah. There it is. Nobody's checking his work because nobody can.

That's not a spell.

That's just a scam wearing official paperwork.

　Doran, predictably, wanted to simply go have a direct conversation with Reeve involving significantly less patience than the man probably deserved. Fenrik, just as predictably, wanted to know if we were even being paid for this one.

"We're not," I admitted. "This one's just because it's wrong."

"Didn't say I wouldn't do it," Fenrik said. "Just like knowing where we stand."

Fair. Loyalty doesn't have to mean blind, and I'd trust him less if it did.

"Give me a day," I said. "Before either of you does anything with a sword involved. I want to actually look at his numbers first."

　Getting access to the ledgers took less finesse than I expected — a modest bribe, a claim of representing a merchant house interested in "understanding local tax structures," and an afternoon of tea with a records clerk who was thrilled someone finally wanted to talk about his work in detail.

　The formula, once I actually sat down with it, wasn't complicated. It was just wrong — deliberately, carefully wrong, in a way that would only show up if you cross-checked three years of entries against each other instead of trusting each year's number in isolation.

There it is.

Small changes each year, individually plausible.

Stacked together, they don't add up to anything except Reeve quietly paying off a debt of his own on the village's back.

　I want to be honest: none of this took anything approaching my actual abilities. It took the kind of pattern-recognition that came from an entirely different life, from spreadsheets and account statements and years of quietly, obsessively tracking numbers that weren't supposed to add up either. Old habits, still useful, just wearing new clothes.

Funny. Never thought "good with numbers" would end up being the skill that actually mattered here, out of everything I brought with me.

　Confronting Reeve directly turned out to be almost anticlimactic. I laid the three years of ledgers side by side in front of him, at his own desk, with the local headman and two witnesses present at my specific request.

"This formula," I said, tapping the relevant column, "changes composition every year in a way that has nothing to do with land size or yield. It has everything to do with a personal debt you took on four years ago — same amount, near enough, as the difference between what these villagers actually owe and what you've been collecting."

　Reeve's face went through several colors in quick succession.

"That's — a misunderstanding of the formula—"

"I'd be happy to have the lord's own accountant review it, if you'd prefer that conversation instead of this one," I said, still perfectly pleasant. "I suspect that conversation goes worse for you. Your call, though."

　He didn't take me up on the offer.

　The resolution was almost boring, in the best possible way — Reeve quietly "recalculated" his own error, back-paid what he could, and resigned his post within the month rather than risk the lord's actual accountant getting involved.

　No fight.

　No fire bolts.

　Just a very uncomfortable man discovering that not every threat to his comfortable arrangement showed up with a blade.

"That's it?" Fenrik asked, faintly disappointed, once we were back on the road. "No dramatic confrontation?"

"Some problems just need someone willing to actually read the paperwork," I said. "Turns out that's rarer than you'd think, in any world."

　Doran, walking a step ahead, glanced back at me with something like real appreciation.

"Didn't figure you for the accountant type."

"I contain multitudes," I said, for what felt like the hundredth time, and meant it exactly as much as I always did.

Funny, thinking about it later.

All those years running numbers for myself, alone, in an apartment nobody visited.

Never once imagined they'd end up being the thing that got an entire village its fair harvest back.

Old life. New life.

Turns out some skills just don't care which one you're using them in.