Chapter 184 - Tax Collection
'I wonder where the landlord is...' Aaron pondered while he was taking his 'walk'.
He was just observing things, also trying to locate where the most grandiose house was. To be precise, he was looking for the noble district, but it turned out that the noble district here wasn't that standing out in the average houses in the city.
Nobles here just have their privileges, but they don't have the wealth to compete with others. Also, it is reasonable to assume that things are starting to patch up.
"Why are thugs causing ruckuses at night or doing monthly tax collections instead of officials? Perhaps there's something going on with the local government."
As he wondered, he checked the houses where he thought nobles would live. However, there were no necessary things to look at except for one house that he visited..
It wasn't that grandiose, but enough to stand out from the rest. As wealthy as the owner seemed, Aaron took an interest in checking the place out.
He moved through the gaps and holes and finally reached the only bright light in the house. There was someone sitting in front of a fireplace.
Aaron felt the aura of the person and concluded that he was one of those who thought wickedly. As much as he wanted to know more, he couldn't think of an idea to extract the information about him.
"I guess, I just have to leave." But before he could leave the house, a person arrived, a butler to be precise.
"Master, some groups didn't come back after inspecting street 4A," the butler reported.
The person just smiled and revealed his youthful appearance. He had green eyes as well as his dark green eyes. His face was handsome, yet there was something off with his face.
It was a cunningly attitude he had that couldn't be removed from his face.
"I think there are some rats touching the cat's food. Go inspect it. And if you learn that they ran with the money, kill them."
'I see. So it wasn't a futile effort,' Aaron thought, his effort in visiting this house wasn't as useless as it seemed.
Aaron didn't leave the house; instead, he just observed the person until the day came.
'What an odd person. He slept in front a fireplace. What kind of idiot will do that when the night wasn't that cold.'
As he wanted to observe more, Ellena had already woken up. And as their connection was already awake as well, he directed a message to Ellena.
He closed his eyes and slowly started to connect with her, despite the distance they had.
"Ellena, can you hear me?"
'Oh! Aaron! Where are you?' she asked.
"I have some business to settle. Just continue your objective and I'll do some other things." Aaron said.
'If you say so. I'll be on my way to train,' she responded.
"Okay." Then a smile came after Aaron's words.
And he returned his gaze to the individual once more.
He intently, diligently followed the individual. Even he was going into the toilet, or even just having a talk with a dog, he was following him till the end of time.
However, his efforts didn't bear fruit. And when he was about to leave, once again, his luck was playing with him, the butler arrived.
"Master, there weren't any traces of them leaving a particular inn. After that, they disappeared, " the butler reported.
And as Aaron heard it, his eyes instinctively widened.
'That was careless of mine. I think I'll have to settle this sooner.' he gritted his teeth as he observed once more.
"Okay. If you say so, where is this inn? Was it owned by a rival or wealthy person? I want to know whose bastard tries to meddle with my business that even my cousin can overlook."
'Cousin... If I'll take a guess, his cousin might be the landlord since his confidence came from his cousin. This is getting interesting.'
"No, it was just a normal inn that was about to close down because of the pressure from our business." the butler continued, but it appears that it struck a nerve with the individual, as he slapped the butler as soon as he heard it.
"How dare you say that in front of me." An enraged exclamation came from the individual.
"Please forgive me," the butler said with his head turned down and his tone only static.
"Get lost. I will visit my cousin. Be sure to get some clues, but don't cause a ruckus at day time. There are still lurking 'righteous' hypocrites. My business might get snatched because of it."
"Yes, Master." Then in an instant, the butler disappeared from the site.
Once again and again, Aaron followed the individual intently. He didn't take his gaze away from him; he was just behind him, following him wherever he went.
There's nothing in his mind in particular. It was as if Aaron needed to clean some stuff without the help of Ellena.
And why so? Because he didn't want to cause any obstacles for her. This is his personal interest, so he'll do it on his own.
The individual sooner went to another place. It was a castle-like place, supposed to be the residence of the landlord.
He went inside and was greeted, and when he was finally at the hall to walk into his destination, he came to a halt, greeting someone he encountered.
"Good Morning Cousin! I mean, my Lord!" A mischievous greeting came from him.
"Walter. Good morning and please stop the jokes. I heard you have some problems with the peasents that you used as tax collector."
As Aaron had expected, the local government was included. Thus, it means that this 'Walter' is also a corrupted noble who tramples on people's business for the pretext of collecting a tax.
"Indeed. But how did you know?" he asked.
"Because I have someone that I took under my wing with his group. But he didn't return, and given how diligently your butler was investigating and spying, I think I know the reason."
"As genius as you are! I bet that's the reason you became the landlord instead of your idiot elder brother."
"Unnecessary compliments. You know that you are the only one who sees me as genius," then he scoffed.
While Aaron was watching them, he finally had a rough conclusion about what had happened in the city.
'A new landlord and someone behind the scene collecting 'tax'. I don't like where this will go but I must keep the pace fast.'